SNP Tactical Voting

SNP Tactical Voting - The End of the Line

2010-09-02T09:00:00.002+01:00

Today I announce the mothballing of one blog (this one) and the beginning of another (Better Nation).

First, the obligatory but still utterly unnecessary preamble, (mostly just included because I wrote this months ago and then bottled the imminent retirement, can't put those words to waste now):

The Green Party has returned its first MP to the House of Commons which is a tremendous effort given the First Past the Post system it has been fighting against for all of these years. With the 1% of the vote it received it should have returned 6 MPs, the same haul as the SNP, and that’s before taking into account all the tactical voting that’s been going on, obscuring the Greens’ true popularity.

However, despite this good news, we are stuck with the return of a Tory Government, replete with a Cabinet which worryingly somehow contains Climate Change sceptics even in this post-Copenhagen, post-Kyoto, post-Al-Gore and soon to be post-Maldives era. This has effectively scuppered any realistic chance of stabilising global emissions by 2015. Saving the world was a daunting task before the challenge of reversing the increase in carbon emissions in 5 short years, failing is surely a foregone conclusion now unless something remarkable happens.

I noted the weary resignation of the Green candidate in my own constituency during the last election campaign, destined for fourth place but making all the right arguments at the hustings and receiving the strongest and warmest applause. I couldn’t help but wonder at the time if Al Gore being robbed of the US Presidency by George Bush was the moment the planet missed its greatest opportunity to alter its tragic direction. That said, despite Ms Lucas’ presence on those ironically green benches, GE2010 will have to go down as yet another moment where the greatest threat to life as we know it barely got a word in edgeways.

So what can the Green party do? Circumvent Westminster and seek to educate and mobilise the public to take direct action? It’s worth a go I suppose.

For me, after much deliberating, most of it publicly stated on this blog, I’ve decided that I can’t avoid the inconvenient truth of not being able to realistically maintain an SNP blog (as this would always be perceived) when I’m not a member of the party, don’t particularly believe in independence, feel my political sympathies being pulled, yanked even, in a different direction and am unlikely to return to Scotland in the near to medium future.

I will say that I remain baffled by the visceral hatred that the SNP attracts from a wide, disparate group of individuals and institutions. The party's objectives and aspirations are valid and well-meaning and, as far I have been able to tell in my relatively short time amateurishly studying the partys progress, it is chock full of thoroughly pleasant, intelligent, motivated people who seem incapable of giving in no matter how down the chips may be. May they live long and prosper.

Alas, there is no SNP candidate on my upcoming ballot slips and for me, with my somewhat 'all or nothing' mentality, there is no sufficiently good reason to get involved with the local Nat branch here. So it is to the Greens that my political community spirit goes, as I already let on a few weeks ago.

Reading Zac Goldsmith’s absorbing The Constant Economy got the ball rolling and the conduct and arguments of Westminster Green candidates on Twitter and blogs, the Two Doctors blog which I barely ever disagree with and Patrick Harvie’s excellent performances inside (and outside) of Holyrood cemented the rest.

I’ve been much more of a Green than a Nat for a while now I suppose so it’s time to fondly pat down the walls of this blog that has served me so well, switch the lights off (of course) and head off to pastures new.

Those pastures are already up and running as I will be embarking on a blogging experiment with fellow seasoned veterans James MacKenzie (of Two Doctors) and Malc (of Malc in the Burgh) at Better Nation. It won't be business as usual though as I intend to blog considerably less over the next six months or so but what it will be is a reflective, intelligent (hopefully), slightly nerdy and above all optimistic take on Scotland and its potential. Please make sure to stop on by (or better still, update your Bookmarks and links!)

Thanks for everything that this blog has given me; basically an illuminating lifting of the lid behind how politics works and a satisfying but humbling readership including literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tremendous comments that helped shape my thinking and no doubt others' too. It’s been a great ride for someone who didn’t feel he had a right to be in the blogosphere when he first stepped into it and, although I won't miss pesky journalists asking me what my employer may think of a certain blog post, I will miss the challenge of maintaining a high posting rate and mixing up the debate.

Not that this is farewell of course, Better Nation will hopefully take off and I daresay an urge to post something rampantly partisan and tactical-related will see me back here sooner rather than later once the 2011 campaign gets going in earnest.

The blogging bug is a bit like flying Ryanair after all - You know it’s damaging, dirty and wrong, but you just can’t help yourself anyway!

Cheers!

Compassion Fatigue

2010-08-31T11:30:00.004+01:00

From Kenny MacAskill, Aug 2009:

"In Scotland, we are a people who pride ourselves on our humanity.
"It is viewed as a defining characteristic of Scotland and the Scottish people.
"The perpetration of an atrocity and outrage cannot and should not be a basis for losing sight of who we are, the values we seek to uphold, and the faith and beliefs by which we seek to live.

From William Hague today:

"We must harness Britain's generosity and compassion to help the rest of the world"

Kenny was vilified by many, including Tories, for the former and his supposed claim that Scotland has a monopoly on compassion. Note that this is a separate issue to whether Megrahi being released was appropriate or not, it is focussing on whether our leaders should project a positive view of the nations they represent and the hypocrisy that can exist therein.

I look forward to William receiving the same derision that Kenny received.

Update - On a not entirely unrelated topic, this welcome post from Newsnet Scotland is well worth a read.

Labour should pick Ed (what do you mean 'which one'?)

2010-08-30T13:03:00.002+01:00

Too many leadership contests of late have involved picking the least worst candidate so it is to Labour's credit that they have a decision before them which will end with 'the most best' individual winning through.

I would say, with all due respect to the man, that it is only Ed Balls who has made a less than substantive contribution to the contest, with the other four candidates helping to widen the debate and ensure the next chapter in the party's future is as cathartic as possible. Perhaps it should have been the other MP in the Balls household putting their name forward.

Anyway, the debate seems to be moving towards where Labour needs to be in relation to other parties rather than where it wants to plant its feet. For a party that is supposedly searching for its soul, this is a strange way to go about achieving that objective.

Peter Mandelson warns against 'lurching to the left' and David Miliband talks of 'pivoting our Politics forwards', presumably both against Ed Miliband's recklessly liberal anti-war, anti-nuclear stance, (despite these being historically Labour ideals of course). To be fair to Mandelson, New Labour must have emanated from Old Labour for a reason so to go back from New to Old deserves strong consideration of the risks involved.

David Miliband is the current frontrunner but he represents a timid choice with his current strategy seemingly being to clamp down on rival challengers rather than clearly communicate his own vision. Indeed, the main reason I can see for voting for the older Miliband is that he is rightwing enough to win Middle England but left enough of Cameron to hold onto the base. It seems to be the classic New Labour error of power for power's sake all over again. The Greens certainly want David to win to ensure they can make the resultant mouthwateringly massive gap to the left their own. Cameron wants David to lose as the Prime Minister doesn't want another 'heir to Blair' on his patch.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very impressed with both Milibands, they seem bright, articulate, personable, fair and, most crucially, genuine. Either name would get my vote ahead of Clegg or Cameron as things currently stand.

However, Ed Miliband has that extra level of enthusiasm, that extra edge of radicalism, those extra green credentials and that extra bag of policies against his name. This adds up to momentum and a lightning rod for a liberal, progressive, lefty coalition that between the SNP, the Greens and the disenchanted Lib Dems, can ensure that the coalition will, somewhat belatedly, be held to account adequately.

Independence roars back up the political agenda

2010-08-29T11:21:00.002+01:00

From this week's main story in Newsweek:

"the list tells us some important things about the world. For starters, smaller is often better. While there's no denying the vitality of emerging-market giants like China or Brazil or Turkey, they are often bested by tiny nations like Slovenia or Estonia, according to the data, simply because it takes less effort for these countries to improve their overall wellbeing.

In a Sunday Express interview, First Minister Alex Salmond has vowed that "the people can take the decision to force the issue (of an independence referendum)" as the SNP continues its bid to join the ranks of successful small countries across Europe.

The Newsweek overall rankings had Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway, Netherlands and Norway in the top ten and the supposedly stronger together and weaker apart United States, Germany, United Kingdom and France in the 11-20 spots. Superpowers, clearly, ain't what they used to be.

With the news of more oil than expected in the North Sea, Cairn Energy leading the exploration charge in the Arctic, Joseph Stiglitz surmising that UK wasted prior oil reserves and the banking crisis now settling down thanks to strong growth figures, now may be the right time for the Nationalists to up the stakes in the game of referendum brinksmanship.

Certainly Tavish Scott continues to sound distinctly flaky on this issue, no more so than in today's Scotland on Sunday article when he says the "the country has moved on" from considering independence and the "modern" Scottish Lib Dems don't give "two hoots" about a referendum. Tavish is entitled to state the latter opinion categorically as he leads the party, regardless of how incorrect the assertion may be. The former opinion, surely, can only be stated categorically after a referendum so it will be interesting to see whether, and how much, Tavish's views change as the election campaign progresses.
Either way, this is a welcome shot in the arm for Holyrood '11. It's heartening to see Alex Salmond intent on leaving it all out on the field for something he strongly believes in, and it's nice to see that Newsweek, indirectly at least, has the First Minister's back.

Police Numbers

2010-08-26T12:25:00.001+01:00

It's taken a while but I'm finally beginning to feel a bit of disillusionment with Scottish Politics. Reading up on the state of play with 'police numbers' is a prime example of where the parties are going round in circles and not ending up any further forward.

Let's start with this tweet from the Scottish Liberal Democrats official feed:

scotlibdems: Strathclyde’s recruitment freeze undermines SNP police promise says Robert Brown MSP http://bit.ly/b7BFfM

Fair enough, there was a manifesto comitment by the SNP to increase police officers by 1,000 so if this isn't met then scrutiny is required. However, it was fair to assume back in 2007 that the Scottish Executive would enjoy an ever increasing budget so said scrutiny shouldn't go much beyond acknowledging that there is less money in today's pot and future pots.

Furthermore, the debate, not just surrounding police numbers but effectively all devolved issues, should focus on 'the marginal pound'. That is, if we spend money on more police, if that is the best use of a certain part of the budget, then what will we not pay for, what is less worthy of that money? We simply can't debate the best use of budgets without looking at both sides of the trial balance, you can't call for a debit without admitting where the credit will fall, simple as that.

Needless to say, the Lib Dem press release makes no mention of what the party would like to see cut from the existing budget to fund extra police. The one-way debate serves to attack the SNP without contributing ideas of a preferred approach to the status quo.

So then we look at the UK as a whole and note that police numbers are dropping in England and Wales through recruitment freezes, similar to what is happening in Scotland. Furthermore, police numbers were reported to be dropping back in January 2010 so Labour's catcalls that the extra police policy is being "torpedoed by SNP cuts" is surely a low blow and more than a little two-faced.

The SNP, to its credit, has already achieved its manifesto commitment of 1,000 police officers early in order to tick that box and will no doubt strive to keep the numbers as high as possible before May. However, it seems unlikely that it will adopt the reckless approach of funding extra police just to insulate itself from political attack before the next elections.

It is another example of Governments, both Scottish and UK, doing the best they can with the resources available but when Lib Dems denounce falling police numbers when they are effectively presiding over the same state of affairs at Westminster and Labour continues its mock-outrage at cuts that it helped create through the credit crunch, then one can only shake one's head in dismay.

On current evidence it is going to be a truly abysmal election campaign in advance of May 2011 and I just hope that most Scots ignore the headline-grabbing rhetoric and simply vote for the party that treats them least like an idiot.

Many will say 'that's Politics' in an effort to excuse the above approaches but I maintain that other countries do not dumb down this low in order to capture the public's attention and, indeed, imagination.

We have good people representing good parties filled with good intentions, it's just a shame we somehow lack the all-important good debate that should come with it.

Lib Dems are lost - no IFS or cuts about it

2010-08-25T15:45:00.002+01:00

There's a scene that I've had in my head that, no matter how crass or crude I make it, I just can't shift. It goes something like this:

A group of eight super-posh friends are sitting around the impressively filled dining table. Landowners, property investors, fund accountants, stock market speculators, it doesn't really matter. This is the hoi polloi and the food miles in front of them could get to the moon and back.

A question pierces the general chatter, to noone in particular - "So, have you had a good budget or a bad budget?". The pause is brief before the rib-tickling, back-slapping, caviar-spilling, slightly horsey laughter begins.

"Good one Jeremy but stop being a pillock and pass me some more ham."

Inverted snobbery on my part? The classic Scottish trait of looking down on success? Perhaps, but I hope and think not.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has described George Osborne's budget as "clearly regressive" despite assurances from both of the coalition's party leaders that they would be a progressive force.

It is perhaps unfair to single out the Lib Dems for special blame but, as the Guardian picks up on today, Nick Clegg stated that June's budget would mean that "the richest are paying the most... as a proportion of their income". I'm sure there is a lot of good in this budget but a Robin Hood redistribution it clearly isn't and the coalition's defence is particularly telling.

1 - The loudest rebuttal to today's headlines is that it's yesterday's news and a rehashed narrative. Yes, without a hint of irony or indeed shame, Lib Dems and Tories are complaining (in alarming harmony) that this has been reported before so is, presumably, invalid.

2 - A Lib Dem activist on Twitter today mentioned that the budget was juggling the need to put a roof over peoples' heads with "making work pay". I would have been surprised if that was a Conservative line but from a Lib Dem that is remarkable. When did the basic right of having a home become a flexible 'nice to have'? I do think political students for decades to come will study these days as an example of how power can corrupt principles.

3 - There has also been a focus on the fact that under Labour the gap between rich and poor grew over the past 13 years. I would rather have hoped that this would instil an urgency to reverse that direction of travel rather than sustain it.

Indeed, on that urgency, I do hope that Labour looks seriously at the recently suggested policy of a one-off tax on wealth. £4000bn of Britain's £9000bn total wealth is owned by only 10% of Brits. A one-off tax of 20% would repay the national debt and bring down the deficit.

Sounds like a policy worthy of deep consideration to me. Just a shame that the party that until recently would have been most likely to adopt it is facing the other way and enjoying dining at the top table too much.

More ham Nick?

SNP surge forwards in latest poll

2010-08-22T15:17:00.001+01:00

We left the polling story of the Holyrood race with Labour an unfathomable 16 points ahead and Iain Gray seemingly with one foot in Bute House.

However, there have been two polls in the past week that sees the SNP drawing almost level with their main challengers:

YouGov
Labour - 36%
SNP - 35%
Conservative - 14%
Lib Dems - 12%
Greens - ?

Ipsos Mori
Labour - 37%
SNP - 34%
Conservative - 11%
Lib Dems - 13%
Greens - ?
I don't know if any of the papers picked the above results up in their Sunday spreads but it's clear the ping-pong polling game has begun in earnest.

Dismantling Evening Standard on Megrahi

2010-08-20T21:42:00.003+01:00

The Evening Standard has a shockingly poor Editorial on the Megrahi release which deserves to be repeated, and dismantled, in full:

The Government's call to Libya not to celebrate the first anniversary of the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbasset Ali al-Megrahi, illustrates the feebleness of ministers' position.

In truth, they have no power over how Libya treats al-Megrahi, jailed in 2001 for his role in the 1988 bombing.

Well, which is it, is it being feeble or is it powerless? Either the UK Goverment has power to act and is acting feebly in doing so or it is powerless and consequently denied the opportunity to interject, feebly or otherwise. (The answer is, of course, the latter)

The Prime Minister has made clear that he believes al-Megrahi's release last year on compassionate grounds, because of terminal cancer, was a mistake. That is not cutting much ice with US senators now investigating the release.

The Prime Minister has stated that the release was a mistake but that would suggest an oversight, an error or a misjudgement. There has been none of these things and while Cameron is within his rights to disagree with MacAskill's decision, which was taken in good faith and for the right reasons, he does not have the right to unequivocally label a meticulously undertaken decision something that that it patently is not.

The decision by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to release al-Megrahi was extraordinary.

It was not extraordinary, far from it. It was a straightforward decision, in line with Scots Law that many a Justice Secretary has taken before and many will take again in the future.

There is scarcely a British precedent for early release on any grounds of a prisoner convicted of such serious crimes: 270 people were killed.

Has there ever been any UK prisoner that has been accused of killing so many people? What comparison can one reasonably make here?

But what the affair really illustrates is the oddness of Britain's devolution settlement, and the inability of a Scottish Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to see how ludicrous it looks to the rest of the world.

Devolution is odd? Interesting. Two in three Scots are in favour of it you know. Do go on.

Any decision on al-Megrahi was clearly a matter of national security, both because he was an international terrorist and because his case was of major interest to our most important ally (most of those who died were American).

How on earth, if Libya and the UK are now friendly nations, can the release of a solitary dying man be "clearly a matter of national security". And to suggest that American interests should have played a part in the Justice Secretary's decision-making process displays a grotesque misunderstanding of how due process should unfold.

For ministers to argue that it was nothing to do with them, because they had handed over power to a few toytown Scottish politicians, was incomprehensible to the Obama administration.

Toytown politicians? Such a sneering condescension from this Tory rag of a paper barely merits a response.

As for "handed over power" to Holyrood, the Evening Standard clearly doesn't even understand that, had this decision been required pre-devolution, then it still would've been taken under Scots Law and north of the border. Schoolboy error.

That Mr Brown could not see how frankly silly his excuses looked is testimony to his and the Labour Party's long and disproportionate obsession with Scottish issues.

There is little that the Government can now do about the affair, beyond Mr Cameron's sympathetic noises in Washington last month. Ministers should, however, consider whether devolved powers as they now stand risk embarrassing and weakening the UK again in future.

There we go, Scotland is embarrassing the rest of the UK for having the nerve to make its own decisions for itself. Threatening to remove devolved powers that don't even apply in this instance just sums it up for me - the jaw-dropping misunderstanding and contempt that Scotland is held with by many of those south of the border.

I've held this back from the blog for a while now but I've had a few so fuck it. In the short space of time that I've been down here in London, to everyone that's mentioned Jockland or deep frying everything or 'Oh, how weird, I can understand you' or 'you Scotch should know your place' (as the Evening Standard is effectively saying here), do me a favour and shove it up your arse.

Right. Up. Your. Arse.

Note - For those who think the Megrahi debacle may harm the SNP's chances at the Holyrood election, hold onto your hats for this weekend as a very good poll for the Nats is in the offing...

Is Sweden about to turn hard right?

2010-08-20T17:09:00.001+01:00

Regular readers may know that I have a vested interest in Sweden due to personal factors closer to home and, while I sadly did not get to adopt the country this year for Eurovision or the World Cup (due to their qualifying for neither), I most certainly can adopt them for their election which is coming up next month so I am quickly trying to grow my enthusiasm for and my understanding of it.

What is most interesting about the politics of Sweden is that their mainstream right-wing party is probably, by some distance, to the left of our most left-wing mainstream party (I’ll leave you to decide for yourself which particular UK/Scottish party that may be!)

Sweden, like all other countries, has highs and lows in its politics. The highs include the remarkable integrity shown by a Deputy Prime Minister, Mona Sahlin, who resigned in 1995 after she bought a toblerone bar with her work credit card, an incident that makes our MPs expenses debacle even more ridiculous. (The full detail isn’t quite that flippant, basically she had used her work card to buy 50,000kr of private expenses but had always paid the money back). It didn’t ruin her career though. Mona is the current leader of the challenging Swedish Social Democratic Party and is intent on being the next Prime Minister from next month.

My ‘low’ example from Sweden also includes Mona Sahlin as her party has promised to outspend the ruling Modernitska Party by (I think) £20bn, irrespective of what is promised during the election campaign. A ‘benevolent and reckless bestowing upon my people’ tactic straight out of the Gordon Brown election book if you ask me.

The last election (2006) had the following breakdown:

Social Democrats (very left) – 35%
Moderate Party (quite right) – 26%
Centre Party (Centre, rural, greenish) – 8%
Liberal People’s Party (centre-right) - 7.5%
Christian Democrats (centre-right) – 6.6%
Left Party (Left) – 5.9%
Green Party (Green) – 5.2%
Sweden Democrats (far right) – 2.9%

Result = ‘Alliance for Sweden’ (Moderates, Centre, Liberal People’s, Christian Democrats) ‘won’ with about 49% of the vote and formed the first Government that didn’t involve the Social Democrats for about 70 years.

Current polling has the parties on:

Social Democrats – 30.2%
Moderate Party – 29.3%
Centre Party – 4.2%
Liberal People’s Party – 6.9%
Christian Democrats – 5.5%
Left Party – 5.8%
Green Party – 9.0%
Sweden Democrats – 6.5%

So the ruling Alliance has only 45.9% of the vote and may need to deal with the ‘far right’ Sweden Democrats in order to win power, although one would hope that the Green Party would be a more amenable government partner. (Note that the Greens typically form coalitions with the ‘red’ Social Democrats).

The Swedish Democrats may not quite be the BNP, but they see immigration, Islamization and globalisation as threats to Swedish culture. They believe every child should have “one father and one mother”. Read into that what you will I suppose. Of course the upshot may be that the lefty Social Democrats pick up significant votes from the rightish Moderates to keep out the far-right Swedish Democrats.

So, with me so far? Me neither. Not long to go though till we find out which direction the famously left-wing Sweden will turn next….

The election will be held on Sunday 19th September 2010.

Jag kan inte vänta, men jag måste.

Poll - Opposition to Megrahi release hardens

2010-08-20T14:08:00.000+01:00

In the spirit of full disclosure and following on from this morning’s post, I thought I’d flag up a poll from Ipsos/Mori commissioned by STV on Megrahi’s release:

On the question of whether Kenny MacAskill should have allowed Megrahi return home to die, the results were:

Disagreed – 54% (46% prior year)
Agreed – 35% (42% prior year)

So, support for the decision is thinning and I suppose that is to be expected given how unlikely it is for someone to go from being against the decision to being in favour of it just because the man has lived longer than expected.

I still don’t think this issue should, or will, dominate Scotland’s domestic political agenda for the months and years to come.

Megrahi - One year on

2010-08-20T07:39:00.001+01:00

It's remarkable to be even still talking about the post-prison life of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, not because he has outlived his 3 month prognosis, but because there should in theory be so little to talk about.

However, much like the 100 days of the coalition, the arbitrary choice of one year to look back and reflect on Kenny MacAskill's 'right decision for the right reasons' is upon us. The Scotsman leads the way with some Grade A tripe. With an article bizarrely title "Freeing Megrahi 'will cost SNP the election"', the piece goes on a rather pedestrian meander around the story so far, with no mention of any impact on the SNP's electoral chances (so where the apparent quote in the headline comes from is anyone's guess)

I remain baffled as to why this remains big news when there is so little to talk about. Even the underlying message from the media at large that everyone was against this decision is unwarranted. I seem to remember that Scotland was split about 50/50 over whether it was the right decision and, as many readers here will ruefully admit, it's not often the SNP gets close to winning 50% in a poll.

I don't see how anyone has lost out from a man simply living longer than was expected. Last time I checked that was supposed to be a good thing rather than bad. Of course, some relatives of those who died will be angry at this state of affairs, but there's a reason such people are not judge and jury for the cases that impacted upon them.

One year on, and if the strongest reason against the Justice Secretary's decision is that one doesn't like seeing the Saltire waved by Libyans cheering home a convicted terrorist, then my opinion on the matter will remain unchanged.

As for costing the SNP the election, I suspect spending, health, education, crime and, heck, maybe even independence will be higher up the priority list.

Flat pensions can help deliver social mobility

2010-08-19T12:59:00.000+01:00

The flat tax debate is one that rears its ugly head every now and again but I don’t tend to hear about the considerably more persuasive and fairer ‘flat pension’ idea.

We currently have a collective pension obligation in the UK that is a ticking timebomb and, to add to the looming carnage, it is the public sector pension fund that the Government tends to borrow against to fund current spending. Further to this, an ageing population and the WW2 baby boomers nearing retirement age mean there is little doubt that the rather dry question of how we fund our post-work lives is a critical one.

Most pensions involve the employee paying in x% and the employer paying in y%, both x and y being in the region of 10. What you put in either attracts interests or, if you are very lucky, goes towards your final salary scheme, either of which you realise upon retirement with a lump sum and/or annual payments.

That is all well and good and should probably continue in the same form, particularly the employee contribution as what a person does with his/her salary is their business. However, a potential change could be that the employer contribution goes into one enormous public sector pot and, upon retirement, a flat annual salary (with an appropriate inflationary increase) is paid out across the board regardless of whether the drawee was the Head of the Civil Service or sweeped the streets. It is joyously inflexible, the inflexibility being the guarantee that fairness is realised in the system.

Note, of course, that those enjoying salaries in the range that the Head of the Civil Service enjoys will no doubt have separate pensions that can ensure a more luxurious lifestyle. However, crucially, no employer contribution will have funded such separate pensions. Note also that the above can just as easily apply to private companies.

As a country we believe in the universality of education, we believe in the universality of health provision so shouldn’t we also believe in the universality of adequate pensions? ‘The rat race is for rats’ said Jimmy Reid, who sadly passed away last week. I would add to that famous phrase that peanut pensions are for monkeys.

What if the employer contribution element of Fred Goodwin’s pension was to be spread more evenly? Or the top mandarins in the public sector? Or politicians for that matter? Who would shed a tear? Any employee, public or private, would still be welcome to inflate their pensions with their own salary, and that would still attract tax relief, but in terms of reducing the very top pensions and increasing the very lowest, even just a little bit, this ‘flat pensions’ idea seems to be the radical realignment our pensions problem requires.

They say you get out what you put in and while this is true in terms of effort and, more often than not, love, when the have-nots have nowt to put in, it’s little wonder that the haves continue to skim the financial cream from society’s efforts and the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider. After all, which box would this proposal not tick? Social mobility, progressive, a future fair for all, fair is worth fighting for, we’re all in this together?

It’s bulletproof but, sadly, it’s never going to happen. Greed will remain good in the UK for decades to come and too many people prefer their pensions to be fat rather than flat.

I remain optimistic that something can be achieved however. It would take a collective mental leap from the UK but it is a leap in the correct direction. For too long (and I blame Thatcher) it has been every person for themselves, getting yourself ahead, getting yourself on and measuring success and contentment in £ signs. Trample your way to the top.

A flat tax would cement that regressive thinking. A flat pension would reverse it.

Top heavy factions - the North South divide

2010-08-18T12:54:00.004+01:00

There have been a couple of great articles recently discussing an emerging North-South divide. The Caledonian Mercury discusses a divergent Scotland and England and considers the worrying impact of Scotland “getting the cuts without the reforms”. (That synopsis doesn’t do the excellent article justice, best to just read it.) Left Foot Forward talks about academic conclusions that “Britain is tearing itself apart” with anywhere more than 2 hours from London suffering from being poorer in terms of incomes, house prices, life expectancy and educational attainment.

It is a debate that I am sure will grow, perhaps even dominate, during the tenure of the Liberal-Conservative coalition amidst growing speculation that the cuts will come at too high, and too imbalanced, a price. I don’t buy into the easy notion that ‘toffs’ from Eton don’t know how to govern for the benefit for the entirety of the UK but at the same time I am less than convinced by the Prime Minister’s promised respect agenda for Scotland which, presumably, also applies to Labour-dominated areas in the North of England.

In many ways, this Doomsday scenario which is slowly but surely becoming a reality will remain applicable if Labour wins the Holyrood election in 2011. The focus of the divergence will simply subtly switch from constitutional separation to Government’s position in society. That is, the Conservatives wanting Government to step way back from our day to day lives and Labour/SNP wanting the Government to have a greater role.

A perhaps unexplored area in which those north of the border may widen this North-South, left-right divide is through simple perceptions of who their main Government is. With Tony Blair reasonably popular over the entirety of his tenure in office and Gordon Brown unmistakably Scottish (and consequently unmistakably Scotland’s leader), it was easy over the past 13 years to feel governed by Westminster and have that direct link to the decisions that were taken in our name. Now, however, that link to our Prime Minister and UK Cabinet is diluted. There is as little Scottish presence in the Cabinet as there is popularity for it and dwindling reasons to be engaged with the overall process when the majority of discussions (foundation hospitals, free schools etc) do not apply to Scots. There is a risk, some would say an opportunity, that Scotland simply slips away from Westminster, engages deeper into Holyrood and everyday contact with politicians is conducted through MSPs with a clear mindset that the First Minister is the primary leader of the land.

The qualitative political impact this would have on the ‘United Kingdom’ could be enormous.

One other specific area where any North-South divide could foggy inter-UK relations is the choking, coughing elephant in the room – the urgent need to combat Climate Change. It is telling that the UK Government uses the phrase “addressing Climate Change”, as if we just need to pat it on the back and calmly turn it the other way with minimal effort.

The regrettable ambivalence amongst the coalition’s ranks stands in clear contrast to an SNP Government which has grasped the nettle in many key areas, though there is still substantial room for improvement. Either way, it is clear that Holyrood is more serious about playing its part in keeping emissions down and building up a new renewables infrastructure than Westminster is. There is, at least, a substantial ideological difference in whether our nations need a new wave of nuclear power stations. Looking ahead, it is difficult to ascertain how seriously Scottish Labour takes the problem without the party having been in power for four years and the issue only really taking off in that timeframe but it’s probably fair to assume that an Iain Gray-led administration would be more proactive on environmental matters than the Cameron-led administration currently is, particularly with the ranks of Climate Change sceptics that have the PM’s back.

A tipping point for pent-up friction on this issue may well come whenever the next Kyoto/Copenhagen Summit is held, as will surely be necessary in the next year or two. Ed Miliband put in an admirable effort to drive change and he seems to get the problem, though returned home from Denmark pretty much empty-handed. Chris Huhne would be hamstrung by his Tory coalition partners and David Cameron would perhaps even pull rank and lead the UK delegation on such a summit. However, I simply cannot envisage the Prime Minister accepting the tough decisions that will be required to reverse emissions before 2015. The gathering storm over the need for action, merely latent within the UK at the current time, could be unleashed at such a juncture.

The message on the environment from the experts will of course grow starker and starker as our prospects as a planet grow darker and darker. This can only drive the wedge between Holyrood and Westminster deeper, already worlds apart over the size of the state, the workings of the NHS and the universality of state education, amongst numerous other policy areas.

So, can a left-wing devolved Government keep pushing for its preferred policies while a right-wing coalition reduces its funding and focuses investment in the South? It seems a tough ask. To that end, particularly keeping differing opinions on the environment in mind, it will be interesting to see where the proposed £2bn Green Investment Bank is located, something that could prove to be a totemic decision by the UK Government. I agree with Rob Gibson MSP that Scotland is the ideal place to house such an entity given the massive commitment of resource in wave, tidal and wind energy from the public and private sector, north of the border. However, whenever the decision is made, if the coalition’s idea of a non-London base is somewhere in Cornwall or Kent then it will perhaps be further evidence that this new North-South, left-right divide really isn’t going to work out. Certainly the business case for wherever the Green Investment Bank ends up deserves close scrutiny.

So what is the answer? At the very least it is surely full fiscal autonomy for a nation that sees the world in a different way to its Governmental superiors. A policy that has all the hallmarks of Cameron’s Big Society, of Clegg’s Fairness and of Conservatives free markets, allowing Scotland to spend the money it raises (with a recharge to Westminster for ‘shared services’) is the only way to bring the UK back together again and allow left and right to happily coexist on these same shared islands.

Otherwise, the top-heavy structure to our country, whichever of the SNP or Labour factions heads up Holyrood, will topple over and prove unsustainable.

There’s a real problem here and it needs a real solution. So far the coalition appears to be falling way short and, if it’s not careful, it will fall through this north-south, left-right divide that it has helped to create.

One final thought – a clear difference in how the North wants to live and be governed with how the South wants to live and be governed could prove a difficult juggling act for Scottish Labour if it were to win next year’s Scottish Parliament elections, through either a Minority Government or in coalition with Greens/Lib Dems. Labour’s visceral loathing of countenancing any sort of mature debate on the merits of independence would sit awkwardly against an obvious imbalance in Scotland’s constitutional arrangement, with or without the relatively weak Calman proposals having been implemented. How would First Minister Iain Gray play it? Would Labour become more radical and side with the SNP on certain issues against the Conservatives or would they try to hold onto the Union at whatever cost and have to defend coalition decisions from time to time. It is a tremendously tricky strategic decision the party potentially faces, though of course the SNP may have the decency to deny them that difficulty by winning through in the elections next year.

Iain Gray has called it right on Council Tax

2010-08-17T12:33:00.001+01:00

The game of brinksmanship over whether Council tax should be increased has escalated today with the news that Iain Gray has taken over the reins from Glasgow Council leader Gordon Matheson in calling for more money to be charged to residents to safeguard local services.

Joe Fitzpatrick defended a continued freeze on Newsnight Scotland last night and the SNP have bolstered their defence by attacking Iain Gray’s calls as a “smash and grab raid on the public’s pockets”. That exaggerated rhetoric betrays the desperation of the SNP’s stance and lack of options that the party has left itself with. The blame game is riddled all over the latest press release, brandishing council cuts as Labour’s, yet they are SNP cuts at a national level and Tory/Lib Dem cuts at a UK level. This merry-go-round of mud slinging and ‘which cuts are whose’ cannot be political debate at its best, surely.

We only have to look at the recent BAA resolution for evidence that a compromise is required and the SNP will have to back down in some way. BAA workers, much like local councils, are receiving less in real terms. It is an unsustainable direction of travel. You can’t perennially freeze income and allow costs to increase through VAT rises and inflation, inflation which is already higher than expected. Middle ground (necessary before a vote on next year’s budget) will either involve allowing Council Tax to increase or providing more money to councils to plug the gaps.

As the Government is steadfastly against the former, the SNP can only get out of this hole with the latter. It’s going to cost them and it may well be money that John Swinney shouldn’t, but politically can’t-not, spend.

Iain Gray is correct though, local councils should be making local decisions surrounding what Council Tax should be now that the three-year concordat is over. It’s time to share the pain. Buying your way into a more palatable election campaigning position is not what good Government should be about.

Ideological purity

2010-08-17T08:35:00.001+01:00

Although I don't tend to read his Liberal Conspiracy blog too much, I have a lot of time for the little I know of Sunny Hundal. While Guido Fawkes is unmistakably narrowing political debate, Iain Dale is healthily and helpfully sustaining it, I get the impression goes to great pains to widen the narrative as much as possible, from a left wing viewpoint at least.

So I read with his interest his reasons for joining the Labour party and, with equal intrigue, his reasons for not joining any other party.

Joining Labour was the obvious choice. Joining the Libdems was not an option; the Tories stand for everything I’m against and the Libdems are unfortunately enabling the Tories to carry out a ruinous agenda. The Greens are too ideologically pure for me.

Ideologically pure? I found this a remarkable phrase to use not to mention decision not to join a party, particularly as I've just joined the Greens. To fully understand Sunny's meaning I got to thinking what an ideologically impure party would involve, a situation which is presumably preferable. U-turns, broken promises, no-one ever really believing what your party says and factions riven throughout the team. I found it odd that a blogger who discusses ideology so freely and openly would then use it as a negative.

A debate can be characterised as pragmatism vs dogma but equally it can be held up as doing the right thing vs selling out your ideals. However, that is typically on specific policies, when it coming to joining a party it is surely the 'dogma', the ideals, the doing the right thing and the ideology holds sway?

My unavoidable suspicion is that Sunny, like many other lefties out there, is in favour of the vast majority of Green Party policies but feels the party's current size doesn't match his lofty ambitions. Which is fine of course, it is in many ways akin to a football supporter selecting only one of Manchester Utd, Chelsea or Arsenal to support because they wish to wear their scarves while watching the Champions League.

However, it is surely ideological impurity itself to dismiss a party due to how principled it is rather than on what it's actual policies are.

In joining the Labour Party, Sunny Hundal has made his first compromise. Let's hope it's his last.

Labour man aids coalition, world keeps turning

2010-08-16T20:08:00.001+01:00

The funny thing about the Labour party members gnashing their teeth at the thought of Alan Milburn assisting the coalition (in an unpaid role on social mobility I hasten to add) is that many of those same activists will have smiled approvingly and nodded sagely at Jed Bartlett hiring a Republican and Matt Santos offering the Foreign brief to his rightwing rival in the sublime but sadly fictitious The West Wing.

The uber-consensual approach to Government is a well used strategy to unbalance the distinctly partisan Opposition. The SNP certainly used it to great effect earlier in this term when they accepted the will of the Parliament and (grudgingly) took on the Edinburgh Trams project, not to mention voting in favour of a budget amendment by Labour only for Labour, so surprised by the lack of opposition, to vote against their own proposal.

So David Cameron has marked an easy win here. After all, if Milburn's no good, what do Labour care what he does. And if Milburn is good, (1) why didn't they keep him onside longer and (2) he'll surely do a fine job here 'for the greater good'.

Needless to say, the bigger question involving Milburn's social mobility brief is getting drowned out. How can we achieve a more progressive society when there are public sector cuts, a squeezed private sector, anaemic lending from banks and compassion fatigue is the order of the day?

Tough one. Over to you Alan, but please don't let the pantomime boos and hisses put you off...

What next for Council Tax?

2010-08-16T13:10:00.001+01:00

The Scottish political news today seems to be dominated by calls to “thaw” the freeze on Council Tax in order to relieve the significant financial pressure on local councils.

The political ramifications of all of this are, of course, considerable and it is not surprising that it is Labour-held Glasgow Council that is leading the calls to end the freeze. Breaking the concordat has been a top priority for Labour even since the ink was drying on the agreement. Delivering a Council Tax freeze that is appreciated by the entire country and would be campaigning gold for the SNP in the run up to May 2011 was always too much to take for Labour. They tried to break it via questioning school meals funding, they tried to break it through questioning the lack of ring-fencing and now they’re regrouping to try to break it through there just not being enough cash in the various pots.

There are, of course, good reasons for increasing Council Tax, so much so that I think it is now necessary to do so, but the practical logic may well get lost amidst the political positioning from all sides.

Even though a deal’s a deal and the 32 councils that signed up to this concordat have a duty to make it work, the recession was an unexpected body blow so flexibility is crucial to ensure some councils don’t simply collapse. That flexibility includes innovative cost-cutting ideas to deliver existing budgets but it should also extend to squeezing a little bit of extra income from the local area to ease the pressure, where all sides agree.

I don’t have the data but a simple calculation comparing the expected increase in Council Tax had there been no freeze with the extra £70m councils received from the Scottish Government as part of the concordat should show what increase may be required in the coming year. That is, (and to put it very crudely), council tax rises in the past few years may have raised £250m (say) and councils have only received £210m from the concordat so an extra £40m will be required next year, over and above any annual increase that may be necessary.

Ideally it should be left to individual areas to decide. Some areas may wish to pay a little bit more to be confident their bins will be collected, recycling continues and all other local services are as efficient as possible. Alternatively, some areas may prefer cash to be in their own pockets and will put up with any problems that a cash-poor council may come up against. It is, of course, difficult and indeed nigh on impossible to gauge what each local area wants to happen next.

Further to that, John Swinney may crunch the numbers and decide that councils have enough money to make it through the bottleneck, which of course would result in the SNP making it through to May 2011 with the concordat still intact.

The upshot of all of this is, much like the last contest, is that this coming Holyrood election battle will be fought on local taxation which in itself means we’re all four years older and no further forward.

Given that, I’m not so sure how persuasive a call for a Local Income Tax will sound the second time around when it wasn’t pushed particularly hard when the SNP had its opportunity in the past four years. The good news is, Labour don’t seem to have advanced their position any further either.

Maybe we should give the Greens’ Land Value Tax idea a run for its money?

Scottish Parliament to be less devolved than England's NHS Trusts

2010-08-15T22:27:00.002+01:00

Here is a question - assuming Andrew Lansley's white paper on 'Liberating the NHS' becomes law, what financial muscle will the Scottish Parliament have that a foundation hospital in England doesn't?

Answer - Potentially none. Certainly barely a sinew.

Indeed, there is a strong chance that the English & Welsh trusts will have more fiscal freedom than Holyrood. Current plans include allowing NHS trusts to earn unlimited income from outside the NHS. A Scottish Parliament equivalent would be setting its own taxes, something that is currently not allowed of course and will only extend to a fairly inflexible group of taxes once the Calman recommendations are imposed.

Another potential difference surrounds the question of what would happen if a foundation hospital runs a surplus (a point raised in this excellent Guardian interview with Shirley Williams). Were this money to be allowed to be carried over into the next term's budget, as would seem likely if Lansley is intent on 'freeing' these individual bodies, then the NHS would be afforded a financial flexibility that a lack of which has hamstrung Holyrood during its short lifetime.

After all, how can a Scottish Government be expected to manage the 'boom and bust' of a UK Government if it can't operate save for the future or build a working overdraft? Any Scottish Parliament underspend is sent back to UK Treasury resulting in a double whammy of spending on unnecessary projects to meet any given year's budget and not having reserves for when times are tough, for example now. Scotland had almost a £1bn underspend from 2002-04. What it could have done with that money today!

When the simple logic of a hospital raising its own funds, having the power to spend it where it sees fit and being allowed to keep any underspend does not apply to a Parliament under the remit of the same Government, something is not quite right.

This health white paper is entitled 'Liberating the NHS'. Perhaps the Scotland Bill should go further than the halfway house of Calman recommendations, suggest full fiscal autonomy and be called 'Liberating Scotland'?

You could say it's what the doctor ordered.

Why I joined the Green Party of England & Wales

2010-08-14T21:14:00.003+01:00

In 2007, the last 'real' election that I voted in (sorry Europe), I gave my two votes to the SNP. It was by no means always a certainty but, come polling day, there were plenty of reasons why I wouldn't be thinking twice about where my X was going:

a First Minister that looked and sounded tired of his job
moving away from Privaced Financed Initiative schemes to a more balanced (and on Balance Sheet) approach

implementing free school meals for p1 to p3 kids at schools

ensuring no new nuclear power stations were opened in Scotland

freshening up the youthful devolution 'adventure' by ensuring that a new party brought some new ideas to Government

increased investment in renewable energy

Now I live in England and the SNP won't be on any ballot slips that I hold in my hand in the near to medium future. I also see joining political parties as a community decision that feeds up the chain from street to area to city to county to country rather than a gesture that can cross borders. Put another way, being a member of the SNP would now be as pointless as being a member of the US Democratic party or Swedish Modernitska party or the German Social Democrats, however much I may admire their successes and potential.

So now I am looking around at the options in my new home of Camden, looking for which party to join here. I reckon it is important for democracy that all political parties are vibrant bodies with many members so I can back that belief by joining up with the party active in the local area that most closely fits my beliefs.

The Conservatives are out as I am pretty much diametrically-opposed to most of their policies. The Labour party is not an option until they've decided whether they are dropping 'New Labour' (not to mention the dropping of another generation of Trident as a policy). And the Liberal Democrats are not an option as, honestly, I just don't trust them to hold a consistent position on any given issue other than civil liberties, irrespective of the necessary and understandable compromises that come with coalition Government.

Not that the Green Party was fourth choice in a process of elimination. Taking my reasons for voting SNP in 2007 and noting that the UK is opening up new nuclear power stations, thinks PFI is good value for money and isn't doing enough to ensure kids have a nutritious and food-informed start to life, there was only one party that was getting a look-in for my £5/month once I decided that getting involved with another party was on my to-do list.

Would I have joined the Scottish Green Party if I had stayed in Edinburgh, knowing now what I didn't know about them back in May 2007? The answer to that is somewhere between 'possibly' and 'probably'. Tactical voting is less attractive as you grow older I suppose so chances of winning a constituency take a back seat to the principles at stake. I was happily prepared to help vote the Green Westminster candidate into 4th place here in London if I had been allowed to vote on May 6th and I could have done the same on May 5th 2011.

So with tactical voting out as an option and a member of a different party, 'SNP Tactical Voting' must come to an end, at least in some way. I've always insisted that if you run a party blog then you have a duty to that party to treat it with the utmost respect. This blog, rightly or wrongly, would of course always be seen as an SNP blog so that link must be broken for the requisite respect to be honoured. I'll remain interested in Scottish politics of course, even if I am not part of that street->Government sliding scale.

So changes are on their way for this site, not that I yet know what form they will take. I look forward to being a Green party member though, in whatever capacity I 'blog' going forward. It looks like a fun party to be a part of and, over and above the big issues of the day that leaders must grapple with and solve, being a part of any political party should always be good fun.

Greenkeepers turned poachers

2010-08-13T20:39:00.002+01:00

Ok, first up I'm not sure if that title works on any of the levels that I'm aiming for but I'm sticking with it.

Anyway, the Liberal Democrats hold their Conference next month. It will be a fascinating affair for both those on the inside and those on the outside. Can the party correct the identity crisis that it seems to be experiencing? How will the left-right internal discussion play out?

In one way, it serves up a delicious opportunity for another Westminster party. Not Labour, but the Green party.

So many long-term members of the Lib Dems are of the classic muesli-munching, sandal-wearing, peace and love desiring bent. And proud of that they should be too.

However, genuine questions can be asked as to which party is the rightful spiritual home of such a demographic.

I reckon that several Green party activists standing outside the Liberal Democrat Conference with 'Join us' and 'You know you want to' placards, including contact details, could reap a remarkable return.

And, if hiving off the organic left-wing of the Lib Dems is successful, what is remaining would be a curious beast involving free marketeers and civil liberty campaigners who could fit right into the Tory party seamlessly.

With Labour always having to lean right to win elections, is it too early to start preparing oneself for the Green party as the chief, consistent party of the left in England and Wales?

East Lothian

2010-08-12T12:34:00.005+01:00

It's turning into a bit of a Holyrood 'SeatWatch' on here today but I couldn't let the various intriguing strands of the East Lothian selection contest go by uncommented upon.

For a start, I have to admit to being surprised to hear not only that Alyn Smith had challenged for the PPC role in this constituency but that he was defeated. Granted, Alyn was up against ex-leader of the local council and eventual winner of the selection contest, David Berry, but I would have hoped (without any particular constituency in mind) that any move from European Parliament to the Scottish one would be a smooth one for the party heavyweight.

And why should I be surprised that a move has been made? The leap from MEP to domestic politics is a fairly well-trodden one with Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne having made the crossing. One could argue that Alyn Smith's considerable talents should not be showered on Brussels for too much longer. I seem to be tossing the accolade like candy today but, well, future party leader? Indeed, I am even wondering if it is worth having a relatively weaker (or younger) tranche of candidates competing for the EU spots and making sure Ian Hudghton and Alan Smyth are in Holyrood where the greatest contribution from the party's strongest performers can be made. Let's be honest, as things stand the SNP can only really expect to win 2 MEPs anyway regardless of who is on the ballot slip, such is our nation's under-representation at the European Parliament.

Also in the frame for East Lothian is Derek Brownlee, possibly the Scottish Conservatives' most effective performer over the past few parliamentary terms, perhaps even vying with Patrick Harvie for the Scottish Parliament's most effective MSP (for my money at least). I would expect that Derek will be by no means an 'also ran' in this seat as so many of his colleagues will be in other seats across the country.

For Labour, of course, there is leader of the group Iain Gray standing to defend his seat and 2,448 majority. While Iain will be the favourite, one can't help but wonder whether his pantomime performances in FMQs will be a hindrance rather than a help to his election chances. His fortunes will rely heavily on his appearances on leader debates in the run up to May and, well, a few car crash performances can't be ruled out, though equally of course he may also blow the opposition out of the park. Once again, I warn of a media-fuelled 'Gray-mania' to exacerbate any Salmond-slide.

This is all not to mention the Lib Dems who are yet to select a candidate and have put in considerable effort into this area recently so will fancy their chances of a surprise win, or at least being the kingmakers (it is, after all, an all-male field thus far). This case may be overstated though as Lib Dem attention, not to mention resources, may well turn to Edinburgh North & Leith and Edinburgh Central.

So MEPs, party leaders, Tories with a chance of winning for a change and ex-council leaders all in the melting pot in East Lothian. This is not even considering the furore that the local Labour party experienced over the past year or two.

If only a fifth party could field a candidate in their old Westminster stomping ground to give the 'blogosphere' the inside skinny on how it pans out. Any takers?

When stars collide

2010-08-12T08:47:00.001+01:00

A picture is emerging of how the new Holyrood seat of Renfrewshire North and West will be competed and it looks set to be a very strong field indeed.

Annabel Goldie remains in the frame, having contested the old West Renfrewshire seat in each prior contest since 1999.

Labour has selected "rising star" Stuart Clark who will take over the reins from the retiring Trish Godman. Young, competent, a teaching background. I'm sure it wouldn't be long before Stuart was tipped as a future leader, were he to win through here in May.

For the SNP, local council leader and rising star himself Derek Mackay will stand. Indeed, it is Derek's name on the ballot list that, for me, cements this as a key constituency. I saw several Conference speeches that he gave at the two such events I made it to when living in Scotland and each time I thought he was sheer class, a mark of quality amongst an already talented field. Speeches included urging the delegates to back off on prioritising free school meals for primary children but his case was highly persuasive.

I daresay each of the candidates will see it as an excruciating battle, one that none of them has any intention of losing.

I don't know what impact the boundary changes will have but in 2007 the result was:

Godman MSP (Lab) - 35.9%
Goldie MSP (Con) - 28.5%
Wilson MSP (SNP) - 28.0%

Of course, for all that 2011 will be a tight battle, we may well come away with a result of 3MSPs from this constituency anyway, 1 via FPTP and 2 via the regional list.

Either way, Renfrewshire North and West will be one to watch.

Should we ditch domestic flights?

2010-08-11T13:42:00.000+01:00

At every election each party promises “radical” change. Sometimes even (bizarrely) the party that is in power.

Looking back over the past generation however, can one really point to much “radical” change that has taken place? The NHS has continued in much the same manner, working more efficiently than perhaps its reputation suggests. Education has been largely unchanged, save for a dramatic increase in the number of students attending university which is welcome and perhaps radical-lite. Our foreign policy has been radical, radicalising even, but sadly not for the better. Has the economy changed radically? Policing? Local government? Not really I would argue.

I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing that we have not had so much radical change over the past few decades, maybe it is best for a country to just tick along with not too many shocks and surprises. It doesn’t make for a great election slogan is the problem.

One area where the UK is ticking along, slumbering along even, is in terms of air travel. The buying of an Easyjet or Ryanair flight to fly a mere several hundred miles has become commonplace in a remarkably short space of time. Is this something that needs radical change?

I am attending a discussion tonight focussing on whether we should end domestic flights in this supposed “era of climate emergency”. The speakers are John Stewart of AirportWatch, Dan Glass of Plane Stupid, Anne-Marie Griffin of Fight the Flights and Phil Thornhill of Campaign against Climate Change. I’m reasonably confident that the panel wish to see radical change on this area but I aim to attend with as open a mind as possible.

That said (and I have had so many short-haul flights that I have a ruddy cheek to even say it, two flights this weekend even), it would be a tremendous effort if the UK could find a solution whereby taking the train is the automatic option for any travel within the UK. Comfortable, fast trains with internet connection, newspapers and great food that can outspeed and outprice the Easyjets or the Ryanairs. We’re not even that far off achieving it with the London-Edinburgh service taking 4.5 hours which is comparable to flying time once you take into account the getting to/from airports and security checks etc. £10 or £20 deals are regular enough that it should really be the first choice.

In terms of next steps, a key consideration is what approach should be taken to reduce the number of flights. One option is for a public consensus to have been reached whereby the train will be opted for ahead of domestic flights in order to force change through customer buying power. The other option is for the Government to reduce the supply of short-haul flights, forcing travellers onto the trains. A move boosted by the decision to ditch the third runway at Heathrow.

Neither is ideal but the latter is preferable in my view, particularly if train prices can be kept low either through subsidy or increased taxes on short-haul flights. It is certainly the only process that will curb my shameful but irrepressible appetite for Speedy Boarding my way around the country.

Truly radical action can be taken and it wouldn’t be popular but, to sell the policy, one need only think of those Icelandic ash cloud weeks. How calm it was to have no planes flying overhead for once. That curiously pleasing phenomenon could be the long-term status quo if we take domestic transport in the direction that it needs to go – out of the clouds and onto the tracks.

I’ll probably write up a review of tonight’s meeting for the blog tomorrow (unless I don’t make it there and watch the tempting Sweden vs Scotland instead of course!)

Are Lib Dems aping Labour to stay in bed with the Tories?

2010-08-10T22:37:00.001+01:00

It must be very tiring being a Liberal Democrat right now, I mean seriously deflatingly exhausting. How do they remember what their position is on any given policy area? How can they possibly keep up?

I have a theory as to why they have embarked on this remarkable yellow trail involving twists, surprises and many a u-turn. The Lib Dems are adopting Labour policies to insulate itself from political attack.

Take nuclear power, this week's jaw-dropper of hypocrisy led by Chris Huhne. The Labour party isn't going to attack them for it as Labour is largely pro-nuclear. So who is left? The Greens? Sadly not many people take notice of their eminently sensible ideas so the Lib Dems get away with brazen, shameless deceitfulness.

What about raising VAT? Vehemently opposed by the Lib Dems during the election campaign but now miraculously it's ok as part of the coalition agreement. Of course Labour was going to raise VAT too if they had won power, Darling admitted as much, so the Lib Dems get away with it again thanks to Labour already carrying the can.

On AV, dismissed by Clegg as a "miserable compromise", Labour campaigned hard on holding a referendum on the issue so the Lib Dems will have felt bullet-proof (if a little short-changed) when they came out of coalition talks with a promise of a referendum. Labour of course has now switched sides and are pulling out of their promise for an AV referendum to leave the Lib Dems isolated. Smart politics but a lousy way to treat the electorate, on all sides.

And what about the cuts? The biggest change to public spending since WW2? Nick Clegg warned that cutting the Tory way would take us down a path already travelled by Greece and Ireland. The Lib Dems are now gambling that Labour, having caused the recession and the massive deficit and promising cuts themselves, won't get away with opposing these cuts too easily. So once again the Lib Dems manage to vacate their principles while using Labour as a protective shield.

And Trident? What about Trident! Clegg-mania was built upon the refreshing sight of a top politician stepping away from the status quo and, unlike Brown and Cameron, bravely suggesting that perhaps we don't need a new wave of nuclear weapons after all. However, when the SNP, Plaid Cymru and Greens proposed including Trident in the Strategic Defence Review, the Lib Dems voted against and Nick Clegg in particular was found wanting. Again, it is only the regrettable position of the Labour party, to spend tens of billions on bombs that will never be fired, that allows the Lib Dems to get away with it.

We live in desperate times. So many wrong decisions are being taken while the Labour bloc of MPs are distracted by their leadership election and hamstrung by policies from the doomed New Labour era, delaying their renewal. Only a handful of MPs are providing appropriate opposition but they struggle to make the headlines and get their arguments across into the public domain.

I personally have a policy that it is always best to tell the truth as it's the easiest way to remember your position on anything. It is something I think the Liberal Democrats need to take on board as it surely won't be long, in this five-year parliamentary term, before one of their number is asked what their position is on a certain policy is and they genuinely won't be able to remember whether they are in favour or against.

Through naked self-interest, the Lib Dem leadership has borrowed Labour's clothes in order to play dress-up with the Tories. As a result and as a leftie, I don't think I've ever felt so under-represented before in my adult life.

The result of the Labour leadership and a review of the Labour party's policies simply can't come quickly enough to end the current charade.

Lib Dem hypocrisy goes nuclear

2010-08-09T14:56:00.001+01:00

Gold-plated hypocrisy from Environment Minister Chris Huhne:

On his own website, 9th May 2006, under the heading Energy efficiency not nuclear is the answer to energy needs:

“No private sector investor has built a nuclear power station anywhere in the world without lashings of government subsidy since Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. The World Bank refuses to lend on nuclear projects because of the long history of overruns.
“Our message is clear, No to nuclear, as it is not a short cut, but a dead end. Yes to energy saving, yes to renewables, and yes to a sustainable energy future.”

This morning:

"We are on course to make sure that the first new nuclear power station opens on time in 2018," Mr Huhne told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
"There are a number of sites that have been identified around the country and those are generally on sites where we have previously had, for example, nuclear power stations and where the local people are very keen that there should be new nuclear build.
"What we have to do - we have eight years now before I hope that the first one will come making a contribution to the grid - and we have to get through all of the prior arrangements, like, for example, the national planning statements, like making sure that investors have got their applications formally in and approved, and then of course building can commence."

Excellent, thanks for that Chris. We look forward to your building that nice big “dead end” for us with these new nuclear power stations then.

Principle, it seems, is expendable in coalition politics.

An MSP's sense and sensibility

2010-08-09T13:01:00.000+01:00

The deaths of three young children in Edinburgh over the weekend, seemingly killed by their own mother, was about as shocking a news story as one could expect to see in the UK.

In response to the tragedy, Labour MSP Duncan McNeil made the following remarks:

“Any inquiry should try to determine whether the home-schooling of the Riggi children led to any delays in the authorities picking up on the danger they were in.
“Whether it was a factor in this case or not, parents who educate their children in this way have to be accountable. Work has been carried out in England as part of the Badman review to tighten up home-schooling laws, and if there is a perception that the Scottish system is weaker than the English one then we must act.
“So I was disappointed by the complacent response from Schools Minister Keith Brown, when I raised concerns about home-schooling six months ago, and I would hope he would look again to see if we can make our system more robust.”

Fair enough, processes and structures surrounding home schooling should be as robust and adequate as possible I suppose (not that I know much about it) but there is something distasteful regarding the clear attempt to score political points so soon after such an unfortunate incident as this, particularly when home schooling seemed incidental to the issue at hand.

It does beg the question, is this what the Labour party is now for? The leveraging of premature deaths and usage of tenuous connections to nobble further the Government? It’s rather tawdry if you ask me and I daresay not becoming of what many of us want a model Scottish Parliament and a model MSP to be.

It seems the Fife-based charity SchoolHouse agrees, labelling Duncan McNeil’s comments as “deeply disturbing” and “tantamount to grave robbing”. A formal complaint to the Scottish Parliament is being prepared.

On a somewhat separate note, the questions raised by McNeil six months ago were as follows:

1 what are the Scottish Government doing about reviewing the English home teaching policy being reviewed
2 what is the minimum number of teaching hours
3 what qualifications needed to be able to teach at home
4 what guidelines exist to inspect arrangements for home teaching
5 how is progress of child monitored
6 what guidelines are given to parents who home teach
7 how many children are there taught in this way in Scotland.

Important questions I am sure but none that would have contributed to the health and safety of any child who is currently being home-schooled as the above is pretty much solely centred upon standards, not social work.

I guess I just can’t fathom how anyone could expect a constituent to read those comments and think ‘yep, that’s my representative speaking up for me’. It’s so disappointingly partisan and while all parties do indulge in such tactics, I do think this is a new low.

After its defeat to the SNP in 2007, a period of soul-searching was embarked upon by the Labour party in Scotland. On this evidence, it seems it has more of that searching to do.

New Holyrood Poll

2010-08-09T08:46:00.003+01:00

It seems like a long time since the last one but a decent poll has been released from TNS-BRMB via The Herald. Figures are:

Holyrood Constituency

Lab - 46%
SNP - 32%
LD - 11%
Con - 10%

Holyrood region

Lab - 42%
SNP - 30%
LD - 12%
Con - 11%
Green - ?

The numbers speak for themselves really but I had personally thought that the Scottish Tories were at their floor limit before and there is enough right-wingery north of the border to keep the blues out of single digits. Apparently not and Goldie's considerable woes grow bigger still.

The Lib Dems are there, but not much more significant than that, not that a lacklustre showing will stop them picking up their second coalition in the space of a year.

Labour's lead over the SNP is to be expected too though I would expect the gap to close as the election date nears, as it did for Brown and McConnell.

The female vote does seem to be a particular problem for the Nats, as mentioned in the article and last week at Lalland's Peat Worrier. However, the battle between Sturgeon's burgeoning prominence, Gray's charisma (or lack of therein), Salmond's considerable contribution, Baker as Justice Secretary in-waiting and the last four years, all things considered, is just getting going.

Poll to poll, the adventure won't be without many a twist and turn.

Got milk?

2010-08-08T17:14:00.002+01:00

There was only one political story today and I think I'm right in saying that the Sunday Herald's Tom Gordon gets the 'scoop' credit for it.

The decision by No. 10 to overrule Health Minister Anne Milton and not to scrap the free milk for Under 5s scheme which dats back to the 1940s was a remarkably public move and a welcome one, for more reasons that one.

The proposal was only live for a relatively short space of time, so much so that you could say it was past-your-eyes'd. Most would agree that it was a fairly inefficient decision-making process, in the round.

But what about embarrassing, shambolic, chaotic and bizarre? Not for me. I was even a bit disappointed (but also not a little bit entertained) by the pun-tastic press release from Team SNP talking about 'milk shakes' and policies being 'poured down the sink', interspersed with a more serious tone. I'm not sure they pulled off the balance of banter and mature political pointmaking.

For me, the more open and transparent these decisions regarding cuts end up being the better. We're talking about vast sums of our own money being taken out of society and the economy, we deserve to know what's going on behind the scenes. Presumably Anne Milton had convincing data that concluded that the cost/benefit of free milk for Under 5s was such that scrapping it was a worthwhile move. For political reasons David Cameron decided that he didn't want to be compared to Margaret 'milksnatcher' Thatcher and shut the policy down.

You know what, I'm all for that process being out in the public domain and I don't even mind the Prime Minister deciding that the media, political opponents and public are not ready to accept a policy even if it is the right one to adopt, not that I'm necessarily saying that that is the case here.

Granted though, this one will have to go down as a 'gaffe' because the reality is that politicians and Governments have to work around a reactionary media rather than face up to it and shout it down but even still, I'm not going to pretend that I don't want to know how our future decisions are being made, even these early relatively trifling ones.

There's been a lot of hullaballoo over this decision, but we really shouldn't be crying over spilled milk policies.

Gunfight at the OK Holyrood

2010-08-05T11:23:00.000+01:00

It started with a ‘These prices ain’t big enough for the 5million of us’ and since then the gallus cowboys and the reds from the Wild Wild West have stared each other down over alcohol pricing.

‘Draw?’ ventured the Bad, having kicked every policy chair over and turning the place into a saloon. ‘Not on your nelly’ retorted the Good, ‘we’re taking this all the way till sundown’. Things were about to get Ugly.

And so it has proved with the news that Nicola Sturgeon has offered a ‘sunset clause’ to the minimum pricing plans such that, after a trial period, the policy can be reviewed. This would allow a ‘try before you buy’ opportunity which would help assuage fears that a minimum price for alcohol won’t help reduce the £2bn cost to Scotland each year.

Tavish, Annabel and Iain (the three amigos?) released a joint statement saying that they would prefer a ‘floor price’. It’s not immediately clear what the difference is between a floor and a minimum price and if that difference is trifling then is this not just more opposition for opposition’s sake?

It seems BMA Scotland does believe there is a difference between a floor price and a minimum price, preferring the latter to the former:

BMA Scotland does not believe that banning the sale of alcohol below the cost of duty and VAT (a floor price) will make any real difference in tackling Scotland's problems with alcohol. Under this scheme, many drinks such as supermarket brand vodka and ciders could continue to be sold at ridiculously cheap prices, and in some circumstances could be even cheaper than they are now

Indeed, Labour’s assertion that "The Nationalists have left themselves marginalised and isolated." is surely nonsensical given that the SNP has the BMA, the police, nurses, alcohol support groups and almost every other relevant non-political group on their side.

So it’s over to the reds, are they gonna do something, or just sit there and bleed*

High noon is looming on this issue and someone will have to blink first. By holding on to their horses, I strongly suspect it is the SNP that will be riding off into the sunset.

* nicked from the excellent Tombstone (a rootin’ tootin’ classic)

Osborne should cash in his banking shares

2010-08-04T08:50:00.000+01:00

There are two types of people in the UK right now - those who bought RBS shares at 11p and those who didn't. I, never having owned a share in my life, am in the latter category.

As we are seeing in the news this week, the formerly stricken banks of Northern Rock, Lloyds and RBS are roaring back into the black and share prices are soaring. RBS is up to 52p and Lloyds to 72p. This is above, or certainly hovering around, the break even price for the Government whereby it could sell its considerable stake.

Logic dictates that Chancellor Osborne should cash in his inherited banking portfolio. After all, to continue to hold would mean moving from supporting the banks to speculating on them. Not exactly a core responsibility for our Government.

With a sharp decrease in spending and public sector job losses very much still in the pipeline, it seems odd to have tens of billions of pounds locked up in healthy banks when that money could be working harder for public benefit.

Granted, Osborne selling the entire portfolio in one go would be destabilising to the markets and he needs to be very careful who he sells the shares to. I don't think the RBS of China is part of the economic solution yet.

However, get out while the going is good and sell Osborne should. Or maybe I'm just saying that out of bitterness cos I never got in on RBS at 11p.

Orange and Blue makes for a funny shade of Green

2010-08-03T17:13:00.000+01:00

Which is the greater dereliction of duty – to not respond to concerns that you know people do have or to not respond to concerns that you know people should have?

David Cameron and Nick Clegg have formed an impressive coalition thus far. Yes there are ankle-biters like myself who will pick at small things like the date of the AV referendum or misspeaking at PMQs or the shafting of the working classes in order to sustain unnecessarily high salaries and bonuses in the City. You know, the small stuff.

However, the elephant in the room is surely the environment. Aside from the welcome cancellation of a third runway at Heathrow Airport, has either the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister made any truly significant moves towards action to back up their lofty claims on fighting climate change during the election campaign? Not that I have seen. The eye-catching action points in the first three months have been distinctly non-environmental.

And yet, here is a reminder of some of the rhetoric we have had from both men:

Clegg: Sep 2009 “the Parliament they choose will have the last real chance to set Britain's energy use on the right track if we are going to play our part in avoiding catastrophic and irreversible climate change.”

“We believe that the only way to pull ourselves out of recession – and to stay out of it – is by building a new, sustainable economy. That means prioritising investment in the green technologies of the future, like zero-carbon construction, renewable energy and green infrastructure.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/nick-clegg-an-energy-revolution-1792082.html

"So my message is this: don’t settle for a Labour party that has had 13 years to deliver on the environment and has failed. Don’t settle for a Conservative party that talks the talk on green issues, only to align themselves with climate change deniers in the European Parliament. And don’t give your vote to a Green Party that cannot make a difference in Westminster."

http://www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk/news/nick-clegg-appeals-to-green-vote-with-environment-manifesto-1333.aspx

Climate change is one of the biggest threats facing the world and we must have a much greater sense of urgency about tackling it.

What we need is a binding annual target that commits us to real progress and a carbon audit office to make sure that we are achieving it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-we-need-a-greater-sense-of-urgency-on-climate-change-474841.html

This will either be the warmest or the second warmest year since records began and no amount of media hysteria over trifling errors in the proof of climate change as a clear and present danger will change the fact that we’re cooking our planet.

2015 is the year that we need the planet to start cooling down and it is also the year that the coalition will put its record to the public vote in the next General Election. Don’t get me wrong, it is not all bad. We at least have the right party (Lib Dems), the right Minister (Chris Huhne) and some of the right policies (rolling out of smart meters in the home/cut down on energy use) but we are still on course to fall short.

This “urgency” that Cameron promised needs to kick in now so let’s hope that an early focus on the economy from his Government was in order to free up time for the bigger task in hand. It is not enough that the public and even his own party are not clamouring for painful green taxes and/or massive investment in green energy and sustainable living, the Prime Minister knows what needs to be done and he needs to act on it.

Labour's disingenuousness over AV referendum

2010-08-02T12:59:00.002+01:00

On behalf of Progress, Kezia Dugdale has penned an impassioned and intriguing defence of the Labour Party’s looming strategy of voting against the AV Referendum.

I’m now going to take the rather bizarre position of disagreeing with Labour’s disagreement with the proposed AV referendum despite my own personal disagreement with the proposals. I think (I hope) that my logic will stack up or my clouded allegations of Labour’s disagreement for disagreement’s sake will look rather hypocritical.

My goodness, that’s a lot of “disagreement” for one paragraph, there must be an election on the horizon.

Anyway, first and foremost, my reason for not wanting to have this particular referendum is simple – it is a barrier to true change.

My personal litmus test for a change to the voting system is whether it sufficiently assists parties outwith the top 3. That is, if we brought in AV, how many extra seats would the Green Party and UKIP win given they already command a share of the vote that should give them tens of MPs. Similarly, specifically within Scotland, the SNP and the Conservatives should have more representation than they currently do. Would the new system incorporate that?

The answer is a resounding no. AV would keep the Greens, UKIP, SNP and Scottish Tories unfairly frozen out and not really return a proportionate result. Furthermore, changing the system now would make it more difficult to have another referendum in the near future so what end game do those Lib Dems who wish to see PR envisage deep down?

It is a simple question and one I would really like to see put to Nick Clegg – If AV is only a small improvement, how long do you wish to see it in place before making a more meaningful move to the Single Transferable Vote or AV Plus?

However, those objections are entirely separate to those put forward by the Labour party and specifically Kezia in today’s article. Lest we forget, it was an AV referendum that Labour proposed in its manifesto, not a vote on the truly progressive STV.

Specific reservations are as follows:

Scottish voters may have to travel to two polling stations
Holyrood and Westminster boundaries are not co-terminus
Disruption to the Scottish Parliament elections on the same day
Boundary review should be conducted alongside the 2011 census data
Constituencies do not currently include all potential voters

These are perfectly valid problems that are worth raising but are in no way insurmountable. Indeed, the majority of them can be easily mitigated by simply having the referendum on a different day. As for the problem of unregistered voters, I would suggest that this is a separate, longstanding issue that requires a separate solution. If it doesn’t stand in the way of holding elections then it shouldn’t stand in the way of voting on a minor improvement to our voting system.

Labour’s awkward positioning on this really is quite simple to sum up. If Labour believes that the detail of the AV referendum is the stumbling block rather than the principle itself, then they should vote in favour of this Bill so that they can argue their case in Parliament. We already know that they are in favour of the principle as this policy was in their manifesto so one can only come to the conclusion that kicking Nick Clegg’s proposals out at the first opportunity an avoiding arguing for the detail that they claimed to wish to see only a few months means that all Labour really want to do is serve up a crisis for the coalition.

That’s fine, but I just wish they would be honest about it.

The plummeting price of Goldie

2010-08-02T08:41:00.001+01:00

According to The Herald, rule changes for the Scottish Tories may mean that current (and seemingly never-ending) leader Annabel Goldie will face a difficult time before, during and after the coming Scottish Parliament elections.

A proposal has been put forward by the Lord Sanderson commission that a party leadership contest should be held every four years, perhaps even immediately after elections.

For me, this could be a long-term self-inflicted wound borne out of a short-term frustation at the current lack of progress for the party. The media and opposition parties could easily undermine the current incumbent during an election campaign by speculating on who might challenge, destabilising the Tory leader and compromising their message. After all, why would you vote for likeable, dependable Annabel if a few weeks later you're choice might be overturned by her colleagues and someone much less preferable gets in?

And let's be honest there's candidates agogo. Yes, agogo.

Murdo Fraser must surely want to have a shot at the leadership. He is well-placed to make a play for it if May 2011 doesn't go well but I can't help but imagine that he would take the party backwards, as difficult as that is to imagine given the Tories' current slumped position. Well, slouched at least.
A return of David McLetchie would rubberstamp the lack of strength in depth on the blue benches and a fasttrack of Derek Brownlee or Gavin Brown into the top job would probably ensure that the party doesn't get to enjoy either man's full potential and star quality.

I'm running out of options somewhat too, I can't imagine Jackson Carlaw or Jamie McGrigor would drive the party on too far so if Goldie is to face a challenge next year my top tip would be something of a dark horse.

Liz Smith may not even want the job but she's intelligent, a great speaker, consensual and not immediately obviously a Conservative, a perhaps crucial factor for the leader if the party is to break through the 20% mark.

However, guaranteed re-election contests even when the party is on the up seems counter-productive. Whatever happened to the carve up, the smoke-lit rooms, the strawman candidate, the political dagger in the back or the briefing against the leader?

Honestly, if you ask me, the Tories just aren't trying hard enough any more.

Scottish Water looking not so stagnant

2010-08-01T14:40:00.000+01:00

It says much against the principle of selling off Scottish Water to private hands that, despite it potentially raising billions of pounds for the public purse, many, myself included, are against it.

So it was with significant scepticism that I read the Scotland on Sunday's main article 'SNP target water to raise £1bn' where a proposal from the Scottish Government seems to be (subject to my understanding) to transfer control of the body from the Government to a public board which would allow finance to be raised in the private markets and freeing up capital spend for other projects within Scotland's decreasing future budgets.

This proposal for Scottish Water does fall short of full privatisation which is to be welcomed but if finance is to be provided by a private bank then there will be competitive terms and conditions attached to any such deal and that cost will be passed on to the consumer in some way. It is worth noting that the banks are expected to all return back to profit, considerable profit, when they announce their half-year results this week and these profits stem from stiff financing and refinancing their customers, which Scottish Water would become one of thousands of. There would be no special discount just because it is run by some sort of 'public interest' board.

The key question is whether the benefits of the £billions that the Scottish Government would realise in the short term can outweigh the extra costs attached to this deal. Another question is whether this is an example of short-termism that Governments of all hues and all locations indulge in when all they want to do is get through the next election.

One issue that has been raised is that, in order for banks to realise an adequate return on their investment, the majority of work involved for Scottish Water is outsourced to make savings. For example, as per this article albeit from 2007, Welsh Water outsourced 85% of its functions and there seems to be significant outsourcing and change of ownership. Scottish Water is not the same as Welsh Water but we should heed the warnings of those who have made similar moves before and decide in advance if it is a road we wish to go down.

Furthermore, that bastion of social democrat common sense, Sweden, has seen no need to privatise its water in any way in its recent history. Are we throwing one of our most important babies out with the drinking water? Even if it is to a 'public interest' board, is that just the beginning of the end?

One other point (that I noted on the New Right blog) is that there is a risk that any financial consideration in this transfer may be treated as income and frittered away amidst the public spending. Money raised from an efficient solution in an inefficient way would exacerbate the considerable financial problems that Scotland faces and even if the money is spent on capital projects (suggestions include the new Forth Road Bridge and/or the new Southern General) then there is a risk that the knock-on effect of those savings still equates to a loosening of the working capital that is necessary for sensible accounting.

And hey, the Scottish Government is effectively indirectly financing itself from the private sector which isn't so far a cry from the objections raised over PFI/PPP.

All of that said, for me this is a worthwhile move. A few sacred cows will have to be sacrificed and the main attraction of this deal is that Scottish Water will effectively remain in public hands and there would surely be an option to pull the body back within the direct control of the Scottish Government in the future, as it is currently. There's no reason to assume that full privatisation will necessarily follow given that the SNP, Labour and Liberal Democrats will be swapping control of the decision-making over the decades to come.

Indeed, the cross-party consensus on this matter is heartening. The Conservatives have of course been in favour of this move for a long time but the Liberal Democrats and Labour are so far resisting jumping on the Scottish Government for at least considering the move and are making positive sounds that they will vote in favour of the final plan.

With an election just months away when the budget for 2011/12 is debated and voted on, this will still be a very tough needle to thread but with an innovative solution and goodwill from all sides, this could be a giant step forward for the Scottish Parliament and Scotland in general as it steadies the nation in the face of the painful cuts that are to come.

What's so great about Great Britain?

2010-07-30T13:03:00.000+01:00

Rule Britannia, Land of Hope and Glory, Dunkirk Spirit, real ale, last night of the proms, the Queen, The Beatles, sarcasm, Tesco, dish cloths with Princess Diana on them, the M6 and tea. It all makes you proud doesn’t it? The love in your Union Jack heart runneth over?

No, me neither really.

I tend to rail against anything that is held up as quintessentially British, not due to the thing itself, but because of the regard that I have for Britain’s stilted, awkward place within the world, or Great Britain’s I should say to give our country its fuller title. And yet it is my mindset that is probably the problem rather than any of Old Blighty’s characteristics or personalities. We do have the marvellous Stephen Fry to revolve around as a nation, of course.

It is a curious twist of these British Isles that we seem to suffer from a twin cringe, and a disparate cringe at that. The Scottish cringe is well known. A country riddled with self-confidence issues, loathe to put its head above the parapet, embarrassed to be seen as too big or too clever and yet so irrepressibly popular on a global scale and repressing so much untapped potential. The cringe is by no means universal within Scotland but you’d struggle to argue that it doesn’t exist. We are certainly some way away from puffing our chest out on a world stage as so many other countries manage to do unthinkingly.

That leads me on to the English cringe, in many ways the polar opposite of the Scottish variant. I am of course generalising here but there is a superiority complex at play from our friends south of the border, a coldness to foreigners often complimented with a yobbish arrogance. Be it a mimicking of a foreign accent or a bizarre temptation to refer back to WW2 at the drop of a trilby, it is not what one would call pleasing. Cringeworthy is perhaps a better bet.

I just wonder if a new and improved rebranding of ‘Britain’ would simultaneously help take the edge of those in the south and help push forward those in the north. Dropping the Great and allowing a fraternal Britain to integrate more comfortably with Europe and the wider world may free up Scots’ minds to be the best they can be and help little Englanders to remember that they aren’t actually better than everybody else.

Of course, the term ‘Great Britain’ has a valid basis, far removed from the imperial and high-minded connotations that are unavoidable with the phrase. There are tens of thousands of British Isles and most of them have names be it Skye, Scilly or Shetlands and the largest of these islands can be classed as Britain Major or, yes, Great Britain.

For me, this is an insufficient naming convention, particularly as it is technically discriminatory against those who live on a ‘Britain Minor’ island. Indeed, the name ‘Great Britain’ was not derived by geologists who were concerned with the correct terminology of a collection of islands but seemingly created by King James in 1604 who proclaimed himself ‘King of Great Brittaine, Ireland and France’. This was later officially cemented with the 1707 Treaty of Union that brought Scotland, England and Wales together in the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain’, the UK part being merely a description with the GB part being the formal title. Both decisions seemingly carried a certain degree of hubris.

Granted, many readers will rail against this union for separate (and separation) reasons but over and above that where do we get off calling ourselves ‘Great’? How silly must this grand title have sounded during these past 300 or so years? No wonder we got pulled into so many wars with other countries trying to teach us a lesson or trois.

Some are born great, some become great and some have greatness thrust upon them. Well, we absurdly thrust the third one onto ourselves and it’s time to get the monkey off our back.

What if the official title of other countries was ‘Super Spain’, or ‘Fabulous France’ or ‘Awesome Australia’? They would never get away with it. We didn’t even have the decency to indulge in the pleasing alliteration of Brilliant Britain. And we wonder why we get ‘nil points’ at the Eurovision Song Contests?

Indeed, bringing the debate right up to the present day, the name of our country undermines our best intentions. Only this week Prime Minister of Great Britain, David Cameron, was taking a firm stance against Pakistan, technically a former colony. Cameron may or may not have been right to do so (does Wikileaks now drive foreign policy?) but it must be particularly annoying for Pakistan to be told what to do by a country that literally describes itself as better than you.

Similarly, there was an admission from the coalition that Great Britain is the ‘junior partner’ in the special relationship with the United States. That is true and there’s no point in denying it but what better time and reason to dilute the greatness of our name than when accepting subordination to a global superpower. How can we call ourselves ‘Great’ when we freely admit that we’re not as good as some?

We could even do it in stages. From 2011 we could be called Good Britain, from 2021 we could be Quite Good Britain, from 2031 we could be Not Bad Britain and then finally in 2041 we could just be Britain, as we always should have been even all the way back in 1604. Personally I’d rather cut to the chase.

Indeed, timing is playing into our hands in another way. With the Olympics only two years away, when Team GBR will be a main focus, what greater statement could we make to the world that we are embracing the collegiate, equal 21st century than changing our moniker to Team BRI. We’re going to look a bit daft when Team GB is sitting 13th in the medals table anyway but that’s not a bad showing for Team BRI.

In any case, there is an ironic, rewarding upside to simply being Britain rather than ‘Great’ Britain. A long overdue showing of humility would make us collectively greater and, on global terms, we could probably do with a bit of both.

What next for Scotland?

2010-07-30T08:55:00.000+01:00

The Crawford Beveridge report on public spending is so important and so good that only a non-politician could ever have been put in charge of it. That's a sobering thought before one even begins to delve into the detail.

Pay freezes, cuts, u-turns on popular policies, pension recalculations and job losses will be required to meet the decline in spending that is on the way.

So where does one begin? That 'one' being John Swinney of course.

Well, it seems starting with what won't be cut is the preferred approach. Health spending is to be ring fenced, travel for the elderly is safe and so too is free personal care. I'm not convinced the latter is sustainable in even the short term and the game of chicken over who can keep it on just one more parliamentary term is potentially very damaging. I would hope to see the following: a total realignment of salaries and pensions in the public sector pulling all payments towards the median, some sort of tuition fee brought in, the bridge postponed and a trimmed down civil service based on ability. The public sector can surely no longer be seen as a job for life irrespective of how much of a contribution one makes. Whatever happens, the difficult position Scotland finds itself in can't really be overstated but there's no reason why it can't be seen as an opportunity too.
One problem is that of the two main options that should be available to Scotland, one is closed off. We could have each of the above luxuries if we raised personal taxation levels north of the border. We know this can be done as Sweden enjoys each of the above policies and is in solid financial health too.

Senators come to Scotland/UK for answers on Lockerbie

2010-07-29T22:57:00.000+01:00

Watching Newsnight right now from London and it has the rare opportunity for me to see Alex Salmond in action.

The reason is due to Lockerbie being the top UK story for the evening as Senator Robert Menendez, the Senator in charge of the review into BP's involvement (if any) in the release of Al-Megrahi, is suggesting that he may come to the UK to find answers to his questions.

It really has been maddeningly unclear what questions the US has left to ask as they have received quite substantial answers from both the Scottish Government and Ministers from the last Government. Thankfully those questions were put forward by Senator Menendez:

What were the circumstances regarding Megrahi's release?

What involvement did BP play in his release?

How did the doctors get it so wrong?

All of the above have been answered many times before so the madness continues it seems.

The point was made to Senator Menendez by Newsnight's Gavin Esslier that he should perhaps just believe First Minister Alex Salmond when he says there was no BP involvement in the decision to release Megrahi and leave it at that. This was dismissed with the suggestion that the Scottish Government was lobbied by those acting directly or indirectly on behalf of BP.

Alex Salmond then appeared in person and stressed the point many times that he and his officials are not answerable to the US Senate so will not be travelling out there to answer questions that have already been answered. Furthermore, if Senators visit Scotland then they will be extended the courtesy of a meeting but an American hearing will not be being held in London or in Edinburgh.

Moving on to the representations made on behalf of BP, Salmond was clear that any such request, apparently made by a Tory peer, was one of a thousand representations and was rebuffed immediately with official responses from Kenny MacAskill and the decision was taken on judicial grounds.

Over the course of the segment the decision to free Al-Megrahi was shown to be, as has always been clearly the case, a clear cut decision and one made following Scots Law and the Justice Secretary's judgement.

Barack Obama and numerous Senators may not like it, but they are going to have to learn to lump it. That lesson looks likely to be some way off yet if they are preparing to fly out here for answers to unnecessary questions.

Wendygate Returns

2010-07-29T11:10:00.001+01:00

I had no idea that such a campaign was ongoing but it seems a China-based writer has been resolutely pursuing the Electoral Commission to understand why the body dropped the case against Wendy Alexander.

One's first thought is why would anyone want to rake up old coals but that is easily countered with the recognition that no quest for the truth should ever go unimpeded.

That said, I can't help but hope that a minor issue surrounding an ex-leader who was unchallenged for the role stays outside the main debate, particularly in an election year.

Scotland is at its best when it's looking forwards rather than backwards. There is a policy discussion void to be filled over the coming months and one can only hope that something unproductive doesn't fall into that gap.

Clegg is the coalition's weakest link

2010-07-28T22:54:00.001+01:00

Earlier this year, Louis Theroux claimed that he was Nick Clegg's 'fag' at school, a position that perhaps betrayed the now Liberal Democrat leader's lack of respect for those he saw as beneath him.

It seems, some two decades later, such attitudes haven't changed.

Here is a rundown of the lack of regard Nick Clegg has had for certain people in the two and a half short months that he has been Deputy Prime Minister:

Mervyn King
Time after time, Clegg has used a private discussion with the Bank of England Governor as a handy excuse to explain his about turn on bringing down the deficit faster and more painfully than he campaigned for during the election campaign.

Any benefit of doubt that the public may have granted the Lib Dem leader over this has been blown out of the water today with Mervyn King's admission that he said nothing in that phone call that wasn't already in the public domain.

Nick Clegg, quite clearly, used the independent Governer of the Bank of England to cover his back politically in a particularly tawdry manner.

Proponents of Proportional Representation
If coalition MPs do manage to vote in a referendum and if the public does vote in favour of the Alternative Vote, when can we expect a second referendum to bring in the truly proportional Single Transferable Vote?

10 years? 20 years? 50 years? First Past the Post has been with us for centuries. Is that how long we'll have to put up with this baby step towards progress that AV represents?

Nick Clegg talked the talk during the election campaign about a fairer voting system but he's cashed in all of his chips at the earliest opportunity and with very little to show for it. Furthermore, if Labour are successful in scuppering the referendum then Clegg will look a bit foolish going back to pushing for AV+ or STV.

He has yanked around all of those who wish to see an end to the unfair First Past the Post system in order to get his feet under the coalition table. A shabby way to treat your best policy and most ardent fans.

Parliament
Nick Clegg might have been so excited about being 'the first Lib Dem to lead PMQs since 1922' (sic) that he forgot a few things about how it is meant to work when you speak on behalf of the Government but that wouldn't excuse his rather embarrassing defence that he was speaking in "a personal capacity" when he said the Iraq War was illegal.

PMQs is not, nor has it ever been, a platform for the Prime Minister to air their personal views. That wasn't even the case back in 1922 although, of course, we didn't even have PMQs back then.

Scotland
Not content with directly affecting the Scottish Parliament elections by holding his AV referendum on the same day (and not discussing it with the Scottish Government beforehand) not to mention suggesting scrapping Trident when his proposals didn't stack up, Nick Clegg (and Michael Moore) are pushing on with the Calman recommendations despite their party's stated preference being further devolution.

Sheffield
Nick Clegg has stood idly by while a Tory donor has successfully campaigned for the Government to decide against giving Sheffield Forgemasters an £80m loan, a company that is within Clegg's own constituency. Not only that but the Tory donor had tried to invest in Forgemasters directly which makes one raise an eyebrow when he says the public sector can fill the funding gap.

Any self-respecting constituency MP would step up and speak up for their local company and workers. Clegg seems to be doing neither.

Voters
We are stepping into the unknown to a certain extent with this coalition a Government, a feeling that is both exciting and scary. However, one of the first things that the coalition agreed on was to have five year fixed terms despite this never being an issue during the election campaign and despite four year terms being the norm over the past few decades.

Cameron and Clegg have ridden roughshod over the electorate to ensure they can squeeze out another year in power and I think it is an undemocratic poor show from both men and an early example of how Clegg's promise of 'a new politics' during the election campaign was nothing but empty rhetoric.

It has felt like a long time since the General Election but this five year term must look like an eternity for Nick Clegg and the rest of his party as their poll ratings slide terrifyingly (for them) and tantalisingly (for the rest of us) towards the single digits.

It does seem, genuinely regrettably, that Nick Clegg is rapidly losing sight of what he stands for and seemingly uncaring about who he steps on in order to stay at the top.

Neither situation can last forever and a new direction is required if Nick Clegg isn't singlehandedly going to bring down the coalition.

Scotland would be less proportionally representative under AV

2010-07-28T07:50:00.003+01:00

2010 Westminster General Election result:

Labour – 42% (41 seats) 70% of seats    Diff – 28%
SNP – 20% (6 seats)  10% of seats    Diff – 10%
Lib Dems – 19% (11 seats) 19% of seats    Diff – 0%
Conservatives – 17% (1 seat) 2% of seats    Diff – 15%

Total variance from true proportional representation = 53%

The experts (at Guardian's data blog) have predicted that under AV there would be one change to the election result, the SNP would lose a seat to the Lib Dems. I’m not entirely sure how they arrived at this conclusion, assuming only that Labour would pick up Western Isles from the SNP (!?) and the Lib Dems would pick up Edinburgh South from Labour.

Anyway, however the result was arrived at, it would give a final result under AV of:

Labour – 42% (41 seats)  70% of seats    Diff – 28%
SNP – 20% (5 seats)  8% of seats    Diff – 12%
Lib Dems – 19% (12 seats) 20% of seats    Diff – 0%
Conservatives – 17% (0 seats) 0% of seats    Diff – 17%

Total variance from true proportional representation = 57%

(Note that I would strongly suspect that, under AV, David Mundell would not have won his Dumfries and Galloway seat given the strong anti-Tory sentiment coursing through the rest of Scotland. I have not included this assumption in the above but, if I had, it would have pulled the variance even further away from a more proportional result)

So we are holding a referendum on a supposedly more representative voting system, adversely affecting the Scottish Parliament elections that will be held on the same day and the result would either be the status quo or a voting system that actually gives a less representative result?

It makes one wonder what the Lib Dems think about it all….

Note, under AV+ and STV, the results would be as follows -

AV+
Labour – 42% (36 seats)  61% of seats    Diff – 19%
SNP – 20% (9 seats)  15% of seats    Diff – 5%
Lib Dems – 19% (11 seats) 19% of seats    Diff – 0%
Conservatives – 17% (3 seats) 5% of seats    Diff – 12%

Total variance from true proportional representation = 36%

STV
Labour – 42% (28 seats)  47% of seats    Diff – 5%
SNP – 20% (13 seats)  22% of seats    Diff – 2%
Lib Dems – 19% (11 seats)  19% of seats    Diff – 0%
Conservatives – 17% (7 seats) 12% of seats    Diff – 5%

Total variance from true proportional representation = 12%

Glasgow SNP in fake members storm

2010-07-27T13:22:00.000+01:00

The Daily Record has a quite remarkable story over on its website regarding Glasgow Councillor Jahangir Hanif and the apparent forging of signatures to recruit new members to the SNP. Several new members who had been signed up by Hanif were contacted by the newspaper and it transpired that they were unaware of having been signed up and had no intention of doing so. I don’t tend to read the Record but for this story I would recommend it as it is gripping stuff.

To add plenty of colour to the story, the Record has somehow managed to obtain an email sent from Shona McAlpine to Councillor Hanif challenging him on the matter, stating her frustration in no uncertain terms.

The cracks in the voting procedures to get into Holyrood do seem to start being pulled apart and manipulated, I’m sure such instances are not specific just to the SNP. The best way to get around such a problem is to ensure that anyone who votes for a PPC or a representative on the regional list is there in person to make their vote count. I was a member of the SNP Leith branch for (sadly) only a short time but I secretly marvelled at how only a handful of people would turn up to meetings when there were 50+ members, it may even have been 100+. My memory fails me but there wasn’t much of a correlation between those at the forefront and those who had an equal say on who could stand in what contest.

Much like lingering issues over postal voting at elections, there is no better process than a person on voting day turning up with party card or passport in hand and face in full view when casting their vote. Democracy and a party’s integrity deserves nothing less.

The ‘Kalashnikov’ issue that Councillor Hanif was involved in was a media mountain out of a very small molehill. However, if the above is as bad as it sounds, then tough action will have to be taken.

I am no longer a member of the SNP so it’s not really my place to say, but it’s probably best that the party cut this Councillor adrift.

SNP TV

2010-07-27T08:49:00.001+01:00

In March of this year, an Ofcom investigation was announced looking into claims that the SNP influenced the programming of the STV. The particular focus was on Homecoming Scotland.

It was good to see therefore that the Homecoming Scotland arrangement was found to be satisfactory and STV was given a minor slap on the wrist for short programmes of 1 to 4 minutes long

It will be interesting though to watch political opponents leap from crying foul over Homecoming to crying foul over, er, the lesser watched The Great Scottish Meal.

A wider question as to whether Homecoming Scotland should be advertising on Scottish television seems to have been overlooked. I guess it wasn't within Ofcom's remit but one can't help but think of preaching to the undispersed.

An even wider question to ask is what business does any Government have to indulge in advertising anyway? I have always galled at the fact that some of my taxes go towards telling me not to be racist or to eat my 5-a-day on giant billboards. I appreciate that a clever person somewhere has worked out that a Goverment spending £x millions in advertising will lead to a benefit of £y millions with y hopefully being greater than x.

However, it would make more sense (to me) if funding for anti-racism drives came from extended fines for racially-aggravated crimes and healthy eating adverts came from (a long overdue) 'fat tax'.

Homecoming Scotland was a great idea and a great event. Sponsorship from it of sport trophies and TV programmes was never really taking the high road and nor did it fit the bill.

Claims of SNP TV though? Quite ridiculous now that Ofcom has reported and partically ridiculous given that Scotland suffers from, at least at the worst of times, Unionist Newspapers.

SNP to win majority by 2019?

2010-07-25T22:49:00.000+01:00

There is a quite remarkable article over at Financial Times suggesting that the SNP will win a Holyrood majority in 2019.

Anyone who knows how the voting system works for Scottish elections will know that such a result is no mean feat, requiring as it does winning 50%+ of the vote.

The logic, coming from the Chief Economist at Toscafund, is that there is a direction of travel towards fiscal autonomy for Scotland, suggested issues with EU rules notwithstanding. While this may be bad news for those who freeze like rabbits in the headlights at the thought of going further than the Calman proposals, it is good news for everyone else and a reasonable prediction to make. I suspect however that Scotland getting to spend it's oil revenues translating to huge SNP gains is too simple a conclusion to draw.

Fiscal autonomy would be a giant leap towards independence for Scotland so the SNP are of course happy and spending what you earn is a key plank of most Conservatives' philosophy, over and above what makes for good Politics.

If only it wasn't for those pesky Lib Dems who can't even muster the courage to go for Calman Plus.

As much as an SNP majority at Holyrood in 2019 would be a fascinating prospect, I don't think we should be pencilling it into our diaries just yet.

The snapping back of many in Scotland to Labour off the back of a Tory UK Government, the retirement of the unbeatable and irreplaceable Alex Salmond, the current lack of strength in depth in the SNP ranks and a relatively sluggish economy north of the border will ensure that overwhelming landslides are out of the question for the foreseeable future.

One consideration in the short term that is worth thinking about though is this - with the Tory/Lib Dem coalition already down in the polls after having to implement cuts, is the 2011 Holyrood elections a good one to lose for the Nats?

With the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour bringing in painful cuts, regardless of how necessary they may be, if the electorate is not as understanding as many in the media suggest, then the SNP could in theory be licking its lips at the thought of taking a back seat. I suspect the members wouldn't be of course, and shouldn't be.

Winners should want the ball be it 2011, 2015 or 2019.

Calman - The only show in town?

2010-07-25T10:10:00.000+01:00

Michael Moore (the Secretary of State for Scotland for those who aren't fully up to speed) has a good article in the Scotland on Sunday preparing the populace and pushing the appeal of the Calman recommendations that the coalition will seek to make law later this year.

It is a persuasive piece, not so much fuelling the reader's imagination as tempering it. Michael states, quite correctly, that "detailed analysis, proper consultation and a substantial cross-party agreement" is required before a change can be made to the devolution arrangement and to this end it is only Calman alone that currently passes each three tests.

This is surely inadequate. One can't prove the merit of a particular proposal by urging the audience to disregard all alternatives. Has anyone anywhere yet argued why Calman is the best solution for Scotland? Not that I have seen. An added oddity is the intriguing fact that the Liberal Democrats have a stated preference for 'Calman Plus' which would see Scotland raise 70% of its own taxes, not the standard 'Calman' which would see us raise only 20% of our own taxes. Even Michael Moore's party doesn't believe that the Calman recommendations is all there is.

I am not suggesting that a higher percentage of raising our own taxes is necessarily better. Following such a philosophy through to its natural conclusion would mean the coalition writing a new law resulting in Scotland raising 100% of its own taxes, a result that perhaps some on the Conservative benches (and all on the SNP benches) would be happy to contribute to. Full fiscal autonomy is my personal preference as it removes all imbalances in the relationship between spending and tax-raising and ensures that the Scottish Government has the appropriate responsibility for its decisions.

So it begs the question - when did Scotland decide that Calman was the best option? Yes, there was a review group of 15 members which of course each will have had a significant (if varying) contribution to make but Calman is hardly the "culmination of an extensive programme of engagement all across Scotland" that our Secretary of State claims.

Where is the consideration of Reform Scotland's call for significantly more fiscal powers? Where is the consideration of fiscal autonomy/responsibility as called for by the Chief Executive of MacDonald hotels, the Chief Executive of Aberdeen Asset Management, the Policy Institute, Gerry Hassan, The Spectator's Fraser Nelson, Kwik-Fit founder Tom Farmer, Clyde Blowers Chief Executive Jim McColl and so many more. That is not to mention the SNP of course who forms the Government of Scotland.

In falling short of their own preferences by compromising with Calman, the Liberal Democrats are making the exact same mistake as they made over the AV referendum when they prefer a significantly more proportional voting system to what is on offer. How can we know what Nick Clegg and his party really want if they continue to refuse to stand up for it?

Calman may well be the most popular option amongst Scots as well as amongst 'unionist' politicians but we won't know until we ask them. It's certainly not "the only show in town" when Calman Plus, fiscal autonomy and independence are perfectly viable and woefully under-srcutinised options.

Fisking Caley Merc

2010-07-23T17:16:00.002+01:00

I thoroughly enjoy Scotland’s youngest (and in one way oldest) newspaper the Caledonian Mercury. Despite it being a fair old age now, it still feels energetic and fresh.

However, in light of my last post and the furore over a US Senate Committee wishing an audience with Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, I couldn’t help but decide to fisk their latest post – 9 reasons why Mr MacAskill should go to Washington:

1. He could explain his position, and the position of the Scottish Government, to senators who appear still to have trouble grasping what went on and explain the process of releasing Megrahi.

Kenny MacAskill should not feel duty bound to travel the world explaining his decision just because some people still don’t get it. Al Gore may wish to do so with his Inconvenient Truth dvd but that doesn’t mean the rest of us should follow. There is sufficient information available to US Senators for them to understand the approach taken by MacAskill and, to put it bluntly, if they don’t fully understand then it is incumbent upon them to learn quicker rather than MacAskill to explain more often.

2. He could tell the senate committee what compassionate release is all about (because they don’t do mercy very well in the States).

For a country so proud of its religious core, one would hope that the USA already had a good handle on what compassion is and how it should be applied. Kenny MacAskill has that preacher/sermon deliver down to a tee, yes, but it doesn’t mean he needs to spread it around willy nilly. I’m sure Senators have cable which has plenty of God Channels available to them if they need a refresher course on compassion.

3. He could explain devolution and how this was his decision and his decision alone.

Again, this is surely not a difficult concept for a US Senator to grasp. There are 50 states in the USA, each of which I believe has some sort of power devolved to them in a similar way in which power has been devolved from Westminster to Holyrood.

4. He could explain how, as he has claimed, he was not lobbied by BP.

Why should anyone break up their holiday break to travel halfway across the world to explain something that has already been clearly stated in a latter and via numerous news bulletins. A bizarre reason to make the trip to Washington this one.

5. He could explain how he was forced to reject Megrahi’s application to be released under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement because of a number of factors, one of which was confusion over commitments made to the families by the American government.

This could be a valid reason to go as it did seem to be a complicated process and there does seem to be some conflation, in the media and otherwise, over the Prisoner Transfer Agreement and the compassionate release. However, it seems strange to travel to a Senate Committee to explain something you didn’t do as opposed to explain something that you did.

6. He could explain that the Scottish Government has released all documents it has been given permission to release and that the only material still not in the public domain is because of decisions taken either the US or the UK Governments.

Again, this was clearly stated in the First Minister’s letter explaining the Scottish Government’s position. What extra benefit is there in explaining this to US Senators who have the power of sight, the skills to read and Alex Salmond’s letter in their inbox?

7. He could appear as a Scottish minister on the world stage. The first and only time this would ever have happened in such a way.

Now we’re talking! This would be a politically selfish reason to go but not really justifiable from an objective perspective, particularly as first class travel to Washington DC with one week’s notice would be exorbitantly expensive. And anyway, how could anyone ever trump George Galloway’s virtuoso performance a few years back.

8. By not going, he will allow conspiracy theories to fester and grow and give ammunition to those who say he has something to hide. Indeed, he will make it appear as if he does have something to hide.

Of the many stakeholders involved in the release of Abdelbasset al-Megrahi, I would hope that rabid conspiracy theorists would be somewhere close to the bottom were they to be ranked in terms of relevance.

9. By not going, and by allowing UK ministers to go instead, Mr MacAskill risks leaving the Scottish Government in isolation, giving the UK Government the chance to give its view when there is only silence from Scotland.

By not going, and allowing UK ministers to go instead, this gives the suggestion that the UK Government has questions to answer and the Scottish Government does not. A suggestion that may not be so far from the truth given the press investigations into the lead up to the PTA deal.

So there we go, a fair attempt from the Caley Merc to try to add to the Justice Secretary’s discomfiture but ultimately a rather weak attempt. It’s still a great ‘paper’ though.

Incidentally, I bet Hamish McDonell was itching to get that nicely rounded tenth reason. He did well enough squeezing out nine I suppose…

If I go there will be trouble, if I stay there will be double

2010-07-23T09:40:00.002+01:00

I bought a Times today. Wild, I know.

I'm glad I did though as page 3 holds a good article on Straw "stalling" and Salmond "rebuffing" the US Senate over the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

The 'Senate Foreign Affairs Committee' has invited the duo, as well as SPS Director Dr Andrew Fraser, BP's Tony Hayward and former MI6 Sir Mark Allen to the enquiry. This rather scattershot RSVP approach doesn't instil confidence that the Committee really knows what the key line of questioning is.

For me, the big question is simply, should MacAskill and Straw go to Washington to answer whatever questions the Committee may have?

Easy answer really. No, they shouldn't.

Of course the families of the victims deserve the full truth but that doesn't mean that foreign politicians should come running over with only a week's notice. If the Committee had asked them to jump off a cliff..., well, you know the rest.

The Scottish Government has already got its defence in early anyway with a well-timed and well-crafted letter sent to John Kerry. In it the denials of having "received any representations from BP in relation to al-Megrahi" are made clear and the assertion that any lingering suspicions should be directed towards BP and/or the previous UK government is made. Fair enough too, it seems a waste of a trip to travel all the way out to DC just to reconfirm denials that have already been made on paper.

One factor of this development I do find particularly interesting is this. There were many, and still are, who believed that the SNP only came to this decision on the release of this prisoner as it served up an opportunity for them to steal the media's gaze, to cast itself in the global limelight while looking and feeling like a fully fledged independent Government.

I don't buy into such wild theories but following this fanciful logic through to the present day, the SNP's rebuffing of the Senate Committee is contradictory to that charge. An SNP Minister appearing at the US Capitol would raise the Scottish Government's profile even further and yet the offer was declined.

No doubt a new cack-handed rationale for this decision will be proferred by those who seem unable to accept that this was a simple decision based on Scots Law and medical evidence but what can you do.

In terms of Holyrood opposition, Annabel Goldie's rather leaky and obedient response was: "A no-show would only fuel suspicion that they have something to hide."

I don't know. I said it when al-Megrahi was released and I'll say it again now. If a lucky corollary from all of this is getting to show the Americans that they don't always get to call all the shots and they can't simply summon people at will, then that isn't necessarily a bad thing at all.

I am sure this al-Megrahi debate will run out of steam once all stakeholders realise that there is nothing left to talk about irrespective of whether the cancer-stricken man lives or dies in the near future.

Note - Alex Salmond's letter to John Kerry can be read in full on Caledonian Mercury. It is a brilliant example of respectful diplomacy and beserves a wide audience.

Might Holyrood lose Mike Russell MSP?

2010-07-22T13:10:00.000+01:00

There is little doubt that one of the key battlegrounds in the coming Scottish Parliament election will be Argyll & Bute. The former constituency of George Lyon MEP was (perhaps surprisingly) won by the SNP in 2007 with Jim Mather seeing off the Lib Dem incumbent. Jim has recently announced his retirement from the Parliament so the SNP’s decision as to who will stand in the constituency next will surely be a key one.

There are two main challengers, the Education & Lifelong Learning Minister Mike Russell (who has decided to move on from the difficult terrain of Dumfries) and Mike MacKenzie (who came 4th in the UK election, raising the SNP’s share of the vote by 3.4%, cleverly peddled as a 27% increase in the Westminster vote by some in the constituency).

I have little opinion on who should win the nomination given I don’t really know the constituency or the candidates but I would suspect that Mike MacKenzie’s local position within the party as Constituency Association Organiser and Vice Convener will make him the favourite going into the contest. It certainly puts him in a good position for some healthy arm-twisting and deal-making.

However, despite currently being a South of Scotland MSP, Mike Russell has lived in the area for twenty years and his oratory skills and public profile could make all the difference when voting comes around. Furthermore, this contest could be decided by the Conservative tactical voters if they correctly decide that Tory candidate Jamie McGrigor won’t win. I personally believe that would-be Tory voters would be enamoured by Russell’s performances to date.

And let’s face it, Mike Russell is one of the strongest performers for the Scottish Government, if not the strongest. His being put in charge of the fledgling Referendum Bill and then being part of the only Cabinet reshuffle to replace Fiona Hyslop at the ‘wobbling’ Education brief speaks volumes for the man. However, there is a real risk that he is going to end up falling between two regions if he misses out on Argyll & Bute.

Having moved away from the South region to the Highlands & Islands region, Mike would have to supplant either Rob Gibson MSP or Dave Thomson MSP in the party lists to make his way back into the Scottish Parliament. There would be no guarantees of success and it wouldn’t be the first time the Education Secretary faced a frustrating four year break from Holyrood.

So, we wait and see how Argyll & Bute plays out but I’m not sure for how long the SNP can continue losing some of its strongest assets at election after election through the cracks in its internal selection process and still remain as potent a force as it should be.

British PM trashes Scotland on world stage

2010-07-21T17:13:00.001+01:00

On the wonderful Joan McAlpine blog:

That White House press conference demonstrates why Scotland needs independence. Since foreign affairs are not devolved to Edinburgh, David Cameron officially speaks for us. On this occasion he trashed us in front of the world. Where were we? We should have had a right to reply at least.

I think Joan rather sums up my hitherto vague frustration over this whole episode so I thought the above point was worth repeating.

Scotland is in the world’s headlines once again, either directly or indirectly depending on the publication. Those headlines tend to include Cameron’s insistence that releasing Megrahi was “a mistake” or Miliband’s assertion that it was “clearly wrong”. Precious few news stories on the matter include Salmond’s calm statement today that he regrets nothing over the matter or Kenny MacAskill’s repeating of the perfectly reasonable logic surrounding how he came to his decision. I seem to remember that the country was split reasonably 50/50 over this matter at the time, maybe closer to 60/40 against the release in some polls, but the narrative that this was some sort of ‘accident’, some sort of breakdown in the political process rather than a straightforward interpretation and application of Scots Law (by a trained lawyer I hasten to add) is insulting. I would hope that even those who (quite reasonably) disagreed with the decision to release Al-Megrahi would agree that Cameron should respect the decision and defend it to some extent on an international stage when Scotland has no distinct voice.

It is easy to be indifferent to independence because on the vast majority of days it makes little difference either way. You still have to get up and go to work, buy the messages, cook your dinner, take the dog out and so on and so forth regardless of whether you have a First Minister of Scotland or a Prime Minister. But on those key days - the Iraq War invasion days, the EU election days, the renewal of Trident days and, now, the unsettling days when you realise that what you perceive your country to be is top billing on the news but those who are speaking up for your viewpoint don’t get their say, well, it just makes you wonder about your place in the world.

Pure and simple, Cameron needs to be more of a team player on these issues and, even if he doesn’t personally agree with it, he needs to communicate the rationale for Kenny MacAskill’s decision alongside his own reservations. He can’t just slam us against the wall in front of the world’s media knowing there is little comeback from the many who think differently on the matter.

David Cameron claimed that if you cut him open he would have the Union Jack running through him like a stick of rock. Well, he needs to start showing it, he needs to start covering every opinion on these islands when he represents us globally or he will find that the top part of his British stick of rock will be breaking off before too long.

Megrahi & McKinnon - Somethimg to talk about

2010-07-21T10:41:00.001+01:00

The latest wave of Al-Megrahi headlines have for once resulted in a substantive result. Cameron’s promise to release ‘The Lockerbie Files’ (whatever they are) is a welcome move as the American sceptisicm and even cynicism over BP’s involvement in Libya should not be taken lightly, however unfounded it may ultimately prove to be.

I am, however, surprised that it is this element of the President and Prime Minister’s talks in Washington that have dominated the headlines. After all, what is there is to talk about on the matter?

Both men disagree with Kenny MacAskill’s decision which, as we all know by now, was claimed to be “the right decision for the right reasons”. However, both men would surely accept that it was the Justice Secretary’s decision to make and it is now effectively irreversible.

With an economy to fix and oil still ruining the Gulf of Mexico, one would think that Obama and Cameron would wish to discuss issues that they can improve or even solve.

One such issue that was discussed, I was delighted to learn, was the fate of Gary McKinnon. The Prime Minister showed great fettle in raising this matter with Obama and, reading between the lines of the “appropriate solution” that both countries are now looking for, it is quite right that Gary and his mother have renewed hope that he won’t be extradited after all.

I tell you what though, this turn of events has shown up Gordon Brown, Alan Johnson, Jacqui Smith and all the other Home Secretaries who have had the opportunity to fight McKinnon’s corner and turned a blind eye.

I have always thought that if Labour can’t summon the courage and will to fight for a guy like Gary then they wouldn’t have the stomach to govern.

Applying that same logic to David Cameron, I can only say that, on this evidence alone at least, the Prime Minister looks like he has the energy and vigour for the job and, crucially, his heart is in the right place. Even when sitting face to face with the US President.

Megrahi & McKinnon - Somethimg to talk about

2010-07-21T10:41:00.000+01:00

Florence and Precious

2010-07-19T19:06:00.003+01:00

There is a certain irony that it is on the same day of David Cameron announcing his Big Society idea that the latest and perhaps final last ditch effort to save Florence and Precious Mhango takes place. The local community want these two people to stay in Glasgow and if only the locals were empowered to make the decision then there wouldn't be the need for such an effort in order for common sense to prevail.

But effort it is to be in order to force Home Secretary Theresa May's hand. I believe a vigil is taking place now on behalf of the Mhangos and there is something of a blog-in going on(of which this is part of), lead seemingly by Indygal and Caron.

Hopefully this story will have a happy ending and Florence and Precious will stay where they want to be and where they are wanted.

Theresa May, their lives are in your culpable hands...

Le Tour de Mull

2010-07-19T09:37:00.002+01:00

There can't be many countries in the world where you can come home from your travels with a bag of wet clothes and sunburn on your face and lower arms but Scotland is certainly one of them.

I've been away for the past weekend cycling around Mull, new territory for me but a very welcome break from the hustle and bustle of London. The air was cleaner, the sounds were gentler, the people friendlier and the sights from start to finish were easier on the eye.

Although the generously titled 'saddle pain' is not much fun, there is something distinctly pleasing about a 'stay-cation' and not having to faff around with planes and airports. On top of that, the CalMac ferries were excellent, the guest house was utterly superb and the roads were fine for cycling.

Mull has plenty to offer too: the best 9 holes of golf on Tobermory's hilltop, whale & dolphin watching, Staffa Island (which we sadly didn't make it to), possibly the perfect Scottish boozer in The Mish Nish and some awesome seafood whichever way you turn that you can be sure was swimming about in the sea when you woke up that day. Crossing over the water is Ardnamurchan Point, the most westernly place on the British mainland and home, as we learned to our visual delight, to basking sharks, two of which we saw hugging the coastline.

With gulls diving headfirst into water, sea eagles taking up residence on golf courses and stunningly fresh honey served from our landlord's own beehive, it was the wildlife which somewhat surprisingly stole the show over the past few days.

With more and more new animals coming into Scotland's shores, often in 'super pods' (notably the tourist-friendly whales and dolphins), perhaps it is time a new wildife and/or tourist strategy was drawn up to harness the potential for Scotland? It was a shame, for example, that upon picking up the Sunday Herald going back to the mainland I read that the UK kills more dolphins through fishing techniques than any other state in the EU. It wasn't clear how much Scotland plays a part in that but it would be nice to know that effort was being made to keep accidental killings to a minimum.

Maybe the joined up approach is taking place already but the cultivation of a rich seam of wildlife off Scotland's waters, financed by delighted tourists in boats above with cameras, binoculars and ruddy cheeks, seems like a happy result for VisitScotland. Again, it may exist already, but a 'swim with dolphins in Scotland' message could bring foreigners flocking to our freezing seas with wet suits at the ready.

Just watch out for the sharks!

My favourite mistake

2010-07-16T09:37:00.001+01:00

I've enjoyed a good debate over banning the burqa in a previous post but there has been a lifting of a very different veil in the past couple of days.

David Cameron's insistence that Raoul Moat deserves no sympathy coupled with his unequivocal assertion that releasing Al Megrahi was "a mistake" is strong evidence that our Prime Minister really is devoid of compassion. When we are facing an age of austerity, high unemployment and potentially a double-dip recession, the wrong tone at the top could be a real problem.

Specifically on Megrahi, I find it remarkable that we're revisiting a decision that was discussed to death (well, not literally of course) almost a year ago. The decision may be in theory reversible but I can't imagine anyone raiding Libya to get the Lockerbie bomber back. And why should we? The act was state sponsored terrorism. If those states are now friendly and prison is about rehabilitation rather than revenge, why do we need to keep Megrahi behind bars, particularly when he has terminal cancer?

The somewhat separate news story on this issue is the suggestion that BP won access to Libyan oil reserves via the prisoner's release. How would that work exactly? How would BP swing a deal with the Scottish Government and why would the SNP agree to it with so little, if anything, to gain? It all sounds too much like a wild conspiracy theory to me. And if Libya has untapped oil reserves, surely there's only a handful of companies that has the skill and experience to extract it, of which BP is one.

I just fear the whole issue of Megrahi's release, a compassionate decision which is regularly taken under Scots Law, is being played fast and loose with and one of the worst culprits is David Cameron.

The PM's calling Kenny MacAskill's decision a mistake was a mistake. If he didn't agree Cameron should have sought to understand it and if he couldn't understand it then he should have sought to respect it.

Respect, now where have I heard that before?

The Lib Dems and a Graduate Tax

2010-07-15T11:00:00.000+01:00

Just when you think the twists and turns of the Liberal Democrats can’t get any more breakneck, Vince Cable comes along and suggests implementing a Graduate Tax.

What will the students who have been caressed, cajoled and carved up by the Lib Dems election after election think of it all? And what will be left at the soul of this party once all these ‘volte faces’ have been completed?

I won’t be too harsh though, a Graduate Tax is a good idea after all. Investing in your own future retrospectively means that you don’t have to pay fees when you can’t afford them. Furthermore, looking ahead to the inevitable cat calls coming Tavish Scott’s way next year, there is nothing wrong with a party arguing for something in Scotland something different in England & Wales. The Lib Dems are federalists after all.

In many ways a Graduate Tax is a de facto increase in the top rate of tax with increases for many to the basic rate. Looking at it another way, one could argue that we already have a graduate tax given the way income rates are staggered across salary levels. Either way, going to university is a privilege as less people go than want to. That privilege does not mean that only the privileged should get to go and a Graduate Tax goes some way to finding an appropriate compromise between widening access and ensuring appropriate funding.

One thing that crosses my mind in this move, particularly as a graduate of Edinburgh University, is how likely is it that the Scottish Parliament would mirror the move?

Some may say no because such a tax is unfair but others would say no because Holyrood has set its stall out too far as a perennial cutter of taxes and grower of spending. There is so little wiggle room, yes wiggle room, for any of Labour, SNP and/or Lib Dems to bring in unpopular decisions. The clamour over the proposed Local Income Tax shows how poor the level of public debate can be.

Another aspect of this policy idea from Vince Cable is for how long can the Lib Dems put up with being the bearer of bad news? The cuts message came initially from David Laws and latterly from Danny Alexander, Nick Clegg had to sit awkwardly onscreen beside George Osborne as the VAT rise was announced while Cameron ‘hid’ directly behind his Chancellor and now Vince Cable has set himself up as a straw man on university funding. They must really love that AV referendum because it’s the only plus side coming out of this coalition deal, aside from ministerial salaries, of course.

Deleting the veil can help solve Britain's long division

2010-07-14T13:48:00.003+01:00

The vote yesterday in the National Assembly in Paris on banning the wearing of the full veil has created a storm of controversy amongst blogs today. My view is neither trendy nor leftie I suppose but on balance I think our friends across the Channel made the right decision and it is certainly a move to ensure that France stays French. I can’t help but think that a similar move in the UK to ensure Britain stays British might not go amiss.

Enforcing people not to cover up from head to toe save for the eyes is little different in my view to the perfectly reasonable rule that those moving permanently to the UK must learn English.

I may not like people wearing hoodies or ‘kappa trackies’, (Caron makes a comparison with football tops), and one could argue that banning those is a similarly ridiculous proposition to banning the veil but there is a subtly different argument in those examples. The key difference is why such garb is worn in the first place. The wearing of a hoody or a football top is a freedom of expression and possibly just bad fashion sense depending on context whereas the wearing of the full veil is a symbol of inequality and oppression which is out of step with what Britain is and the image the country largely wishes to project. I accept that most (hopefully all) women choose to wear the full veil out of their own free will but I think there is still a valid argument that it is too far removed from the core British way of being to be permissible.

Of course all walks of life, all religions and all creeds should be respected, understood and accepted in a 21st century United Kingdom but not at any cost, not come what may. Was a religion to tolerate violence towards women (as some do) that would not be tolerated in this country and at the same time, were a religion to insist upon doing a handstand at 1pm everyday (as all sadly don’t), that would be tolerated. So where should the line be drawn between what is allowed and what isn’t within our borders?

For me, the wearing of a full veil is just on the wrong side of that line and although I’m not going to lose any sleep over a similar law to that of the French not being introduced in the UK, if there was one brought before the House of Commons, I’d probably, on balance, wish to see it passed.

Yes, this would probably serve to galvanise the BNP and EDL which would be a truly unfortunate downside but the key objective for our lawmakers, as Britain becomes more and more diverse (which I’m strongly in favour of), has to be integration and that will always involve compromise. A more competitive job market for those already in the UK can be balanced out with a more cohesive community.

We are not currently realising that cohesive community so maybe it is time to remove what is causing division and, for me, the veil has a part to play in that.

There's no avoiding a VAT rise

2010-07-14T07:26:00.000+01:00

I have to admit to finding the debate over the VAT rise difficult to interpret. My main problem is in differentiating between the genuine concerns and the the hollow objections.

We didn't really need Mandelson's behind-the-scenes accounts to know that Labour would have pushed up VAT if it had won a fourth term in office, they did after all have a plan to half the deficit in four years and would have had to have taken many of the measures that the LibCon coalition are taking now, though not quite all of them as Osborne is going faster and deeper than Brown and Darling would have.

So the objections raised by the Labour benches to the rise in VAT look a little opportunistic to me, not that they would be holding the Government to account very well if they nodded everything through the Parliament, ruefully accepting that they'd have done the same.

The SNP and Greens on the other hand seem to have a more deep-seated, fundamental problem with VAT being pushed up to 20%, as evidenced in yesterday's defeated amendment to scrap the rise altogether, an amendment that interestingly Labour could only bring itself to abstain over. Some could say the SNP objections are a luxury borne out of being free from the shackles of ever having to form a Westminster Government and not having to take the tough decisions but the arguments deserve to be taken at face value and on merit.

The SNP argues that the VAT increase will put pressure on households by increasing spending for some poorest families by £31 a week, will take spending power out of the economy and increase spending for the NHS in Scotland by £26m. No doubt all true but this has to be weighed up against the cost of debt to the country year on year and the opportunity cost of doing nothing. The SNP has made an excellent stance against PFI programmes but if we're not careful then UKplc will become a PFI programme in itself, borrowing for its present at the expense of future budgets. There's no stopping that imbalance without significant pain here and now. Of course, if that pain spills over into a double-dip recession then we will have fallen too far from the line but, for me, a double-dip recession won't be caused by a VAT hike, it will be caused by the Government pulling in the reins too quickly and too sharply.

The thing about reducing the deficit is, if a party is really serious about doing so, then it is just as infeasible to ringfence 'the poor' as it is to ringfence health spending. Everyone has to take a hit and the change in private final-salary pensions from a link to CPI to the currently lower RPI is one example of where those better off are paying their share back to improve the country's financial health. We truly are all in this together and should surely not want to follow the path tread by Greece, Spain and Ireland.

I would have liked to have seen higher spending continued to a certain extent and cutting to be gentler than the Tories & Lib Dems have opted for but any rescue scenario for the UK's perilous finances would have involved a VAT rise. There's no getting away from the sizeable amounts of money it can raise in a short time frame.

Consequently, whether the objections are hollow or genuine, I think they are incorrect and a VAT rise to 20% is justified.

Are the Greens top of the blogs in Scotland?

2010-07-13T18:28:00.007+01:00

I noted with interest that the Scottish Green Party’s MSPs have set up a bright new blog, already chock full of substantial posts. With a domain name of http://www.greenmsps.org/, there is little doubt that ‘The Editor’ has more than half an eye on several scribes joining the team (and the Holyrood chamber) from next May. For now though, Patrick Harvie and Robin Harper will be shouldering the responsibility and with a posting rate of about 3/week, the signs are looking good for a consistently updated website from those at the front line and a much needed shot in the arm for political online content for Scotland in general.

There’s something unmistakably pleasing about the sight of two MSPs freely speaking their minds, particularly when so many politicians are terrified of saying something untoward in public and facing the genuine wrath of party whips or the faux-outrage of newspaper journalists. A free flowing blog direct from the fingers of our representatives is certainly an improvement on the strangled messages that emanate from the tightly-controlled press release sections of party websites or the individual MSP blogs that bizarrely talk about themselves in the third person.

Openness is to be rewarded and I hope this new site goes from strength to strength. It is worth noting that last week was the week that Sweden celebrated the ultimate in political openness with ‘Almedalsveckan’ where party leaders, party members, journalists, unions, bloggers and you name it from all parts of the political spectrum come together on the island of Gotland for a week of political debates and events. It would be nice if Scotland could follow suit and have something similar. The only suggestion to that end that I have ever heard of came from (surprise surprise) a Green party member. Despite their lowly number, in many regards they lead a chasing pack and this website could be one such example.

With blogging not exactly being flavour of the month at the moment, not to mention an eyebrow-raising link between Labour bloggers hanging up their keyboards and Iain Gray “almost spitting the word ‘bloggers’ out at Conference”, it is understandable to ruminate on the future of the medium that was not so long ago held up as the next great contributor to political discussion. It may yet be of course, it may yet be but if the direction of travel is anything at the moment it is backwards, though hopefully only because someone has left the handbrake off and is nothing that a good hill-start won’t fix in due course.

So while I’m on it, I note that on some blogs it is time once again to look inwards rather than outwards with the navel-gazing blognation conversation beginning in earnest, a conversation that I was keen to involve myself in but, somewhat ironically given the subject matter, I couldn’t really be bothered in the end. That’s not to cheapen the debate so far as primarily showcased in the excellent posts from Stuart and Will but rather just a reflection of my own blogging malaise of late. London man, it’ll gobble you up with little to show for if you’re not careful.

That said, while a slight breeze deigns to swell my blogging sail, I have to say that there’s no reason why the sum of the MacBlogosphere parts should be an important or even minor player on the great stage of Scottish Politics, it needs to earn that position and, for me, is way off course at the moment. Will encouragingingly asserts that the MacBlogosphere will always carry on in some form but one person going for a walk does not make a march. Quality will always be key and with newspapers having time, money and resource to devote to rolling news, rolling comment and rolling blogs, there is a squeeze on those of us with jobs to satisfy and unreliable enthusiasm that shouldn’t be ignored. An autonomous collection of blogs is impregnable but not impenetrable. I won’t go on as that would undermine my opinion that it doesn’t matter anyway, as long as whoever blogs enjoys what they do and doesn’t let the pressure to post constantly (or win Iain Dale votes for that matter) spoil a day to day hobby for what it is.

But back to political parties online and the sack race that it seems to be. When it comes to new media, it is the SNP that had been widely tipped to be leading the way but with many of their number staring at their shoes, the Lib Dems still in a bit of shock, Labour quietly exiting stage left and the Tories nowhere, the Greens now seem to be setting the pace. Examples abound from their Head of Media happily, wittily, enticingly tweeting FMQs in real-time, their MSPs punching beyond their number online and the party members in general providing the new energy with quality blogs either sprouting up or proving sustainable, they certainly have the momentum.

Might Scotland lose its only Tory MP already?

2010-07-13T08:40:00.000+01:00

David Mundell, Scotland's only Tory MP, looks like he could be in serious trouble over his campaign costs from the last election. 'Fluffy' is facing an enquiry into a £700 advert in the Peebleshire News that may have been recorded in the wrong period.

The precedents do not look good for David.

Were he to go for the 'it was a muddle not a fiddle' defence, then he'd be going down the same path that Henry McLeish did which resulted in his resignation as First Minister.

Were he to go for the full disclosure as per Wendy Alexander, it would still see him hounded by an unsympathetic opposition, particularly if he has broken the law as the former Labour leader did.

So not many options for Scotland's only Tory MP if the inquiry doesn't go his way and I can't see the authorities taking this as anything other than a serious matter. It wouldn't send a great message if a blind eye was turned, particularly given the backdrop of the MPs expenses scandal, a scandal that David Mundell found himself engulfed in after the revelation that he spent a whopping £3,000 on photos for his constituency website.

So what next then? A by-election? As much as I'd personally enjoy such a spectacle down in Dumfriesshire, that seems highly unlikely. I daresay an overspend of a few hundred pounds does not in itself cause a 4,000 majority.

Good thing for the administration that Mundell was overlooked for Secretary of State for Scotland though...

Leave the NHS alone for a while

2010-07-12T22:42:00.001+01:00

Billed as the biggest shake-up in the NHS since 1948, the transfer of budgets from accountants to GPs is a bold move from David Cameron. It is also a mistake.

In the the classic 'we need to do something, this is something' policy, the devolution of power to doctors is a transfer many do not want and do not think they have the necessary skills to handle. Local black holes will crop up all over the country and power will just have to be moved back when it proves to be the case that the financial forecasting and budgeting skills of thousands of GPs does not match their medical skills.

Here is an idea - leave the NHS alone for a while. Let nurses nurse, let doctors prescribe and let accountants control the purse strings in the back office. Change, any change, costs money and if we don't have money then let's just batten down the hatches and keep the status quo. Is the NHS really so bad as things stand?

The coalition's blinkered aim of ensuring frontline services are not cut under any circumstance should not mean that back-office tasks are simply added to the workloads of those facing off to patients.

Furthermore, there's something worryingly shifty about this whole plan. The Lib Dems have been the face of many of the cuts and one can't help but think that the Conservatives are hoping that it is GPs that will be seen as the axemen/axewomen.

In handing over NHS budgets to GPs, the Tories really are passing the buck.

This move will backfire and I hope Scotland doesn't follow the lead of the Lib Con administration.

Asch cloud descends on Holyrood - travel chaos follows

2010-07-09T20:35:00.001+01:00

In the 1950s, the social psychologist Solomon Asch conducted a famous experiment that highlighted the fragility of the person in a mass society when he is confronted with the contrary opinion of a majority, and the tendency to conform even if this means to go against the person's basic perceptions. This is a chilling text that should be carefully read and remembered whenever we think we are swayed by the mass, against our deepest feelings and convictions. At that moment we should be on the alert, re-examining all positions (our included) and then taking decisions as free, mature and fully responsible human beings, whatever the direction taken by the mass or by a majority.

Given the above, I wonder if it was only 3 or 4 MSPs who voted in favour of a £2bn replacement Forth crossing rather than the £200m recabling before the group pressures kicked in and everyone (bar the Greens and Kenny MacAskill) started voting the same way.

I say this because Lawrence Marshall of the ForthRight Alliance has penned an excellent opinion piece on the matter which I hope Scotland's "free, mature and fully responsible" politicians tackle head-on before herding, en masse, Scotland's capital spending finances over a cliff.

Total Lib Dem Wipeout

2010-07-09T08:57:00.002+01:00

The problems faced by the Liberal Democrats were encapsulated perfectly last night on BBC Question Time as a young girl bemoaned her lack of career, education and housing options, ultimately telling the browbeaten Michael Moore to 'get a grip' after he tried to defend the cuts his party is bringing in alongside the Tories. Dougie Alexander indirectly assisted in the Scottish Secretary's unease by pointing out that Labour's deficit reduction plan would have involved spending £40bn less than the current coalition. This in turn was backed up by the thoroughly excellent Ed Byrne who, no doubt in keeping with many Lib Dem members, believes that in tough times it's not unreasonable to pay someone to dig a hole and pay someone else to fill it in again.

I had thought that during the term of this Parliament the Lib Dems might find a narrative of being the reasonable partners in an unpopular coalition but on last night's evidence it will be a tough needle to thread. I am finally beginning to wonder just how hard the Lib Dems will be hit in next year's election and, only somewhat mischievouly, is it worth considering if they could be wiped out entirely?

The Liberal Democrats hold 11 First Past the Post seats with Dunfermline West (maj 1.6%), Tweeddale, Ettrick & Lauderdale (maj 2.0%), Edinburgh South (maj 5.9%), Aberdeen South (maj 9.1%), and Ross, Skye & Inverness West (maj 11%) amongst the most vulnerable.

In Central, Lib Dem MSPs were voted in 6th on the list, North East 6th and in the South they were 7th so a net loss of 3 list MSPs wouldn't be too difficult to achieve with a few thousand less votes in each region all things being equal. Furthermore, the single Glasgow Lib Dem MSP could be in jeopardy if Nicola Sturgeon is not voted back into Glasgow Govan as 5 SNP MSPs, 1 Tory MSP and 1 Green MSP could quite easily freeze them out.

A total Lib Dem wipeout is of course unlikely but if Tavish Scott's party are swept back largely to just the Orkney and Shetland Islands, one can only conclude that their decision to be the face of the Tory cuts was a humiliating disaster.

Who votes Lib Dem? People who don't want Labour, don't want the Tories and don't want independence. That's a lot of things that are not wanted. What if those same people don't want cuts that the UK Government is bringing in?

A brimful of Asher on the fortified

2010-07-08T08:40:00.001+01:00

Jane Asher, posh movie star and now maker of cakes apparently, has caused a bit of a stooshie after filming in Glasgow by casually suggesting that all drugs should be legalised.

The opinion does seem to have been formed from more than just a drive around the city but that hasn't stopped MSP for the Govan area, Nicola Sturgeon, from being heavily critical.

Jane's argument seems to be that there are untested, dangerous legal highs out there so the illegal highs should be made as safe as possible and brought into society. The problem with that argument, for me, is that ecstasy and cocaine have no positive contribution to make to society so why should a government spend time and money regulating and licensing them? I don't think anyone would get away with suggesting that shooting up together in a local setting is the same as having a few drinks in the pub.

Legalisation of marijuana on the other hand, particularly when considered alongside libertarianism, is well worth thinking about.

Now, I wonder where I can get one of Ms Asher's lovely cakes....

Lib Dems are AV'n a laugh over election date change

2010-07-06T13:20:00.000+01:00

For how long does Nick Clegg think he can just make up the rules as he goes along?

Granted, being Deputy Prime Minister grants one a certain authority but I’m struggling to understand the journey from wanting to see a new style of politics, past insisting on a 55% limit on votes of no confidence to pushing that up to 65% to now suggesting that the Scottish Parliament elections should be on a different date so it doesn’t clash with his precious AV referendum.

One slight problem Nick, the date of the Scottish Parliament elections are enshrined in UK law. On the other hand, the May 5th date for your referendum was plucked out of the thin blue air so if there was anything that needs changing it is the date of the AV plebiscite.

Perhaps we can just give the SNP Government another year and make Holyrood terms five years instead of four years. I don’t think we need to check with anyone. I mean, the LibCon coalition made that change themselves without receiving public approval first.

So the question is, now that the wheels are in motion for some sort of date change, are the Lib Dems an unstoppable force or is the Scottish Parliament election date an immovable object?

I don’t think the jury will be out for long on that one…

Boris Johnson's hot air

2010-07-06T08:37:00.000+01:00

One doesn't have to live in London for a long time before noticing the 'Mayor of London' tags stamped here there and everywhere. After a while the nakedly political overtures begin to wrankle. It seems BoJo is the George Foreman of Mayors.

However, Boris may have stamped one sign too many. On the underground there are many signs boasting how the London Overground escalators use enough energy to travel twice around the world each week. The 'Mayor of London' emblazoned poster seems a tad misguided if you ask me. Couldn't there be steps to reduce the clearly vast amounts of energy being used here?

In Germany for example, a country that is on so many scores streets ahead of us on environmental innovation, the escalators only move once someone goes to step onto it. Those that are less used therefore do not wastefully run all day.

Now that's an idea worth stamping your name on!

We should aim high and accept the May 5th date

2010-07-05T21:59:00.000+01:00

I watched University Challenge this evening. It's not something I typically do but I do find the difficulty, indeed the impossibility, of answering any of the questions part of its appeal. I am constantly impressed by the bespectacled youngsters knowing answers to the most intellectually challenging of questions. It is not clear when in their lives they decided to aim so high but kudos to them for doing so.

University Challenge is also a refreshing respite from the channel surfing options of Britain's Next Top Model, endless repeats of Friends and 'Hotter than my Daughter', all of which were on at the same time as tonight's show. Paxman's show is the prime number sitting gloriously off-kilter against the lowest common denominator brainlessness that tends to come out of the tv set.

Where am I going with this? Well, I fear the growing debate over the date of the AV referendum is beginning to pander to the dumbest amongst us. Apparently there is concern that having an election and a referendum on the same day will lead to confusion, as if the public won't be saturated with news on what will be happening on May 5th for months beforehand, whichever side of the border one lives on. Furthermore, even without such political discussion as a lead up, are most Brits really too thick to work out what they need to do in a polling booth?

Labour, Nationalist parties and Tory backbenchers are circling Nick Clegg, scenting vulnerability over the Deputy Prime Ministers push to improve the arcane voting system that saddles our democracy. The white knight of British Politics may soon be knocked from his steed out of something between malice and sport from his opponents. There is little principle at stake in the objections to both the implementation of AV or the proposed date of the referendum, particularly with no genuinely proportional voting system as an alternative option.

We should aim high. Aim high for a better voting system, however incremental an improvement it may be, aim high by recognising the financial savings in holding a referendum on the same date as elections and aim high by trusting that the majority of people are above confusion if faced with more than one ballot slip on polling day.

And for those who do find a 'yes/no' question too much to take, should we really lament their lost votes? Really? I daresay they in turn will only be lamenting having missed the latest Hotter than my Daughter episode...

Scotland should be exempt from migrant cap

2010-07-05T12:28:00.000+01:00

SNP MSP Ian McKee has made the interesting call for Scotland to be exempt from any migrant cap that the UK Government creates in the near future. Despite Scotland’s population now growing again and border issues being a clear complication, I reckon it is a great idea.

The free flow of people across borders has been one of the greatest successes of the past few decades and if free trade stops wars, then so too does the further integration of peoples across the globe.

We have already seen in some quarters an automatic reaction to the recession that the first thing to be done is safeguard work for UK citizens, the cringeworthy ‘British jobs for British workers’ comes to mind. However, evidence clearly shows that immigrants are a net contributor to the public purse and often take up work to plug gaps that exist in the market.

Nick Clegg was, I think unfairly, ridiculed for suggesting that specific areas could be targeted for increased or maintained immigration by ensuring immigrants are sponsored by an employer. I don’t see why this couldn’t work for Scotland if it was tightly controlled and it would mitigate any concerns over how England & Wales having a cap and Scotland not would work in practise.

Ultimately, the transfer of powers of immigration from Westminster to Holyrood would be a welcome step for the devolution project. It is clear from regular polling that there is a difference of opinion either side of the border surrounding the benefits and need for various immigration levels.

Let’s test the flexibility of our United Kingdom by satisfying both sides of this question by having two policies for two parts of our islands. Were it to be successful, increased devolution may follow. Were it to be unsuccessful, well, then you have the choice of two extremes.

A one size fits all immigration cap for the whole of the UK or taking devolution to its final destination of full independence.

Labour should steal a march on AV

2010-07-04T20:55:00.001+01:00

The awkward relationship between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives inside of the Westminster coalition has no greater example than the AV referendum, pencilled in for May 5th next year.

AV is a long way short of what the Lib Dems want but it is so much more than what many Tories wished to give. Even Lib Dem activists seem a bit unmotivated in campaigning for the slight improvement on First Past the Post and, even if they do end up trooping out to argue in favour, they'll be up against the Prime Minister himself stating his reservations on prime time.

So what can Labour (largely watching on from the sidelines thus far) do with all of this? Easy as far as I can see, it should table an amendment to the future Bill calling for the referendum to be on AV+ or STV or something truly proportional. Why take a baby step towards a better system when one can go the whole hog in a giant leap? Or, failing that, why not serve up a hospital pass for Cameron and Clegg to agonise over?

Granted, each of the Labour leadership candidates have said that they are in favour of AV so it may look a bit shifty to amend that stance. One can be in favour of two things at once though and prefer one to the other. In short, Labour would get away with it.

Whether it is a Miliband, Balls, Burnham or Abbot in charge, they can really stir up some trouble for the ConDem coalition by pushing for PR that Lib Dems won't be able to resist voting for and the Tories, particularly those on the backbenches, will fight tooth and nail against. The fallout could be ugly.

Another First Past the Post election in 2012 anyone?

More Nats, Less Scruples

2010-07-04T14:40:00.002+01:00

The news that there was a flood of new SNP members just days before the deadline for voting the party list for the regional vote in the 2011 election should come as no surprise to those who are aware of the weaknesses in the Additional Member System that the Scottish Parliament uses to elect MSPs.

Indeed, two years ago I predicted this very thing happening in my '£5,000 to become an MSP' post by pointing out that, in theory, it would only take an initial outlay of £5,000 in member fees to force oneself into taking the regional Lib Dem MSP slot in Glasgow, Central or the West of Scotland. It seems I selected the wrong party.

Thankfully the SNP has shut the door on these new recruits by changing the deadlines. Let's be honest, there can be little doubt that there was foul play at hand. However, despite most of the names being of Asian origin, one should not automatically assume that the intent was to vote in the only Asian SNP member with a realistic chance of becoming an MSP next year - Osama Saeed. Indeed, the ruse was so cack-handed and noticeable that one could be tempted to believe the opposite. Why were the hundreds of new members paid with just eight cheques? Why weren't the new members gradually built up throughout the year? Someone, somewhere, is desperate to be an SNP regional MSP, that's for sure.

Whatever the backstory to this story, the Additional Member System needs to change. There are similar weaknesses in the voting method which is open to exacerbation and exploitation. For example, what is to stop a party not standing in the regional round with a proxy party effectively standing in their place. 'The Nationalist Party' instead of the SNP, or 'The Trade Unionists' instead of Labour. In places like Glasgow, were the public to appreciate that this trade unionist proxy party was de facto Labour, then the spirit of the elections would be compromised and a majority Government would be delivered relatively easily. Indeed, in Glasgow alone, this could make as much as a 6 seat difference as 'Labour' gobble up seats that the SNP would have won.

Fundamentally, the balance of power needs to be shifted back towards the people which is why open lists are more preferable to closed lists. Why not allow each party to put forward an unranked list of seven party members and let the general public rank the total group of candidates from 1-7 in each region? This would mitigate the risk of fake or late members trying to push an individual to the very top of a list against the party and the public's will.

The jostling and coercing and, well, the backstabbing that must be going on right now as all parties decide who will stand in the regional vote seems like a wasted effort when we could have a fairer, clearer and cleaner system going forward.

Same day for AV referendum and Holyrood elections

2010-07-02T13:18:00.001+01:00

Typical, you spend days considering and writing a post on the ten factors that will impact the upcoming Holyrood election and then a whopping eleventh factor comes along just as you hit ‘publish’.

So, the announcement that there will be a UK referendum in May next year on adopting the Alternative Vote was not immediately met with the ‘that’s good news’ that it perhaps should have but rather with the consideration of what having Scottish Parliament elections and a national referendum on the same day may mean.

Two distinct advantages spring to mind immediately:

1 – There are cost savings to be realised through returning officers and counters only working one day rather than two.
2 – Voter turnout will increase giving the Scottish Parliament even more legitimacy next term.

The downside is that this was sprung upon Scotland seemingly without consultation. I’m not suggesting for a second that the Scottish Government should have some say over when a UK referendum should take place but discussing the considerable impact this will have on Scotland’s election, with a cross-party delegation of MSPs or with a relevant SNP Minister, would have been evidence of the “respect” that Cameron has promised.

The really interesting considerations of all of this are at a party level though. Who will gain from this dual-vote?

In the United States, anti-abortion/anti-gay state-wide referenda have been arranged in the past to mobilise the conservative electorate while referenda on raising the minimum wage has been used to get the liberal vote out. Both rather cynical but both are examples of how personal gain can be realised from plebiscites.

The Liberal Democrats would be the most likely beneficiaries of a referendum on a more proportional voting system. They delivered this referendum in their coalition negotiations and their party is typically most in favour of such a change. Tavish Scott could reasonably expect an increased turnout amongst his supporters and an increased degree of goodwill towards his party in general. Were Tavish to be successful in aligning voting ‘Yes’ to AV with voting Liberal Democrat, then he really could expect some huge gains in the Parliament.

Note that Alex Salmond is the constituency MSP for the typically Lib Dem stronghold of Gordon. An improved showing for the Lib Dems off the back of an AV referendum could achieve the unthinkable for Team SNP - dethroning the party leader. It is difficult to imagine a First Minister of Scotland not winning his/her constituency but we could potentially face that prospect next year.

The Greens, similarly, may see an increase in their fortunes due to their supporters turning out in droves to ensure AV is introduced at future Westminster elections. Given that voting Green is not a wasted vote for Scottish Parliament elections, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t vote Green while they voted ‘Yes’.

The SNP could take a slightly different tack and campaign on something along the lines of ‘Referendum for British AV but no referendum for Scotland’ which may or may not succeed in gaining traction with the public.

Labour would campaign in favour of AV which should serve them well while the Conservatives arguably have the most to lose as they’d be seen to be an obstacle to progress, campaigning as they would in favour of continuing with First Past the Post. Then again, if (say) 30% of Scots favour First Past the Post, then there is scope there for the Scottish Tories to improve its sub-20% vote share on this issue alone.

So I seem to have ended up with the potential result where every party will increase its vote thanks to the Alternative Vote referendum. In terms of increasing the all-important share of the vote, I can’t help but think that the Liberal Democrats will have the edge and consequently may well emerge as clear coalition partners for whoever wins out between the SNP and Labour.

For the record, when the AV referendum comes around, subject to my reading up on it a bit more, I’ll be voting in the order of (1) Yes, (2) No, (3) Staying at home.

Same day for AV referendum and Holyrood elections

2010-07-02T13:18:00.000+01:00

Ten factors that will decide Holyrood 2011

2010-07-01T22:13:00.003+01:00

It’s just over ten months now until the Scottish Parliament elections and, although that may seem like a long time, once recess is out of the way I bet your bottom pound note that we seamlessly slip into polling, policies and Ponsonby-chaired debates before you can say ‘dimpled chad’.

Here are ten factors that I reckon will decide the election, five in the SNP’s favour and five in Labour’s; not that our wonderful, colourful Parliament is just about two parties, I hasten to add.

Anyway, here we go…

Cunninghame North
One of my favourite one-liners off the back of the 2007 election was that the SNP won it by 48 votes. I’m taken by this factoid because it is so simple and yet so true. Had Allan Wilson received 49 more votes in Cunninghame North then Labour would have received 1 extra Constituency MSP, the SNP would have received one less, there would have been no impact on the 7 regional MSPs for West of Scotland and there would be a Labour First Minister right now.

Needless to say therefore, this will be a key battleground in 2011. That’s not to say that if Labour win Cunninghame North then they’ll win the election but this is as close to a ‘swing constituency’ as we’ve probably got.

That said, in 2007 there was an ex SNP MSP on the ballot slip in the shape of Campbell Martin. I don’t know if Campbell is or isn’t standing next time around but if he isn’t then Kenny’s job should, in theory, be relatively easier. Mind you, it is also worth noting that Nicola Sturgeon faces losing out on Glasgow Govan after unhelpful boundary changes make the constituency a Labour nominal. Losing this seat may not result in the SNP picking up an extra Glasgow list seat, similar to the crucial Cunninghame North situation.

So even if Kenny G holds on in the West, there are other seats out there where it could be the SNP’s turn to lose out on holding power by a handful of votes.

Green resurgence
Perhaps it is just my own personal growing regard for the Green Party that makes me say it but I suspect that Patrick Harvie could find himself with a lot of colleagues on the Holyrood benches this time next year. An improvement in the party’s fortunes could be the decisive factor in the SNP losing out on being the biggest party as the following illustration shows:

Breakdown of MSPs from 2007 election:

SNP - 47
Labour - 46
Tory - 17
Lib Dem - 16
Green – 2
Ind - 1

The breakdown of MSPs were the Greens to have won 1 extra MSP in each region:

SNP - 43
Labour - 44
Tory - 17
Lib Dem - 15
Green – 9
Ind - 1

The SNP won eight of the fourteen spots in the 6th and 7th rounds of the d’Hondt formula allocation. A whopping 57%, all the larger when you consider there were four or five parties aiming for those spots.

That leaves the Nats vulnerable to a Green resurgence or, less likely, a Socialist charge.

Gray over McConnell
A key question at the next election will be whether Iain Gray is more popular amongst the electorate than Lord Jack McConnell was.

Jack did a lot of good things in his time as First Minister, the smoking ban being the one key delivery that he is most lauded for. However, the benchmark for the current LOLITSP is specifically on the date of the May 2007 election when, arguably, Jack’s popularity was at its lowest ebb, tired as Scotland was with the eight years of Lab/Lib rule.

People may scoff, and they do, at Iain Gray’s supposedly lacklustre performances at FMQs, not to mention his dismal personal poll ratings when he just started out as leader. However, Iain’s relative youth and relatively short tenure as leader may end up counting in his favour. I predict again ‘Gray-mania’ as a nation looks for a Scottish Nick Clegg.

Being more popular than Lord Jack come May 2011 may be all that is required for Labour in its aim to be a part of the next Government.

Salmond’s star fades
I’ve mentioned it before so I won’t labour the point but Alex Salmond may be on borrowed time as leader of the SNP. He has led the Nationalists longer than Tony Blair led Labour, longer than Margaret Thatcher led the Tories and longer than Paddy Ashdown led the Liberals/Liberal Democrats.

When the public has decided your time is up then a change should be made accordingly and if Scots suddenly make that decision in advance of May 2011, with the SNP having insufficient time to change its leader, then the SNP might not just lose the election, it could in effect be in line for a hiding to nothing.

Tory vs Labour
This is the first Scottish Parliament election that has any sort of Conservative Government in London as a backdrop. If the upshot of this is an automatic instinct to vote Labour in, even to a much lesser extent than was witnessed at the Westminster elections, then the SNP could lose out on this factor alone.

It’s not all bad news though for SNP fans….

There are five clear reasons why the SNP could not only maintain its 1 seat margin over Labour, but extend it.

Increased tactical voting
There is plenty of scope, based on the 2007 election results, for contests to skew towards the top two incumbents in a constituency. As an example one can look at Cunninghame North again.

Kenny Gibson of the SNP won the contest with 9,295 votes to Labour candidate Allan Wilson’s 9,247. Each of these scores were still lower than the 11,699 votes that went to the other candidates though. One would expect that this and similar close contests would pull votes into a two-horse race

With independence now no longer the ‘centre of gravity’ and the Lib Dems, Conservatives and Greens all finding productive compromises with the SNP recently, I would argue that it is the Nats rather than Labour who would benefit from increased tactical voting in the First past the Post vote in 2011.

It is interesting, and perhaps surprising to some, to note that Labour are 1st/2nd in 54 constituencies in Scotland while the SNP are 1st/2nd in 62.

Regroup on 2007 policies
The SNP didn’t just win the 2007 election with the clever wheeze of ‘Alex Salmond for First Minister’ on the ballot slip and disillusion with Labour making up the rest, the party had a red-hot manifesto to sell to the country.

It is inevitable that each of the other parties will attack the non-delivery of some of these commitments (LIT, Scottish Futures Trust, minimum pricing, student debt) with a mixed degree of justification but the flip-side of this is that the SNP can simply regroup, repackage and resell many of these policies all over again, citing opposition from other parties as partly justifiable reasons for their non-delivery.

Labour’s long-awaited response to the Local Income Tax plan will be key here and they did have time on their side to come up with the perfect policy riposte but if the public backed the SNP’s direction of travel in 2007, I wouldn’t bet against them doing so again in 2011.

FPTP breakthrough
The SNP may have won 47 MSPs to Labour’s 46 but in terms of constituencies the score was a lowly 21 seats to Labour’s 37. Note that this is despite the constituency vote being 32.9% (SNP) to 32.1% (Labour).

However, the SNP beginning to win seats that it just lost out on in 2007 will take the considerable pressure off having to win quite so many regional MSP slots. It’s surely a big ask getting 5 out of 7 regional seats in South of Scotland and Central and 4 out of 7 in Glasgow and West of Scotland, as they did in 2007.

Expanding the regional margin of error by looking to (in order of majority) Aberdeen Central, Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale, Linlithgow, Edinburgh Central, Glasgow Kelvin, Airdrie & Shotts, Dumbarton, Midlothian, Falkirk East and so on for gains, while holding onto the hard-won Ochil, Stirling and Falkirk Wests, will be a key part of the macro-strategy for the SNP in advance of May next year.

It is worth noting that the SNP hold 8 of the 11 most marginal seats from the 2007 contest.

Independence referendum
Many have remarked that the grand plan for this entire parliamentary term from Nationalist’s perspective was to lay a Referendum Bill before Parliament, watch the unionist parties vote it down and then hammer them at the next election campaign for not giving the Scottish public a say on Scotland’s constitutional future. Broadly speaking, that plan is still unfolding with the Referendum Bill still (just about) live and a Scotland Bill due for discussion at Conservative-controlled (just about) Westminster.

There have been setbacks of course. The global financial crisis set independence support back, the toppling of RBS and the end of HBOS took the wind out of the Nats’ sails and the unexpected Scottish-heavy Lib Dems propping up the Tory Government in London wasn’t part of the preferred Doomsday scenario.

However, the leverage that Alex Salmond may be able to extract from the lack of support for a referendum may yet be a factor. Popular support for a plebiscite was, albeit a while ago now, sitting at around 70%. Not all of that number would vote Yes but they might not like that they aren’t getting their chance to try shutting the door on independence once and for all and could, perversely, vote SNP in order to get their opportunity.

Were Alex Salmond to corner the market by winning support from the pro-independence and anti-independence groups in this way, then the man truly is a political genius. And I wouldn’t put it past him either.

Underwhelming leader debates
One thing can be guaranteed during an election campaign, leader debates will be screened more than many would like. This is typically one of Alex Salmond’s strongest terrains and can expect to win considerable support, much of it grudging, if he performs as well as he in past campaigns.

Iain Gray would need to confound expectations to ‘win’ the debates,

Update – An extra eleventh point that I’ve just thought of can’t be ignored and that is money. Labour is strapped for cash, the Liberal Democrats nearly went bankrupt, the Conservatives are even having trouble with their deep-pocketed traditional backers and the SNP rather publicly didn’t receive donations from Brian Souter and Sir Tom Hunter at the UK election. It is not clear who may have the advantage going into May 2011 but whoever can keep the taps running should have a significant edge on the rest.

Foot in mouth syndrome

2010-07-01T13:35:00.000+01:00

I had the misfortune of being in the audience for a speech from a (very distant) former employer which contained not one but two thoroughly tasteless jokes. They were so crass that I’d say they were more juvenile misjudgement than true deep-seated racism. That didn’t stop the audible gasps and awkward silences from the assembled throng though. (Silences that were awkward for us at least, this chap just ploughed on as if he was bringing the house down)

Had the speech been delivered by a politician, the quotes would have been leaked, front page news would have followed, career over, firefighting for the relevant party for the next few days and generally a brou-ha-ha that the media loves to feast upon. And probably quote right too. However, as this guy wasn’t a politician, it was just another moment at just another business function that made barely any impact outside of the four walls it was housed within.

When Jeremy Hunt inaccurately suggested that the Hillsborough tragedy was a result of unruly fans he was, of course, not saying anything close to as offensive as in the case above, particularly in light of the immediate apologetic clarification. However, that didn’t stop his comments making it into most newspapers and news bulletins that day and the next. For me, the Culture Secretary simply misspoke and even in the unlikely event that he does have a fundamental misunderstanding of what happened at Hillsborough, can we really be so quick to heap scorn on someone for that? Do we now require all of our politicians to be experts in every topic across all events in Britain’s recent history? It seems a bit much if you ask me, but I would say that as a perennial last-place team member in any given pub quiz.

We have a hefty 650 MPs in the House of Commons but precious few mavericks, precious few politicians who will happily shoot their mouth off without fear of party whips and uncompromising hacks crushing them and their careers for stepping out of line. The narrow parameters that we (or to be more precise our media) allows our politicians to operate within is a stifling

An apology was made by Hunt and an apology was probably necessary but the labelling of the Tory high flyer as “an absolute disgrace” by the Hillsborough Family Support Group is self-indulgent tosh that doesn’t deserve inclusion in reporting on this unimportant story.

Let’s celebrate free speech and the right of frail human beings to get things wrong in good faith from time to time.

Compromising on crime

2010-06-30T09:53:00.001+01:00

The Scottish Parliament votes this week on measures to tackle reoffending in its Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill. The SNP are promoting a presumption against sentences of six months or less though has had to compromise down to three months in the face of opposition objections.

The Scottish Tories in turn may have to compromise on their ‘old-skool’ approach as a result of the UK Tories (in the shape of Ken Clarke) voicing support for an overhaul of prisons to end the mere ‘warehousing of people’, a stance similar to that of the SNP’s.

Labour’s rather uncompromising contribution is to insist on mandatory six month sentences for knife carriers, continuing the recent party trend of not wishing to appear soft on crime, whatever the cost.

Were Labour and the Tories to vote against the Bill, the message would be that opposition is easy. You can object to the Government’s plans without the responsibility of having your own half-baked ideas put to the test. New prisons to back up Labour’s tougher stance would cost tens of millions, money that just isn’t there to be spent. You can’t compromise on crime some may say but with 25% cuts on the way, I would suggest that you’re going to have to.

And anyway, if rehabilitation and community payback is more effective, cheaper and increases the probability of offenders turning a corner and not reoffending then I’m all for it and struggle to see a downside. Locking up a reoffender for six months would just delay the reoffending. An attempt at tackling the root of the problem will always be a more laudable aim.

And at the end of the day, if bitter old foes the SNP and Tories are coming to the same conclusion, then there’s more than a decent shout that it’s the right way to go.

However, that comes with one personally feeling compromised, thanks in no small part to the blurring of the old left-right spectrum. My lenient, liberal views on crime now has me aligned with the Conservatives!?

Well, Ken Clarke at least. Let’s not get carried away…

Edinburgh Trams

2010-06-25T12:56:00.002+01:00

Making it as far as York with his ragtag army was a triumph for William Wallace. Making it only as far as York Place with their ragtag trams would be a humiliating failure for Edinburgh Council.

Thankfully, despite headlines suggesting otherwise, the Edinburgh Trams team insists that the full line to Newhaven will be built. There is no doubt that the project is struggling to avoid hitting the buffers though.

Of the financial and aesthetic mess that Edinburgh’s streets find themselves in, it is the lack of surprise that grates the most given that one aspires to be as optimistic as possible about what Edinburgh can achieve. I do believe that the genuine outrage that owners of small businesses (in Leith particularly) must feel is fully justified and should be acted on. Some streets in that part Auld Reekie were positively ghostly while the lines for these phantom trams were being built. I don’t know how a business can survive when footfall drops some 70%-80% for a significant period of time and, of course, many didn’t and have since gone to the wall. They are the victims in a battle that as yet has produced few heroes.

That said, I was a late convert to the tram project once it was fully explained to me and I remain so. There are three streets in Leith that are very close to breaching EU limits on traffic pollution and if plans go ahead for an extra 15,000 homes down at The Shore then petrol-driven cars and buses won’t be able to cut the transport needs alone. Edinburgh is a world-class city, a cultural melting pot and a true business hub so it should be striding into the 21st century and trams would help it to do so. So too would a dedicated system of cycle lanes but, well, one step at a time I suppose.

I do think that the popular counter-argument of ‘Why have trams when we have perfectly good buses?’ misses the point entirely given the environmental aspect of this project. Trams are cheaper, quicker and greener and, crucially, people will give up commuting in their cars for trams while they would, snobbishly but no less pollutingly, turn their noses up at the bus. You see it down here in London all the time, people who refuse to take the bus but have no quarrel with the sleek, urban, quick Underground. We’re basically compromising for posers but what can you do?

Indeed, to highlight the gaps in the pro-bus/anti-tram argument, were one to propose scrapping the expensive London Underground because there’s “a perfectly good bus network” you’d be laughed out of the Mayoral contest. We know trams work because cities that have them use them, enjoy them and would never scrap them. It’s just building the blinking things that’s the problem. Edinburgh may have to take a little bit longer and wear its belt a little bit tighter in order to get there, but get there we must.

Of course, being in favour of the trams doesn’t necessarily mean that one doesn’t think they should be scrapped on economic grounds. And, conversely, one can think bringing them in was a bad idea in theory but now that £300+m has been spent we should push on regardless.

For me, one fundamental error in this project was that the SNP were never in favour of it so should have stepped away from being part of its delivery. It was always going to arouse too much suspicion when the most vocal opponents of the project were ultimately tasked with its realisation. As some have said – ‘Get onboard or get out of the way’.

A referendum on whether the project should go ahead is surely a non-starter and a bit of a cop-out. Those elected to lead should do so and use the information that they are privy to in order to come to a majority view and then press on.

The news that the next decision on this project will come in two long months’ time is worrying though. It seems that what the trams themselves possess in dynamism, modernity and speed, those who are tasked with delivering them lack.

To sum up the way ahead one must turn again to the trailblazing William Wallace:

Aye, build them and you may be skint. Scrap them, and you'll save... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the bus-driven days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our councillors that they may make excuses, but they must also make... OUR TRAMS!

(What do you mean cringeworthy…?)

Lies, damned lies and GERS reports

2010-06-24T12:24:00.001+01:00

I am going to caveat this post with the frank admission that I’ve never really known what the GERS report is, let alone how the detail stacks up.

Some SNP members tend to get very excited by what these reports shows and ‘unionists’ do appear hesitantly fearful of them but, that said, it has always looked like the kind of report that you could shake around to give whatever answer you wanted and that certainly seems to ring true every time its publication makes the news with both Nationalists and Unionists crying in rare unison ‘You see, these numbers back up what we’ve been saying’. It doesn’t really leave relative ignoramus’ like me any the wiser.

However, despite my interest in politics not extending to wading through appendices of government reports to see which side of the war of words is correct, the clear conclusion (that seems to have been accepted by both sides) is that Scotland has been running a surplus for four years in a row now, which was a very pleasant surprise for me personally I have to say. This is particularly heartening given that we’ve come through a recession in that period and (bank-saving to one side, though I have little doubt RBS and HBOS would have been safe had we been an independent EU-state), Scotland would have been just fine if standing alone or as standing as part of the UK. We have a robust economy whichever way the recessionary wind blows. Many will point to the £3.8bn deficit in this report as evidence that Scotland couldn’t make a fist of independence but that number looks positively tiny against the £96.1bn deficit quoted for the UK.

Although this kind of detail should form the backbone of any persuasive case a proponent of independence would make, a comment after an earlier post from Indy probably rings true (despite my protestations), that a groundswell of popular support for going it alone won’t come off the back of an NPV calculation for North Sea Oil or an £xbn surplus/deficit argument, but rather from Scots moving from “accepting that decisions will generally be taken for us to believing that decisions should be taken by us”. Such a belief will not generally be shaken by GERS reports, whatever they may say, or be claimed to say.

So Homecoming festivals and national sporting achievements will continue to trump GERS reports in the constitutional battle for hearts and minds but, still, if any decision on independence will ultimately be economically flimsy, it is nice to know that the numbers seem to stack up in Scotland’s favour anyway and, crucially, that fiscal autonomy for Holyrood is an even more convincing proposal than it has been before.

The Scotland Act is due to be debated at Westminster this Autumn I believe and the reasons against fiscal autonomy which one can only predict will be put forward by the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems need to be analysed in fine detail by our popular press.

A Government report showing Scotland had a significant surplus won’t be enough to swing the country in favour of independence but it could just shore up opinion enough to take a significant step in that direction.

Scotland's Budget Headache

2010-06-23T12:42:00.002+01:00

So the numbers are in and we now know what the impact of yesterday’s budget will be in Scotland. Those who are adverse to ~£5bn cuts should look away now.

Yes, the block grant to Scotland will fall by £4.8bn by 2014/15, once the delayed ~£300m cut from last year is taken into account. This is estimated to be around 16% of the Scottish budget and will ensure many a late night for John Swinney as he tries to balance the books while minimising job losses not just for next year but the years beyond, though of course that task may fall to a Finance Secretary from another party after May 2011.

The worrying aspect of this situation that we find ourselves in is that, depending on your geography and partisan outlook, you could paint these cuts as Tory/Lib Dem cuts, SNP cuts or Labour cuts and winning the public round to your particular point of view on that score may be the extent of some politicians’ efforts.

Tory/Lib Dem cuts because, of course, they came from a George Osborne budget backed by Chief Treasurer Danny Alexander and the Lib/Con coalition at large.

SNP cuts because the decision over where this £4.8bn axe will fall is up to the Scottish Government.

Labour cuts because it was over the past 13 years that the monstrous ~£155bn deficit was built up.

It’s pretty clear what is coming then, a heck of a lot of finger-pointing and not very much progress in a Battle Royale blame game.

As Scottish Secretary Michael Moore puts it: “Doing nothing in the face of a £155bn deficit is simply not an option. We have to stop spending money that we don’t have.” A welcome and clear communication from Scotland’s man at Westminster if you ask me.

So all parties at Holyrood need to get real and start coming up with specific ideas on where savings can be made. Maybe Scottish Water does need to be sold off? Maybe the £2bn Forth Road Crossing doesn’t need to be built? Maybe an asset sell-off is required? Maybe we should sell-and-leaseback the Holyrood building? A culture of no idea being too ridiculous needs to be fostered and parties should resist the temptation of tearing strips off a rival for no constructive gain. The public and media at large can play a part too by responding, at the ballot box or otherwise, to positivity rather than negativity.

It won’t be easy and it’s difficult to admit but Scotland is sinking, sinking from a general lack of entrepreneurship and from existing companies having to scrap tooth and nail with the dwindling number of Scottish bank managers to secure existing and/or extra funding to keep their going concerns going.

Personally, I think pensions and salaries hold the key to Scotland getting through this. There are fair pensions and then there are ludicrously over-the-top pensions. There must be a line that can be redrawn whereby the former are left untouched and the latter have their agreements ripped up in the interests of fairness. Private personal pensions are one thing but civil servants near-bankrupting a nation just to live a life of luxury has to end. No more golden hellos, no more golden goodbyes and no more pension pots that would make a Sultan blush. I maintain that an equal pension for public servants whether they clean the streets or run a Government department is an excellent solution, a solution that is already in practise in many Scandinavian businesses.

Further to this, (while I’m on this pedestal I might aswell use it!), I reckon Scots need to strongly consider buying Scottish. The pride in local produce down here in the South is palpably stronger than up North. It goes beyond Kent strawberries, Cornish cream, South Downs lamb and has extended to Londoners eschewing the Marlboroughs and the Chablis to buy English wine. English wine! Who’d have thought it, but that’s the spirit that can turn a local economy around. It’s not necessarily protectionism, we’ll still lap up as much Made in China clothing and Made in America fast-food as before but local areas have to box a little bit smarter by linking up the state of their local economies with local decisions made by local people.

I was going to say that, with the right approach and a fair deal for all, Scotland could be a well-oiled machine but when working together rather than against each other is the necessary call, it is probably best to leave ‘oil’ out of it, for now.

So all in all, a tough job for John Swinney and although the Finance Secretary is more than up to the task, I just hope that all parties step up to the plate in this coming election year and don’t lose sight of the big picture amongst the tribalism and lowest-common-denominator politics that can so often be on show in our youthful Parliament.

Lib Dem evasion and honesty avoidance

2010-06-23T07:59:00.003+01:00

The news and blogs are, quite rightly, all over the VAT bombshell poster that the Lib Dems deployed during the election campaign but have now come full circle on by backing Osborne's 'emergency' budget. It's behaviour that someone with even a passing interest in politics would know is typical from the Lib Dems.

That said, one can't be too harsh. Labour would have pushed up VAT too despite their howls of anguish and Nick Clegg isn't running a majority Government here, he's not going to like every output from the coalition and he did score a massive win with the changes to income tax that will remove many from paying it altogether.

However, the delivery of this manifesto commitment obscures another bit of, let's say, jiggery pokery.

In the Lib Dem manifesto it was claimed that this policy would be mostly paid for by a mansion tax and a crackdown on tax evasion.

I thought at the time that the Lib Dem sums didn't add up and it seems George Osborne agreed. If closing gaps in the tax system could reap billions of pounds a year then the Chancellor would have announced so yesterday.

So from VAT to cracking down on tax dodgers, the Lib Dem evasiveness lives on.

Osborne kills off the Tartan Tiger

2010-06-22T14:49:00.001+01:00

A quick point on today’s budget and the news that Corporation Tax will be reducing to 24% over the next four years.

One of the main advantages of an independent Scotland we have been told is that we could reduce the tax bill for local or incoming businesses in order to give us a competitive edge in Europe, similar to how Ireland did with much success in the past decade. However, with corporation tax now being reduced, an independent Scotland would have to get down to the sub-20% levels before it could entice company HQs to set up north of the border which just seems too low a base to build a new country from.

With HBOS effectively no longer with us, the crippled RBS owned by the Government, oil running out, a heavy public sector, Scotland’s economy trailing the rest of the UK and now little scope for that tax-light Celtic Tiger that First Minister Salmond likes to talk about, it looks like the economy is killing off the dwindling selling points for independence one by one.

Will the Tories throw the babies out with the bathwater?

2010-06-22T08:35:00.000+01:00

Big day today. Huge day. Personally I think Mexico have it in them to turn Uruguay over but we'll find out from 3pm I suppose.

Other big news will come in the form of George Osborne's emergency budget around noon. No doubt the headlines will revolve around VAT rises, income tax changes and a raiding of public sector pensions.

However, one very specific area that I will be looking out for is parental leave. Will Osborne's cuts extend to stripping back the current level of paternal and maternal leave that we enjoy in this country? We shall see.

Labour had made good progress in advancing the relatively cheap policy of extending such leave (which has considerable societal benefits) and they had promised to go even further if re-elected.

This bellweather issue can help to show where the new coalition's values really lie. I just hope all those babies aren't thrown out in the budget bathwater.

Is that a scalpel you have in your pocket George or are you just pleased to see us?

2010-06-20T15:32:00.001+01:00

Imagine visiting the doctor due to feeling deeply unwell and the doctor's initial prognosis was that he would have to chop your arm off only for the final decision to be a series of painful, but not limb reducing, injections. Relatively speaking you'd be rather relieved, perhaps even delighted, and you'd heartily bring on those injections conscious that it could have been a lot worse.

I fear a similar sleight of scalpel is currently on show as George Osborne, David Cameron and even Nick Clegg sombrely peer up at us from behind Treasury papers, shake their heads and lament that the pain will be brutal.

The Observer may be unknowingly and certainly unwillingly aiding and abetting in this charade, leaking as it does the news that Tuesday's emergency budget may see "an £85bn package of savings and tax rises". That is a seismic block of cash and seems unlikely. No wonder the Chancellor has felt the need to call Tuesday an "emergency" when really all that is required is calm management of a perfectly manageable situation. This is not a 999 budget and nor should it be presented as one.

However, even if, as I suspect, George Osborne doesn't cut our arms off on Tuesday, there may be some questionable decisions made nonetheless.

The sudden, reckless dumping of the Keynsian stimulus package on the lazy assumption that the private sector can hold up the slack is one thing but significant VAT rises when the economy, and the banking sector in particular, is allowed to continue the same risk-based casino capitalism approach to business would be bizarre. We surely can't continue having billions sloshing around amongst hedge funds, investment banker bonuses, Corporate pension pots and trader derivatives while the lowest slice of the working population loses out on thousands of jobs as they take one for the team. That's not 'we're all in this together', that's not 'fairness'.

Speaking of which, where is Nick Clegg in all of this, where is Vince Cable, where is Chris Huhne. Well, better not answer that last one.

The Liberal Democrats hold the balance of power when it comes to voting for this package and silent, meek acquiescence is insufficient on a nation-defining decision such as this. A simple fix for the defcit which is straining under public sector retirement plans is a flat pension. Everyone pays in the same percentage of gross salary and everyone takes out the same living pension upon retirement, irrespective of whether you run the civil service or sweep the streets. Of course you can top that flat pension with a private one if you wish. That's fairness, that's the kind of new Politics I had hoped Nick Clegg would be all about.

An absurdity beyond Lib Dem complicity in fast, deep Tory cuts is that Tuesday's announcement, billed as saving the UK from ruin, is that Scotland is somewhere between insulated and exempt from the pain, depending on whether fiscal autonomy is realised. A full year Holyrood will have to wait before cuts will be realised and I bet many a Government department would love to have that same luxury of delay. And if a one year delay is considered small beer then it's worth remembering that that is the extent of the powers of your average Lord, a House that does need its arms metaphorically chopped off if you ask me.
Anyway, the time is now and the decision is seemingly Osborne's to make so hopefully the scare stories will remain just that and George secretly knows that the nation's finances are not in as parlous a state as the Tories are making out and he will keep his scalpel in his deep pocket and leave our arms alone.

You ain't nothin' but a Huhne dog

2010-06-19T19:39:00.000+01:00

There's a fairly simple choice that all people in committed, closed relationships must make: either love and be true to the one you're with or explain why that's no longer possible and move on to the single life or pastures new.

That's the deal, that's the compromise and we all know it. There should be no overlap, trying partners is not like trying cars.

Chris Huhne, as the News of the World will splash tomorrow (no doubt in inglorious detail), has had his 'secret lover' revealed to the nation. Even though the story is patently not in the public interest, the real issue for me is why anyone would leave themselves vulnerable to their private life being dragged into the public eye. Let's be honest, it's pretty poor form to only decide to separate from your wife once you've been caught out by News of the World.

At the end of the day, it is none of our business and if a magic wand could be waved I would be in favour of it erasing tomorrow's headlines and all of us being none the wiser but News of the World made the call and went with it.

Considering this issue, and the David Laws issue, there is perhaps a question to be asked that if a politician is so dishonest in their private life then can he/she be trusted in their public life? One would think that a person would have a greater duty of care to their friends and family after all so a person would in theory think less of massaging the truth in a news interview if they'd happily live a double life away from their spouse or immediate family.

Added to that, Chris Huhne knows how the press works and if he didn't do the right thing for personal reasons, he should have done the right thing for political reasons.

It's none of my business, but it could have and should have been avoided.

Lib Dems announce Edinburgh Central shortlist

2010-06-18T13:59:00.001+01:00

The shortlist for the Lib Dem target seat of Edinburgh Central has been announced and it’s an intriguingly slim four names that are on it.

Stephen Glenn, Scottish blogger extraordinaire, is on there, fresh from his Linlithgow and East Falkirk canvassing exploits from the Westminster campaign but it is former Big Brother contestant John Loughton who, somewhat depressingly I have to say, is stealing the headlines. I agree that if you’re good enough then you’re old enough but this stunning self-belief that John thinks that he deserves a fast-track into the top tier (*cough*) of politics is startling. Call me old-fashioned but I like to think that before you decide the rules for a country, you have to have lived a little yourself. Even the well-trodden, reasearcher, councillor, politican route is preferable to going straight in at the deep end off the back of a television show.

Anyway, I’m sure John is talented enough and in it for the right reasons so I shouldn’t be too down on his ambitions.

Alex-Cole Hamilton and Beverley Hope (former Edinburgh North & Leith and Edinburgh East candidates respectively) make up the foursome and although there does seem to be an element of shuffling the same names around the different constituencies for the Lib Dems, one can hardly pin the blame for that on those who do choose to be put forward if there is a general lack of interest from Scots to get involved with all parties. It’s hardly a symptom that is specific to the Lib Dems after all.

According to those who understand boundary changes better than I, this should be a bit of a shoo-in for whoever wins the candidacy for the Liberal Democrats and I have heard that the SNP candidate from last time has effectively thrown in the towel. However, if it does become a two-horse race, I reckon Sarah Boyack can use her incumbency and experience to great effect, particularly if taking on the 22-year old John Loughton.

I’d love to see Stephen Glenn get the nod though so good luck to him for the coming contest but Edinburgh Central is Labour’s to lose as far as I can see.

My prediction is, and it’s not based on much I have to confess, is that Bev Hope will win through to take the PPC spot.

What would an England World Cup triumph mean for Scotland?

2010-06-18T08:45:00.001+01:00

Despite a Green spillage that resulted in the most remarkable outpouring of media hyperbole since, well, BP's spillage, England still remain serious contenders to lift the 2010 World Cup.

Brazil looked a bit shaky, Italy look past it, Spain are suffering a 2nd El Crisis, Argentina will surely suffer a Maradona-induced implosion and Germany flattered to deceive against a weak Aussie side. This is all to overlook the delightful news that it's almost au revoir to France already.

So England are very much in the mix, particularly given their relatively easier route to the semis if they beat Algeria tonight and Slovenia next week.

So what would a long-awaited and loudly-trumpeted win for England mean for Scotland?

Well, the first instinct is to say nothing, that an England win would be met with the same indifference as a Brazil or France win but this is surely infeasible given that we share islands and a country.

One possible scenario is that it instils a healthier rivalry that kickstarts a sporting renaissance in Scotland built around aiming to outperform our competitors rather than hoping they may sink to our level. A belief that it's 'our turn' and not just footballers but rugby players and aspiring Olympians may see an extra spring in their step. Andy Murray, needless to say, would have the bit between his teeth for Wimbledon. Further to that, we may finally strongly consider where we have genuine world class contributions to make from our mountain biking tracks to our surfing spots, from out wind-powered water sports to, um, elephant polo.

Another prospect would be that Scotland would get down on itself, even more so than usual. A slight bitterness borne out of a personal, misplaced awkwardness with a national squad that hasn't qualified for a major tournament since 1998.

I say misplaced because I don't know of many countries with a population of 5million or so who qualified this time around, certainly not from Europe. But then, is that my negativity kicking in before England are even out of the group stages?

Of the three potential outcomes: nothing, positivity and negativity, it is surely the middle one that would serve Scotland best if it involved kids (and adults) picking up a ball, bat or racquet and trying to conquer the world.

2011 - The challenge for the SNP

2010-06-16T13:17:00.000+01:00

Being 80% of the way through the current term of the Scottish Parliament, many minds will soon be focussing on next year’s Holyrood elections and the Scottish press and blogs will ratchet up to fever pitch with comment and speculation, the big question inevitably being whether the SNP can win a second term by remaining the largest party.

Strictly on current polling evidence, that won’t happen and we can look forward to First Minister Iain Gray running a minority administration or a coalition with the Lib Dems and/or Greens.

The latest poll showed voting intentions of:

Constituency Vote
Labour – 45%
SNP – 29%
Conservatives – 13%
Lib Dems – 12%

Regional Vote
Labour – 41%
SNP – 28%
Conservatives – 13%
Lib Dems – 12%
Greens – ?%

Many of a Nationalist bent will lament the supposed unthinking behaviour of fellow Scots in falling behind Labour in considerable numbers again. I would personally warn against such complacency.

The simple fact that Scots have voted in an SNP Government means that the old adage that 'parts of Scotland would vote for a donkey in a red rosette' no longer rings true. The SNP is being weighed, it is being tested and, for now at least, it is being found wanting. The silver lining is that, as yet, the Labour Shadow Cabinet has not even been weighed in the public’s mind, let alone tested or wanted.

So why are, if this latest poll is to be believed, Scots coming 'home' to Labour? Particularly when the SNP enjoyed such enormous poll leads only a year ago?

The main reason stems from the unavoidable notion that, in Scotland at least, an anti-Tory vote is a Labour vote. We’ve seen it over the decades and we saw it decisively in the last election when Labour increased their vote without any particular message to sell to the population.

Now, the Conservatives are not competing to be the largest party at Holyrood and nor are they even competing to be a coalition partner, reluctantly accepting their position as Parliament pariahs, so what difference should an anti-Tory vote make in devolved Scotland?

Well, for the first time since the Scottish Parliament took its first tentative steps into the world of national democracy, we are holding elections against the backdrop of a Conservative administration at Westminster. Puritans can wish all they like that Scots will vote with only devolved matters in mind but the reality will be far from the case and for many voters wishing to protest at Prime Minister Cameron being in Number 10, a Labour vote will be the automatic choice.

This was meant to be the perfect storm: the Tories at Westminster, the SNP in Holyrood, constitutional change on the table as an issue. Far from the population falling behind the Nats, it is Labour who seem to be reaping the rewards.

Another factor in the charge of Labour in the Holyrood polling stakes is the demise of the Liberal Democrats as a credible force in Scottish Politics. They may have the Deputy Prime Minister and the Scottish Secretary but there’s no discernible message coming out of the Scottish Lib Dem camp and their poll ratings are derisory at a lowly 12%. While all of that remains, Labour will be the primary benefactors.

Indeed, if the Liberal Democrats are the first to move on ‘Calman plus’ and push for a more aggressive transfer of powers from Westminster to Holyrood, it may be would-be SNP votes rather than would-be Labour votes that Tavish Scott ends up taking in 2011, thus widening the gap between Labour and the SNP even further, making Salmond’s challenge to stay on as FM al the more difficult.

The final reason that I shall proffer for the SNP’s recent fall from grace (sadly I could go on) is the man at the top himself. Alex Salmond is one of the longest serving leaders in the UK’s recent history and far and away the longest serving Scottish leader. The First Minister may boast of the experience that such tenure brings but the other side of the coin is that people are more than a little bit fed up of him. Yes, there is a grudging acceptance from most that Alex is a tremendous communicator and a formidable political operator but a tipping point will inevitably be reached where such strengths are actually seen as weaknesses and the very sound of his voice may be beginning to grate for some, if it isn’t already.

Some performances at FMQs have been too loud, too abrasive and ultimately too cringeworthy, though one could argue that the quality of the answers can only be as good as the quality of the questions. However, with Salmond already having a particular problem in attracting female support amongst the electorate, a hectoring tone that sees no let up and a long period at the forefront of Scottish Politics that can’t be reversed, the FM’s personal attributes and longevity may all end up counting against the SNP this time around.

I believe the SNP would stand a better chance of winning a second term with Nicola Sturgeon as leader and I just wonder if Alex resigned from the correct chamber. Would the SNP’s aims be better served with Sturgeon at Holyrood and Salmond at Westminster? I guess we’ll never know.

Indeed, with Salmond, Goldie and Scott fairly well kent faces in the Parliament, perhaps 'Gray-mania' could be the unlikely story of 2011, following in the footsteps of Nick Clegg as an appetite for new voices whets itself.

The silver lining, for those wishing to see the SNP returned for another four years, is that Iain Gray has not yet been considered by most of the Scottish population as the next First Minister. A general dislike for Salmond does not necessarily equate to a preference for Gray.

Going into the 2007 Holyrood election, the SNP enjoyed a significant poll lead over Labour which was caused by a country not convinced with Jack McConnell as First Minister. That lead narrowed to a single percentage point as many realised that they were even less convinced by an SNP Government.

The same dashing of an early lead happened for Cameron leading up to the General Election, it happened for the Democrats leading up to the 2004 Presidential election and it probably happens in the vast majority of elections where a challenger is up against an incumbent.

There is more than just poll results counting against the SNP going into the 2011 election and the party has less to sell than in 2007. Consequently, I suspect that the party’s slogan will have to be even better than the perfectly encapsulated “It’s time” of 2007 if the Nats want to swing the current depressing poll figures back in their favour in time for a second Holyrood win.

Can the World Cup bring North Korea in from the cold?

2010-06-16T08:35:00.000+01:00

I daresay I wasn't alone in supporting Brazil for 80 minutes of last night's World Cup group match and then supporting North Korea for the last 10, feverishly so after they scored their unlikely consolation goal. Infact I know I wasn't alone as my flatmates were imploring the passionate, highly-focussed men in red on even more than I was.

There's a lot that can be said about Kim Jong Il and his famously insular People's Republic, most of it is steeped in regret and scepticism and it is all too easy for the ignorant like myself to think the worst. For example, one couldn't help but wryly translate the public show of emotion from the crying striker at the anthems before kickoff as a misplaced sense of nationalism borne out of fear for his oppressive ruler but, well, the man was sobbing no more than England's fearless Lawrence Dallaglio used to at Rugby World Cups. We shouldn't really assume what we don't know.

So, the suggestion that a popular North Korean team, genuinely well received by most of the watching world, could help to soothe tensions involving the country should perhaps not be laughed off so easily. Most perceptions of the country stem from Team America or similar caricatures of reality and while I don't believe that a cult following for a few weeks backed by James Corden's considerable belly laughs will alter any nuclear ambitions that the country may (or may not) have, if soft diplomacy hasn't previously worked and hard diplomacy is unpalatable, maybe a goal against Brazil, a nutmegging of Ronaldo and an outmuscling of Drogba will make some difference in the probably addled mind of Eternal Leader Kim Jong Il as he contemplates his legacy.

MSP makes inappropriate comments in 'DuskyGate'

2010-06-15T21:12:00.003+01:00

Frank McAveety, Labour's MSP for Glasgow Shettleston, was caught on microphone saying:

"There's a very attractive girl in the second row, dark . . . and dusky. We'll maybe put a wee word out for her."
"She's very attractive looking, nice, very nice, very slim,"
"The heat's getting to me."
"She looks kinda . . . she's got that Filipino look."
"You know . . . the kind you'd see in a Gaugin painting. There's a wee bit of culture."

Pretty crap Holyrood chat if you ask me. It's not so much the making of a remark, it's how long the married man rambles and leers on that's just, well, a bit creepy.

I daresay this is one of the amusing Holyrood anecdotes that will get lost in the annals of time but should it be a resigning issue? The SNP has, unsurprisingly, already called for McAveety's resignation. Personally, although it's distinctly unimpressive form, such instances don't get in the way of the role of an MSP so the story should quite rightly be over with by tomorrow.

Still, it at least justifies my occasionally getting Frank McAveety mixed up with Frank McAvennie. Although that had just been due to similar surnames before...

Sour drapes over flying flags

2010-06-09T16:36:00.000+01:00

I read with interest that Downing Street will fly an England flag during Britain’s only representative’s tenure at the football World Cup and I read with bafflement the resulting criticism that this has attracted from non-English quarters (or thirds, I suppose).

Personally I don’t have any problem with this St George’s-cross-waving move which I presume was rubber-stamped by David Cameron himself given that the PM, you know, lives in Downing Street. I want England to do well in this competition and will want them to win the whole thing if my sweepstake team (Netherlands) get knocked out before Capello’s men are.

I find it bizarre that those who do not wish to see England winning the competition cite the supposedly non-stop references to 1966 as the main reason for wanting the team knocked out, particularly given that a 2010 victory would significantly reduce any reference to that competition over four decades ago. (I maintain that I hear significantly more Scots gripe about 1966 than English people fondly recalling it)

One would also hope that a reclaiming of the England flag from the BNP and EDL would be welcomed. The other national flags in the UK have not suffered the same fate as St George’s Cross so seeing bin lorries, shops and family cars having it fluttering above them is surely vastly preferable to the status quo. Put simply, England has to use it or lose it and David Cameron using the English flag so publicly means it is less likely to be ‘lost’ to Nick Griffin & co.

Critics would argue that David Cameron is Prime Minister of the whole United Kingdom and therefore should not show favouritism between the four nations and/or should respect the sentiments of all the country’s citizens. That, for me, is hogwash in this particular instance I’m afraid.

Were Wales to have a contender in a Nobel Prize shortlist should our Prime Minister not support them because there are no English, Scots or Northern Irish in there? Of course not. England was the only UK team good enough to qualify for South Africa so they’ve earned the support of any British representative or public body that wishes to give it. The suggestion that a Prime Minister wouldn’t support any other qualifying teams in their official capacity doesn’t hold for me and smacks more of a frustrated petulance at the lack of quality in the non-qualifying teams than any justifiable grievance with the British support for England.

Scots (or Welsh or Northern Irish) are entitled to be ambivalent or even malevolently critical of England’s fortunes in the World Cup but to extend that to insisting that the Prime Minister should not show his support for a British team is just killjoy nonsense.

Holyrood 2011 - An early look at Lothian

2010-06-04T12:24:00.004+01:00

The news that SNP regional MSP Ian McKee will be standing down at the next election turned my thoughts to what new faces we may be seeing at Holyrood after the 2011 election. Given that Margo MacDonald, Robin Harper and George Foulkes will be retiring this year, there will be at least four new list MSPs from Lothians so that seems as good a place as any to start looking.

In 2007, the seven list MSPs from Lothians, in order of selection, were:

Fiona Hyslop (SNP)
Robin Harper (Green)
Margo MacDonald (Ind)
Ian McKee (SNP)
Gavin Brown (Con)
Stefan Tymkewycz (SNP)
George Foulkes (Lab)

Of course, the eventual breakdown of the regional lists is ruled by the First Past the Post seats so it's worth considering how each party stands with 11 months still to go:

The SNP should enjoy an incumbency factor and hold onto Livingston and Edinburgh East, despite setbacks at the recent General Election in both constituencies. I must admit to risking underestimating Labour’s chances given their effective machine in Edinburgh East and a strong candidate in the shape of former council leader Ewan Aitken.

The Conservatives can expect to return two MSPs next year, one via Edinburgh Pentlands and another via the regional list. It looks like a safe bet that David McLetchie and Gavin Brown will stay in place in these spots.

The Liberal Democrats will aspire to win Edinburgh Central, hold onto Edinburgh South and keep Edinburgh West as safe as it has been in recent elections. With boundary changes favouring them, all three of the above aims are realistic and whoever is selected as the next candidate for Edinburgh Central should find themselves fast-tracked into Parliament.

Edinburgh North & Leith will be a fascinating contest if, as some seem to expect, Malcolm Chisholm chooses to retire in advance of next year. This is another potential Lib Dem gain given that they targeted the seat so heavily at the General Election and the SNP has inexplicably gone backwards in the past two elections. Assuming Chisholm stays on or Labour pick the right candidate (in other words, anyone but the tipped Rami Okasha), then I don’t see them losing North & Leith any time soon. Shirley-Anne Somerville is my top tip to challenge for the Nats in the event of Malcolm Chisholm standing down.

Labour will be hoping for business as usual in many constituencies with Midlothian and Linlithgow looking likely to maintain reasonably healthy majorities for the incumbent MSPs. I daresay Edinburgh East and Edinburgh South will be the key battlegrounds for Labour as they seek to paint the city red once more.

Perhaps I am still too stung by the lack of change in last month’s General Election but the only seat that I can see changing hands next May is Edinburgh Central from Labour’s Sarah Boyack to the Liberal Democrats, who are yet to pick a PPC.

Recalculating the 2007 regional result after taking this seat change into account and separating out the retiring Margo MacDonald’s votes (and it would be interesting to consider where Margo’s votes would go next time around), the seven Lothian MSPs would be:

1 – SNP
2 – Green
3 – SNP
4 – Labour
5 – Conservative
6 – SNP
7 – Labour

(8 – SNP)

So the SNP are notionally on track to lose 1 MSP and the Lib Dems on track to gain 1 MSP. With the numbers at Holyrood already tighter than George Osborne’s petty cash purse strings, one doesn’t have to explain how critical that could ultimately be.

The Greens have a difficult task on their hands if they want to return 2 Lothian MSPs again unless they can lift their 20,147 votes in 2007 up to the level of the 31,908 in 2003. With the former and everything else being equal, the Greens would need the SNP to return 7 MSPs before they could return a second which seems remarkable. Then again, in 2003 both the SNP and Greens had 2 MSPs each in the entire area. What a difference 10,000 votes can make!

I would suggest that the Greens will be the main beneficiaries of Margo not standing next year and will also benefit from increased Lib Dem Tactical Voting as those who vote Lib Dem begin to realise that their preferred party do not tend to return regional MSPs in the area. It may be heart ruling head but I can only see the Greens returning 2 MSPs in Lothian next year.

Labour returning 2 regional MSPs rather than 1 would be interesting and throws open the door to arguably much-needed new talent coming through. Des Browne was rumoured to be interested in reaching Holyrood by this route and the female spot (given that Labour’s lists are zipped) would be between Lesley Hinds and Kezia Dugdale.

Overall, the Lothian region could stay the same or there could be massive changes, it is probably far too early to speculate but, for the record, here is my premature prediction:

Edinburgh East – Kenny MacAskill (SNP)
Edinburgh North & Leith – Malcolm Chisholm (or Labour successor)
Edinburgh West – Margaret Smith (LD)
Edinburgh Central – Lib Dem MSP
Edinburgh South – Mike Pringle (LD)
Edinburgh Pentlands – David McLetchie (Con)
Livingston – Angela Constance (SNP)
Linlithgow – Mary Mulligan (Labour)
Midlothian – Rhona Brankin (Labour)

List:
1 – SNP (Fiona Hyslop)
2 – Green (?)
3 – SNP (Shirley-Anne Somerville)
4 – Conservative (Gavin Brown)
5 – Labour (Des Browne)
6 – Green (James @ Two Doctors?)
7 – Labour (Kezia Dugdale)

More Nats, fewer nurses

2010-06-03T12:54:00.000+01:00

The title to this blog post is the front to Labour’s new campaign against the SNP Government in light of the news that the NHS is forecasting the loss of 3,790 full time staff over the next year.

It is a lamentably puerile slogan but no more childish than the SNP’s ‘More Nats, less cuts’ from the last election so one can’t complain too loudly and, well, at least it is grammatically correct. However, it is a continuation of the Pavlovian reactions of ‘more spending – good, less spending – bad’. If this is to be the parameters of Scottish political debate for the foreseeable future then we’ll be morally and financially bankrupt before the next decade is out.

It is never desirable for anyone to lose their job against their wish but this does not seem to be the case here, despite the large job numbers involved. The key point that the Government is pushing is that there are expected to be no compulsory redundancies. Particularly at this time with cuts on the horizon, we shouldn’t necessarily equate job losses with people being forced out of their job.

Furthermore, 3,790 staff at a nominal salary of £25k per annum equates to almost £100m a year. Labour are well within their right to campaign for a further 3,790 jobs in the NHS if they choose to do so but they have to explain where they would find a whopping £100m to fund such a wish. Add that to the numerous extra prisons required for their ‘carry a knife, go to jail’ campaign and the currently unaffordable reinstating of the Glasgow Rail Link and Labour are running up quite a bill for themselves if they do get back into power next year.

Another key point to remember in this story that will surely dominate the summer (and beyond) is that health boards set their own budgets and level of employees and, consequently, this is not actually a Government decision, as far as I am aware at least. The Government has provided £264m more funding to the NHS this year and, as they are entitled to, the health boards have decided to locate savings via head count to make the extra money go even further. I would be more concerned if the Scottish Government was insisting, against its remit, on an ever growing number of nurses and health workers, whatever the cost, so as to insulate itself from political attacks but, thankfully, that is not happening. We have to trust health boards to make the decisions that are best for them; Labour seemingly doesn’t want to adopt that trust but has chosen to turn its fire on the Government rather than on those who have taken the actual decision.

I think therefore, all in all, this is a bit of a hollow discussion as it is not clear what Labour is asking to be done. That is not to say that Labour’s campaign won’t be effective. The NHS is so often at the heart of any election battle, as we saw earlier this year as Cameron cannily positioned himself as a champion of the health services, and there is no reason why the 2011 election contest won’t be any different. With 75% of teaching graduates struggling to find work, I’m not sure that the SNP can afford to be perceived as not being on the side of nurses too.

The Holyrood parties are setting the tone for the 2011 campaign with Labour clearly seeing the NHS and ‘SNP cuts’ (sic) as two key areas. The SNP will hopefully have learned from the Glenrothes by-election where the issue of local council charges was pressed mercilessly against them by Labour and was one of the main reasons the Nats surprisingly lost out in that contest. Nicola Sturgeon needs to nip this issue in the bud before it becomes the ‘loosening of the jar’ in the run up to a Labour victory that already looks worryingly achievable, even likely I would say.

The battle for the perception of competence has begun in earnest. It’s just a shame that, once again, it’s over such a silly debate so lacking in substance.

Is Angus Robertson the new Nick Clegg?

2010-06-02T14:28:00.000+01:00

Today marks the first PMQ session under the new coalition Government and, with David Cameron finally on his preferred side of the chamber after many years in Opposition, it will, one would hope, be a sweet day for the new Prime Minister.

Harriet Harman will be leading the charge for Labour in bringing the new Government to account and will have plenty of topics to choose from, from the arguably inexperienced Danny Alexander presiding over controversial cuts to the economy to Britain’s response to the attacks on the Gaza flotilla.

With the Lib Dems now inside the coalition, Nick Clegg will not take a slice of the limelight at these sessions as he had done in the past parliamentary term, so where will that spotlight fall as journalists and bloggers search for signs of division and bones of contention?

The party that has the next largest number of MPs is the DUP but it is like-minded to the Conservatives and, consequently, cannot be expected to be too critical of its performance. The next largest party is the SNP and, contrary to the DUP, can be expected to be highly vociferous in its opposition to certain coalition policies, not least cuts to the economy and spending on Trident.

Opportunity can knock in the most unlikely of ways but PM Cameron and DPM Clegg may allow Westminster leader of the SNP Angus Robertson to raise his party’s profile across the UK which, with English desire for English devolution at an all time high, may not be the worst thing for the Nationalists’ aim of independence.

From BBC/newspaper liveblogs to evening news bulletins, if the SNP can deliver its message more widely than it has done previously, the rainbow nature of Westminster may shine through in the end after all.

Scots on the Gaza flotilla - who knew what and when?

2010-05-31T15:51:00.002+01:00

There's been an interesting couple of statements made by UK Ministers today in response to the indefensible attack and killing of people trying get aid to Gaza.

Firstly, William Hague made a statement deploring the attacks and urging Israel to allow aid into Gaza. Later, Nicola Sturgeon communicated her concern for the several Scots that were onboard the aid ships.

Here's the thing though, when he spoke of "any UK nationals", did the Foreign Secretary really not know whether there were any British citizens on those boats? If Hague did know, why didn't he mention them specifically in his statement? If he didn't, is it possible that the information wasn't passed on from the SNP administration?

Judging by the headlines coming out as a result of this unfortunate incident, it seems the link-up play between the UK and Scottish Governments could have been a bit better...

(Note that Sandra White, MSP for the SNP, was reported by STV to have taken a call from one of the Scots on the flotilla boats at 5am this morning)

Update - I have been told that Sandra White actually got confused and took a call from someone in the UK rather than on one of the flotilla boats. A bit of an embarrassing botch given the highly topical issue at hand. I wonder if it's in the SNP's interests to issue a clarification...

How the high and mighty have fallen

2010-05-31T12:50:00.000+01:00

One has to admit to a certain schadenfreude in seeing the self-appointed 'whiter than white' Lib Dems embroiled in back to back expenses scandals. The incessant message from Nick Clegg during the election campaign that a vote for his party was a vote for something different, a cleansing of Westminster, was difficult to take as there was little evidence that the average Lib Dem was less likely to abuse expenses than the average MP from any other party. There was just less of them.

However, to take everything that the the Telegraph says at face value is not a road that I wish to go down so the cases of Laws and Alexander both deserved scrutiny.

For David Laws, it seems to be an open and shut case. He tried to massage his conscious by widening the interpretation of the word 'partner'. He got it wrong but there are strong mitigating circumstances and hopefully after a quick investigation, a repayment of the ~£40k rent, David will be back working in the job that many seem to agree he was put on this planet to do.

For Danny Alexander, it seems he barely has a case to answer so that schadenfreude I spoke of leaves me with egg on my chin. The new Chief Secretary to the Treasury

Comparisons have been made with Hazel Blears' situation where the Labour MP had to pay back a five-figure sum (with a cheque whipped tellingly quickly from her handbag). There seeem to be some similarities and there seem to be some differences. However, a look at the rules shows that Alexander should be able to ride this out fairly easily.

A main home, as this one was, can be labelled a 'second home' for three years while it is waiting to be sold, which seems fair to me.

The Telegraph talk about a "loophole" that Danny Alexander took advantage of which is deeply unfair. The supposed loophole is just a part of the rules, their being small doesn't make them any more nefarious.

However, I don't think the Lib Dems should get too huffy about this weekend of discontent for them.

Firstly, Nick Clegg has invited this scrutiny by his fairly outrageous positioning of the wholesome, saintly, never-do-wrong party. That was never fully believable and was only ever going to result in newspapers digging deeper into their pasts.

And secondly, the Telegraph is coming in for criticism for these stories and their timing. The Telegraph is a private entity and shouldn't be demonised for having selling newspapers and making money as its main prerogative. It may be uncomfortable viewing for the Lib Dems who have been surfing the perfect wave for the past few weeks but is making money with front page splashes any worse than Laws making his millions as an investment banker?

You can't take the top jobs without taking the scrutiny that comes with it. The headlines on Laws were a direct hit and the headlines on Alexander look likely to misfire. We should all be satisfied at least that both men will, over the course of this Government term, serve in the Cabinet and make the difference that they both have the capability to do.

A bit more humility from Clegg going forward wouldn't go amiss though.

BP vs BO

2010-05-29T13:26:00.001+01:00

"I want to thank everyone who rolled their sleeves up and helped out" said President Obama yesterday evening as he stood in front of the world's cameras discussing efforts to tackle the oil spill, with his sleeves rolled up.

However, it was the line "this is an attack on our shores" that really made me sit up and take notice. An attack? It is an interesting choice of word. It is a disaster of course, probably even a tragedy as we will learn in time but an attack suggests a certain intent, or at least an individual or entity who must assume malicious culpability.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was, of course, the fault of BP, one of Britain's biggest companies, and it is now officially the US' worst catast of its kind. Countries have fallen out over far less so I daresay Cameron is watching on with his soon-to-be-trademark chewing of his lip, betraying his nervousness.

After all, natural disasters have the potential to affect a leader's approval ratings drastically. There was arguably not too much that George W Bush could do about Hurricane Katrina but it was this issue more than the econom and Iraq, two botched issues that he did have more control over, that really hurt him.

There's little doubt that the oil spill was BP's fault and there's little doubt that they have the responsibility and best chance of plugging the gap that is still squirting out 500 million barrels of black gold every day, but it is BO who will be feeling a little less slick once this is done and dusted. And if it keeps getting called an "attack" perhaps Dave and Bill's prized 'Special Relationship' will be deeply tarnished too.

A Laws unto himself

2010-05-28T22:50:00.007+01:00

I've just read the big news of the evening and, no doubt, the bank holiday weekend.

It seems David Laws, George Osborne's chief axe-man at the Treasury, has claimed more than £40,000 to rent a room owned by his partner. The news (if it is news, I was certainly unaware though) that David is gay is, or at least should be, by the by given it is no concern of anyone's but slicing tens of thousands of public funds into your pocket just because you have the opportunity to do so means that you simply can't go on with the 'we're all in this together' drive of cutting jobs, cutting public sector salaries and cutting spending in general.

I do wonder if there will be an attempt to conflate the news of his sexuality with the news of the expenses scandal, offsetting the sympathy he may garner for the former with the fury he will attract from the latter. I sincerely hope not. David should resign, step well away from the limelight, answer to any investigations that are deemed necessary and only then try to return to front bench politics if he still fancies it and Cameron and/or Clegg will still have him.

For me, the worst part is that there was so much scrutiny over expenses last year, during the nadir of the whole debacle, and David Laws must have reflected on his arrangements and known they were improper and against the 2006 rules which stated that MPs cannot claim money for renting property from "a partner". Not fessing up then has blown apart any claims that this is a genuine error. The excuse that he just wanted to keep his relationship a secret may be understandable but it is also insufficient.

David Laws, I hope you enjoyed your time serving in the coalition Government, you only have hours or days left. An apology is nowhere near enough I'm afraid.

As for the Liberal-Conservative coalition, it will live on, but it's just received its first body blow.

UPDATE - There seems to be a consensus growing amidst Lib Dem activists that this is a hatchet job by the Telegraph, using the expenses story to 'out' David.

A person is of course entitled to keep their private life private, irrespective of what job they do, but that right does not extend to using your private life to break rules that date back to 2006, rules that must surely exist for a reason.

The Liberal Democrat party has past form too, George Lyon employing his partner Flora Boyd in clear breach of the EU parliament's rules, and that was even after the MEP checked.

There has also been a suggestion that David Laws is actually saving us money which is just bizarre given a random person is having his mortgage paid off on our behalf and, again, completely overlooks the fact that there's rules in place.

Lib Dems may be self-proclaimed champions of fairness but that doesn't mean you can just pick and choose the rules that adhere to you and those that don't.

Orange Digital Campaigning Awards (NOT)

2010-05-28T16:39:00.006+01:00

I was kindly tagged by Matt Wardman in a meme post related to the Orange Digital Campaigning awards, seemingly for parties and candidates who had the best campaigns during the election.

Now, my reading of blogs has dropped off a cliff both before and after the election, I rarely use Facebook and my conscious decision to let the weeds grow somewhat on this blog won't help reverse that online slide but I thought I would pick up Matt's meme and see what thoughts I could bring to the topic.

From my rather poor vantage point, I didn't get the impression that this was much of an online election despite the heavy billing otherwise and so a set of digital campaign awards will, I fear, have a scant return. Certainly Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report disseminated polls relentlessly, Tory Bear struggled (fruitlessly in the end) with the #KerryOut campaign and Mike Smithson of Political Betting covered many unreported angles, albeit often with unanswered questions as the main thrust of the post, but was there anything out there on the blogosphere that really set the heather alight, captured the imagination and sneaked into the national spotlight? Not from what I could make out. Not, I hasten to add, that blogging the election for its own sake isn't an enjoyable and worthwhile experience.

I enjoyed my SeatWatch series on here and it generated a good bit of debate I like to think. It was noteworthy that suggesting which party was going to win which seat tended to generate significantly more comments than merely talking about whatever the issue of the day was. I guess the range of opinion from the optimistic/deluded who predicted SNP/Lib Dem gains (myself very much included) to the doom-mongering but fully vindicated 'there'll be no change' (myself, fence-sittingly, somewhat included) meant that debate was inevitable.

So are there lessons to be learned for what a blogger or a candidate can do online, keeping in mind it is now less than a year until the Scottish Parliament elections? Probably not, best to knock doors than tap keyboards. If you do venture online, do what you enjoy I guess and don't hope to persuade too many or change too much. Labour did seem to have a good Facebook network on the go and their #labourdoorstep twiter tag seems to go down very well in a (somewhat ironically) 'we're all in this together' kind of way.

In terms of the Orange awards in particular, apparently they are as follows:

- Best use of digital campaigning by a Political Party
- Best use of digital campaigning by a Candidate
- Best non-party digital initiatives
- Funniest use of digital initiatives
- Worst example of digital initiatives

There is no nomination process so, as Matt points out, some local brilliance could easily be missed, not that I have any local brilliance to suggest given that I wasn't even in Scotland for the entirety of the official campaign period and my London constituency was thin on the ground in terms of online initiatives. I do recall Scott of Love and Garbage has a potential nomination for the worst category though, not that it stopped Michael Connarty getting elected with a huge majority though.

There has been a lot more MSPs, MPs and PPCs embracing Twitter but I can't remember any specific 'initiatives' as such that took off. Indeed, it was a non-candidate and even, as far as I am aware, a non party member who had the best Scottish initiative with Bella Caledonia and his undoubtedly successful (but still ultimately inconsequential) #ScotlandSpeaks campaign that politicians, journalists and bloggers got fairly heavily involved in. I seem to remember a little bit of favourable mainstream media exposure too but I can't remember specifically what was said or where.

Had I still been a voter in Edinburgh North & Letih I would have had 4 Tweeters and 3 bloggers to choose from but I daresay that my fellow constituents and I would have had little to change our minds with from any of their online outlets available. Unless you really hated trams and weren't aware how closely Calum Cashley shared your views.

Crucially, the mere fact that there were no unexpected gains in Scotland and no constituencies where the share of the vote was significantly adjusted as a result of any campaign, be it offline or online, makes it difficult to point to Scottish examples that should be nominated for these awards.

The battle in Scottish voters' minds generally revolved around which candidate was best placed to keep the Tories out and you don't need a blog, tweet or facebook account to tell you much about that I'm afraid. As much as I may have tried.

For this meme I have been asked to nominate the best use of digital campaigning and although I could probably think of even better candidates if I did some research and/or racked my brains, I will have to give second place to the #KerryIn campaign to counterbalance the #KerryOut one. The Bristol East MP saw a swing against her to the Tories of 4.5% but this is favourable to the national swing of 5-6% so she must have been doing something right. Given that the Tories went backwards in London and Scotland, this is arguably all the more impressive from Kerry McCarthy.

However, the best example of online campaigning at the 2010 election is, for me, the #ScotlandSpeaks campaign in protest at the inclusion of only the three main parties at the leader debates which shaped the election campaign so significantly. There really was a lot of input with not much backlift Mike Small managed to build a sizeable groundswell of protest and lodge the objections of the SNP's exclusion respectfully but forcibly. I am therefore linking back to Matt Wardman in the hope that he will pick this up and add it to his list (so, if you agree with the nomination, please click through the link).

I shall tag: Malc in the Burgh, Two Doctors, Tom Harris, Yousuf Hamid, Stephen Glenn and Caron Lindsay to keep the meme going but I daresay it's open season on discussing and nominating on this...

SNP told to try harder on carbon emissions

2010-05-28T12:24:00.001+01:00

One of the disappointing aspects of the current Government’s performance is the lamentable results in the carbon emissions that it has responsibility for.

It is all very well promising, and delivering, a Renewables sector for Scotland but the most immediate and pressing priority in terms of combating climate change is not creating the industries of the future but using less energy right now in our day to day lives. Scotland can boast about its most ambitious targets to cut emissions in the entire world as much as it likes, but if it isn’t followed up with deeds, actions and falling emission rates then it’s not only just a hollow boast but a recipe for Scotland to be embarrassed on the world stage when it falls way short of its own targets.

The defeat of the Government’s proposal to reduce year on year emissions by 0.5% as opposed to the 3% that was promised in 2007 is therefore to be welcomed, even if the 64 to 62 victory in the Parliament only came about because two dozy Tory MSPs pressed the wrong button (simultaneously perhaps boosting the argument that the Scottish Tories need to cut back on some of the deadwood in its cohort).

The road-building, coal power station creating, concrete-heavy and airport-expanding policies of the SNP do sit in stark contrast to the green-tinted rhetoric and this is disappointing for those of us who want, and expect, so much more from a party we believe has the ability and inclination to follow through on its promises. Individual examples can be detrimental to debates but one can’t help comparing Patrick Harvie’s train journey to Copenhagen with Alex Salmond’s flight out to the Maldives to, ironically, sign an agreement against rising sea levels. Surely, under the circumstances, a virtual handshake over a video linkup would have sufficed?

It’s not rocket science after all. Cut the number of flights, cut the number of lights left on, cut the barriers to increased insulation and you’ll cut the need, here and now, to burn more fossil fuels. That’s what the Scottish Government signed up to and there should be no reneging on that promise.

Sadly, in this instance at least, more Nats, less cuts is ringing true for all the wrong reasons.

Keeping up with the bridged Jones'

2010-05-26T19:05:00.001+01:00

The debate over the Forth Road Bridge finished today with the Greens, once again, fruitlessly pleading for common sense to prevail over the proposal to build an unnecessary (but pleasingly shiny) new bridge when the existing one can be fixed for a fraction of the £2bn+ price using methods that have been tested and proven the world over.

In a bittersweet twist, a think tank announced this afternoon that the cuts to Scotland’s budget in the coming years could be £2bn. I shall oblige anyway but it doesn’t take an accountant to point out that a £2bn saving here and a £2bn expense there can be netted off for a crowd-pleasing nil gain and nil loss settlement at precisely the time when every pound counts.

I say crowd-pleasing, of course, in reference to the poll that showed 57% of Scots back repairing the bridge to the 34% of Scots who want a new one. This is in stark contrast to the 113 MSPs who voted today for a new bridge to the 3 MSPs who want to repair (2 Greens + Kenny MacAskill).

Well, parliamentary democracy has spoken, the stupid £2bn proposal lives on and such is life, so I won’t go rehashing the arguments here but I will mention one interesting aspect to today’s Holyrood debate.

I reckon it is fair to say that Fife and Edinburgh MSPs will be more interested in this debate than, say, a Dumfries or Argyll MSP. Granted, £2bn out of a nation’s budget is a big deal and will (or should) concentrate minds but for those MSPs living on the Forth’s riverbank with commuters who traverse the watery mile each day, this issue is surely a big one for them and opinions will be long considered but deeply held.

Well, this all makes me wonder why Edinburgh West MSP, the Liberal Democrats’ Margaret Smith, decided to abstain in today’s vote. Could someone who represents an area that either includes or just falls short of the bridge itself really have no opinion on the matter that she wants to put on the record? Is it possible that the member representing the bridge, or at least its shadow, understands the flaws in her party’s position and couldn’t bring herself to vote alongside?

Put simply, it beggars belief that Margaret Smith has a view of the Forth Road Bridge from her constituency but no views on its potential replacement.

From the Scotland Bill to Scottish independence

2010-05-26T16:02:00.000+01:00

The inclusion of the Scotland Act amongst the UK Government’s 22 Bills has pushed Scotland’s place in Britain back up the discussion list in many quarters. Personally I am surprised that the Conservatives have moved so quickly on the issue when it potentially poses such a risk for the continuation of the union, particularly given that David Cameron claims to have the Union Jack stamped onto his insides like a stick of rock.

For me, the implementation of the Calman proposals is something of a red herring and will not come to pass once it is debated in the House of Commons. The proposal to cut income tax rates by 10p in the pound and then let the Scottish Government decide whether it wants to add on a remaining, 9p, 10p, 11p or so to the basic rate while adding the needlessly constricting condition that any increase must also apply to the top rate of tax is too complicated and ineffectual to be taken seriously. Any future Scottish Government, be it Labour, SNP and/or Lib Dem will not amend the tax rates above or below what we currently have and so we will effectively have ‘Barnett Formula light’, as if that formula wasn’t light enough already.

Let’s consider this – a Scottish Government that reduces the income tax rates will be letting the richest off while reducing spending and a Scottish Government that increases income tax rates will face a Pavlovian reaction from the Opposition of the day that it is hurting the working majority. At the very least, the access to the basic and top rate of tax has to be decoupled to allow a Scottish Government to increase tax for the richer and/or reduce tax for the poorer, if it sees fit to do so.

I suspect, however, that once the devolution of fiscal powers to Scotland is discussed in detail, with English resentment about public spending still growing, with the federal Liberal Democrats in coalition and with the Nationalists pushing hard for as much as it can get, full fiscal autonomy will emerge as the preferred solution to the current imbalance where Scotland can spend money that it doesn’t raise.

The past decade has shown how flawed the current system is, where a country’s budget can double in size and, despite a looming recession, no scope for saving money in the boom years to prepare for the bust is available. Full fiscal autonomy, full national responsibility, is the clear answer and the Con-Lib administration won’t opt for the falling between two stools that the Calman suggestion represents.

Were one to consider the Scottish budget just another treasury block of spending to be allocated out from UK coffers then it would be easier to continue with the Barnett formula, much like the NHS budget or the schools budget can go up and down. However, the crucial difference is that we can’t order the NHS or schools to spend only what it earns. Scotland can and, objectively speaking, Scotland should.

However, despite the apparent inevitability of fiscal autonomy for Scotland, a picture emerges of how it in turn would lead inevitably to Scotland becoming an independent nation.

With Holyrood raising its own funds and spending what it raises on health, schools, policing and so on, there are only a few remaining Westminster considerations for north of the border MPs. The new fiscal arrangement would presumably involve Scotland paying a recharge to Westminster to fund Defence (Trident), UK affairs (the Royal Family) and Europe (still under Europhobic Tory control). I just don’t see Scotland remaining comfortable with an arrangement that is so clearly at odds with the country’s generally differing stance on the above issues. This awkwardness could only be exacerbated if North Sea Oil revenues are excluded from any future arrangement. This would, either quickly or in time, lead to a stirring resentment and a real questioning of Scotland’s place in Britain from outside the McChattering classes aswell as within.

With fiscal autonomy bedded in and one tartan leg already outside the union as a result, the polls showing those in favour of independence would finally creep higher and higher until the last remaining protests against holding a referendum are vanquished. Note that this would be irrespective of who forms the next Scottish Government, there is even an argument that a Labour Government having to cut budgets with the Conservatives in power at a UK level would hasten the support for going our own way.

The referendum itself, when it does come, could prove to be a false choice if the majority of Scots perceive the status quo at the time of asking as Scotland being effectively independent of London and the rest of the UK anyway. How can one differentiate between choosing (a) independence or (b) the status quo when they both feel the same already?

With the SNP (and resurgent Greens) pushing the message that Scotland taking the last few powers north of the border would result in stronger representation in Europe, more control of our Renewables destiny and more flexibility in how the country engages with the wider world, it’s not difficult to imagine a ‘Yes’ vote in the referendum of some 60-70%, primarily due to the mindset-changing work having already taken place with the successful switch to fiscal responsibility, not to mention the overwhelming sense that the Scottish Parliament is the real seat of power rather than an ever foreign feeling UK Parliament.

An innocuous Bill it may seem, but in the length of time it took the Queen to read out the detail, the Scotland Bill may have already set in motion seismic changes for Scotland’s future and the nation’s eventual constitutional settlement.

Should we offer solidarity or only sympathy to Greek workers?

2010-05-25T17:55:00.002+01:00

I am planning on attending the ‘Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay’ rally tomorrow at which the Green Party’s MP Caroline Lucas and the venerable Tony Benn will be amongst the speakers voicing their solidarity with Greek workers. These workers are facing cuts to their wages and pensions as a result of financial mismanagement from their Government which has contributed to remarkable falls in global markets today. Although I am looking forward to the event given the esteem that I have for both Lucas and Benn, I have to admit that my first impression was that I don’t necessarily agree with what they, and the rally in general, are aiming to achieve.

Sure, I have sympathy for the plight of the Greek people and I have solidarity with them insofar that I hope they get through this tough period relatively unscathed but to oppose the proposed remedy for a financial crisis that threatened to wreak havoc across Europe is a big ask and requires an equally big alternative answer.

On the face of it, my approach to the Greek strikers is the same as that to Unite in the BA standoff, ‘roll with the punches and just get on with it’. However, I respect Caroline and Tony as politicians and would generally trust their judgement. With their views not so easily dismissed, I decided that I needed to be better briefed before tomorrow evening took place and the below is the twists and turns of my thought process on the matter:

Greece’s woes stem from the Government effectively running out of money and attracting huge rates of interest if it turns to the money markets to plug the gap. Consequently, Greece has turned to the IMF and the EU for financial help to ensure that it can rebalance its books and function independently. In return, conditions have been attached to some £20bn of bail out money including public sector wage freezes, increasing VAT, cutting or scrapping of bonuses, pension cuts and tax rises. There will be a nationwide strike in Greece tomorrow in protest at these austerity measures and, presumably, it is primarily this strike that tomorrow’s rally is in solidarity with.

My first reaction remains my current one, at the time of writing at least. There’s no easy way out of a financial hole that starts plumbing its own new depths and there is little choice for a weakened Government but to target its public sector. Tax companies too harshly and they fold or leave the country. Tax the super-rich too harshly and they head for Monaco. What is left to be done but squeeze the masses as much as is required to balance the books? It’s painful and unpleasant, but it is necessary, ne c’est pas?

Well, perhaps not.

Considering my initial take on the answer to Greece’s woes and trying (and failing) to reconcile it with the views of the Caroline Lucas’ and Tony Benns of this world, I can feel myself losing touch, feel the nascent ‘just get on with it and don’t ask questions’ opinion beginning to take hold, an opinion so commonly woven into the fabric of the cantankerous, the spiritless and, in many instances, the done for. I’d already had my first warning too, the beginnings of the luddite ‘just get a job’ internal retort when a homeless person had the gall to ask for change.

Right-wingers are generally older than left-wingers and I have to face up to being less of a spring chicken than I once was. Have I found myself straddling that left-right fence already? Why is there no warning for such a frightfully awful proposition?

Thankfully, real life and keeping one’s eyes and ears open can always help save one from oneself. The cuts in the UK, however necessary they may be, are not as stark as those in Greece but even so their observable human impact helps to crystallise the mind. The examples of pain are many from the numeracy and literacy adult learning group that is having to close down in Edinburgh for the sake of £11k a year to the story in the London Evening Standard this week of the Eastern European father who jumped off a London bridge to an expected watery demise so desperate was his plight in terms of housing and employment prospects.

Setting up structures to tactically and strategically address life’s difficult problems alongside the (relatively easier to sell) new schools and ring-fenced health budgets takes political stomach and cold hard cash. I fear we may be unnecessarily entering an era where we have neither at our disposal.

For the Lib-Con administration, reducing the deficit is the be all and end all, the chief consideration that sits atop everything else. However, the risk of creating a new underclass surely has to be a red line that we refuse to cross come what may. “We’re all in this together” shouldn’t be an excuse for soaking the poor when lightly dousing the rich is a fairer route out of the mess we (and Greece and Spain and Italy) find ourselves in. When belt tightening becomes a garrotting of the working classes then we have to step back and consider the entire situation. Yes, we are spending more money than we raise but does that mean spending less or taxing more? Are there areas facing the axe in the UK and Greece that need to be protected if we wish to see a Europe working and prospering together? If so, which other area can make up the shortfall?

To answer that question I personally can look inwards. I’ll be perfectly honest, I’ve had a good recession. Mortgage payments have collapsed, I’m getting paid a lot more thanks to the London dividend and the price of food and living in general seems to be lower than before due to brutally competitive markets. There’s something not right when I can start thinking about taking advantage of others’ woes by buying an investment property in a year or two while the nation prepares to strike and Greece turns in on itself. The UK Government’s plans in today’s Queen’s Speech to implement a (bizarre) tax cut for middle-earners when it is that demographic that needs to pay more has me lost, only when I’m able to see past my own selfish interests that is.

A ‘tax on jobs’ the Tories warned during the election campaign but if those in well-paid jobs are the lucky ones then they, we, are the ones who need to feel the most pain as far as I can see. I pay tax at about ~20% but in Sweden I’d be paying ~32% which is fairness’ gain and my looming property portfolio’s loss. In short, I should be taxed more, along with millions more in a similarly or more comfortable position in life. That much is plain to see when I allow my mind to open wide enough to admit it but the majority don’t see it that way, the majority don’t vote that way and so the majority ensures that the Government won’t rule that way.

Greece is struggling and it is the Greeks who struggle the most who are bearing the brunt of the country’s pain. That deserves more than sympathy, even if it is not always so clearly the case. Put another way, being lucky enough to absorb life punching you in the gut unexpectedly does not mean that you should demand the same fortitude from those less fortunate and more vulnerable, whether they are inside this country or living further afield. Furthermore, a vindictive kicking of Greece out of the Eurozone and/or Europe should not be a future condition of any deal.

Now is not the time for the hardening of hearts. It is the time for clear minds, steely resolve and, above all, fairness. Bigger taxes and bigger pensions is the rebalancing that is required, not a slicing of working class wages into a financial black hole that wasn’t of their making.

Thank goodness for Caroline and Tony then, lefties to the end who will, I am sure, speak passionately and eloquently tomorrow, helping to resolve the internal struggle that will no doubt be raging within many of us watching and listening on.

(The Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay event takes place at 7pm at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square). (h/t Jim Jay)

The Scottish Parliament's last year

2010-05-22T09:24:00.000+01:00

As Holyrood shapes up for the unofficial start of the 2011 election campaign, it is worth taking a look back at the past three years.

Frozen council tax and free tuition fees are the two standout positive policies for me while free prescription charges, the compassionate release of Al-Megrahi, the winning of the Commonwealth Games, further improvements in the NHS, the renewables revolution and a tackling head-on of the slide in educational standards are further reasons to be proud of the Government’s performance.

There is, like so much in life, a downside to consider.

The Scottish Futures Trust has been frustratingly disappointing in terms of delivery while dumping of student debt and assistance for first time buyers simply hasn’t happened. Pledges on class sizes, PE in high schools and tax breaks for artists never really materialised either. There is plenty that just didn’t get around to being implemented and although the ripping up of another party’s manifesto is a cheap stunt in anyone’s book there is, to be fair, a lot of ammunition available against the SNP in the campaign to come.

Not only that but it looks like severe budget cuts will see a reversal of some of the free school meals, free personal care for the elderly and free prescription policies that were brought in early on and in past administrations. They say that if you’re not playing offence then you’re playing defence so is it time for Salmond to batten down the hatches?

Come April 2011, will posters emblazoned ‘the SNP hasn’t delivered’ hit home?

I would, of course, hope not and it may sound weak but there is a lot to be said for a Government’s heart and intentions being in the right place, even if events and unforeseen budgetary constraints ultimately confound those wishes. Reducing class sizes, moving away from PFI and introducing free school meals for all primary school children are excellent objectives and at least the SNP is nailing its colours to those particular masts, even if progress has been mercilessly slow. Further, the SNP can’t very well be blamed for not delivering on policies that opposition parties have voted down, a referendum on independence being the obvious example there.

However, the coming year looks set to be desperately depressing; lame duck, fag-end, out of ideas, these are all adjectives that can be expected to be bandied about as the Parliament sighs and shuffles its way towards the next election. If only there was a big policy and big debate that could fill the gaping hole in Holyrood’s diary.

Minimum pricing may help to a certain extent as Labour and the SNP look set to slug it out on that topic for some months but I wonder if dropping plans for the Local Income Tax will prove to be short-sighted.

The Liberal Conservative coalition has plans to bring in changes to income tax such that liability would only start after £10,000 of earnings. The knock on effect of this is that a Local Income Tax in Scotland would only be levied against individuals who earn above this amount which would lance those arguments that students and senior citizens would suffer from this policy.

The question of how much a Local Income Tax would take in and whether it would be less, more or miraculously the same as Council Tax would remain but if, as I strongly expect, George Osborne increases income tax rates on June 22nd, the funding gap may well have been closed by the Conservatives down south.

The erroneous slamming of LIT as a tax on jobs and the difficulties between the SNP and Lib Dems over just how local a Local Income Tax should be would also remain but I just can’t help but think that if this issue was still on the political table for this parliamentary term, the ground would be shifting in the SNP’s favour for the year ahead and a glaring gap in the Scottish Parliament’s ‘to do list’ would be filled in.

Change is blowing through the UK and the SNP could catch that prevailing wind to their medium-term benefit with the right policy which would help to pitch the Scottish Government as a fresh and forward-looking administration at just the right time.

It’s just a shame they brought the kite down prematurely on something as progressive and potentially popular as Local Income Tax, particularly as that same Government looks like staggering up to the May 2011 ballot rather than striding.