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Better Nation

Ah’m no a Onionist, he’s no a Separatist

Nov 9

Posted by Aidan in Holyrood | 157 Comments

Well, obviously all of the SNP are constitutionally obsessed separatists with no regard for other issues. But they do have one big advantage, the Yes campaign have something that unites them despite their radicallly different views on what happens after independence. Apparently it will be Scandanavian style social democracy with very low tax rates to stimulate business and a haven of freedom where you can’t criticise religious types for arguing against the government treating gay people equally. But that’s ok, they just need to hold together long enough to get to the line and it’s such a strong part of their identity that they’ll probably manage to hold it together long enough for the ballots to get counted.

Over on the other side of the fence, despite being regularly lumped together as “the Unionists”, those of us who oppose independence are similarly divided about everything other than independence. Labour disagree with Tories, Tories disagree with Lib Dems, Lib Dems disagree with Labour…

If, from a Nationalist perspective, Unionism looks incoherent, disorganised or lacking leadership that’s because it isn’t really a thing. Unionism just isn’t a widely held political philosophy in the way that nationalism is, and it hasn’t been for the better part of half a century. Demands that we produce a single agreed on line For The Defence Of The Union mostly meet with a confused look and shrug of the shoulders because there is no “we”.  Despite what’s commonly assumed there isn’t a secret Unionist conclave with decoder rings, complicated handshakes and a fraternal greeting of “Hail, fellow North Briton!” where we plot to keep the freeborn folk of Scotland servile to our London masters. Well, maybe there is, but I certainly haven’t been invited to join it.

Fortunately nobody’s going to be defending that. Yeah, ok, there’s a few loons who want to roll back devolution, but that’s rather to ignore that both the Scottish and British constitutions are evolving beasts and Holyrood’s here to stay a while. The real dividing line is how much further devolution is going to, with some wanting Full Fiscal Autonomy, others saying “this far and no further”. Malcolm Chisholm has a well written piece on the other place on this, the Lib Dems want a federal UK… there’s a range of options.

I actually think there might be a few too many options. Which is why I’m opposed to independence really – it offers no time for review, post referendum negotiations will necessarily get things wrong and we’ll have to live with consequences. We can’t go back from independence. Once it’s done it’s done, renegotiating our position on cross border institutions such as the Bank of England, the DVLA and whatever else we share will be difficult.

Devolution, on the other hand, does allow for that. Powers can be moved around as appropriate,some pushed from Holyrood to Councils, some from Westminster to Holyrood, some from Westminster to Brussels. But if, for some reason, that doesn’t work out or circumstances change then devolution can be reviewed, revised and altered.

But being opposed to large, rapid, irreversible change isn’t, as I said, a political philosophy. It’s not a shared prism through which we analyse politics, like Nationalism, Socialism, Liberalism and Conservatism are.

Just because Unionism isn’t a coherent political philosophy shouldn’t cheer those in favour of independence too much though. There’s a coherent, convincing case to be made for staying in the union – shared defence and commercial interests for instance, and also one against independence as both a process, outlined above, and a promise: Scotland’s problems are not a result of our constitutional arrangements. Becoming independent will not solve those problems, and remaining part of the UK will not prevent us from solving them.

ETA: this isn’t meant to be a grand “Defence of the Union” post, it isn’t even really about devolution vs independence, it’s about why very few people bind themselves together under the “Unionist” label

Better Nation’s new Editor – Kirsty Connell

Nov 9

Posted by admin in Housekeeping | Comments off

The idea behind Better Nation was that it would be a rolling beast where guest posts* from within and outwith Scotland would always be welcomed and where new bloggers would ideally outlive the old, the website sustaining itself through constant input and constant renewal.

The next chapter in this hopefully still burgeoning story begins today with the announcement that we have a new editor – Kirsty Connell.

Kirsty has written a few guest posts for this site recently and knocked the blogging ball out of the park each time. It is safe to say, with not a hint of false modesty, that we are raising our collective average from today.

There is a wealth of experience and knowledge that Kirsty brings to the table through her time as a candidate in Scottish and European Parliament elections, through her fundraiser work, through working in Holyrood as a researcher and through being chairperson of Glasgow Labour Club. That description is chosen purposefully as Kirsty is also a proud feminist. A peek at the @Kirsty_C Twitter account will give you a view of what makes her tick for any readers that have not yet made Kirsty’s online acquaintance.

So our historically greenish, pro-independence slant is distinctly, and somewhat deliberately, being balanced out by a strong Labour presence with Aidan at the helm, and now doubled up with Kirsty. Our comments here at Better Nation, one of our strongest plus points, can be delightfully robust but hopefully the insightful will not be too regularly met with the inciteful. While Alex Salmond graciously conceded that the SNP does not have a monopoly on wisdom, so too do proponents of independence not have a monopoly on debate in the Scottish blogosphere.

It’s not easy running a blog, even a group blog, so fresh talent and fresh impetus are always welcome, some would say necessary.

At Better Nation we will always seek continue to spread our reach to cover all Scottish viewpoints consistent with our raisins etc, and that branching out may well continue sooner rather than later but, for now, we are a Fab Four and our purpose remains solid as we begin to wind down on 2011 and look to 2012.

So a big welcome to Kirsty and here’s to more Better Nation discussion and exploits in the weeks, months and years to come.

(*Submissions to Editors’at’betternation’dot’org)

Bagging a panda

Nov 8

Posted by Guest Blog in Environment, Holyrood | 15 Comments

Another lovely wee guest post today, from John Nichol, aka @cowrin, who blogs at Suitably Despairing.

A panda at Holyrood yesterday

In a few weeks time, Edinburgh Zoo will take delivery of a couple of Giant Pandas, a gift from China. Actually, they’re not a gift, they’re a loan, bestowed by the country on any other nation which tickles it’s fancy. And to get them, Britain has done an awful lot of fancy-tickling.

There’s something faintly queasy about China’s use of this sad creature as a diplomatic tool. Not only do they demand that the country receiving the “gift” bends over backwards to please the Chinese, but they then have to pay China $1 million a year for the privilege of keeping the pandas for a maximum of ten years.

No animal should be used as a commodity in this way, bestowing favours on countries that please you, and I’m ashamed that Scotland and the UK is a party to this. It feels even worse when the poor creature being transported halfway around the planet is so endangered.

It was Chris Packham of Springwatch fame (and, to those of us of a certain age, Really Wild Show fame) who suggested a couple of years ago that we should let Giant Pandas die out. They’re an evolutionary dead-end, a picky eater which barely moves and barely mates. I have some sympathy with the idea that we’re only throwing money at the Panda because they look damn cute. After all, other species have come and gone without us giving much of a damn. But I also feel that if we have the means to save a species then we should.

What we shouldn’t be doing is saving a species just to use it as a diplomatic tool. Pandas are not trophies, to be paraded around to the citizens while the First Minister gushes about how much China really, really likes us. Animals that aren’t part of our food system should not be trade-able commodities between countries, to be exploited by politicians as some sort of coup that the creatures are in the country in the first place, or to be used to curry favour with previous enemies. If you really want to bestow gifts on a foreign country, then give them a statue.

Whether zoos themselves should exist or not is a whole other topic, but needless to say Edinburgh Zoo will not be shy about commercially exploiting their new residents, just another way that the pandas will be used for the benefit of others and not themselves.

It’s too late to stop the pandas from coming to this country, but I would urge the Scottish Government to have nothing to do with this shameful modern-day trophy-hunting.

The Purpose of Telling Tales

Nov 7

Posted by Guest Blog in Ideology, Parties | 55 Comments

A guest from Kirsty Connell, former Labour candidate and Vice Chair of the STUC’s Young Workers’ Committee.

AttleeFrom Caesar’s “Veni, Vidi, Vici” to Obama’s “Yes we can”, via the cry of “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” coined in the French Revolution, the history of the greatest political victories can be traced through looking for those able to distill ideology into mantra.

Capturing the zeitgeist in a pithy phrase isn’t just a mechanism of spin, or simply a clever advertising jingle drawn up to then crawl into voters’ heads and guide their hand in the ballot box. Any idiot can come up with a slogan. But for the one line to work, to be compelling, durable, persuasive, it needs to encapsulate the political narrative of the candidate. To take the ideology, values and attitudes of that politician or party, tie it up with the emotions and beliefs of the voters, and state in very few words what making this choice will mean to you, your family, your country.

It’s disappointing, but unsurprising, that Scottish Labour appears to have dismissed the whole of the above as something they just don’t need to do.  Speaking at the first Leadership hustings, Johann Lamont said: “In the last election we lost our way, we lost our confidence, and we lost Scotland. People tell us we need to find a narrative. We don’t need to find a narrative, we need to remember our story.”

She couldn’t be more wrong. Scottish Labour has never needed more urgently to find and explain its narrative to the voters. Preferably in as few words as possible.

To continue James’ explanation a few posts back of Strøm and Müller’ model of coalition building, there is little in political marketing that I despise more than candidates who openly  sell themselves as “office-seeking”. To me, Tom Harris’ Twitter bio of “Campaigning to be Labour’s next candidate for First Minister” insults voters by assuming the purpose of leading a political party is the office itself, with no reference to the policies or campaigning that need to come first to get you into that office.

And sure, the point can be made that it’s only governments that get to do anything, so winning the office has to come first in order to deliver those policies. But I still think any candidate should do voters the service of telling them what their time in office would look like, what it would do and how it would change things.

Narrative matters in politics. It is not a sexy buzzword bandied about by political consultants selling snake oil. If you don’t have a dialogue with voters to discuss with them who you are, how you got here, and where you’re going, you’re not going to go anywhere.

Scottish Labour can’t hope to sit around as the default, waiting for the Scottish electorate to realise what utter idiots they’ve been putting the SNP in power and so decide it’s high time to come home to Labour.

Lamont was right in one part of her soundbite: Labour did indeed lose its way in 2011, although I think it was lost long before.  But Labour lost its way, its confidence and Scotland because it lost its narrative. Apart from the independence bit, nobody could really say why voting for Scottish Labour would be different from voting for the SNP. Policies were broadly similar, attitudes to the Tory government in Westminster mostly aligned. But Salmond and the SNP have their big picture and they have found the best way to tell everyone what that big picture looks like and means. Scottish Labour were left looking like they were working on a scribble on an envelope of a big bad Tory government and a bigger, badder SNP First Minister.

But like a Rembrandt abandoned in an attic and slightly water damaged, Scottish Labour still has about two-thirds of a big picture. And it can be restored and revitalised.

I still think the party and its members know who it is and knows what the beautiful words written on the back of membership cards mean.  I think Scottish Labour, for all the casting about for scapegoats and excuses for the 2007 and 2011 debacles, does know in its heart how it got to where it is today. So I don’t think any of the three of Scottish Labour’s leadership candidates need to be scared about constructing the third part of the narrative, to tell the voters about where Labour is going to go.

Lamont, Harris and Macintosh just need to start asking what the purpose is. About everything. Is it Scottish Labour’s purpose to be the party of aspiration? Is it Scottish Labour’s purpose to defend the union? To defeat the SNP? To defend working people against the cuts?

Scottish Labour’s purpose could be any, or none, of the above. But its next leader needs to  be clear and coherent about why Scottish Labour exists, stands candidates, and wants to win. It needs a narrative. It’s not good enough to assume the raison d’etre for Scottish Labour is intrinsically known and understood by the electorate. Get that right, and I promise the mantra will just trip off the tongue in 2016.

British trains – the tracks of my tears

Nov 6

Posted by Jeff in Transport | 30 Comments

Here’s a fact that might raise an eyebrow. Did you know that it is illegal to resell a train ticket?

I only realised this when I tried to sell a couple of tickets that I now don’t need on Gumtree (awesome website) and Gumtree quickly removed it, emailing me the reason why.

So I now have the hat-trick of money going into railways for seats that I won’t be sitting on in the space of a few short months: 

1 – Forgetting that I’d already printed out my ticket and then turning up at King’s Cross station without it costing me a £113 walk-on fare

2 – Absentmindedly getting on an East Coast train that left 30 minutes later than my own one costing me £146

3 – And now, this weekend, having to change my travel plans at the last minute and being unable to sell my ticket because the law, the law!, is working against me, costing me £68

It’s enough to drive a person to the reliably cheap Megabus or the guiltily dirty Easyjet. 

Of course, underpinning all of the three issues above is the fact that booking a train ticket on the day of travel is so maddeningly exorbitantly expensive. In the first two instances, the charge wouldn’t have been so stomach-churningly steep and in the third instance I wouldn’t have needed to gamble on booking a ticket at the reduced price before knowing for sure what my travel plans were going to be.

The really annoying thing is that this pricing structure that these railway companies are so insistent upon is actually subsidising richer people. The more organised amongst us tend to be the middle to upper classes. That might be a crass generalisation but it’s also true. Who is more likely to get those 12-week advance tickets? The web-savvy business-person or the elderly pensioner who only travels on trains on special occasions and has never heard of thetrainline.com let alone appreciates how great the app is?

I don’t even want to think of the people with shallower pockets than I who have been hit even harder than the three examples above for simple human error. They are the ones that are subsidising the super-early-advance tickets and it is high time that it is stopped and fares were flattened out.

One answer, and it is an answer that Scotland is hopefully more amenable to, is to nationalise the railways. To make the rail service a system that works for the people and not a vessel to make profits. The philosophy could, and should, be grossed out across numerous institutions, power companies and banks making giant profits while people struggle to make ends meet sticks in the craw too, but the railways are a decent first step on that journey.

I daresay the SNP would be worried that it would come over as too leftie, too Socialist, if it proposed renationalising the railways and, to be fair, it wasn’t in their manifesto so there is no mandate anyway. However, Ken Macintosh has pleasingly put the policy forward in his campaign to lead Labour and, if he is successful in his charge to take over from Iain Gray, some pressure may be placed on the Scottish Government to look into it as an option.

 
Anyway, if anyone needs to get from Penrith to London today leaving 12noon and likes the idea of sitting in first class, don’t contact me. That’s right, don’t contact me.