Operation Insurmountable

Well, by my reckoning, Operation Fightback lasted about 8 hours.

The Sun throwing its support and directing its readership army behind the Tories has ensured that Gordon Brown is facing Operation Insurmountable.

Although given we can expect a long wait until the General Election of May 6th, I'm beginning to think of it as Operation Shitebag.

And why is the Conference continuing after Brown's impressive speech? Had that been the climax, it could have buoyed the members and carried some momentum out into the wider world. Now they have to decide whether they will all skulk out early or sit through some rather dull speeches before the end on Thursday.

It all means that David Cameron has the easiest of weeks ahead of him. Turn up, smile, look angry here, come up with a few new policies there and have some open, searching interviews over the weekend. One in the Guardian just to really rub it in.

So that's England and Wales sorted at least, but what does it all mean for Scotland?

Well the Scottish Sun's Editor David Dinsmore has said this morning that their publication will not be supporting the Tories, nor will they be supporting Labour. Not sure if that means the paper will make the biggest of U-Turns by coming out in favour of the SNP. The ridiculous headline they ran on the day of the Scottish Parliament elections suggesting Scotland was putting herself in a noose by voting SNP still looms large in the mind.

So I wouldn't get my hopes up if I was Alex Salmond but the clear margin of victory that Cameron and the Tories can now rely on, partly thanks to The Sun's backing, means that people are now free to vote for whomever they wish in Scotland. I know this is the case anyway but a close run election between Labour and the Tories would have squeezed the other parties out somewhat.

Labour's claims that voting SNP or Lib Dem will ensure that the Tories get into Westminster will look silly and remind voters of how little Labour stands for if Cameron is 15 points ahead in the national polls.

The Sun has stopped shining on Labour as storm clouds gather for Brown. He should call the election sooner rather than later to bring all of this to a head.

But something to think about. We haven't had a close election since 1992. A full 17 years ago and 22 years ago ago when the election after this one comes around.

Surely the case for proportional representation has been made.

Gordon Brown's Speech

Awaiting this afternoon's speech from Labour leader Gordon Brown, I am struck by two unavoidable truths:

(1) There is a startling lack of excitement and trepidation for the Conference's main event which will be the Prime Minister's last before a General Election.

(2) There is now no chance of Cabinet Ministers making a significant move to unseat their leader.

The Labour party is therefore stuck, stuck between a rock and a hard place and so too are we, the British people. Stuck with a long 9 months to go until the General Election with the lamest of lame duck Prime Ministers at the helm. There is a pregnant pause before we can collectively move on from Labour's collective insipidness, their man-made funk.

But imagine a different scenario. Imagine being captivated by an Alan Johnson speech, newly installed as Labour leader, performing with that genuine, affable, languorous, wittily self-deprecating manner that would sit so attractively and rewardingly against Cameron's hollow appeal.

Or Ed Miliband, Labour's new star leader shining as bright as his pink tie and fuschia background, fizzing with excitement as he blazed his trail towards May 2010 with a barnstorming speech and no doubt carrying a fair chunk of a dazzled public with him.

Even a leader's speech from the darkly comical and immensely talented Lord Mandelson would have the country sit up and take notice today.

Sadly Gordon Brown simply cannot compete with the above personalities and yet still his bottom is parked at the top of the Labour tree. We know in advance that today's speech will neither inspire nor enthuse, neither entertain nor surprise. The speech is past its 50th draft but even then most of us already know what to expect from it. The speechwriters even admit that he looks likely to screw it up.

Admittedly, the PM grazed over the bar when he delivered a surprisingly good speech at the Labour Conference last year and he told the Americans what they wanted to hear in his half-decent performance at the US Congress in the Spring.

But if they are the high points, if that is the ceiling that the Labour leader can realistically expect to reach this afternoon, then it is no wonder that voters, journalists and party activists alike will meet the speech with a yawning indifference.

'Operation Fightback' may yet evolve into 'As long as we beat Clegg' before the week is out, such is the party's lack of collective optimism.

The Labour party suppressed its imagination when it fleetingly dared to dream of a new leader and consequently it suppressed its chances of ever winning the next General Election.

This afternoon, as the dull tones of their resented leader reverberates through them, Labour's emasculated party members must take their punishment sitting down and, for the few minutes of the embarrassing but obligatory ovation, standing up.

It all could have been, and should have been, very different

A worrying school of thought

Back in the day, I remember vividly that the Greater Glasgow region had Catholic schools and non-denominational schools but it seems there was another divide that passed me unnoticed until today. Apparently there were Labour schools and Tory schools and, now, SNP schools.

Rhona Brankin, Labour shadow Education Minister, has been claiming 328 of the schools being delivered by the Scottish Government between 2007 and 2011 are 'their' schools. Which confuses, even perplexes me. Surely they are 'Government' schools regardless of who happens to be in power at the time?

It's also counter-intuitive to suggest that just because Labour/Lib Dem built hundreds of schools then the SNP need to build even more. A debate that stretches to 'this number is bigger than that number' doesn't usually cover the risks and factors that need ticked off.

For a start, with the easy, expensive credit card that is PFI, it's much easier to throw up new school buildings and put off the queasy interest payments for the decades to come. Any crossover to a more responsible way of paying for schools will inevitably have a period where less schools will be built as there is less money to spend.

If you're going to pay off your exorbitant Mastercard bill, then you don't go on a shopping spree at the same time. And the Chief Executive of the Scottish Futures Trust has already put my mind at ease that SFT will be up and running in the next few years in a recent interview.

Also, if Labour and the Lib Dems did go on a school-building splurge in the dog days of their eight years in power, then presumably many schools that were in need of replacement will have had that need satisfied.

I daresay that Scottish schools that are truly in desperate need of rebuilding will either have been included in the latest programme of rebuilding, will be replaced with one of these 328 'Labour/Lib Dem' schools or local pressure will be put on the MSP to act sooner rather than later.

That, for me, is all as it should be and is as it has ever been.

But there is something horridly parochial in saying that school's yours and that one's mine. We saw what the Catholic/Protestant divisions can do to communities, do we really want to go splitting schools again, this time on political lines?

YouGov poll - Scottish sample

The detail of the recent YouGov poll is now up with the following breakdown for the Scottish subsample:

Unweighted sample - 226 (not inconsiderable)

SNP - 28%
Labour - 26%
Tory - 22%
Lib Dem - 20 %

So, from the disadvantaged 'Other' category, the SNP still lead the way by 2% which isn't bad going at all.

It looks like the Lib Dems won a mini-bounce from their Conference but, of course, the other 3 parties have theirs ahead of them.

Hopefully a proper Scottish poll will be out in and around the SNP Conference in nearly two weeks' time.

The Green Moment

The 2009/10 budget negotiations were dominated by one decision. The Green Party's surprise move to vote against the budget as a result of it being denied its £100m insulation scheme after frantic, literally last-minute negotiations with the SNP.

I had a lot of sympathy for the predicament Patrick Harvie found himself in at the time, and I still have. The Green Party were offering 3.1% of the required votes for 0.3% of the budget for a policy that ticked both the environment box and the job creation box. Not only that, the free insulation would end up paying for itself through reduced power bills for the public.

Although the leader of the Scottish Greens was cast as the villain of the piece and, ultimately, Patrick and Robin looked isolated in being the only 2 MSPs who voted against the repackaged budget, I always thought their chance to resurrect this policy would come and the perceived loss could be transferred into a significant gain.

It seems that time may be now.

Moving into Winter (accept it, resistance is futile, unless it's scarf-related), the Green party leader looks like he may be positioning his party to elbow this home insulation scheme into Swinney's budget, one year later than it perhaps should have been. Despite lagging on lagging last year, the SNP may find themselves once bitten, twice shy and seek to agree a deal way in advance of the final negotiations.

Certainly, Swinney and Salmond will want to avoid a repeat of the evident horror and uneasiness that was felt when they realised budget #1 wasn't going to pass. Such avoidable instability two years in a row would look sloppy from the Scottish Government. Furthermore, contrary to last year, it looks like the SNP would struggle to win the newspaper war as there has been some scathing descriptions of the existing diluted Home Insulation Scheme already:

A HIGH-PROFILE home-insulation scheme was "set up to fail", according to the Green Party.

The accusation was made yesterday after Scottish Government ministers revealed it would take 66 years to bring Scottish homes up to standard, compared with ten under rival Green proposals.

Answers to questions about the Home Insulation Scheme also showed one-third of the £15 million allocated would be spent on administration.

In adopting the scheme in its entirety, the SNP would even be acting in its own self-interest given the targets it has set itself:

The rejected Green scheme would have reduced emissions by 5.85 per cent every year, helping Scotland reaching its tough national target of 42 per cent by 2020. Ministers now admit that their programme will at best achieve 0.7 per cent of reductions a year.

But is a new Home Insulation Scheme a luxury too far at the current time? Could Swinney realistically fold this into the budget while still excluding GARL? Could the SNP conclude when it comes to insulation that 'many are cauld but few are frozen'?

It's debatable, or negotiable to perhaps be more precise. But I've always thought that the Green party in Scotland could really punch through the 6-7% barrier with the right issue selected as the bit between their teeth. (Their German counterparts received 10.7% of the vote this weekend, how many MSPs would that translate to in the regional vote?)

I daresay a Home Insulation Scheme isn't quite the issue that will truly transform the Greens' electoral fortunes but when the budget is passed there will only be 16 short months until the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections so it would be beneficial for them to at least play a significant part. A successful, smooth budget process with a clear green policy as a central plank of it could act as a springboard for the Greens going into the final year of the parliamentary term.

From there, a big eye-catching, imagination-fuelling policy on transport or nuclear stations or renewable energy could pave the way for a double digit result in May 2011. So, to that end, the Green moment could be here. It may be thyme they came in from the cold.

SNP on Twitter

I was surprised last night to see a new Twitter account called 'SNPofficial'. You can find it and follow it here.

Now, despite the name, it may not be an official account. We've already seen some spoof accounts for Alex Salmond amongst others.

But I hope it is real because, to be honest, 'it's time' they were on there. Even if it's to announce press releases or instantly shoot down incorrect stories. And with Conference coming up, it would make sense to get an account up and running a few weeks early.

The Lib Dems embraced Twitter very quickly, Labour were on there fairly recently while the Scottish Tories are presumably still considering it. So I look forward to more Tweets from the account.

I wonder if it'll be a success or be a dead account before too long...?

(And if it is genuine, I get to hold a small claim to fame as being their first follower and being the subject their first 'Tweet'. Nice.)

Salmond rejects St Andrew's Day debate

Picture the scene: 30 November 2009, St Andrew's Day events all across the country kick off, there's tartan as far as the eye can see, you have a nice warm glow from a nip of whisky (or 3) and you sit down to watch a debate on independence with Highland Cathedral humming somewhere at the back of your mind.

In such circumstances, Alex Salmond going up against Iain Gray in discussing Scotland's constitutional future would surely be a home fixture so I was initially baffled as to why the First Minister has turned the leader of the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament's offer of such a debate down.

From The Times:

A spokesman for the First Minister did not take the bait and said that Mr Salmond’s diary for St Andrew’s Day was already full and that his sights were set on a UK general election debate with Gordon Brown.

Fair enough, I can well imagine Salmond will be popping up at many a venue on 3th November. Is there really time to have an elongated FMQs session with Iain Gray?
I suspect there are further reasons for giving the debate a bodyswerve. Do the SNP really want independence to be top of the agenda going into the UK election? Though the main reason for denying Gray the debate is surely that the popular SNP don't want to assist Gray in removing his obscurity handicap and promoting his status towards that of Salmond's.

After all, even at the Labour conference, there is a question mark over how prominent a speaking slot Iain Gray has been given. Will he be sharing a platform with Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy? Will his speech make it into the news? We shall see.

But in terms of an independence debate, Gray has been denied and, although I'm a little bit disappointed as it would have been a great event, Salmond's practical and political reasons for turning the offer down are understandable.

Labour are playing a dangerous game with Murphy and Gray adopting a semi-'Bring it on' stance but only with debates and not on referendums. The mixed signals could do them some damage in the longer term. You can have a one-on-one debate on St Andrew's Day 2009 but not a full public debate and vote on St Andrew's Day 2010. Does that stack up?

So no debate in Bovember but it's not like there won't be plenty of other occasions to immerse one's self in, maybe the SNP should send Gray a programme...?

ComRes poll - Lib Dems level with Labour

A ComRes poll for the Independent out tonight has the following figures:

Tory - 38%
Labour - 23%
Lib Dems - 23%

Further to this, it shows that Labour would better with any one of the eight alternative leaders suggested in the poll.

So that's the jumping off point going into the Labour Conference for the Prime Minister. How much distance can he put between his party and the Lib Dems after his speech on Tuesday?


Although with Labour being so close to Brighton Pier and his ratings so low, perhaps 'jumping off' isn't the best turn of phrase to use for Gordon...

Brown's truth deficit on Andy Marr

While watching what could yet prove to be a pivotal Andrew Marr show this morning, I was very surprised to hear this particular exchange:

ANDREW MARR:
There can't be many countries in the world, Prime Minister, running debt at something like £6,000 a second.
GORDON BROWN:
I'm sorry, Andrew, I've just got to point out you are totally wrong.
ANDREW MARR:
That figure's wrong?
GORDON BROWN:
You're totally wrong. Debt is higher in America, it's higher in France, it's higher in Germany, it's higher in Japan, it's higher in Italy.

Now, I daresay there are 101 different measurements that Gordon could choose from and 1 of them will have the UK looking favourable against the above countries, but let's look at some figures.

For a start, going into this credit crunch, we had the following Current Account Balances as at Autumn 2007:

Germany, 2nd highest, a surplus of $254bn

Japan, 3rd highest, a surplus of $211bn

the UK was 184th at $119bn.

A $119bn deficit.


OK, granted, things change and in the short space of two years maybe Germany and Japan have 'underhauled' the UK.


Let's see from an arbitrary search of the most recent surplus/deficit chat in the News:

Germany

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck said the government's budget deficit would reach $122 billion in 2010, its largest since the end of World War II. The deficit for 2009 was on track to reach $68 billion this year.

Japan

The finance ministry said the trade balance had plummeted to a deficit of ¥725.3bn (£5bn) in the year to the end of March

UK

Next year the Treasury will have to borrow a record 11pc of gross domestic product as it fights the crisis – equating to more than £150bn and far more than has ever been borrowed before in British history, according to a devastating new assessment by the Fund.


I'm not going to agonise over whether this counts as flat out lying or just being very clever with the truth but something, clearly, didn't stack up with the answer the Prime Minister gave Andrew Marr this morning.

And Labour can talk about 'Operation Fightback', Ed Miliband can blow us away with awesome speeches and the party leader can have Q&As (while many member are away having a 'Tweet-Up'), but until the Prime Minister just plays it straight with us, he will always be playing second fiddle to the distinctly average David Cameron.

+ + + Revealed - Brown's Conference Outfit + + +

With Angela Merkel set for an easy win in today's German election, apparently Gordon Brown is set to dig deep and take a leaf out of her book in a desperate bid to follow in her fortune...

Gordon Brown on Andrew Marr

Well, let's be honest, it wasn't a car crash. A bit sweaty, but not a disaster.

In terms of the detail, I'm almost hesitant to talk about it as the fact that Andrew Marr asked the Prime Minister if he's on anti-depressants could be all this interview is known for going forward.

Despite clear shock and disgust at being asked the question, Brown was big enough to answer it and even gracefully suggest Marr was right to ask it but come on, surely we have boundaries and a person's medical and mental situation is way beyond them.

So poor form from Andrew Marr and I suspect the time he has remaining hosting this show has just decreased drastically.

Anyway, that's by the by. The detail of the interview was typically bland sad to say. Lots of chat that's just blah from our uninspiring leader.

Some key forgettable quotes:

"I'm going to tell you. We have a fiscal reduction plan.... Publish our figures in the pre-budget report that will show how we will protect front line services"

"my fight is for the future of Britain"

"we need to be less responsible and more responsible"

The biggest news was perhaps the announcement of "a business and financial services act that will ban the old bonuses". I'm not entirely sure how that will work and there was precious little detail coming from the PM but it's a tangible move rather than just the words that other party leaders have put forward, in this country and beyond.

Marr asked Brown about Megrahi:

"As a Scottish MP, what do you think of the release of Megrahi"

Brown said he wouldn't change anything which won't displease the Scottish Government too much. Speaking of which, I did enjoy how Gordon initially called it the 'Scottish Executive' only to later follow Marr's lead (after the PM's hackles were raised) in going with the 'Scottish Government'.

Brown was at his strongest when talking about the economy and the recession and, to be fair, it should be the only show in town going into this election. The line "at every point in this economic downturn we made the right choice" should be on every leaflet and every placard Labour has out there. Could Labour still win if we think, well, we don't like the PM much but at least they made the right decisions at the crucial time? They probably should.

There was an interesting exchange where Brown said Marr's figures were wrong, quoted his own (which were presumably right) and then later went on to say that no figures are ever definite.

Marr then pushed Brown hard on his lowest poll ratings. "You must look yourself in the mirror and think, am I really the man for this job?" and "are there any circumstances in which you would stand aside?"

Brown seemed to suggest his low poll ratings are because of the MPs expenses scandal and the public not knowing if we are past the worst of the credit crunch. Difficult to believe that somehow but an understandable answer. Noone likes admitting they're just a bit out of their depth.

Overall, I doubt the interview will make much of a difference to those poll ratings and despite how he allegedly comes across in person (as a fun, nice guy), I just think Gordon's main problem is that he doesn't come over as a likeable person.

So all in all, I still think that Gordon Brown's best bet to win votes over this weekend is to do a Kinnock-style dunk in the sea. Bit of banter never hurt anyone...

UPDATE - Interesting to see that despite near-unanimous support for Gordon Brown on the 'health' questions that were tossed his way, Labour councillor and popular blogger Bob Piper goes somewhat the other way,bizarrely drawing comparisons with Jed Bartlett's MS in The West Wing.

Brown, who up to that stage had appeared to be answering Marr's economic questions with no real difficulty, suddenly appeared shaken, and the sweat on his brow increased dramatically, making it look distinctly worse.

It may well have just been the personal, and slightly intrusive nature of Andrew Marr's question. But Brown's answer seemed somewhat less than confident to me.

Not exactly 'full-throated support' as Leo McGarry would say...

No Lassie No

I've been enjoying Joan McAlpine's 'Go Lassie Go' blog recently but I was stopped in my tracks when one of my throwaway (hopefully amusing) Tweets came in for attack from the Times columnist.

The offending Tweet was:

Sometimes I think the only real difference between Scotland and England is Wensleydale.

Just my tip of the hat to how quintessentially English that particular name is. I could just as easily have replaced Wensleydale with Drumnadrochit.

And I have to say, I thought I was being particularly non-Nationalist and pro-English by suggesting there is no real difference between the borders.

So imagine my surprise when I read the following:

Came across a random tweet from an nameless nationalist complaining that he didn't eat Wensleydale because even the name was "so quintessentially English." Does that mean he doesn't like Wallace and Gromit either? Very sad. So to show our southern neighbours that Scots of an independista persuasion don't hate them, or their dairy products,

There are numerous errors in there.

(1) "an nameless nationalist" Surely replace the "an" with an "a"?

(2) I don't consider myself a Nationalist as I don't (yet, anyway) support independence. I vote SNP and am a member of the party, but I'm not a Nationalist.

(3) I never said I didn't eat Wensleydale. I certainly didn't suggest that a reason would be that it is English.

(4) I don't eat Wensleydale because the only cheese I like is mozzarella.

(5) I have 2 Wallace and Gromit dvds. Cracking entertainment.

(6) Where did I suggest I hated the English!? Or their dairy products?


I have apparently sparked off a series on Ms McAlpine's blog - ten things Scots Nats love about the English. Now surely that's just silly.

I would say don't read it out of some sort of petulant huff but so far it's really rather good. George Orwell is number 9. A great author.

See, even Scottish non-Nats like the English...

ICM Poll - Lib Dems chase down Labour

ICM poll in tomorrow's News of the World:

Tory - 40%
Labour - 26%
Lib Dems - 23%


Gordon Brown needs to pull it out the bag this Conference to keep Clegg at bay.

But with Nick Clegg and Vince Cable offering tangible policies and an appealing ambition compared with Labour merely going for an all out attack on David Cameron (per The Steamie), one has to wonder if Labour's damage limitation tactic will work or if it will merely allow the Lib Dems to slipstream past them as Labour falls out of the spotlight?

Guest Post - Kevin Lang

If Nick Clegg can write a guest post for Labour List, then I thought there was no reason why Lib Dem PPC for Edinburgh North & Leith couldn't write a guest post for SNP Tactical Voting. And, happily, Kevin agreed.

Here's his guest post:


One of the key issues that got me involved in politics was the inequality I saw as I was growing up in Edinburgh. As much as I loved my city, the pockets of poverty and deprivation distressed and angered me. Fifteen years on, tackling poverty and combating unfairness remains, perhaps above all others issues, that which drives me most in my politics and in my parliamentary candidacy.

I doubt many readers of this blog would disagree with my view that, after 12 years of a Labour Government , it is simply unacceptable for the gap between rich and poor to be greater now than under the days of Margaret Thatcher.

At the heart of the problem is the inherent unfairness of our tax system, a system that leaves the poorest paying a greater share of their income in tax than the richest. It is a system that means you still pay money to the Treasury in income tax, even if you earn the national minimum wage.

No party that truly considers itself progressive could possibly seek to defend this. Certainly no party that considers it progressive could justify making the system worse by abolishing the 10p tax rate on the poor to fund an income tax cut for the rich - a scandalous move forced through by the Labour Government and supported by Edinburgh North & Leith’s Labour MP.

The truth is that tinkering at the edges of the tax system is now simply not good enough. We need a radical overhaul of the system of taxation to make it right, to make it fair. It is not about increasing tax, it is about rebalancing it and now, at a time of economic recession and rising unemployment, the need for reform has seldom been greater.

As the Scottish Government, the SNP deserved credit for bringing forward their proposals to end the unfair council tax, in line with their 2007 manifesto. I may not have agreed entirely with their chosen replacement to the council tax but there was no doubt the alternative plan was an improvement on the current arrangements. It was therefore a great disappointment when the Scottish Government backed away from reform before publishing a Bill, citing a lack of support in the Scottish Parliament. Such an excuse has certainly not prevented the SNP from pursuing a referendum on independence at Holyrood!

So at the next General Election, clear policies to overhaul the tax system need to be put forward. For my part, I am proud to be a member of a party that is proposing to lift four million of the lowest paid out of paying income tax altogether whilst providing income tax cuts for millions of others on low and middle incomes.

I also think Vince Cable deserves credit for his plans to introduce a property tax on houses over £1 million in value. By asking those who live in the most expensive of houses to pay 0.5% of the property’s value above £1 million (not a levy on the total value as suggested on an earlier posting on this blog), we could help 300,000 pensioners and low paid workers who have struggled most with Labour’s recession.

I noted a recent posting on this blog, which listed properties in Edinburgh North & Leith over £1 million and suggesting how unwise it would be for someone like to me to promote such a policy. However, tax proposals should not be about what is popular. It is that kind of attitude that has left so many in poverty for so long. No, reform must be about doing what is right to create a fair and just society.

With sincere thanks to Jeff for offering me this guest post.

Kevin Lang

Liberal Democrat candidate

Edinburgh North & Leith

Ireland and the Treaty of Lisbon

On the 2nd of October, Ireland will take to the polls to vote on whether they should ratify the Lisbon Treaty.

The Irish have already put the Treaty to the vote on 28th June 2008 when the 'No' vote won with 53.20% of the vote.

So if there has already been a plebiscite on the matter just over a year ago, the obvious question is: What has changed between the first Lisbon Treaty and the second Lisbon Treaty?

Well, not much to be honest:

The planned 'Union Minister for Foreign Affairs' has been renamed 'High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy'.

The EU flag, motto and anthem are no longer legally binding.

EU regulations and EU directives will not be known as EU 'laws'.

There are additional opt-outs from policy for three countries (UK, Poland and Ireland). Ireland have opted out of the change to qualified majority voting from unanimous voting in the sector of police and judicial affairs.

There will be no constitution but rather an amendment of existing treaties.

Combatting climate change is now explicitaly stated as an EU objective.

The changes are largely cosmetic which, for me, makes a mockery of having a second vote at all. The various parties who are interested in a 'Yes' vote have clearly replenished their campaign funds and resumed their attacks on a bemused public. It was bad enough that countries that allowed a vote on the constitution (France, Netherlands etc) did not allow a vote on the similar Treaty of Lisbon.

There seems to be this bizarre logic that, regardless of what the detail of the Lisbon Treaty is, Ireland has to vote Yes or it's European standing will be diminished, even if no other country has been allowed a vote and probably has precisely the same objections that the Irish clearly have.

It is a flawed philosophy, as Seamus Heaney would have it, to say 'don't bother yourself with the detail cos to vote No will lead to an inestimable loss; Ireland will have lost itself in the modern world.'

I don't buy it. 'Just cos everyone else is doing it' was argued out of me when I was a teenager.

And, like so much in life, the devil is in the detail.

One such devil is Article (48) 6. You know the one, the 'ratchet clause'. It even sounds scary. This ratchet clause would mean that national vetoes can be scrapped one by one without EU summits taking place. That is, without the public even really knowing about it or their representatives having a proper say.

Another devil is the EU President who is, incredibly, voted in by EU leaders rather than by the European electorate.

The most damaging aspect of the whole European Union project is the ever-widening democratic deficit. So how is this deficit reduced by a ratchet clause or by an EU President that we don't get to vote for? Having a toothless EU Parliament that we vote for once every four years is a bad enough tenuous link to the decisions that are taken on our behalf.

The new Treaty seems designed to ensure the EU glosses over disagreements to the detriment of the dialogue and discussion that has always been the raison d'etre of the European Union. Pushing the grudges and grievances down to a civic level while grinning leaders stand for photo ops and sit for five star feeds, fronted by the organ-grinner himself, President Tony Blair, is a recipe for disaster.

The EU should always seek to be a little bit behind where its most ardent fans want it to be in order to ensure that a majority is happily onboard. In seeking to push too far, too soon, the wheels are in danger of falling off the whole damn project.

And who is driving this ferocious rate of change within Europe? Businesses? Consultants? Politicians? It's certainly not the people.

So will the Irish vote 'Yes' next week? Well, let's look at the opinion polls.

From the 28th June 2008 vote:

7th June 2008 - 42% In favour, 39% Against, 19% Undecided (Red C)

5th June 2008 - 30% In favour, 35% Against, 35% Undecided (TNS/mrbi)

24th June 2008 - 41% In favour, 33% Against, 26% Undecided (Red C)

The latest opinion polls have the following result:

13th Sept 2009 - 54% In favour, 25% Against, 21% Undecided (Red C)

25th Sept 2009 - 48% In favour, 31% Against, 19% Undecided (TNS/mrbi)

This is a significant improvement for the 'Yes' camp, particularly with only one week to go. Ireland, on its knees economically, does not have the stomach to vote No for a second time for the same proposal. And who can blame them, vulnerable as they are.

So it looks like Ireland will indeed vote yes and be the 25th of 27 countries to ratify the Treaty. Note of course that the UK has already ratified the Treaty of Lisbon despite we the people being promised a referendum on the matter, a referendum that would probably have failed.

And, you know, despite the above post, I like the idea of the European Union, I even had Ode to Joy as my ringtone for a short while. I passionately believe that only good can come from 27 neighbouring countries sitting around a table discussing anything but given the disregard that has been shown for democracy over this Treaty/Constitution, I just can't shake off the fading hope that next week's vote returns a 'No' result. It's the only way to ensure that a proper public debate on the future of the EU ensues.

In this country, in Ireland and beyond.

The UN needs a rising son

The five countries that hold nuclear wepaons within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are China, France, Russia, UK and the United States.

The permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are China, France, Russia, UK and the United States.

A further four countries have nuclear weapons: India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.

Clearly a prerequisite for holding a powerful permanent seat at the United Nations' top table is to have nuclear weapons, even if each country has agreed to reduce their arsenal.

It makes you wonder what Japan makes of it all. The Asian company has the 3rd strongest economy by GDP with the UK and France sitting 7th and 8th respectively.

Japan has a population of 127m and 82m respectively, significantly larger than the UK and France.

Japan is 8th on the most recent Human Development Index. France is 11th. The UK is 21st.

So it is no wonder that along with other 'G4' members (Germany, India and Brazil), Japan is seeking permanent member status. However, despite an acceptance that the system needs to change, the procrastination and opposition from the existing permanent members has stymied the G4's promotion. Indeed China is taking the remarkable stance that Japan needs to atone further for their WW2 sins. Time to move on, surely?

The solution won't be found in rewarding those with nuclear weapons and if we're only going to drop one submarine every generation then we're a long way away from breaking the impasse.

Similarly, we can't make everyone a permanent member of the UN as the roles would quickly become meaningless.

I think therefore, if the UK is serious about making the world a safer place, we need to step back from our Permanent Member status. It won't be a vote-winner but if it frees us up to completely scrap our nuclear arsenal once and for all and helps to properly reflect the new world order, then I'm all for it.

Another Glasgow North East by-election candidate?

I'm hearing a strong rumour that the Jury Team are set to announce their first ever Scottish candidate tomorrow morning. He/she will be standing in the Glasgow North East by-election.

Big deal I hear you cry? Well, apparently it will be "a popular Scottish personality" that will be unveiled.

Wil it be enough to set a cat amongst the SNP and Labour pigeons? We'll find out tomorrow I suppose...


UPDATE: Turns out it's John Smeaton. My prediction is he will finish 5th.

Politicians showing their class

As most followers of Scottish Politics will be aware, we are potentially entering the third year of a concordat between the Government and COSLA that will ensure more funding for the councils if they freeze council tax for you and I, affectionately known as hard-working families and struggling pensioners. I'm not sure if any of the four descriptions apply to me personally but then the concordat was never really 'historic' so I won't dwell on the thorny subject of misplaced adjectives.

There has been a valid concern raised that the freeze should be lifted to ensure certain local services in certain parts of the country do not suffer unduly when local residents may be perfectly happy to pay a little more to ensure standards remain.

After all what are the chances Aberdeen City Council are facing the exact same financial constraints as West Dunbartonshire? As East Lothian? As the Borders?

So it's a fair suggestion. Let individual councils decide.

Then again, such an approach does perhaps overlook the original deal that saw Councils receive more money from the Government in order to compensate (or even pay for?) the Council Tax rises that would have been implemented had the concordat not been agreed.

Just because Council Tax has been frozen, that does not necessarily mean that local Councils do not have more money to work with. After all, Council Tax only makes up about 20% of your average council's total pot of money. Lifting the freeze would only ever be a small part of the solution to the overall problem.

And of course, there is the political dimension. The SNP Government delivering a Council Tax freeze for the majority of its time in power would be a massive coup, a chunk of gold for activists and candidates to take to the doorsteps. Almost as soon as the 'historic concordat' was announced it was generally accepted that Labour would have to bring it down if they had any chance of winning the next election.

Political posturing is couched within supposedly principled positions. Surprise, surprise.

After all, the same people who are pushing for local councils to have more power over the money they raise are also castigating the Government for their efforts on class sizes when it is councils who hold that particular power.

I may be in two minds about the merits of lifting the Council Tax freeze but I am bloody-mindedly sure that the SNP are on the right track with class sizes.

A judgment has been made (which has been largely backed by teachers and parents) that there are too many pupils in school classrooms, particularly in primary 1 to primary 3. Consequently, an effort has been made by Councils and the Government alike to reduce the number of children in classes across Scotland.

The drive may have run into some unexpected legal difficulty given that the only class size enshrined in law is the rather cramped 30 but this is being tackled head-on by the Education Secretary with a law change to ensure class sizes of 25 are backed by law.

And surely the easiest approach for the SNP (dare I say the populist approach) would be to just leave the rules open so that parents can cram their kids into their preferred school to the possible detriment of the entire class. That's not treading on anyone's toes after all? But no, the SNP have recognised that a new line in the sand needs to be drawn and, for now, that line is 25 per class.

Critics point out that the SNP promised class sizes of 18 and are seven shy of this. But it's one of those hollow criticisms where the same critics are neither stating that they personally would like to see class sizes of 30 or 25 or 18, just merely pointing out a numerical anomaly.

Is it enough to say 'you said you would do x, you haven't done x therefore you have failed' without debating the substantive issue of what size of class is actually best for young kids? Is that the type of debate we want to have?

I'm personally relaxed about the SNP's promise being downgraded to an aspiration and I think if I was a parent I would understand the predicament that the Government finds itself in, not to mention appreciate the solution that they are proposing. We're seeing schools close in every city across the country and we're seeing budgets cut across all departments. To go from class sizes of 30+ to 18 is certainly too big an ask now, let alone when the good times were rolling. 30 to 25? Sounds about right and we can build from there.

As a country, we're heading in the correct direction and surely that's at least satisfactory?

So to attack the Education Secretary when she's still reducing class sizes seems odd. This isn't a 'broken promise' like saying you'll have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and then not or saying you won't adjust the top rate of income tax and then punting it up to 50%. It's a sliding scale rather than a yes/no question.

And anyway, there are mixed signals in wishing to give more power to local councils to raise Council tax while ignoring the powers they possess on setting class sizes.

Opposition parties wish to give with one hand and berate with another. Politically, it is understandable but it still shouldn't be good enough.

Why the SNP is like Celtic

• They both consider home to be Paradise.


• Neither are content to focus merely on domestic affairs and crave a place at Europe's top table.


• Constantly complain that they are victims of an institutional bias in the system against them, be it from referees, pundits or newspapers.


• Their most successful moments occurred decades ago and they've been looking to improve on it ever since.


• Both often look to Sweden, Ireland and Denmark for inspiration. (think Larsson, McGeady and, em, Morten Wieghorst)

What do 'most Scots' want?

I'll be honest, despite a strong interest in Politics, I don't really know what the Scotland Office's purpose is. Even a look at recent comments from the @ScotlandOffice Twitter page leaves me little the wiser. Lots of talk on charity abseils, football matches and T in the park but little in the way of substantive information on what the Office has been involved in in its official capacity.

Consequently, when a conference discussing the future of Scottish Politics involves the First Minister and the Scottish Secretary, it is Alex Salmond that I wish to hear from rather than Jim Murphy.

Sadly, The Scotsman seems to disagree as, in their coverage of today's heavily-trailed conference, they have quoted 141 of Jim Murphy's words and only 2 of Alex Salmond's, those 2 words ("silly stunt") being taken from Monday rather than today's event.

So I don't know what our First Minister said at a Conference discussing the future of Scottish Politics despite a journalist being present. What was suggested could be a public debate (for those who were able to stump up £250 for the price of a seat) was very much a behind-doors affair.

However, thanks to Ian Swanson, I do know that the Scottish Secretary thinks that "Most Scots are now saying TGI Britain" amongst many other points from the man that are like a scatter-gun approach to getting an anti-independence quote into a newspaper.

But I'm tired of that phrase "most Scots". It's used time and time again and in various guises but surely with no evidence to back up the personal assertion being made. It's also used selectively.

After all, "most Scots" want a vote on independence but that seems to be glossed over even if most of us are apparently saying "TGI Britain".

I wonder if there's a rule that a referendum campaign must provide equal coverage between the 'yes' camp and the 'no' camp. Maybe then 'most Scots' would get a fair understanding of the entirety of the independence debate and a fair hearing from all of the main protagonists, even the First Minister.

Brown to cut Trident fleet by one

The SNP has been against Trident for a long time and so has the Green party.

The Liberal Democrats wish to significantly scale Trident back but still want the UK to have some sort of nuclear deterrent.

The Tories have stated that they would scale back Trident, albeit by reducing four submarines to three.

Public opinion on the matter has now reached the stage where 2 in 3 people are against Trident being renewed in its current form.

So it is to be welcomed that Gordon Brown will today announce a scaling back of the Trident fleet albeit with the specific detail expected to amount to 'the Liam Fox plan' of ditching one of the four submarines.

For me, this doesn't go far enough, "industry sources" have told The Times, “If you build three instead of four it doesn’t mean it will be cheaper, although overall there will be some savings,”.

It still does not make sense to be spending billions on Trident when we have a £175bn deficit and when education and health spending is looking likely to decrease so significantly. Britain will never fire a nuclear weapon against anyone. Why build more of them?

Furthermore, Brown is expected to announce that the move is not related to the economy but as part of a global drive to slash stockpiles all over the world. One submarine is not slashing stockpiles and surely if this isn't to do with saving money then it is merely to appease public opinion and political opponents with an eye on the General Election next year.

The Prime Minister has failed to lead on this issue. He has been the last to take a decisive view and it is the least radical view at that. He isn't scrapping Trident, merely scraping it.

So although the move should be welcomed, it should not be rewarded.

Lib Dems are not serious about fixing expenses

At the Lib Dem Conference yesterday, Chris Davies MEP had this to say:

"I hate the dirty cheating bastards who took every opportunity to fill private pockets with public money. I despise them for damaging the reputation of my parliament and all its members. I want them exposed, I want them punished, I want them thrown out."

I wouldn't want to go as far as calling him a 'dirty, cheating bastard' but Chris' Lib Dem colleague George Lyon MEP is still employing his partner Flora Boyd despite it being a clear breach of the spirit of the European Parliament rules.

It's worth adding that the appointment equates to a £12,000 payrise for Flora and came at the same time that George made a £15k donation to the party.

Per the Scottish branch of the UK office of the European Parliament:

Among the "non-reimbursable expenses" which Members are entitled to claim are funds to provide for parliamentary staff. The Measures make it clear that these cannot now be used directly or indirectly "to fund contracts providing for the employment or the use of the services of Members' spouses or stable non-marital partners, as defined in Article58(2), or their parents, children, brothers or sisters."

Given that George Lyon contacted this same office before making the appointment official, he must have known of these objections and ploughed ahead with hiring his 'stable non-marital partner' anyway.

However, as there is no formal document that can prove Flora Boyd is George's partner, they get off scot-free with an arrangement that is clearly a breach of a rule that has been put in place to clean up Parliament.

Nick Clegg wants us to believe the Lib Dems are above this type of behaviour, Chris Davies goes as far as saying such people should be thrown out of the party and/or parliament if they are milking the system but a clear opportunity has arisen for either man to follow their words through with action and as far as I'm aware they have both failed to act.

To be honest, I don't really care if someone hires their girlfriend or boyfriend or mother-in-law or nephew to do a job if they do it well but at least be open about it and speak up for your actions and the actions of your party colleagues rather than embarking on this tiresome dance with the electorate where you say one thing and do another.

So much for openness, so much for transparency and so much for a new style of Politics within the Lib Dems...

(with thanks to an anonymous emailer for the chat on the rules included in this post)

Salmond vs Murphy (vs Iain Gray)

There's been a ripple of commotion amongst Scottish political journalists over a potential public debate between Alex Salmond and Jim Murphy at tomorrow's Mackay Hannah Conference 'Scotland after the first decade, the possible future'.

The frisson of excitement will not extend to the Scottish public.

For a start, despite the clever twisting of words calling this a 'public debate' (it's even mistakenly labelled a 'TV debate' by Sky), you and I would not get to see any of it. I don't know who gets invited to Scottish Politics and Business Conferences but it's not your average punter.

Also, a debate needs preparation, particularly with so much at stake. Who is to say Murphy hasn't already put in weeks of preparation for this event in an attempt to completely blindside his opponent?

And anyway, the stunt was poor form from Jim Murphy. Shrewdly mischievous, but still poor form.

What kind of person gets invited to speak at an event and then two days before it starts unilaterally proposes changing the timetable without (seemingly) checking with the organisers first?

The real impact of all of this is related to what Derren Brown would called 'perception without awareness'. We're not immediately conscious of it, but Jim Murphy is pushing Iain Gray more and more into the shade.

It is neat timing that a Times article out yesterday evening commenting on "Gray by name, grey by nature" Iain Gray's one year anniversary of being Labour leader in the Scottish Parliament coincided with Jim Murphy's challenge to the First Minister.

Jim Murphy may think he has scored an easy hit on the First Minister, but in reality the Scottish Secretary is merely continuing to reign blows on his Holyrood colleague, the forgotten man of Scottish politics.

Who would vote Lib Dem in a house like this?

From the BBC:

The Lib Dems have outlined plans for a tax on owners of £1m-plus homes, using the proceeds to help low-paid workers.

Treasury spokesman Vince Cable says plans for a 0.5% annual levy on the most expensive homes will raise £1bn.

£1bn is a lot of money which is good but it also means that a lot of rich people are going to have to stump up which, for them at least, is bad.

Let's look at who may be affected by this shall we (courtesy of ESPC):


Constituency - Edinburgh South
Target seat for Lib Dem Fred McKintosh
Annual charge for living in 38 Findhorn Place - £5,750

Constituency - Edinburgh West

Seat held by retiring Lib Dem MP John Barratt (new candidate to be installed from a shortlist of 4 soon)

Annual charge for living in 4c Barnton Avenue West - £7,750

Constituency - Edinburgh Central

Target seat for Lib Dem Kevin Lang

Annual charge for living in 19 Chester St - £6,250

This 'mansion tax policy' from Vince Cable seems very poorly thought through indeed. Just because something needs done "immediately" (per Jo Swinson) that doesn't mean it should be half-baked.

Gerri Peev over at The Steamie has been following the Lib Dem Conference for The Scotsman and already has a list of searching questions on this:

Advisers could not explain whether they would use the 1991 valuations or whether to carry out a UK wide revaluation. Nor could the Lib Dems explain how much this would cost. Nor where the distribution lay. Cable himself is probably likely to be hit with the tax, Nick Clegg certainly will be.Where does this leave their previous pronouncements on property taxes being unfair?

I think in going so aggressively after disenchanted Labour voters, Nick Clegg and Vince Cable may be overstating the anti-capitalist feeling out there not to mention understating the aspirations of those who live in sub-million pound properties.

If all this pledge will do is annoy a significant number of people who might otherwise vote Lib Dem and baffle the rest of us, one has to wonder if Vince Cable should quickly go back to his own guilty-mansion and think of another plan.

As for Edinburgh. The closest Lib Dems get to 'heartlands' are Barnton, New Town, Grange, Morningside and the student vote. They had a single safe seat in Edinburgh West and a decent chance in both Edinburgh South and Edinburgh North & Leith. Has that just evaporated with today's announcement and the abandonment of their free tuition fees policy?

Lib Dem PPC and MEP want a referendum

Quite a remarkable day for the Lib Dems in their fine balancing act between being democrats and resisting an independence referendum.

Kevin Lang, Lib Dem PPC for Edinburgh North & Leith, has given his full-throated support for an independence referendum with the following quote:

the time is right to take on the SNP on the debate on independence. We can win that argument.

The full 945-word text of his position can be found here.

I daresay the unionists can indeed win that argument although I also think that Kevin Lang has come out with this claim at least partly due to the SNP charge in the North & Leith constituency.

The SNP won the popular vote in the regional section of Holyrood 2007 and in the Euro election 2009 and given this is the only seat that the Lib Dem's can realistically 'gain' next year, Kevin will be feeling the pressure to do all that he can to pull it off. This is no doubt merely a part of that strategy.

Tavish Scott's response though is priceless:

Laughing off the issue, Mr Scott told BBC Scotland's Politics Show: "I remember what it's like to be a young, thrusting, energetic parliamentary candidate and you were desperate to get your face on the television.

Mr Scott went on: "I can well understand the need to say something which commentators and television reporters are very, very, keen to talk about, but I don't really think the people are."

So Kevin only holds these views because he is 'desperate to get his face on television'. I would be very unimpressed with that comment if I was Mr Lang.

Tavish should not be so quick to sacrifice young rising stars for the sake of a very precarious national position when it's inevitable that he will have to do a U-Turn sooner or later.

And George Lyon will also be coming out in favour of a referendum as we will find out on tomorrow's Good Morning Scotland. Is a seasoned veteran like MEP George just trying to get his face on the telly? I don't think so.

Indeed, Tavish himself said this upon taking charge of the Lib Dems as recently as August 2008 when he took charge of his party:

“I am not intuitively against making sure that people have a choice and opportunity to vote on these things.”

So we're meant to believe that Tavish is taking the principled stance and those breaking from the party line are the flaky whipper-snappers? Bizarre.

So trouble ahead for the Scottish Lib Dems if this isn't corrected soon.

However, I think there is a very easy way for the Lib Dems to nip this whole issue in the bud, particularly given Sir Tom Hunter (proponent of an independence referendum) stated today in the Sunday Times that we should delay the referendum.

Tavish Scott should announce his support now for an independence referendum at some point during the 2011-2015 term.

It puts the Nationalists' plans for a 2010 referendum off-track, it keeps most members onside and it ensures the Lib Dems are seen (probably quite rightly) as the most reasonable unionist party on constitutional issues.

Most importantly, it means the SNP can't campaign on the Scottish people being denied their say on Scotland's future.

Labour MP suffers humour and maturity bypass

I was thinking about writing a post talking about the Lib Dem change of policy on tuition fees. Even though many activisists and bloggers will be disappointed and the philosophy of having it as a policy only during the good times is deeply flawed, it's a policy I agree with so there's only so much I could say on it. Not to mention the fact that Two Doctors has already gone to town on the subject to great effect.

And anyway, I think they need a bit of defence given some recent chat they've faced as we will see later.

The Lib Dems, as any political aficionado should know, are having their Conference this weekend. Nick Clegg and co are, of course, perfectly entitled to debate their ideas, work on a manifesto, have a bit of a knees-up and then conclude on a plan of attack for the General Election. I am not going to vote for them but I enjoy listening to their ideas with an open mind and a sympathetic ear.

So when I read the following 'Tweets' from Labour MP Andrew Gwynne I found myself fleetingly hoping that the Lib Dems will actually kick on and become the second largest party as surely there's little room for politicians holding such childish views.

The Lib Dems are a bunch of boring old... Their conference is so DULL! Haven't they got some potholes to point at or something?

"Time for change" more like time to change the stuck record! LibDems make an art form of being complete sanctimonious prats really!!!

Who needs extraordinary rendition or guantanamo bay? Just make 'em watch Simon Hughes chairing the Lib Dem conference on TV!

yeah and looking at all those empty seats in Bournemouth it's no wonder the press have zero interest in them!

Think theme tune for LibDem conference should be Lightening Seeds... "everything's blue now, oh lucky you"

Banter is one thing but there's so little wit here that it's just nonsense. Even Tom Harris has fallen into this silly mindset with his below par 'Clegg's Hey everybody look at me moment' / 'Nick Thingy' post.

Is it possible that Labour MPs, already resigned to losing to the Tories, are taking out their frustration with petulant kicks at who they hope will remain the third largest party after May 2010?

And if it continues unchecked, won't it be a sweet irony if such nonsense contributes to the Labour party's continued downward spiral towards being the third force in British Politics.


UPDATE: Oh dear, even the journalists are doing it (a bit):

Gerri Peev - At Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth...Which reminds me, hotel is handing out half price vouchers to see the musical That Will Be The Day.

'Young adults' to vote in independence referendum

Per the Scotland on Sunday:

THE Scottish Government has announced 16 and 17-year-olds are to be given a vote in the independence referendum it intends to hold next year.

Their plan, which emerged in a letter from the constitution minister, Mike Russell, to one of his SNP backbenchers, Aileen Campbell, would swell Scotland's 3.9 million electorate to beyond four million with the addition of 125,000 teenagers.

Fair enough to be honest. I don't get that excited about 16 and 17 year olds receiving the vote and even though I'm intuitively against it, I can still see that it's probably the right thing to do. For referendums and elections alike.

The argument that a person can get married, have children and pay taxes but not vote is a killer point and particularly for independence, if most of this age group are going to be living in Scotland for the next 60 or 70 years, it seems right to give them a say on what the country's constitutional future will be.

So what does it mean for the numbers? Just how many extra voters is the 16-17 year old category?

According to John Curtice, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, more recent data suggests that while 36 per cent of the general population favoured independence, support rose to 39 per cent among the 18 to 24 age group.

By my crude calculations, if there are 200,000 16-17 year olds out of our 5m Scottish citizens, then they represent 4% of the population. Given they are significantly more likely to vote 'yes' in a referendum, they could make the difference of around one whole percentage point for the SNP.

1% may not sound like much, but it's a fairly significant 'win' from only changing the rules a little bit.

Labour's Pauline McNeil is perhaps right that the move is based on 'tactics rather than principle' but as long as the principle is correct, there is no harm in it whatsoever and opposition parties will have a hard time disagreeing with the stance.

Much like disagreeing with the independence referendum itself some could say...

Political Betting - Scottish style

I mentioned recently that I received a letter from my local Lib Dem candidate quoting me the local Ladbrokes odds for the various candidates standing in the Edinburgh North & Leith seat.

Personally I don't think it's the kind of thing a serious candidate should be doing but that hasn't stopped me being interested.

The odds are:

Labour (Mark Lazarowicz) - 7/4
Lib Dem (Kevin Lang) - 2/1
Conservative (Iain McGill) - 7/2
SNP (Calum Cashley) - 4/1

Given that polls from Politics Home to YouGov have suggested that Calum is looking good for a win here I reckon that 4/1 is very good value indeed so I thought I'd check out my Ladbrokes account to see if I had any money left to make a bet.

Sadly, apparently I don't.

So (mostly for my benefit to see where my £45 has gone!), here is a rundown of the political bets I've laid out so far:

Glasgow North East by-election (Labour to win) - £10 at 8/13

Month of next General Election (October 2009) - £5 (I'm ready to view this one as a sunk cost)

Month of next General Election (September 2009) - £5 (Again, sunk cost)

Year of next General Election (2009) - £10 (Ooft, this is getting embarrassing)

Dunfermline & West Fife (SNP to win) - £3 at 7/1 (SNP are still a lengthy 7/1 but I still fancy their chances. Even if that's a 'fancy' in a beer goggles kind of way)

Number of Scottish Tory seats (7+) - £2 at 3/1

Edinburgh South West (Tories to win) - £2 at 9/4 (odds are now 6/4, very nice)

Edinburgh South (Tories to win) - £2 at 6/4 (odds are now 11/8, I'm looking good)

Year of next General Election (2009) - £2 at 9/2 (I put the same bet on twice! What was I thinking? Sunk cost)

Month of next General Election (June 2009) - £2 (Oh for goodness sake. Taxi!)

Next permanent Labour leader (Alan Johnson) - £2 at 6/1 (Still a shout, he doesn't seem overly keen though. Maybe a Miliband would have been a better option)


So, after all of that, I reckon I am £24 down with no real guarantees of a win in there anywhere.


To get things back on track, I am going to speculate to accumulate so I have added £15 and the following value bets:

£2 on the Greens winning North & Leith at 50/1 (they came a close 5th in the Euros but, fair enough, they don't yet have a candidate)

£3 on Calum Cashley winning Edinburgh North & Leith still at 4/1 (thanks for the heads up Kevin)

£2 each on a March election or an April election, both at 12/1. (both dates have been suggested by Torcuil Crichton and The Spectator respectively and at 12/1 I can hardly say no. May seems too late and suggests desperation and I reckon Labour will get some good news on the economy in January/February that they will look to capitalise on early)

£3 on Ireland returning a No vote (I know, that's a few Euros down the drain but they voted no last time and nothing's changed since. UK Polling Report has some reasons why a No might be returned despite the polls)

£3 on the SNP getting a disappointing 11-15 seats at 9-4. (I don't usually go for the pessimistic approach of 'I'll be happy either way' but I can envisage the SNP's poll rating declining as the General Election gets closer as the media narrative becomes Brown vs Cameron more and more. Happy to be proved wrong and add £3 to the growing sunk costs!)

And I'll leave it there, particularly as I'm off sick today and it'll only be a 4-day wage this week so I need to save some pennies somewhere.


I would add the warning that betting is a mug's game. But after all of the above, I reckon that much speaks for itself!

Pedal Powered Smoothie Maker

Yep, I thought that title might get a few people's attention.

This post is a bit of hyperlocalism (h/t DoctorVee for the terminology) as The Shore in Leith is going to be having a Car Free Day (for 5 hours) this Sunday (tomorrow). The event is so hyperlocal that it is literally on my doorstep.

The day will involve a fun 5-aside football tournament on the street, free bike workshops, Margo MacDonald judging a bicycle fancy dress competition, a pedal powered smoothie maker, a trail from Leith to Portobello, electric bike demonstrations and probably lots, lots more. It runs from 1:30pm to 4:30pm.

There was a rumour that a huge roll of astroturf will be getting laid down on the street for people to chill out on with a potplant, a drink and/or a snack from any of the local cafes, pubs and restaurants.

It'll be like a small slice of green heaven on The Shore. Sunshine on Leith (weather permitting)

Anyway, this was meant to be just a heads up post in the off chance a reader or two had the time, inclination and geographical opportuinity to head on down but my excitement for tomorrow's festivities has been betrayed by my labouring the point.

Maybe see you there!

(Get there by 2pm to sign up for the 5-aside football)

Games Over according to Labour?

A few neatly phrased Tweets from Kezia Dugdale has somewhat let the cat out of the bag over how Edinburgh Labour may be responding to John Swinney's draft budget.

Needless to say, they will be neatlessly sidestepping the boneheaded 'anti-Glasgow' line of attack as adopted by Steven Purcell, as if there is any significant difference between Glasgwegians and Edinburgers.

Ah well, that's West-coast thickos for you I suppose...

Anyway, the Tweets I speak of are as follows:

So it looks likely that there will be a motion or a press release coming out soon condemning the Scottish Government for reneging on its promise to the Commonwealth Games committee to deliver the Glasgow Airport Rail Link, as was part of the original bid.

This is all based on my assumption that GARL was indeed a 'promise' and not a mere 'aim'.

First up, it's worth noting that many Commonwealth Games have been held in major cities without rail links and have been a great success. Melbourne (2006) and Victoria (1994) are recent examples with Delhi (2010) also going to be lacking a rail link.

Kezia's charge that these cities may not have had rail links promised in their bids may well be true but it smacks of putting one's fingers in their ears and deciding they've won the argument prematurely. It is, after all, up to the Games' Organising Committee to decide how significant an issue this will be. John Swinney has already written to Games officials to explain his decision and it's very difficult to envisage a scenario where Glasgow won't be hosting the event in 2014 over something as trivial as this, particularly with Fastlink looking likely to get the go-ahead.

Labour were not so slow with their errant criticism that the SNP are 'anti-Glasgow', but the party should be careful with such catcalls in the light of this apparent line of attack.

Surely needlessly playing up the scenario that the dropping of GARL will jeopardise Glasgow hosting the Commonwealth Games is a much more negative message to send than the Finance Minister merely dropping one of the city's many transport projects due to unavoidable cash constraints?

Did Purcell bolt too early once again?

In March 2009, Steven Purcell took his party by surprise on the eve of Labour's Spring Conference by announcing that Glasgow Council staff would have a £7 minimum wage, an increase of 22% for many of them.

Later that same month, Purcell called for the Council Tax to be scrapped, putting him at odds with Labour leader in the Scottish Parliament, Iain Gray.

Clearly, the leader of Glasgow Council has a habit of jumping the gun and speaking his own mind to the potential detriment of his own party and I wonder if he has done the same thing over the draft budget these past couple of days.

John Swinney hadn't even stood up in Parliament yesterday afternoon before Purcell attacked the SNP as being 'anti-Glasgow' and this charge continued after learning of the dropping of the Glasgow Airport Rail Link.

Consequently, almost all Labour MPs and MSPs that have taken to the airwaves have had to face the silly question: 'Are the SNP anti-Glasgow?' when they probably have more valid points of their own they wish to make in the short air time at their disposal.

Most notable was David Whitton MSP this morning on Radio Scotland who flatly disagreed with Purcell's analysis of the situation and struggled to make clear his own views on why dropping GARL was a bad idea as his time rapidly ran out.

Callers from all over Scotland have rubbished Purcell's anti-Glasgow suggestion with one caller from Aberdeen making the pertinent point that Glaswegians receive £500 a head more than Aberdonians do.

Derek Brownlee, who has been excellent in calmly stating that budget negotiations is a 4 month process so he won't be drawn into a knee-jerk reaction, has already dismissed Purcell and Andy Kerr's oversimplification of the issue as "daft".

So I just wonder if in so nakedly playing to the home crowd Steven Purcell is not only harming his party's electoral chances outside of their West coast heartlands but also feeding disquiet amongst his political colleagues.

Personal ambition should always be tempered by prioritising teamwork and I reckon Steven Purcell still needs to find that balance with his political posturing.


UPDATE - It gets worse. Brian Adam MSP has labelled Purcell's words as an attack on the North East. It's becoming a giant Scottish game of Risk now!

Let's all settle down shall we, factionalism is what tore Scotland apart in the early 1700s. Let's not go back to those days.

Mind you, 'they may take our GARL, but they'll never take our M74 extension' would make a decent(ish) headline.

Everything but the GARL

'How outraged will the Opposition be?' I asked earlier this morning in anticipation of today's draft budget. 'Extremely' is the clear answer.

John Swinney's axing of the Glasgow Airport Rail Link (GARL) went down like a lead balloon, chiefly amongst Labour's west coast ranks.

Talks of knives and daggers and corpses was quadrupled with furious finger-pointing from the Labour benches.

Andy Kerr had this key quote:

"Like the latter-day Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, he's been caught in the act standing over the body.

"What is that body? It's the Glasgow Airport Rail Link and the jobs and the economic impact that we would've had."

Very good Andy, a career in Christmas pantos surely awaits.


John Swinney's announcement even drew a remarkable response from ex-Transport Secretary Tom Harris on Twitter:

Gutted by the SNP's decision to axe the Glasgow Airport rail link. Serves us right for not being Edinburgh, I suppose.

@SNPTacticVoting I was referring to the second Forth crossing: less justified and more expensive than GARL.

Tom Harris is in favour of fixing the existing Forth Road bridge, you heard it here first!

Mind you, Tom did get himself all muddled by admitting to Two Doctors that he's "not sure" if he's in favour of fixing the bridge or not. Which is it Mr ex-Transport Minister? You can't have it both ways... You do know that the budget is restricted by a spending limit and it's not just like writing to Santa?

The SNP had their pro-Glasgow press release response pre-drafted, all too aware how their GARL move would go down. We can expect to hear a lot more about the £2.7bn of transport projects that the Scottish Government has committed to 'in and around Glasgow', though I do wonder how far from George Square counts as 'around Glasgow'....

Personally, if Edinburgh didn't get its EARL and Glasgow didn't get its GARL then it all sounds pretty fair to me. We did get trams though which, I can't say clearly enough, the SNP didn't want. The trams will cost £1bn, GARL would have cost £200m. You do the Maths...

Furthermore, the M74 extension (rightly or wrongly) is being completed at a cost of £444m. Edinburgh continues to make do with the tractor-heavy A702 as the main road down to the M6.

Anyway, back in Holyrood, the complaints will no doubt rumble on as the Shadow Finance Secretaries pore through the detail of the draft budget. The decrease in funding for enterprise bodies will have the SNP looking vulnerable if it's billed as a recession budget but, largely, I still expect there to be little room for manoeuvre for the Lib Dems and the Tories.

A unanimous vote in favour of the budget is now not possible but either the Lib Dems or the Tories (or both) will get onboard. Of that we can be sure.

The tiresome side battle of whether spending went up or down will no doubt continue aswell (as if it matters in a £35bn budget).

Labour's claims that the spending only went down because capital spending was brought forward last year does suggest that the empty howls of lament for unaffordable projects were merely delayed by the same period.

And that, is pretty much that, the freezing of the Council Tax barely got a look-in in the end. Glasgow vs Edinburgh is the main headline from today's first draft of the budget.

Labour don't like that GARL is going but we should of course remember that the SNP forms only a minority Government and the ball is well and truly in Labour's court.

If Andy Kerr can't produce a realistic amendment to the budget that includes GARL, then those finger-points and calls of shame should be directed straight back at him.

Let's see if Labour can have everything, and the GARL too...

Lib Dems pick Edinburgh West shortlist

Without wanting to make a complete mockery of my title, the Liberal Democrats have picked a shortlist for their Edinburgh West constituency. The four candidates are:

Euan Robson - former MSP for Roxburgh & Berwickshire

Siobhan Mathers - former Edinburgh Central candidate

Mike Crockart - former Edinburgh North & Leith candidate

Paul Edie - Councillor for Corstorphine & Murrayfield


My money is on Siobhan winning the candidacy and no doubt with it the seat itself given it is such a safe one for the Lib Dems. Being the only female on the shortlist is not the only reason I think Ms Mathers will win. Siobhan seems a strong candidate that can attract support from other parties, not that she'll necessarily need it.

I reckon Caron is bound to agree with me going by a recent(ish) post. However, Siobhan did finish a distant 5th in Hamilton and Bellshill as recently as 2003 so maybe the local party will opt for the experience and reputation of ex-MSP Euan Robson instead.


I still reckon Siobhan is the favourite though and that would leave the Edinburgh Central Lib Dem spot vacant. With rumours swirling that the 2007 SNP candidate for the same area, Shirley-Anne Somerville, is looking to stand elsewhere come 2011 (after some difficult boundary changes for the SNP in this Holyrood constituency), it looks pretty likely that Labour's Sarah Boyack will have a relatively easy run of it next time around.

There's no indication yet when the final Lib Dem candidate will be selected but I daresay it won't take long and the merry-go-round would then be in action. Who knows where it will stop.

Glasgow? Inverness? Linlithgow? We can but only wonder....

The Liberal Jiffy

Despite the numerous Lib Dem leaflets that I have received over the past few years, the left-wing party still have it in them to surprise me. And I don't just mean through every now and again cutting down the shocking level of spelling mistakes in their literature or looking even glummer than usual in the photos while standing over a pothole.

I had already been tipped off by Advanced Media Watch earlier this week that a few leaflets may be waiting for me back home in the Republic of Leith but I was not expecting a personally addressed envelope instructing me to tactically vote against Labour by quoting the Ladbrokes odds for the local constituency.

Yes, I am not joking, the reason the local Liberal Democrat candidate wants me to vote for him is because the bookies have Kevin Lang down as second favourite. It has come to this.

So with that dubious campaign strategy in mind, and Lib Dem MEP George Lyon's shockingly poor form at the European parliament, I read about Nick Clegg's 'Liberal Moment' with a high degree of scepticism, even cynicism.

My first instinct upon hearing the 'Liberal Moment' phrase was to think that it would be like a Senior Moment or a Blonde Moment. It would signify that you couldn't decide between chicken or fish, having a bath or a shower, whether to contravene Parliament rules by paying your partner £36k as your assistant or not. The 'Liberal Moment' could typify the on-the-fence dilemma.

Even that word 'moment' is ill-advised. It's hardly shooting for the stars is it? You can see Cameron promising the Tory 'era' or Gordon Brown boldly pushing for a Labour 'epoch'. Nick Clegg's ambitions stretch only to a moment. An instant, a tick. A mere jiffy.

It's hardly going to put a fire in your average Lib Dem's belly is it? Depends what floats your proverbial boat of course.

Anyway, if the Liberal Democrats are really going to push on and stand for something tangible we will soon know about it as their ridiculous raison d'etre of dodgy bar charts and 'only we can win here' nonsense will be gone from their campaign leaflets for good.

And I don't mean merely replaced with the latest odds from Ladbrokes...