Archive for category Holyrood

It’s rubbish being Scottish

This is a family show, so the word in the title is “rubbish”. But the sentiment is something which, coincidentally, also rhymes with rubbish…

Look, don’t get me wrong – I’m as patriotic as the next Scotsman (though how you measure this, I’m not sure). I want the best for my nation, Flower of Scotland makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I scream bloody murder at Scottish sporting failure. Are those credentials evidence of patriotism? If not, what is? I’ve lived here – with the exception of one Masters year – all my life. When I’ve worked – sparingly, since I’m a semi-permanent student – I’ve worked here. Are those essential for patriotism? I also think we should be independent – is that important? Or can you be a patriot and a Unionist (I think yes, but I’m trying to build a case for myself here).

So, all that said, patriotism evidenced… I still think its an utterly lamentable state of affairs I’ve found myself born into. Scottish? Be damned for eternity. That seems to have been the future which fate decided for us long ago.

I’m a big sports fan – and those of you who follow me on Twitter will recognise all the frustrations that particular vice brings me. But I’m not alone, and plenty of our population of 5 million join me in despair every time Scotland take to the field at football or rugby, watching in a masochistic orgy of expectation followed by crushing despair as we continually snatch cruel defeat from the jaws of victory, finding new ways to shoot ourselves in the foot along the way. Oftentimes we’ll blame others – the referee in both the Scotland v Czech Republic football match and Scotland v Argentina rugby match rightfully got pelters for terrible decisions which changed the shape of those matches – but the truth is, if we were good enough, we’d win. That we don’t is disappointing, but hardly surprising.

Sure, we’ve historically been decent – good even. We’ve qualified for tournaments and won Grand Slams. We’ve done better in other sports too – with frequent World Champions in snooker, major champions in golf – until the rest of the world were invited to play, then we fell down the pecking order. We’ve been World Champions in elephant polo (and just where in Scotland do they train?!) and we won the Homeless Football World Cup. And while the latter is a terrific achievement, it surely points to the fact that, as a nation, we’ve bigger problems than our lack of sporting prowess.

And that’s a fact. Although I’ve styled this as a rant about how rubbish we are at sport – or rather, how the story of glorious failure is always the same – its a symptom of a wider problem: the Scottish malaise.

This is a characteristic which epitomises Scotland (and is evidenced in the title of this post). We’re constantly down on ourselves. We have a level of expectation which, in many cases, cannot be matched by our ability. Its logical extension is the “too wee, too poor” argument against independence. On the flip side of that, those arguing for independence do what we do in sport, and blame others. “We’d be a much better place if only we were allowed to be independent” is the rallying call, as if independence is the silver bullet for all of Scotland’s troubles. Its not.

Politically, we’ve been here before – standing on the edge, ready to take a leap on something which would hopefully help to change Scottish society for the better. 1979, 1992 – opportunities to take a chance with a new institution and a new government ready to deliver such an institution. But then the Scottish mentality takes over, the fear of our own ability, the opportunity to blame someone else for our failures would disappear, and we’d be left with no one to blame but ourselves.

The constitutional debate – as it has been heavily featured on Better Nation this week – needs widened. Its not just about who governs us from where and why one form of governance is better than another. Its about big ideas for Scotland. How, to put this in the context of this blog’s founding, do we make this a Better Nation? If its independence, why will that be better? How will society as a whole benefit – what will our politicians do to ensure that being free to make our own decisions makes things better for that wider society? Similarly, if we want to stay in the Union, and countless many do, why is that better? What does the Union bring that we can’t do better here – by ourselves?

I started this post talking about sport, and I think its important to note its role in identity building. When a team is on the up, it gives a nation confidence – plenty of Welsh folk assured me that, had their referendum been in a year when Wales won a Grand Slam, the margin of victory would have been much more than the slender 6,721 votes that it was. Equally, when we do badly, the nation slumps – and some argue that the failure of Ally’s Army in 1978 had an impact on the 1979 referendum. Perhaps sporting success provides a confidence to the nation, extending into other areas of society. Perhaps the conviction that we can be good at something helps to motivate the populace into productivity. Perhaps a referendum at the moment would confirm that theory – or blow it out of the water.

“We’re shite and we know we are” is a chant heard regularly in the stadiums of perennial relegation candidates. Maybe if we should look no further for a new national anthem. Unfortunately, all it would serve to do would be to help us meet rather than surpass expectations.

Best and worst motions of the week – Silly sausages and choice cuts

It was only a matter of time.

SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson, for so long the villain star of Crap Holyrood Chat, has won the not-so-sought-after Better Nation accolade of Worst Motion of the Week.

Now, I like a good fry up, I’m sure most of my co-editors do and no doubt you yourself as you’re reading this are picturing a nice crispy tattie scone, some lovely fried mushrooms, plump poached eggs and, heck, let’s go for the black pudding too.

Motion S4M-00958 – Kenneth Gibson ( Cunninghame North ) ( Scottish National Party ) : Best Breakfast Award, Auchrannie House Hotel
That the Parliament congratulates the owners and staff at Auchrannie House Hotel, on the Isle of Arran, for winning the Best Breakfast category in the LateRooms.com Best Kept Secret Awards 2011; notes the judges’ comments that “Auchrannie House Hotel is a clear winner for Best Breakfast. Not only does it look delicious (and tastes it by all accounts) but the elegant surroundings really complete the breakfast experience”; understands that, after the judges whittled down the thousands of nominations, Auchrannie House Hotel saw off competition from hotels in Harrogate and Eastbourne in the final three, and wishes everyone at Auchrannie House Hotel all the best for the year ahead, following what it considers to be this great achievement.
Supported by: John Scott, John Lamont, Fiona McLeod, Mike MacKenzie, Humza Yousaf

One of the beauties of this motion is that not only has Kenny seemingly not eaten the breakfast, neither seemingly has the reviewer quoted in the text. (And, full disclosure, I nicked that point from Aidan).

Now, I am a breakfast connoisseur, snob even. I would, and I do, travel through hell and high water to enjoy the first and most important meal of the day wherever it may be – from Edinburgh’s Word of Mouth, Rock Salt, Toast or Valvona & Crolla or London’s Caravan, Smith of Smithfield, J&A or Kopapa but, a slap up brekkie deserving of a parliamentary motion? Not for me.

But, it’s soggy porridge to full Scottish now because the Best Motion of the Week goes to Lothians MSP Kezia Dugdale for this shining example of what the process should be used for:

Motion S4M-00965 – Kezia Dugdale ( Lothian ) ( Scottish Labour ) : Addiction and Relapse Prevention

That the Parliament commends the community development agency, Comas, for what it considers to be groundbreaking and innovative work in enabling recovering drug addicts and alcoholics to create new solutions to the challenges that they face when sustaining abstinence; notes that Comas supports individuals transitioning from a life of addiction into one of work and prosperity through developing their own social or community groups to create a community of peer support, self-help and self-management; welcomes this approach to recovery based on community development as one the best ways of helping to promote long-term recovery and relapse prevention; is concerned, however, that out of the £173 million that Audit Scotland estimates is spent on drug and alcohol services annually, there is no identified spend on maintaining recovery after treatment, and considers that serious investment in relapse prevention is key to any commitment to addressing failure demand and moving toward preventative spend.
Supported by: John Pentland, Malcolm Chisholm, David Torrance, Jackie Baillie, Neil Findlay, Graeme Pearson, David Stewart, Mary Fee, Anne McTaggart

Lefties jumping up and down about cuts to services isn’t going to cut it as Osborne finds his range with his swinging axe. Politicians need to dig deep and make persuasive, near-uncontestable arguments in favour of continued support for the vulnerable in society who are too easily maligned and pushed to the side.

This isn’t necessarily about the amount of money spent, however, it’s about better outcomes and identifies an area of real concern – if we’re going to spend money on helping people deal with their addictions in the first place it’s surely better spending money to help them stay off rather than paying for a second, third or fourth course of treatment.

Even better, there’s an existing provider identified for Parliament to look at and learn from!

Meanwhile, At the City Chambers…

Alyson Macdonald is an opinionated wee nyaff who lives, works and agitates in Edinburgh. She’s a regular guest contributor at Bright Green, and has recently found herself involved in a campaign against the privatisation of local public services.

Sources inside the City of Edinburgh Council have warned that the Council plans to hold a crucial vote on 27th October to decide whether to privatise services such as waste and recycling, council tax collection, parks, building maintenance, cleaning, and school catering. Under a project known as the Alternative Business Models Programme (ABM), the Lib-Dem/SNP-led Council have been investigating whether to put vital services out for tender since December 2009.

If you live in Edinburgh, you may be wondering why you haven’t heard about any of this. The simple answer is that the Council don’t want to advertise what will most likely be a very unpopular policy. Neither the Lib-Dems nor SNP mentioned it in their manifesto during the last local elections, and there has been almost no public consultation. In fact, it’s been rather difficult for anyone to get a definite idea of exactly which services were under threat of privatisation until quite recently, because much of the information was classed as “commercially sensitive” and wasn’t available to the public. Over the last few months, details have started to trickle out, including the fact that council officials have already been in negotiations with possible contractors, and that some of the companies have previous convictions for price-fixing, or have been found responsible for fatal accidents.

We are being told that these services need to be privatised in order to save money, but, in practice, for-profit companies rarely provide better value for money. The initial bid might seem like good deal, but the hidden extras stack up quicker than on a Ryanair ticket, whether it’s for additional services, or the costs associated with managing and auditing contractors. The experiences of councils in England, where privatisation is more common, stand as a warning of what can happen when services are run by private companies who measure their success by their profit margin, rather than the amount of public money they’ve saved. Liverpool Council awarded the contract for their IT and customer services to BT in 2001 in the hope of reducing costs, but they’re being overcharged by around £10M per year, and, on top of that, they’ve run up six-figure bills investigating BT’s practises – only to discover that it would be cheaper to run the services in-house.

Even if privatisation does save money, the savings would come at the expense of local jobs. Under the ABM proposals, up to 4000 jobs would be transferred from the public to the private sector, which could mean lower wages and fewer benefits for staff. It could also lead to redundancies as the companies try to cut costs by shedding jobs or relocating back-office functions to their headquarters in another part of the country.

Then there is the question of accountability: if services are run by external companies, how much control will the council have, and how will local residents be able to influence service provision? At the moment, if you have a problem with any council services, you can take it up with your elected representatives, or use public pressure to encourage change, but it’s more difficult to use that pressure on a company, especially when they’ve signed a long-term contract. The contracts that the Council are negotiating now are likely to last for several years, and with local elections due to be held next spring, that means the contracts will probably outlast the current administration. Even if the politicians responsible are voted out in 2012, it we wouldn’t be able to get out of the deals they’d made without paying millions in cancellation fees.

If we leave it until the elections, it’s too late; which is why there have been neighbourhood campaign groups springing up across in the city in the past few months. So far the aim has been to confront the secrecy around the Alternative Business Models Programme by getting information out to as many people as possible. Volunteers have delivered leaflets, or knocked on doors and talked to their neighbours about the proposals. Some people have even arranged public meetings where residents can ask their councillors about ABM; I attended one such meeting at Meadowbank back in July, and found it quite worrying that the councillors who had been sent along to defend the proposals had knew so little about them, and could only offer a few platitudes about austerity and competition to their constituents, who were overwhelmingly opposed to the idea of privatisation.

Now that the date of the vote is only a few weeks away, the campaign is picking up pace, and although we are still trying to get information about ABM to as many people as possible, we’re also putting pressure on councillors to vote against the proposals by making group visits to councillors’ surgeries. Labour and Green councillors have already stated their opposition to privatisation (although it’s worth remembering that the previous Labour administration of the Council were hardly reluctant to sign us up to expensive PFI contracts), but they don’t have sufficient numbers to block the proposals while the Lib Dem, SNP and Conservative groups are all in favour. We know that we won’t get anywhere with the Tories, so efforts are being focussed on the SNP and Lib Dems, to persuade them to reconsider. The proximity of the elections works in our favour here, because a councillor who wants to be re-elected can’t afford to support policies that their constituents don’t want. We need to remind them that it is their job to represent the people who elected them; not to force their ideas on us.

I’m under no illusions about the state of our public services: many of them could be better, and they

should be improved wherever possible, but privatisation will not deliver improvements, and it won’t – as David Cameron suggests – give residents more control over services. The only people who will benefit from privatisation are the private companies, and they’ll do it at the expense of service users and taxpayers. It’s time for us to remind our councillors who they work for.

A belated welcome for Tory Hoose

Well, we’ve certainly started a trend.  Group blogs are all the rage in Scotland it would seem, and it was remiss of us to allow Tory Hoose to launch without noting its arrival and welcoming it.

Anything that encourages more intelligent and thoughtful discussion of policy and constitution is to be welcomed.  And the Scottish Conservatives have quite an exciting few months ahead, with a real leadership contest and a lot of thinking to do about its electoral fortunes and how to improve them.  It’s good to see a range of opinion and views being attracted to Tory Hoose’s pages on these matters.  Awfy helpful too that Tory Hoose is providing a portal for all the leadership candidates, with news, views and interviews, as well as details of hustings etc – Labour Hame take note.

The blog obviously has a contribution to make to the debate around Scotland’s constitutional future – though, for the moment, that seems to be raging on this here blog space.  But it would be good too, to see Conservative thoughts on big policy ideas and measures being debated – there is a wide spread of opinion in the Conservative party that has all too often been hidden.

The way to create a Better Nation is to tip all the views out, debate them and dissect them, to see what might work.  So, some views from the traditionally Wet Tory wing – whom Margaret Thatcher tried and failed to kill off – as well as the very right wing of the party on things like council tax freeze, preventative spending, minimum pricing, current enterprise and employment stimulation measures and higher education would be good.

Though, of course, we don’t promise to agree with any of it….

EXCLUSIVE from Ken Macintosh MSP: A voice for Scotland’s future

A very welcome post from Ken Macintosh, Labour MSP for Eastwood and frontrunner in the party’s ongoing leadership contest.

What kind of society do we want to live in? What kind of future do we want to see? What kind of country do we want Scotland to be?

Prosperous, healthy and safe, undoubtedly, but I think we would want more than that.
How about more equal, fair and just? In fact, I hope most of us would go further still: more caring, honest and more trusting.

You see, I believe our task in the Scottish Parliament is not just to secure good government and a sound economy, but to build the good society, a happier, kinder and more confident Scotland.

Scotland’s Labour Party may have lost the election but we have not lost sight of our values or our ambition for the country Scotland can be.

It was the Labour Party that devolved power to Scotland. It was Scotland’s Labour Party that introduced the smoking ban and concessionary travel, delivered free personal care and took on the difficult issues like Section 28 and the scourge of sectarianism.

These are the actions of a party with a vision and our task now is to remind both ourselves and our potential supporters across the country of that vision.

My vision for Scotland’s future starts with us getting the simple things right. I want a country where every young couple starting out in life can find the home they want in a safe community; where our children can go to a school that raises their ambitions; where we are looked after when we are ill and cared for when we are old.

I want to live in a country where everyone is able to better themselves because of their talent and ability; a country where if you work hard and do well, you are able to enjoy your success.

The Scottish Parliament can help us be that country and it has already given us the confidence to take charge of our own destiny. We have decided we don’t want to see smoking as an everyday part of life. We are fed up with our reputation as hardened drinkers. We are changing our lifestyles and diet to reduce our risk of cancer. These deliberate steps towards the society we want to be and the healthy lives we wish to lead have been helped by a Parliament in which our own voice is heard.

But we can do so much more. The powers of the Scottish Parliament are not an excuse for why things can’t be done; they are a liberator to release the potential of our nation.

Education is entirely devolved and it is up to us here and now to improve the opportunities offered our children. Health is entirely devolved and it is already up to us to ensure the care older people receive does not vary depending on where they live. It is not good enough to blame others or hide behind the constitution when we can change lives for the better starting today.

There may be no individual policy which by itself will deliver the good society, but I believe the pursuit of full employment comes close. Having a job gives people self-esteem and a sense of purpose. It helps tackle dependency and poverty, it makes our country more productive and each of us more prosperous. Full employment can help give everyone a stake in our society and provide an antidote to a range of social ills. It may be that governments by themselves cannot create full employment but we can provide the education and training to make people more employable. We can create the conditions for business and enterprise to thrive. Above all we can make the pursuit of full employment the overarching aim of public policy.

There are other policies we need to develop too, from the economically essential such as expanding child care, to the culturally vital such as promoting sport and the arts. And of course we have to contrast our vision for Scotland with the limited aims of the SNP to be simply “competent” in Government, while leading us down the dangerous path to separatism.

The SNP claim to defend Scotland’s interests but separatism is clearly not in Scotland’s interests. I firmly believe that most Scots want us to decide our own affairs as we do in the Scottish Parliament, but to do so within the United Kingdom. We want to continue to enjoy the best of both worlds.

I am a patriotic Scot first but our shared British identity is equally important to me. I am proud of the NHS. I like having the BBC. I am more interested in the many things we have in common with our neighbours in the rest of the UK than in the few areas that supposedly separate us.

I consider myself to be a devolutionist and I believe devolution has given Scotland the opportunity not only to get the simple things right, but to be the shining light for others: a caring society where we look out for one another, not just ourselves; a society that values ambition but not greed; a society where selfishness is balanced out by selflessness.

The conclusions of Scottish Labour’s review and the forthcoming leadership election provide Scotland’s Labour Party with the opportunity to renew and refresh our relationship with the Scottish people. We need to attract support from all sections of society and to build a progressive alliance here in Scotland. We need a new voice, one that people will warm to.
Above all we need speak up and speak out on behalf of the people of Scotland.

I want to lead that progressive alliance and in the forthcoming campaign I intend to be a new voice for Scotland’s Labour Party, a voice for Scotland’s future.