Work as if you live in the early days of a

Better Nation

EXCLUSIVE: Inverness Outpost (3)

Oct 22

Posted by The Burd in Holyrood | 3 Comments

Today, at SNP Conference, Michael Rann, Premier of South Australia, announced that Alex Salmond was the winner of this year’s international climate change award.

The award which is given jointly by the Climate Group and the South Australian Government recognises the First Minister’s leadership on climate change in Scotland.  A video message from Premier Rann was played to delegates at conference just before the First Minister’s speech today.

In it, Premier Rann highlighted Alex Salmond’s outstanding leadership on climate change issues and stated that Scotland provides an example to the rest of the world.

Its first ever winner was Arnold Schwarzenegger, then Governor of California;  in its second year, the award was made to Jean Chavez, Premier of Quebec.  Alex Salmond is the third ever winner of the prestigious prize.

 

The First Minister declares: “the respect agenda lies dead in their throats”

Oct 22

Posted by The Burd in Constitution, Parties | 2 Comments

He came, he spoke, he conquered.  Despite having to clear his throat continually, fending off a cold.

He had MSPs dabbing their eyes, delegates cheering to the rafters, including the hundreds denied access to a full hall, watching it in the Eden Court cinema and huddled round screens in FIVE overflow areas.

This was the First Minister, master of all he surveyed and equal to the task.

One reckoned his speech had effectively fired the starting gun on the campaign to win the referendum.  And unequivocally, he set out, towards the end of his speech, that while full fiscal responsibility “could allow us to control our own resources, introduce competitive business tax, and fair personal taxation” it was not enough.

For “even with economic powers, Trident nuclear missiles would still be on the River Clyde, we could still be forced to spill blood in illegal wars like Iraq, and Scotland would still be excluded from the Councils of Europe and the world”.

Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party, announced to sustained applause and cheers that “this party will campaign full square for independence in the coming referendum”.

This was the most lyrical section of his speech.  It generated huge energy in the hall, had some in tears, reminded, as Fiona McLeod MSP was, “of the enormity of what we achieved in May.  We didn’t break the system in May, the Scottish people did, and it is good to be reminded of how momentous that was”.  The First Minister’s speech made her want to “come out of the hall, head straight for the train, and get out there campaigning”.

Jamie Hepburn MSP, meanwhile, reckoned the First Minister had laid to rest “all the murmurings about what independence means.  Which I think have been a deliberate distraction by some.  The First Minister set out clearly what it means and what the SNP will campaign on.  And that’s full blown sovereigny for the Scottish nation.”

It was a speech made less for the audience in the hall, and more for the audience out there in the country.  But it had some great lines and phrasing.  the First Minister acknowledged that “we have to take sides within Scotland, as well as taking Scotland’s side.  Particularly when times are tough we have to ask the rich to help the poor, the strong to help the weak, the powerful to help the powerless.”

Putting Scotland’s energy resources and potential firmly at the heart of the independence agenda, he highlighted BP’s announcement this week and made several of his own:  a new £18 million fund to support marine energy commercialisation, part of a £35 million investment over the next three years to support testing, technology, infrastructure and deployment of the first commercial marine arrays.  “The message is clear:  in marine energy, it’s Scotland who rules the waves”.

He framed the investment in and development of Scotland’s renewable energy potential as the “green re-industrialisation of the coastline of Scotland”  and termed it “central to our vision of the future”.

Within this context, he was scathing about the level of fuel poverty in Scotland “amid energy plenty” and promised a further 200,000 Scottish families access to energy efficiency measures by April 2012.  And he returned to a comfortable Nationalist narrative:  “London has had its turn of Scottish oil and gas.  Let the next 40 years be for the people of Scotland”, he boomed to loud cheers.

As Maureen Watt MSP commented afterwards, the First Minister “reminded us of the ambitions we had and still have for our country.  The SNP Government has been in power for four years – people have seen we can do things differently.  It has given Scotland a sense of control but also confidence in that we’re nae too poor, too stupid to run our country” – this last comment, of course, uttered in the Doric.

But the First Minister reserved his scorn, in passages which the conference audience lapped up, for the UK Conservative Liberal Democrat government, in a clear signal that he sees the fight over the independence campaign as increasingly personal for Scotland, pitting him against David Cameron.

First, he condemned the UK Government for forming a Cabinet sub-committee to attack Scottish independence, “working out how to do down Scotland” ignoring their responsibilities for economic recovery.  He targeted “Mr Cameron” several times:  “how little you understand Scotland”.

But he was at his most passionate when setting out his and the SNP’s agenda for the independence referendum.  It’s us against them, with Labour airbrushed out of existence.  It’s Scotland versus Westminster and warned “the days of Westminster politicians telling Scotland what to do or what to think are over.  The Scottish people will set the agenda for the future”.

And he finished by effectively firing the starting gun on the independence campaign, as one delegate styled it.  Rubbishing the UK Government’s approach to its own Scotland bill – “unloved, uninspiring, not even understood by its own proponents” – he attacked Westminster’s agenda of disrespect:

“… not disrespect to the SNP but a fundamental disrespect for Scotland.  The respect agenda lies dead in their throats.”

The First Minister concluded his speech by paying tribute to his party, its members and its activists:  “we stand where we do today because of generations before us, because of party workers and campaigners who never saw this day”.  And set out his and the SNP’s vision for Scotland:

“And we shall prevail – because we share a vision, A vision of a land without boundaries, Of a people unshackled from low ambition and poor chances, Of a society unlimited in its efforts to be fair and free, Of a Scotland unbound.”

The delegates are still bouncing with energy and dabbing their eyes now.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

EXCLUSIVE: Inverness outpost (2)

Oct 22

Posted by The Burd in Holyrood | 4 Comments

I haven’t managed to read any newspapers this morning.  Helpfully, an unidentified man from a hotel scooped all copies of the Herald, the Scotsman and the Daily Mail from the shop I visited “fur the guests”.

I wonder though if it might not have been Pete Wishart or Alyn Smith, revelling in their limelight on the same sex marriage debate and taking cuttings for their scrapbook.  Not often, an MEP and an MP manage to garner the headlines at an SNP conference.  For the right or wrong reasons….

So still playing catch up a little, for those who missed it and who likewise haven’t managed to catch up with the papers, here were the key announcements from the Depute First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon’s speech yesterday:

  • a commitment to provide all type 1 diabetes sufferers under 18 with insulin pumps by 2013
  • over the next three years tripling the number of pumps available to sufferers of all ages to more than 2000
  • the aim of these measures is to improve the quality of life for people with diabetes and allows them to manage their conditions more effectively and prevent complications
  • reduce the waiting time for older people to be discharged from hospital from six weeks to two weeks by 2015
  • a guarantee that the additional £1 billion funding for the NHS over the next three years will be spent supporting frontline patient care
  • a commitment to maintain the NHS in Scotland “a public service, paid for by the public and accountable to the public – there will be no privatisation of the National Health Service in Scotland”

Continuing the conference theme of giving glimpses of what life in independent Scotland could look like, the Depute First Minister offered these commitments:

“Independence means no longer having to watch our national wealth being squandered by Westminster governments.  Independence means having an economic policy suited to our needs, with increased capital investment supporting and creating jobs.  Independence means having a welfare system that can tackle the scourge of child poverty.  It means not having to put up with Tory policies that will consign tens of thousands of our children to a life of deprivation.  Independence means deciding for ourselves whether to send our young men and women into conflict.  And it means knowing that we need never, ever again be dragged into an illegal war….. And independence will mean no longer having to put up with the obscenity of Trident nuclear missiles on the river Clyde.”

No doubt there will be more, much more in this vein, from the First Minister himself when he speaks today….

 

 

 

 

EXCLUSIVE: Inverness outpost (1)

Oct 21

Posted by The Burd in Parties | 12 Comments

There’s nothing like arriving fashionably late to a party.  Though I don’t suppose making it here for teatime and managing to miss not just one Ministerial speech, but three constitutes anything but rude.  It wasn’t deliberate, honest.

Welcome, dear BN readers, to our outpost from Inverness and the SNP Conference for the weekend, where the enterprising Burd has secured blogging accreditation rights and will be posting all the highlights from speeches and resolutions.  Almost as they happen.

It’s a bit of a first in that the SNP has never deigned to allow official blogging and I have promised to behave myself.  And tomorrow, ensure that I am here on time for all the big speeches.

So if it wasn’t for the small mercy of transcripts, what might I have missed today?  A rather defensive display from Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill MSP and a barnstormer from Nicola Sturgeon MSP, Depute First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport (outposts on both to follow later).  But the opening Ministerial speech was a real crowd-pleaser from Cabinet Secretary for Capital and Infrastructure, Alex Neil MSP.

As well as taunting the other parties in Scotland – “the Tories are fighting like cats and dogs with some of them even wondering if Murdo Fraser is even in the blue corner….Labour is scurrying around its third and fourth divisions looking for its new leader in Scotland…”, Alex Neil also made time to have a square go at the UK Government and in particular, its perceived interference in the proposed independence referendum.  He suggested we might like to “ask David Cameron why he thinks he can come to Scotland where he has no democratic mandate and try to dictate the terms of the independence referendum to the Scottish people and their democratically elected Parliament”.  Methinks we will be hearing more of this refrain over the weekend and indeed, over the winter.

Interestingly, the failed 79 devolution referendum was referenced too:  “this Conference and the Scottish Government should send out a loud and clear message to David Cameron that the days when the Unionist parties at Westminster can rig a referendum, on Scotland’s constitutional future are over.  There will be no 40% rule in this referendum.”  I can practically hear the spontaneous, rapturous applause Alex Neil got at this point.

But it suggests, or rather confirms, following the First Minister’s intervention with the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster last week, that the current approach to the independence referendum is one of deflection.  No one practises the politics of grievance with the London lot as effortlessly or as skilfully as the SNP.  The tactics are of course correct, even if they are a tad obvious, and allow the SNP to avoid answering calls to set the date and determine the questions for the referendum by implying that it’s bugger all to do with Westminster and they should keep their noses out.

For all that, most of the Cabinet Secretary’s speech was given over to his day job and the focus was very much on fuel poverty, including an announcement that the Boiler Scrappage Scheme would be extended and increased by £1.5 million “a 60% rise in its budget despite the Westminster cuts”.  The scheme will cover over 10,000 houses in Scotland.  Other actions highlighted include extending the central heating programme and other energy assistance measures to carers from 30 November this year and the initiation of a universal insulation programme to cover over 200,000 houses throughout Scotland in its early years.

Concentrating on fuel poverty also allowed the Cabinet Secretary to point up the difference that could be made in independent Scotland.  “If Scotland had control over all of our energy resources we could:  bring every house in Scotland up to the standard in Scandinavia and eliminate fuel poverty in Scotland.”

Again, expect to hear more on these lines – hints and tints of the brave new world that can be delivered with independence – throughout the weekend.  Indeed, the Depute First Minister continued to develop this theme in her speech – which suggests that while the other parties are caught up in the process, the SNP is already whirring away in the backrooms working out its narrative to sell independence and its merits to the nation.

RTing @patrickharvie’s #MOTW

Oct 21

Posted by Jeff in Holyrood, Housekeeping, Society | 2 Comments

Every Parliament needs one and for Holyrood that role has fallen to Patrick Harvie of the Greens. I am talking, of course, of the necessary drive to open up Parliament and make it accessible to as many people as possible.

So, Patrick’s common sense but nonetheless unlikely to be taken up suggestion of allowing social media to be used in the Scottish Parliament chamber is this week’s motion of the week:

Motion S4M-01085 – Patrick Harvie (Glasgow) (Scottish Green Party) : Social Media in the Scottish Parliament
That the Parliament notes the decision of members of the House of Commons to permit the responsible use of mobile devices and social media in the debating chamber; considers that debates would not benefit if members used electronic devices in ways that did not relate to the subject under debate; notes, however, that members are already expected not to read in the chamber printed material that is unrelated to the debate and that a similar rule could apply to the use of electronic devices; considers that the use of social media during parliamentary debates can be a way of engaging the public in the political process and can enhance democratic participation, and would welcome consideration of a possible change to the Parliament’s rules by the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, the Presiding Officer and members themselves.

Supported by: Humza Yousaf, John Park

I have no doubt that there is a lot of really great debate that takes place at Holyrood that doesn’t see the light of day. It gets typed up by a secretary and sits on the records until the end of time.

How much better would it be to have rip-roaring debates going live online, pulling punters in that would otherwise be uninterested in political debate? And yes, I’m largely thinking of Twitter here but Facebook and blogs could be updated from within the Chamber too. Why not?

The online discussions around First Minister’s Question, BBC Question Time and Leader Debates are excellent fun while still being substantive. The only thing that tends to be lacking is the people in the room, the people taking part in the discussion, also taking part in the online debate.

Patrick Harvie gets a bit of stick for being Holyrood’s Twitterer-in-Chief but he is pushing the boundaries of what Holyrood can be and who can access it and, for that, and for many other reasons, we salute him.