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Iz it cos of Rap? – The UK Riots

Aug 18

Posted by Guest Blog in Society | 14 Comments

Another great guestpost from Alex MacDonald:

Dreda Mitchell, the writer, broadcaster and teacher claimed in a BBC News television debate that she uses rap music to “teach children a variety of literary devices”. The controversial debate focused on a shift in recent culture and featured historian, David Starkey and the author of ‘Chavs’, Owen Jones.

During the debate, Starkey claimed that British culture had totally transformed, “chavs have become black, whites have become black, and gangster culture has become the fashion.” These words caused widespread online debate, and provoked comments from Labour leader, Ed Miliband, who described Starkey’s argument as “disgusting & outrageous”. Starkey claimed that Black culture, including rap music, “glorifies” the rioting that the world witnessed in the UK recently.

But were the comments actually outrageous?

I had a very brief opportunity to interview Dreda Mitchell after her appearance on the BBC; I asked her what her thoughts were regarding rap music.

Alex: ‘are the lyrics “move bitch get out the way hoe” considered to be a positive literary device for children?

Dreda: “I use well chosen socially conscious rap lyrics and they work really well especially with re-engaging boys.”

Alex: “Ok, well would you agree that some rap lyrics are harmful? Do these not affect the kids just as much as the productive lyrics you promote?”

Dreda: “I use Nas’ song ‘I Know I Can’ which is great to use to teach the literary device of theme in writing.”

Whilst I did not receive a direct answer to my second question, I did feel that any response would have been controversial. When we analyse rap, we can see that it does not have the cleanest record for being clean. However, rap music is essentially urban poetry (rhythm and poetry), and urban poets for the most part are known to perform about their lives and experiences. Would that therefore not make rap an excellent annotation of society and culture?

My initial thoughts from this conversation were that if lyrics need to be “well chosen” then clearly there are lyrics that need to be filtered out. These censored lyrics are usually condescending, derogatory and chauvinistic: a fitting example would be “move bitch”. If rap lyrics need to be so carefully selected, then clearly there is a lyrical problem with most rap songs. Or are the public just a bit prude when it comes to black music?

I have a keen ear for rap. It is one of my favourite genres of music, however, I have learnt to take the lyrics with a pinch of salt. As I am white and middle class it can be said that I am not a traditional target for rap music, but we aren’t really traditional with music anymore. In the contemporary era, everyone from age 1 to 100, and people from all backgrounds technically could listen to rap. It is consistently on the radio and its lyrics and image are gradually becoming more and more acceptable to the wider public.

So is Starkey right? Is the combination of Black music becoming more accessible, separate cultures coming together, and the influence of rap “glorifying” rioting enough to shatter communities? Does listening to rap subconsciously make me participate in Black culture, and is Black culture violent and if so, does that make me violent? What of the message it promotes?

Does rap music glorify rebellion and promote destruction or does it simply reflect? How do we feel about rap towards women? Does rap music create the illusion of women as objects? What about music from the rock band KISS, did that not also? What about Hustler magazines and the Miss World competition, all in their own right they have a way of creating the object illusion.

Rap music doesn’t tell me to stand up and riot, at least no more than rock music and certainly not as much as punk music and heavy metal. And who says that black people do not listen to other genres of music apart from rap? It is quite possible that some black people do not like rap music. So what then? Whose culture do they belong to? Are they less likely, according to Starkey’s theory, to commit criminal offence?

Although rap, rock and other genres of music promote certain problematic issues, they are all problematic yet necessary together. They all promote an integrated culture, they promote heritage and diversity, yet they are enjoyed by all. It is true, modern rap is not the easiest thing in the world to defend especially with such lyrics as “move bitch”. But suggesting that one culture’s heritage is the reason for the chaos is nothing short of ‘Ludacris’.

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The most interesting local by-election ever

Aug 18

Posted by James in Elections | 13 Comments

The good people of Edinburgh City Centre are going to the polls today to vote for a replacement for the SNP’s US-bound David Beckett. Not only does this by-election have the potential to overturn the knife-edge SNP-Lib Dem local coalition (wouldn’t it be lovely to have an administration that pulls in one direction?), but it’s a true psephological oddity, as others have observed.

In 2007, this was (as far as I know) Scotland’s only five-way marginal, as follows.

Party 1st preferences 1st prefs share
SNP 1630 20.4%
Conservative 1614 20.2%
Lib Dem 1587 19.9%
Labour 1437 19.0%
Green 1352 18.0%
SSP & others 355 4.4%

It’s a three-member ward, and the SNP, the Tories and the Lib Dems all returned a councillor. Under STV, though, the results were pretty complicated to generate, and it took the elimination of my friend Gavin, the Green candidate, before anyone was elected – the Lib Dem Charles Dundas – with the SNP’s David Beckett elected next, and the Tories’ Joanna Mowat only returned once Labour’s Bill Cunningham was finally eliminated in the last round.

The narrowness runs throughout, though. Gavin was the first of the top five contenders to be eliminated, but at that stage we were just 18 votes behind Labour. If ten of the fourteen SSP voters who put Labour second had gone Green with their second preference, Labour would have lost out earlier and we’d almost certainly have seen a Green elected (and we wouldn’t have had three years of this specific and singularly inept local administration either).

It’s hard to tell from the Council’s own documentation, which (given Labour were eliminated last) doesn’t show how Labour voters’ second preferences would go. But the final page of that document does show the aggregate of where each candidate was across all ballots, and that’s pretty revealing. Of the top five candidates, the Lib Dems were (in 2007, probably not now!) the most transfer-friendly, followed closely by the Greens. Both the Lib Dems and the Greens had more second preferences than first preferences, despite that close tie at the top – none of the other large parties came close. Labour were the third most transfer-friendly, some distance away, clearly ahead of the SNP, with the Tories showing the sharpest drop-off, with barely a third as many people prepared to give them a second preference.

That illustrates why the Lib Dems were elected first despite being third on first prefs, although the other table shows exactly how that happened. Green first preferences (and the hundred or so we’d picked up from the small parties) broke predominantly for the Lib Dems, then the SNP, then Labour. The Tories struggled over the line as the last to elect a councillor because they’re very few people’s second preference party. In fact, Labour had made up to within six and a bit votes of them by the end, but it was just not enough.

Today’s election will be effectively under AV, like all Scottish local by-elections since May 2007. Number crunchers out there who thought May’s referendum disappointment meant we’d never get to test that system – fret not. Since 2007, the SNP’s position has strengthened and the Lib Dems’ weakened, although the SNP have picked a candidate who seems to play very badly at hustings. There’s a local single-issue anti-tram candidate, too, John Carson, but he’ll probably just be a staging point for some SNP and Tory voters before they head home.

I’ll eat a specially-made spaghetti hat if the Lib Dems aren’t the first of the Big Five to be eliminated, and then (as at Holyrood) I’d expect Melanie Main for the Greens to pick up most of their second preferences too. That’d be a nice indication of the accuracy of the idea that Lib Dem voters switched straight to the SNP at Holyrood – my view is that the Lib Dems leaked to Labour on the first vote and Labour leaked to the SNP, plus differential turnout made a massive difference.

My expectation is that either the Tories or Labour will be next to fall – the Tories for not picking up enough second preferences, or Labour for not having won enough first preferences to begin with, with the Tories favourite to go. By this stage we’re down the rabbit-hole and anything can happen, but there’s a logic to Tony’s argument that the Greens have the best chance of beating the SNP. Whoever wins, though, there are definitely prizes for silver and bronze. The last two candidates eliminated will be best placed to win the other two seats elected in May next, so every vote really will count here today.

It’s also during the month when the city has its mind on other things, to say the least, and when many of the electorate will be away on holiday. But it really matters. An SNP or (implausible as it sounds) Lib Dem win would keep the current administration in office. A Green, Labour or Tory win would remove their casting-vote majority.

So there you have it. A complex five-way marginal, conducted under AV, which could determine who runs the nation’s capital for the eight months or so until we do it all again. {proper bias starts here} Best of luck to Melanie Main and the hardest working Green local team I’ve ever seen, who’ve been doorstepping enthusiastically in all weathers – you deserve a fantastic result.

5 reasons why the SNP is wrong on Corporation Tax

Aug 17

Posted by Jeff in Economy | 62 Comments

The logic behind the SNP’s proposals for devolving Corporation Tax can be summed up as follows – ‘Scotland needs more jobs, a reduced Scottish business tax would create jobs, ergo, Scotland should have power of Corporation Tax’. 

If it was an attempt at a mathematical proof, my old uni lecturer would tell me it was so sieve-like that it’s only good for rinsing potatoes.

 
No, for me it’s a backwards step and the downsides of Scotland having one (lower) tax take and rUK having another are as follows:

1 – George Osborne is already cutting Corporation Tax so any further reduction north of the border would simply be a race to the bottom. If zero-tax is a terrible idea then too low tax is certainly not a good one.

2 – There is no guarantee that benefits will outweigh the expense. Scotland could be left with a bloated public sector and a lower private tax take with which to finance it. Dare I mention Ireland?

3 – Did we vote for this? The SNP may have a majority at Holyrood but I can’t remember this being discussed. There’s a lot of high-fallutin’ talk about Calman this and autonomy that but paltry tax-raising powers only scraped through with a Yes vote 14 years ago so I just hope ‘the people’ don’t get left behind in these debates and decisions. 

4 – So much for we’re all in this together. The naked opportunism of this move hardly suggests that Scotland is a team player within the UK. The SNP’s tactics are beginning to sit awkwardly against Cameron’s admittedly occasionally abandoned ‘respect’ agenda.

5 – Scotland should be looking for companies to invest here because they are impressed with Scotland’s skills, workforce, R&D and location, not to mention proud of putting a fair share of profits into society. They shouldn’t be investing here just because there’s a 20% deal going. This isn’t GroupOn.   

What’s happening on the jobs front – part two

Aug 16

Posted by The Burd in Economy, Holyrood | 5 Comments

Continuing my look at recent data on unemployment in Scotland, you can catch part one over at the ither place. And the briefing covering a wide range of employment-related issues is available at the Scottish Government’s website.

So which areas of Scotland are suffering the most?  And what is being done to stem the jobless flow?

Unsurprisingly, areas with traditionally high unemployment continue to experience high levels of joblessness.  This table shows the local authority areas in Scotland with above average numbers of people claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance (JSA):

Claimant count rate above national average
Total %age %age change since 2010
Scotland 140,557 4.1 5
Clackmannanshire 1,876 5.7 14
Dundee City 5,504 5.9 15
East Ayrshire 4,399 5.6 7
Falkirk 4,617 4.6 15
Fife 10,762 4.6 9
Glasgow City 25,300 6.2 2
Inverclyde 2,674 5.2 10
North Ayrshire 5,451 6.3 7
North Lanarkshire 11,801 5.5 4
Renfrewshire 5,456 4.9 9
South Lanarkshire 8,936 4.4 3
West Dunbartonshire 3,610 6.0 12
South Ayrshire 2,757 4.0 6
West Lothian 4,533 4.0 -6

So far so predictable.  But what about the areas experiencing increased unemployment – which local authority areas in Scotland are losing jobs the fastest?

Local authority Biggest %age change since 2010
Orkney Islands 24
Falkirk 15
Dundee City 15
Clackmannanshire 14
Aberdeenshire 13
West Dunbartonshire 12
Argyll & Bute 11
Perth & Kinross 11
Stirling 10
Inverclyde 10
Dumfries & Galloway 9
Fife 9
Renfrewshire 9
Shetland Islands -7
West Lothian -6

The table shows that as well as some of the usual suspects, like Dundee, Clackmannashire, Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire,  other parts of Scotland are struggling to hold on to jobs.  Those “enjoying” the double whammy of high unemployment and also rapidly increasing unemployment are highlighted in yellow.  We will return to them in a moment.

Orkney has shown the biggest increase in numbers out of work in the last year, and while those numbers are relatively small compared to the numbers of jobless in Glasgow, the impact on the local economy and communities will be huge.  Other areas experiencing fast growing unemployment are predominantly rural and only two local authority areas in Scotland have seen the numbers claiming JSA come down in the last year.

But why are some areas of high unemployment appearing to fare better than others.  Why, for example, has the claimant count in Glasgow grown by only 2% compared to 15% in Falkirk?  Why lower numbers coming onto the dole in both Lanarkshires than in West Dunbartonshire?

The answer may lie – partly – in where new jobs are being created and existing jobs safeguarded.  Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) is the main national scheme providing financial assistance to industry.  Managed by Scottish Enterprise, grants are awarded to investment projects that will create and safeguard employment in designated Assisted Areas.  These are the areas which qualify for regional aid under European Community law.  Other grants are available under “Tier 3” which can be made in other designated areas to small and medium sized enterprises.

Looking at grants offered and accepted throughout 2010-11 and in the first quarter of 2011-12, there is some evidence of intervention working to limit the impact of the recession in areas where unemployment is high.  The table below sets out how many new jobs were created and the number of existing jobs safeguarded through the award of RSA grants and in which local authority areas these jobs were located.

RSA Grants 2011-12 RSA Grants 2010-11
Local authority No. New jobs Jobs safeguarded No. New Jobs Jobs safeguarded
Glasgow 213 Glasgow 2028 337
Lanarkshire 50 49 North Ayrshire 139 225
West Lothian 14 2 Fife 1096 148
East Ayrshire 12 15 Lanarkshire 384 379
West Dunbartonshire 44 82 Renfrewshire 783 41
Dundee 24 Stirling 70 1
Renfrewshire 120 West Dunbartonshire 79 7
Stirling 27 Dundee 228 15
South Ayrshire 18 40 Edinburgh 87 31
Falkirk 200
Highland 127
Inverclyde 200
Aberdeenshire 16
South Ayrshire 205 25
East Ayrshire 27 7
East Lothian 4 12
West Lothian 17
Clackmannanshire 23 200
Angus 12
Scottish Borders 9

All the areas highlighted in green are local authorities with above average JSA claimant count but which did not experience rapid growth in unemployment (relatively speaking) in the past twelve months.  From this perspective, the approach being taken by Scottish Enterprise can be seen to be working in at least slowing down the growth in unemployment in traditional blight areas.  Moreover, the inclusion of two areas just below the national average for claimant count in this exercise – South Ayrshire and West Lothian – has a point.  Both areas have benefitted from jobs growth and safeguarding since April 2010, even though other areas have higher unemployment.  Yet, they can be seen as hub areas – investment in South Ayrshire is just as likely to benefit the jobless in East and North Ayrshire due to the good transport links and relatively short travelling distances.  Investment here then has a potential ripple effect on other unemployment blackspots.  The same can be said to apply to West Lothian, with North and South Lanarkshire, Falkirk, Clackmannanshire and Fife all within easy commuting distance.

Despite this, there are clearly areas that are struggling – all those highlighted in red are managing to gain some new and safeguard other jobs with grant aid, but it is not enough to offset the loss of still more in their areas.  Unemployment remains high and is still growing in West Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire, Fife, Inverclyde, Renfrewshire and Clackmannanshire.  And here’s a thought – given that everything we have done since 1999 has failed to “solve” endemic unemployment in these local authorities, isn’t it time we tried something new?  These communities have been blighted by inter-generational joblessness and deprivation since the 1980s and still they suffer the most when we experience economic downturn.

That said, this is nothing these local authorities ain’t seen before:  their resilience at coping will be being tested but it will be there.  What might be more worrying for the Scottish Government in the short term, is that they are being joined by a whole new group of rural local authorities with rapidly growing unemployment.  The ability of their public sector agencies to lead and to cope – to know what to do and how to apply it to weather the storm – is more questionable.  Having been in this situation less recently and intensely, with some of these areas like Stirling, Aberdeenshire and Perth and Kinross, having enjoyed very low levels of unemployment throughout the noughties, how resilient are these communities and populations?

Recovery too might be more difficult, given that some of these areas have historically found it hard to attract investment due to sparsity of population and poor infrastructure.  Also they are heavily reliant on public sector employment – councils and health boards are probably the biggest employers – and job losses are only just starting from this source.  Moreover, a glance at the RSA table shows that few of these local authorities have featured in awards in the last twelve months, mainly because they are not Assisted Areas.  Thus, we have considerable increases in people losing their jobs but no state mechanism to help safeguard existing or create new jobs.  What will the Scottish Government be able to do to stem the jobless flow here?

There are patterns here to be concerned about.   The areas traditionally blighted by unemployment are not being spared this time round and some of them are suffering fast rising unemployment even with state intervention to create jobs.  It is not good in either the short or long term.

And there is a whole new group of local authorities struggling to weather the storm where traditional job-creating methods are largely unavailable because of their relative affluence in the 90s and noughties.  As yet, there seems little that can be done at national level to slow the impact of job losses or foster new employment.   Will these areas manage to bounce back without help from the state?

At the very least, these sorts of statistics should prompt the need for some fresh thinking by the Scottish Government on how to create and safeguard jobs in communities in the future.  What we have in place works but not nearly enough.

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Evicting people = compassionate Conservatism?

Aug 14

Posted by Jeff in Parties, Society | 27 Comments

One of the reasons that Scots largely don’t vote for the Tories is that there is always a fear that the old Conservative instinct of taking a big stick to the great unwashed can prove too tempting when the blues hold too much power. That old instinct has reared its ugly head this week with Tory councils across London stating that they intend to evict people who were involved in the rioting in recent days.

The move is so depressingly regressive and counter-productive that it almost defies belief. Even scumbags deserve a roof over their heads.

We have a legal system that serves to hand down appropriate sentences for crimes that have been committed, be it fines, community service or, at worst jail (though some right wingers would like to go even further than that). We don’t, or at least shouldn’t, seek to exercise revenge on wrong-doers just because we can and/or it makes us feel better. After all, what, precisely, are individuals and families supposed to do if they have nowhere to live?

My initial belief was that this was a threat handed out during the heat of the riots in order to disincentivise disorder and was not something that would ever see the light of day. It was a West Wing-style chess move, and nothing more. Indeed, it may well have proved to be an effective move for that purpose given the speed with which calmness descended on London since Thursday (the 16,000 tooled up, highly visible police officers may well have helped too). However, sadly, the threats have been followed through and eviction notices have been served, despite a pleasing level of arrests and sentences being handed down on the looters and fire-starters.

We can’t keep excluding people from the system and hope everything will magically get better. Closing down literacy and numeracy charities, increasing the number of homeless, increasing fuel poverty and slashing opportunities for various professions out there with seemingly no masterplan, no end game in sight other than just cross your fingers, it’s, well, it’s getting frustrating.

Cardboard City was created in 1983 in London, 4 years after the Conservatives came to power. With a new blue broom in Government, are we stepping ever closer towards a repeat dwelling being created a few years from now? Evicting people unnecessarily and for nothing more than spite surely won’t help.

So, I have a suggestion for the Conservative Party (though I suspect other parties are more likely to take me up on it), a move that can ensure that the top of the tree and those sleeping against the tree in dirty blankets can hammer out any differences that they have and find a combined solution to the country’s ills:

Homeless people and the unemployed are entitled to free membership of the Conservative Party.

It’s a policy that involves ‘we’re all in this together’ ‘compassionate Conservatism’ and ‘the Big Society’ rolled into one. I’m not holding my breath though. The Tories, as we’re seeing this week, just love that big stick option far too much.