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Better Nation

Why is the campaign for English independence doing so well?

Jul 6

Posted by James in Constitution | 47 Comments

Neither the Saltire nor the Cross of St GeorgeWell done ComRes, asking the English not just for views on Scottish independence, but on English independence too. 36% of the English polled said yes to English independence, just 1% behind the June 2011 TNS-BMRB figure for Scots wanting Scottish independence. And that 37% figure for Scots backing independence was a 6% boost on the previous time it was asked. Assuming the English figure isn’t a rogue poll – and more data from other pollsters would be most welcome, it looks like rejection of the UK model is roughly equally popular in England and North Britain Scotland.

Yet the differences are enormous.

In Scotland, the party in government has independence as its sole raison d’être, plus there’s another party in Parliament which supports it, plus three others committed to further devolution, a position which means all sides in the debate are currently arguing against the status quo – but in England not a single party proposes going it alone, not even the English Democrats, whose eccentric Mayor of Doncaster got a slot in the Scotsman yesterday to be incoherent and ill-informed.

That party of government at Holyrood is also led by the man regarded as the finest politician of the age by many, including himself and his bust-erecting acolytes (check out the hubris in this quote, by the way). He’s the great persuader, the regular winner of FMQs whether the facts are on his side or not. Sure, he’s Marmite too, but who is his counterpart, the strong voice for English independence? Jeremy Clarkson? Simon Heffer? Richard Littlejohn?! Is there a single elected politician who favours this position? Apparently not. The English Independence Party have even let their domain name lapse – I’m not going to point you to the spamly holding page.

Here in Scotland there is also a true national debate going on, in the media, in pubs, on blogs like this, or Bella Caledonia, or Labour Hame – something which began in earnest in 2007 and which kicked up a gear in May when it became clear that a referendum would happen this session. But in England, do people sit around and discuss the merits and demerits of the Union unless they’re that particularly ardent form of non-resident SNP supporter? Or reciting the “they’re all living high on the hog on our money” nonsense that the English Democrats promote? I’ve never heard it.

The symbols, naff as I find all flags, are also laden with different values. The Saltire and the Lion Rampant are familiar fixtures at football matches and on public buildings, and come with no anti-immigrant baggage, whereas it has taken a real and recent effort to reclaim the Cross of St George from the hard right.

So why, despite all the advantages the case for self-determination apparently has in Scotland, is the argument for putting the UK to bed not getting noticeably more traction north of the border than south?

The Wrong Sort of Jobs?

Jul 5

Posted by Guest Blog in Holyrood | 13 Comments

A guest post from Glasgow Labour activist Aidan Skinner:

The recent Inverclyde by-election was fought, a bit bizarrely, on jobs for Inverclyde. Labour on creating them and getting the SNP to reinstate the regeneration funding that they cut a few months ago, the SNP on stopping the Labour council from (allegedly) making people compulsorily redundant. But what nobody was talking about was what they actually meant by “jobs”.

One of the biggest employers in Inverclyde is the new T-Mobile customer contact center there. I drove past it in a car full of Young Labour booming AC/DC. It’s a modern glass and steel box, like you can see in redevelopment areas all over Scotland. Inside, people answer phones. That’s very similar to the Amazon contact centre that the Scottish Government gave £1.8m to at the end of July.

But are they the sort of jobs we should be building an economy around? They aren’t particularly rooted in their location. There’s little in the way of capital investment required: mostly desks, computers and phones. The building itself is invariably leased and probably has cleaning and maintenance outsourced. The workforce tends to have a high level of turnover anyway, so there’s relatively low overheads in training up a new cohort in another country offering cheaper wages. Inevitably the same reasons that they moved here, large pools of reasonably skilled unemployed people willing to accept low wages and high stress, will lead to them moving elsewhere. If the parent company does that, or folds, there isn’t any possibility of a management buy-out or a rescue to keep the facility going. It doesn’t produce anything of intrinsic value itself.

And really, even if they stay, is that what we want for the future of Scotland? A place for firms to put barns of folk earning a little over half the median wage, with no real connection to the rest of the Scottish economy beyond their wages? Probably not, for some pretty fundamental economic reasons.

In standard economics, economies are modelled using the circular flow of income. The basic idea is that people earn wages from firms (Y), and use that income to buy goods made by those firms (O). Leakages occur from people saving their income (taking it out of circulation temporarily, represented by S), buying imported goods (taking it out of circulation permanently, M) and government taxes (T). Additional inputs to an economy come in the form of investment (this is always, for reasons too dull to go into here, the same level as savings, I), exports (money from people from outside the economy buying goods, X) and government spending (ultimately funded by taxation, but possibly temporarily by borrowing, G). In the long run, these sets of inputs and leakages must either balance out (S + T + M = I + X + G) or the economy must grow or shrink.

Because of the savings-investment identity they tend to balance out automatically. Government spending is funded by taxation, so they must also balance over the long term (or you turn into Greece). But exports are driven by international demand for our goods, which isn’t related to our demand for goods from elsewhere. There’s not automatic balance for those, and it’s difficult for Government to control either while maintaining any semblance of free trade.

The FDI flows from, say, Amazon are properly recognised as export flows – we’re basically directly exporting our individual labour to a multinational company. Which is all well and good but a company that’s based in Scotland and exports it’s products, such as say Wolfson, would contribute a lot more. Along with the export flow for any goods or services produced, it would also generate investment (the I part) and consume goods and services from other parts of the Scottish economy. Those companies would, in turn, consume goods and services from other companies. It’s that increase in consumption that fuels economic growth. The profits that the company generates would stay in Scotland and contribute to the government tax base.

But beside all that, there’s another important difference in those export flows. In the FDI case, that unit can only grow if the parent company grows. Any improvements in efficiency can only be realised by reducing the number of people required to do that job. If the wider company is successful and more customers require support then there may be an increase in headcount but that is entirely outwith the control of anybody working there. Putting it simply: if the people working there are successful, they risk doing themselves out of their jobs. It’s that sort of perverse incentive, combined with the foot loose nature of the work and the lack of connection to the wider Scottish economy which makes me scratch my head in bafflement at the millions of pounds that the government pours into subsidising these facilities. Instead, we should focusing what government support is available on supporting Scottish businesses, who will provide a bigger, longer term return.

It’s a bit like building an economy around Greggs and nail bars. That’s not working out so well for the Borders – why do we want to do that for Scotland? (And at least the nail bars tend to be owned by someone who lives in the community)

The new Greek junta unleashes terror

Jul 3

Posted by Guest Blog in Europe, Holyrood, International | 8 Comments

Another guest post from Marinos Antypas, who’s previously guested at James’s old site.

AthensBlinded by the economic catastrophe threatening the Eurozone lest Greece manages to sort its debt out, Europe has ignored a far more pervasive threat: nestling in its bosom is potentially the first dictatorial EU member state.

The definition of a dictatorship is not the abolition of parliamentary democracy or the electoral system per se (Hitler and Mussolini as well as the Stalinist Czechoslovakian regime were democratically elected). Rather, a dictatorship is a polity under which parliament effectively abolishes its decision-making power when the government turns against the population at large by means of brutal violence and intimidation.

Both these conditions are in place in Greece. In Spring 2010, the Greek parliament effectively abolished itself when it voted to deny itself the right to ratify any future changes in the IMF/EU bailout clauses. All power was given to the Finance Minister, who could thereafter ratify any new bailout-related law with a single signature. It’s important to note that the Finance Minister can be appointed by the Prime Minister from outwith his party’s elected MPs. This then places Greece into what Agamben has called a state of exception: the law abolishes itself as the only resort of maintaining its own order.

This magic trick of exceptionality worked for a whole year until last week, when the Prime Minister decided to put the second bailout to the vote. Doing so would seem a step back from his previous forward strategy. However, the way the vote was conducted points to the exact opposite. First, the vote was open, thus any government MP who voted against it did so publicly and was expelled from the Party (there was only one such brave man). Second, the only other MP who was intending to vote against the bill was allowed to break with all parliamentary regulations and give a speech alongside his final, Yes-vote.

The House Speaker, a government MP himself, continued to break Parliamentary regulations by failing to read a letter of No-vote from a government MP, who was also a traditional corner-stone of the Socialist apparatus. He opted not only to vote against the bill but quit the Party out of his own will. Finally, breaking with all Parliamentary procedures and common sense, the bill was voted en bloc, with no individual articles brought to the vote: it was either take it or leave it.
To add to this breach of democratic process, a few days before the actual vote, the deputy Prime Minister declared that if the bill was not passed, the government would have to bring in tanks to protect banks from the crowds. The choice was either the bill or the army – a real democratic dilemma comprising dictatorship on the streets.

While all this was unfolding in the Temple of Democracy, as Greek politicians like to call the ancient Palace housing their mockery of a Parliament, on the streets of Athens, real democracy was developing. Strikes, protest marches, direct-democratic assemblies with a remarkable lack of the violence that so often blots the democratic landscape in Greece. All of this was first ignored, then petted in the hope of some reconciliation. When that failed, the movement was accused of being apolitical, aphasiac, irresponsible and irrelevant. Even when a quarter of a million protesters gathered outside the Parliament shouting “Thieves”, the politicians could only scoff at the lack of organisation and ideological direction. The intention of the government was obvious: not to let the “multitude” spoil the voting of the new bailout bill.

After the “tanks” reference, the government began spreading rumours that a semi-armed assault against the Parliament was being planned, in an attempt to keep people off the streets. The first 48 hour general strike since the collapse of the colonels proved that these rumours were blatantly unfounded. Not only was there no attempt to storm the Parliament, but throughout the two days of protest the only damage done was on the strict periphery of Syntagma Square. As even the staunchest media defenders of the government had to admit, no more than five molotov cocktails were thrown, whilst the number of rowdy protesters did not exceed 200, a surprisingly low number for Athens where anarchist protest marches number up to 5.000.

The total cost of the damage (mainly to the marble décor of the posh hotels surrounding the square) came to 500,000 euros. At the same time, the reported cost of tear gas used by police forces amounted to 900,000 euros. The difference reflects the disproportionate relationship between protestor violence and police repression, especially as witnessed on Wednesday 29th of June.

The way the government deployed its police forces on that day can lead to only one conclusion: its aim was terror. Riot policemen attacked anything that moved on the streets of Athens. If there were 200 rowdy protestors there were 500 wounded. While the clashes did not exceed the periphery of Syntagma Square, tear gas, stun grenades and batons were used as far as the Acropolis, Plaka and Monastaki. Tourists and Special Olympics staff were brutally attacked. The police attacked the press, fired tear gas inside the underground Metro station where an impromptu Red Cross hospital was treating several hundreds of wounded, even beating the uniformed Metro staff as they tried to bring some calm. Photos show policemen throwing stones and marble pieces at protestors, ignoring people who tried to burn down shops, harbouring and protecting iron bar-wielding neo-nazis, using their batons upside down in order to hit people on the head with the metal end of the baton, gesturing with their middle finger and shouting obscenities at the protestors, kicking and beating fallen protestors, smashing restaurants and grocery shops in Athens’ high streets.

All this was filmed, and is now circulating widely in Greece; meanwhile, Europe looks elsewhere, relieved that the bailout bill has passed. Yet this unprecedented attack against the entire population of Athens, this systematic state terror has united Greek society like never before.

The Judges Association now talks of “state violence”; the Pharmacist and Medical Associations have pressed charges against the police; the Metro employers have called the riot police “the new SS”; Amnesty International has raised concerns; hotel owners talk about police excesses; academics have accused the government of premeditated violence; even members of the ruling party have expressed disdain at the way the police treated protestors.

In the midst of it all, the government pretends everything is fine, and that the police did its work. If its work was to show who is the boss, who can beat and gas the population with impunity, indeed it has. The 17 year old boy who had his tongue cut as a result of police beating him on the head is the ultimate proof of what this “work” means. It is the same “work” performed when the extreme right unleashed a three day pogrom against immigrants in the centre of Athens last spring, killing one and wounding scores with knives: the police stood idle arresting nobody. It is the same “work” performed when the police stop and search people in the street of Athens, tearing to pieces any book they might carry in their bags.

This “work” has a very old name: fascism. Indeed, the central banner on Syntagma square reads: “The junta did not end in 1973, we will bury it in this square”.

Labour holds Inverclyde, world keeps turning

Jul 1

Posted by Jeff in Holyrood | 41 Comments

The results are in and the Inverclyde by-election will go down in the history books as a rather pedestrian victory for Labour. No political earthquakes and similarly no shooting of the Nationalist fox.  The SNP may have reduced the late David Cairns’ majority from 14,416 to 5,538 but the reality is that they weren’t really that close to winning here.

And, in politics, a win is a win regardless of the margin of victory. I’m sure Bill Kidd and his single digit majority would agree there, so the back and forth between Labour and the SNP over how good or bad this victory may or may not have been, while inevitable, is pretty redundant.

That said, it did seem more than a little bit cheeky of Labour MPs to use the ~500 Holyrood majority as a way to suggest that this was a great night for them. For me, that only served to highlight the difference in Labour’s prospects between Holyrood and Westminster and undermined any message they were trying to send to the Westminster Parliament. Are they glad they won because there is a burning desire to change reserved policy on behalf of Scotland or are they just chuffed to have a rare chance to poke Salmond in the eye? It’s really not all that clear.

There is little to read into the results for the Conservatives, Lib Dems and UKIP. The latter two parties lost their deposits which is never ideal, but in a two-horse race by-election that risk will have been factored in early.

So it is back to business as usual with this by-election now out of the way but, with the current debate at Westminster being issues that are largely devolved, what Iain Mackenzie MP and his 58 Scottish colleagues will be working on is as clear as the mud on the banks of Inverclyde.

 

Education, Education, bugger we’re independent where’s the money gone?

Jun 30

Posted by Guest Blog in Education, Holyrood | 77 Comments

Another quick guest post from our pal Aidan Skinner. Commenters, like post authors, are encouraged to play the ball.

Mike Russell yesterday announced that students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland would have to pay fees of up to £9000 per year from 2013-2014 (there seems to be some muddle about what the position is on 2012-2013, no cap at all?). While clearly part of the SNP plan to plug the funding gap between Scottish universities this may not bring the level of income that he hopes – there was a 15% drop in the number of university students coming from England last year, presumably this move will cause those numbers to go off a cliff. But, for the sake of argument let’s assume that this does work as planned and our universities get a non-trivial amount of funding from it.

As soon as Scotland becomes independent it all disappears. Under EU rules we can’t charge EU students more than we charge Scottish students. There’s an exemption for students from within the member state that allows us to charge non-Scottish UK students but, after independence, they won’t be part of the same EU member state anymore. We can’t apply a quota to EU students, they have to be given access to Scottish institutions on the same terms as Scots. While the numbers are currently relatively low, approximately 16,000 at the moment, that still costs the Scottish government £75m each year. So we’ll either have to a) charge Scottish and EU students for university or b) offer free education for everyone through general taxation.

Now, much as I dislike the idea of tuition fees, I really don’t see how option b is feasible. We’d have a massive influx of students from rUK bringing no money with them.

So the logical conclusion is presumably that, post independence, the SNP would bring in tuition fees for all Scottish students. “Tuition Free with the SNP” becomes “Tuition Free with the SNP (until we achieve our primary goal, at which point you get Tuition Fees)!”.

Or is there a secret alternative plan?

HT to loveandgarbage for this idea.