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A nip of common sense and compromise

Nov 2

Posted by James in Holyrood | 36 Comments

BuckfastThe SNP’s minimum pricing legislation is back, and this time it will pass, of course. The opposition of Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems to this proposal last time round made it look like they didn’t understand the scale of Scotland’s drink problem, or weren’t prepared to act. Petty, too, by the Coalition parties.

Because it’s an issue the public get, the credible suggestion is that this inability to be constructive cost them dear in the election, although only the Lib Dems have twigged. In September last year, Ross Finnie said minimum pricing “impacts heavily on the low paid, has a marginal effect on hazardous drinkers and gives a windfall to retailers”. Now he may be relieved not to be at Holyrood to hear Alison McInnes say, without the reverse ferret even being noted by the BBC, that it’s “a positive and confident step towards changing the culture of excessive drinking in Scotland”. Fair play to them. It’s the right thing to do, even if it’s unlikely to be the first of the twelve steps to recovery in the polls. The Green MSPs will support the measures (boom boom), just like they did in the last session.

However, and however, Labour are also right. In the last session their intransigence over the pricing issue obscured SNP intransigence over a Labour proposal – to limit the amount of caffeine per litre in booze sold in Scotland.

Billed as the Buckfast Ban, it would also have picked up some Red Bull type alcopops. There can be little doubt that it’s a dangerous mix. As the alcohol makes the drinker less predictable, the caffeine gives them the energy for bad behaviour. The cops and the neuroscientists alike will tell you that. A restaurant that served a diner their fifth Irish coffee would see the same effect. But the SNP rejected it, despite Nicola’s commitment at the time to consider “sensible, evidence-based amendments”.

A whole round of other ideas were on the table too, last time, including Green ones, which were designed to support positive and well-adjusted side to our alcohol culture too. Scotland makes fantastic beers (I’m thinking more Tempest or Brewdog, less what Kenny Macaskill called cooking lager), whisky, gin and other spirits. We also have the same social problem as the rest of the UK with the decline of the rural pub. Shouldn’t we be looking at how the market could be designed to offer better support to small and responsible domestic businesses?

But as Greens and Labour observed yesterday, to quote Richard Simpson, this is a “narrowly-defined bill – designed to shut down debate”, and as framed, these amendments won’t even be considered. The SNP promised to govern consensually. They have a thin legislative programme designed not to startle the horses before the referendum, so they have the time to spare. This is a chance to take longer, to be more reflective, more open, and to let Parliament do what it can more widely on the issue. They deserved and got credit for being prepared to push minimum pricing last time round, and they will get whatever Act they want through, now the opposition have been voted out of the way. But they’d get louder cheers for being consensual rather than merely talking about being consensual, and the end result would serve Scotland better.

Papandreou pulls a masterstroke

Nov 1

Posted by James in Economy, Europe | 25 Comments

Until yesterday, George Papandreou cut a weak and desperate figure as Greece’s Prime Minister. It’s arguable how much influence he felt he had over the terms of the “bailout” and associated austerity measures, and back in June he was so unhappy with his situation that he privately offered to step down in favour of a grand coalition.

Listening to the sleek-suited representatives of the IMF and the ECB, it must have felt like Hobson’s choice. Undermine not just the Greek economy but also Europe’s with a default on one hand, or aggravate inequality and hand over control of the Greek economy to the agents of the markets.

Either way, unpopularity looms and the problems grow. But as so often, if you don’t like any of the answers, ask a different question. Or in this case, ask different people the same question: the electorate.

It’s genius, at least potentially. What’s promised is not a messy general election about confidence and personality in amongst these issues, it’s a referendum that will give a clear answer.

There are plenty of reasons for Greeks to say no. Neither option is without pain, of course, and no option could be painless given their predicament. But a No vote rejects the iniquitous voluntary 50% writedown of debt which the hedge funds are rubbing their hands over, as discussed before. It rejects a austerity programme which doesn’t just end some of the ridiculous Greek state inefficiencies but sells off the family silver and slashes the social safety net.

It surely also means Greece gets out of the gilded trap that is the Euro. They did well from it when the books could be cooked and the European Regional Development Fund kept throwing money at their infrastructure, but there can be few who now look into the retrospectoscope and still believe the single currency was in Greece’s long term best interests. The same probably applies to Italy and others – in fact, the economic arguments for diverse economies using a single exchange rate have never seemed convincing – but letting Greece burn won’t let Italy off the hook.

The proper default that would follow would also in part be a liberation rather than the Götterdammerung the market analysts and other siren voices warn about.  It largely worked for Argentina, for instance. A no vote would also be the first substantial stake through the heart of the bailout/injection/recapitalisation myth, as lovingly excoriated by Matt Taibbi *. This initiative might mean the Masters of Risk start to bear their own losses, not palm them off onto taxpayers. It’d be a push-back against the moral hazard the markets have fallen into, a problem both socialists and free-marketeers should be concerned about. (Incidentally, wouldn’t it be great every time a financial analyst appeared on the TV news they had to declare where their interests lay in relation to the story they’re discussing?)

Alternatively, from Papandreou’s point of view, if he gets a yes, at least he has clear support for this ill-advised programme, and both PASOK and the Euro will survive, for now. He was backed deep into a corner and now, either way, with a single bound he’s free. Whatever the result, there will be a substantial price to pay for all the unsustainable borrowing, including a higher rate to pay for future loans no matter how the vote goes, but the Greek people will have democratically chosen their own course. No wonder the chair of the Greek Chamber of Commerce was whining on the radio this morning. This vote means there is a route out, and while he may have felt unable to reject the terms, it’ll be politically impossible for the vultures to ignore the will of the Greek people.

In response to the call of a referendum the markets dived. Of course they did. Banks, hedgies, all those with massive exposure to the CDS markets and relevant derivatives, all of them were expecting another skip-load of taxpayers’ money to be transferred directly to their bottom lines, but now they have been forced to care about the reported 60% popular opposition to the deal. Those companies are worth less this morning because traders realise they may have to cover their own losses. What a radical thought. Bravo sydrofe.

* I will make you read that article if it’s the last thing I do.

A shameful day for the Scottish Lib Dems

Oct 31

Posted by Jeff in Parties | 54 Comments

I was intending to write a post in the near future about how well Willie Rennie was doing as Scottish Lib Dem leader. I may yet as he has raised some important points about devolved Scotland and the independence referendum while also being quietly effective at FMQ, marked improvement on Tavish Scott’s loud ineffectiveness. He is also shortlisted for being Holyrood’s Newcomer of the Year.

However, then I saw the photo below from the Scottish Lib Dems, my heart sank and thought it best to go negative on them once more before I go positive. Let me be clear, this photo wasn’t on a Lib Dem blogger’s website, it was (and still is for all I know) on the main Scottish Lib Dem Twitter feed and appears to be some sort of leaflet that may be doing the rounds:

Where to begin with how offensive the picture above is?

‘Blacking up’ the First Minister? The suggestion that Qatar is full of sand and camels and nothing else? Implying that an independent Scotland would take on all laws and rules that Qatar have? Painting the SNP as homophobic when they look set to lead the UK on gay rights legislation? Even the “Mr Salmond” is needlessly disrespectful.

It is a terrible statement that the Lib Dems are making, for barely any gain given the cack-handed, amateurish visuals that they have employed.

Qatar is a small oil-rich nation and Scotland is a small oil-rich nation, there is a comparison there that is a valid one to make and at least deserves being contested in good faith.

I don’t know if Willie Rennie personally sanctioned this attack advert above but, either way, he should sack the person(s) who put it together and/or released it online and then have a long hard think about what party he wants to lead and where he wants to place that party in the coming independence debate.

UPDATE: Thanks to Anndra Moireach in the comments, it has been pointed out that Willie Rennie put the ad up on his own Facebook profile. Willie was happy to debate with me on Twitter when I agreed with him about what a Yes-Yes result in the referendum means; time will tell whether he’ll be as keen to respond to my challenge that he should take the link off his page unless he can defend it…

UPDATE 2: It’s worth noting that the emir of Qatar seemed perfectly welcome by the Tory/Lib Dem coalition in a UK state visit this time last year, receiving “special favour” from the Queen. I wonder how Nick Clegg will be taking Willie Rennie’s line of attack…

UPDATE 3: The headline says it all: Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg meets Qatari Deputy Prime Minister

Update 4: From Willie Rennie’s Facebook page – “I apologise for the offence that has been clearly caused by our cartoon on the First Minister’s remarks in Qatar. Although I did not approve its publication I accept responsibility for it. It has been interpreted in ways that were not intended. It has now been withdrawn. I apologise.”

England, Wales and Northern Ireland do not have to join the Euro either

Oct 31

Posted by James in Europe, Holyrood, Westminster | 32 Comments

The media is having another kick-around of the old idea that Scotland, if independent, would be required under EU rules to join the Euro. As the Commission’s website confirms, the only EU members with an opt-out are Denmark and the United Kingdom. Even Sweden must join, in theory, when the time is right, and they’re probably not yearning to do so at the moment.

Any other existing EU members not in the Euro have to join ERM II and fulfil convergence criteria, which presumably right now means “is your economy nosediving and are your bonds not selling very well?” Sweden appears to have avoided this risk by deciding not even to join ERM II yet. This neat trick means they are not officially beginning to converge with the Eurozone, so can stay out. In practice it appears that new members could probably pull off the same trick, akin to Gordon Brown’s famous five tests, but despite reading the whole of the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties over the weekend, I’m really no clearer about that.

But that may not matter. So we’ll start again.

The argument is this: an independent Scotland would be either be outside the EU, shivering in the cold, or we’d be a new member, obligated to join the Euro just as putative future EU member states like Croatia would have to. But assume the referendum results in independence – why would Scotland have a formally different status to “England, Wales and Northern Ireland”? Let’s do a few implausible thought exercises.

Perhaps it’s because it would be Scotland’s decision to “leave”. Is it down to who takes the decisive step? Imagine the Clarksonite argument that the Scots are a drain on the exchequer triumphed at Westminster, and Dave decided to cut us off, metaphorically. Would we be forced into the Euro in those circumstances? Or if EW&NI were the ones who were seen to have initiated the breakup, not us, would therefore they be required to join the Euro instead? Both are absurd prospects.

Perhaps it’s a question of scale? Just because the bulk of the UK’s population would remain in EW&NI, does that make them the only successor state? There is some precedence for scale, notably when the USSR broke up and the Russian Federation got to keep the embassies, but the consequences of that decision for the other former Soviet republics weren’t as radical as a requirement to join a currency union. But still, that can’t be right. Imagine an EU member state, let’s call it Belgium, divided relatively amicably into two equal parts. Would only one of Flanders and Wallonia be left the successor state to Belgium, according to which was marginally bigger in population terms? No way, which is what makes this legal advice ridiculous.

Another option is that both halves could decide not to take on the rights and responsibilities. When Czechoslovakia went through its Velvet Divorce, neither country sought recognition as the sole successor state, and both were treated as new UN entrants, yet both remained parties to all treaties signed by their predecessor state. But that’s not going to happen, especially in this case.

Fortunately, we don’t need to play these games. In practice, the question of successor states is determined by the 1978 Vienna Convention. Colonies achieving independence are not bound by the treaties of their former colonial masters, whereas in “cases of separation of parts of a state”, all new states remain so bound (or in this case, free). Only the wilder fringes of cybernat-dom regard independence as the last act of decolonising the British Empire, so a newly independent Scotland would be covered by existing treaties, just as EW&NI would be. Thankfully.

And so the First Minister’s desire for independence and his desire for us to join the Euro can at least be dealt with separately by those of us who agree only with the first objective.

How soon is now?

Oct 30

Posted by James in Holyrood, Westminster | 9 Comments

Now clockThe interminable debate about British Summer Time and the alternatives to it comes around as regularly as the time switch itself. The arguments about milking cows in the dark and the gruesome early morning demises of school children contend every year with the vision of Britain as a European-style evening paradise, with people effortlessly enjoying glasses of rosé at outside tables – and with those same school children felled on their way home.

Like most non-ideological political questions, the essentialist arguments are undermined by history, a history which goes back beyond Ben Franklin. As recently as a century ago there was no such thing as British Summer Time at all. We just took what the clocks gave us, until the need to save coal forced the Government’s hand during World War 1, in a way that rhymes with the 10:10 campaign’s energy-saving support for change. The Second World War saw more movement in the same direction, with the summers on Double Summer Time, and the winters, confusing, on British Summer Time.

Side note of irony on that: the Daily Mail currently lambasts “Berlin Time“, presumably because it implies some sinister German plot to harmonise our clocks as well as our currencies, yet (to put it into the only language they understand) Churchill defeated Hitler with British clocks all set to “Berlin Time”.

Even the news today that Tim Yeo, consistently one of the most interesting Conservative MPs, is proposing separate timezones for Scotland and the rest isn’t really news – he made the same call in 2007. Still, you’d have to assume this is an argument the SNP would be instinctively sympathetic to. For one thing, it would add a little more division from the rest of the UK. For another, if both sides really do want different times, the alternative is Scotland that makes decisions for the English on their timezone, which is surely against the ethos of self-determination.

Attempting to step back a little, some things we do are necessarily synchronised or “clock-dependent”, and some not. Whatever our timezone, we can only ever watch the same football match live at the same time. No amount of political wrangling will change that. However, all other things being equal, the time at which a farmer gets up to milk the cows isn’t “clock-dependent”. In fact, if you milk cows at the same hour on the clock it’ll surely be pretty disruptive for the herd when the clocks change in either direction? Not that I know the first thing about farming.

As you may know, I’m about to step out of formal politics for a while to get into business, and I intend to follow the daylight myself. My productive hours are later in the day, and why I’d set the alarm in the depths of winter to get up in the blackness of the night, goodness only knows. It’s a luxury of self-employment, for sure, but if I lived in the Highlands I’d be arguing for schools and workplaces to follow the daylight too as far as possible – recognising that many people will always continue to have to work shifts, not just those employed by essential 24-hour operations.

Surely, aside from those jobs that require shifts, working hours are just synchronised for convenience, not because everyone has to be at their desk by 9 and away by 5 (does that still apply to anyone?). Would it not be easier if we treated those standard hours as a guideline for the working day, not a uniformity to be ruthlessly imposed?

We’re supposedly part of a single European market that spans a wide range of time differences, so why do people living in Lerwick have to get up at the same time as those living in Hawick, or Chiswick, or even Wick? Local employers and councils being more responsive to their latitude seems a better option than the disruption of different time zones, and also a better option than the endless bickering which unnecessarily sets up the interests of the Highlands and the Home Counties as in conflict.

Beyond that, and leaving aside the safety arguments for now, the argument as currently fought is primarily a matter of preference, not principle. Are you a lark who loves to get up for a run round the park? You’ll prefer the current arrangement, replete with light mornings. Are you an owl who doesn’t know what on earth to do with a morning hour but who loves to the social evening time? Then, like me, for all those clock-dependent activities, your instinct will probably be for DBST. But wouldn’t it be better not to have to argue about it?