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Meanwhile, over in Inverclyde…

Jun 27

Posted by Jeff in Elections, Westminster | 28 Comments

The Inverclyde by-election is almost upon us. The Westminster issues have been explored in depth and the local public can’t wait to do their democratic duty candidates have verbally battered each other and party activists have stuffed letterboxes with literature to a largely uninterested and increasingly frustrated electorate.

The truth is, of course, a by-election makes little difference at a local level and only really helps to shape the narrative for parties at a national level, albeit for only a short period.

So, if that is what is at stake, let’s see how this Thursday might go for each of the stakeholders…

Labour – In one respect, the red hot favourites have everything to lose and, in another respect, they have nothing to lose. The next Westminster election is 4 years away, the next Holyrood election is 5 five years away and Ed Miliband’s renewal of the party has only just begun. Does it matter if Inverclyde goes yellow? For a few days, maybe even a full week, yes, but after that the disappointment will be swept away as the next crisis/disaster/scandal comes along to take its place.

SNP – For the SNP to win this by-election it would be a big surprise, though perhaps not a huge shock since the campaign seems to be going swimmingly and Anne McLaughlin has acquitted herself very well in the tv debates. However, in the media narrative, you are either a winner or a loser so to avoid the latter, the SNP will have to find a way to be the former. Most of the public won’t appreciate how great a result it would be for the Nats to fall within a couple of thousand votes of Labour in this area so some of the gloss might come off Salmond’s veneer from this Thursday, over and above the self-inflicted problems that is.

Conservatives – They will finish third. They may save their deposit. There will be no embarrassment but there will be no reason for cheer either. From a Tory perspective, this by-election will only serve to remind the UK that David Cameron’s message, and the coalition’s at large, is not being heeded north of the border.

Lib Dems – They should finish fourth, they will lose their deposit. The Lib Dems will have given their youthful ‘rising star’ (a phrase used too liberally if you ask me) a good deal of experience and exposure in this contest but, at best, it can only be a disappointing night for them. The disaster would be finishing below UKIP who received 433 votes in 2010, to the Lib Dems’ 5,007. I wouldn’t rule it out, but that may just be heart ruling head.

Greens – There’s not much point in standing in a contest when you know you will lose your deposit but the Scottish Greens will not be discussed during this campaign nor during the results broadcast so they are already ontrack for a disappointing night as they seek to gain a foothold in the political imagination of Scotland.

So there we go, that’s about the long and short of what Thursday evening will mean despite the hours of discussion that anoraks will lap up and the rest of the country will not be listening to. Maybe I’m getting cynical in my old age, maybe the SNP’s arguments are getting through but I would only sit up and take notice of a Scottish by-election if it was for Holyrood rather than Westminster.

Not a bad endorsement of how important the Scottish Parliament has become in 12 short years.

The flaws and failings of Armed Forces Weekend

Jun 25

Posted by The Burd in Defence, Society | 74 Comments

AFDIt’s Armed Forces Weekend and it has two purposes, apparently.  It aims to raise “public awareness of the contribution made to our country by those who serve and have served in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces”. But it also “gives the nation (sic) an opportunity to Show Your Support for the men and women who make up the Armed Forces community: from currently serving troops to Service families and from veterans to cadets”.

Helpfully the website suggests ways to do so.  We can see, thanks to a map of Great Britain and lots of little Union flags, where there are flag raising ceremonies, beating the retreats and marches to head along to.  There’s a page with suggestions on the sorts of parties to hold among your family and friends if you cannot find an offical event to participate in – and advice on how to share your photos.  There’s a Facebook page for you to visit to show your support and a AFD Goodies page where you can purchase bunting, hand sized flags and big banners, all emblazoned with more of red, white and blue and big bold statements like “honour our armed forces past and present”.

Is my distaste for all this really so transparent?  Good.

It’s not as though I’m a pacifist.  I was once, borne of natural anti-authoritarian sentiment but affirmed by the study of various wars and their impacts on populations and politics as a history student.  But I do accept that there are sometimes wars that need to be fought and that having a well-resourced armed forces is as relevant to a nation adopting neutrality as much as a pugilistic bent.

And it’s not even the political distortion inherent in the designation of a weekend for Armed Forces, nor in the language and symbols used to sell the concept.  Nope, I can see through their cunning plan.  Let them wrap themselves in the Union flag and attempt to make us all feel like a single nation in the process.

Moreover, I can see through the attempts at cod psychology.  That if we do not get involved or somehow “show our support”, ergo, we are against our armed forces.  That the bigger geo-political issues should not get in the way of acknowledging that these people are brave actors on our behalf, doing a job most of us would baulk at.  To not participate is to imply that we do not agree with these notions.  In some politicians and generals’ tiny minds.

My issue is with the need for it at all.  I grew up honouring the contribution made by those who go to war on our behalf.  It’s a bit of a tradition in my family for starters, so I have close up and personal accounts to inform me.  And even as a teenager, in some kind of anti-rebel rebellious stance, I always made sure to attend the Remembrance Sunday service and silence at the local cenotaph.  Somehow, it seemed like the least I could do, for all those holders of familiar surnames imprinted immortally on its walls.  So many of them, far too young.

We do not need an Armed Forces day or weekend to honour their contribution;  we have Remembrance day for that.  And because of its attachment to the Armistice of World War One, we are encouraged to place our remembrance in its proper context.  That the greatest thing to celebrate and honour – always – is peace and the ceasing of battle.

The thing that really sticks in my craw?  The idea that by purchasing a little bit of plastic tat and waving it enthusiastically at marching ranks in a parade, we are honouring these men and women.  The whole concept of this weekend is designed to seal over the cracks and hide the inconvenient truth.

That still we allow our politicians to play fast and loose with people’s lives by sending them into illegal, inappropriate and ill-thought out conflagrations.  That we are quite content to destroy people’s lives, homes and communities – not here but in whatever amphitheatre we have chosen for the purpose of flexing our muscles – because the greater global good somehow demands it.

Far from here, it is easy to forget that the biggest casualties of war, no matter how just, are women, children and old people.  Needless to say, we pull out when reconstruction is still a planner’s dream and invest little in repairing the physical, emotional and mental damage inflicted on civilian populations.  No amount of the handing out of sweeties to weans repairs the trauma caused by fear and loss dominating your life over a sustained period.

Neither are we particularly mindful of the trauma sustained by our armed forces.  Oh, they get better NHS treatment than before but still it is down to charities to attempt to repair the obvious and hidden damage.  And this veneration of everything armed forces is double-edged for them.  Sure, the media are more willing to promote their stories and their cause but a whole host of new charities has sprung up spreading the jam of their fundraising efforts still further.  Even big business has jumped on the bandwagon -  Tesco is currently running a goodies parcel initiative, whereby you pay and they get the credit.  Ultimately it results in less funding from all our pockets for vital recovery and rehab work with veterans.

There is something distasteful too at the very idea that we – a richly resourced kingdom in so many ways – should be supporting our armed forces by sending home comforts to the front line.  There is little honour in paying people a pittance for doing the most dangerous job there is, of wrangling with them over pension and benefit entitlements when they return, broken, and of expecting their families and communities to make their sojourn in dangerous places bearable by regular supplies of shaving foam, jam and batteries.

No, if you truly want to honour our armed forces this weekend, ignore the artifice of the official celebrations. Instead, take yourself off to your local memorial and spend a moment or two saying thanks.  Then come home and write to your MP demanding that the money being spent on this weekend’s charade is diverted into the reparation and restoration of lives and communities laid waste by recent activities.  At home and abroad.

I’m going green.

Jun 25

Posted by James in Sport | 43 Comments

Green HeartsMy parents moved to Edinburgh when I was seven, and before that my dad and I used to go to the second half of Chesterfield Town games – they opened the gates at half-time and anyone could go in for free. He’d been a part-time Hearts fan when he was younger, and once back in Edinburgh he took it upon himself to go with me to Tynecastle a few times, not because he was hugely into football, but it’s just what you do with a young son.

There was a great spell in the mid-80s, and I was a pretty serious fan of players like John Colquhoun, Gary Mackay, Craig Levein, the absurdly-coiffured Henry Smith, and of course the immortal John Robertson. Like many a fair-weather fan, 1986 rather knocked the stuffing out of me, but I’ve been back a few times since. Not many. Just when the weather’s nice. And it’s not on telly. You know.

Then Romanov arrived. He saved the ground, for how long who knows, but screwed up the best team Hearts had had since the mid-80s, and (I’m going to try to be careful to avoid libel here) his decisions became increasingly flawed and perverse – the classic dictatorial mix of egomaniacal and bombastic. So sue me.

Today saw a new low. Defender Craig Thomson found himself on the sex offenders register last week, for perverse offences involving young girls. I’m not clear why he avoided a custodial sentence, personally, yet astonishingly he remains on the team. Queue here for the youth programme, parents. A role model for local young people anyone? The taunts from the Hibs fans next season will be “interesting” to say the least.

Then came the statement from the Board. Actually, it’s from Romanov alone, clearly dictated to some mewling functionary. Utter insanity. Let the final two paragraphs speak for themselves (they follow a bizarre blaming of the aforementioned Mackay, now an agent):

“Mafia are dragging kids into the crime, in order to blackmail and profit on them. It is not possible to separate these people from pedophiles, and you don’t need to do that. Each year we are forced to fight against these maniacs harder and harder. We are standing in their way not letting them manipulate the game of football in the way they want. As such they undermine us in every possible way they can.

“The task of the club is to tear these kids out of hands of criminals.”

Er, no. Not even vaguely in my name. I can’t support this club again until both this player and that owner are gone. I’m going green, just for just now, which is consistent with some of my other interests, and I’d urge other Hearts fans who feel aggrieved at the barbarism the club has fallen into to do the same. Mebbe Eddie and Kate can take me to the wrong end at Easter Road sometime. I’ll not be chanting along when Hearts come, though.

More scrutiny needed?

Jun 24

Posted by Malc in Governance, Holyrood | 25 Comments

Commentators across the political spectrum have been lined up to criticise the way in which the anti-sectarianism bill was being rushed through Holyrood.  Even the SNP’s new chair of Holyrood’s Justice Committee, Christine Grahame, expressed her reservations about the speed and lack of scrutiny with which the bill was likely to progress through the Scottish Parliament.  But it perhaps took until Celtic and Rangers themselves urged a delay that the Scottish Government took on board their concerns and decided to slow down the legislation.

While this bill is – perhaps – an exceptional case, and the speed with which it was to move forward aimed to allow it to be in place prior to the start of the Scottish football season, there is a wider point to make regarding the scrutiny of bills in the Scottish Parliament.  And that point is – do they get the scrutiny they need?  Let’s put this in context.

At Westminster, the route for a bill to become a law is quite lengthy.  Starting with the House of Commons, it has a first (introduction) and second (debate) reading, followed by a committee stage (line by line consideration), a report stage (debate, amendments) and then a third reading (and vote on approval).  Then, the same process is repeated in the House of Lords.  Then, if there are amendments at that stage, the bill is returned to the House of Commons for approval before being sent for Royal Assent.

At Holyrood, the bill is introduced at Stage one and assigned to a committee which will take evidence from experts.  The Committee will then report before the Stage one debate for agreement on general principles of the bill.  Stage two sees the bill undergo line by line scrutiny in committee, where amendments may be added.  It is then returned to the full chamber for the stage three debate (again, with potential for amendments) and vote, after which point, if it is accepted, the bill will be sent for Royal Assent.

Spot the difference?

Westminster spends twice as long legislating as Holyrood does, since the process has to be repeated in the House of Lords (or the House of Commons for bills that originate in the upper house).  That’s to be expected.  But its easy to see why – they have the ability to do that.  Holyrood is a unicameral parliament with the committees primed to take on the role of scrutiny that a second chamber does elsewhere.  At least that was the intention in the Scotland Act.

The problem is – and it is underlined by the issues arising from the Anti-Sectarianism bill – that they don’t have the time to fully scrutinise legislation prior to its acceptance.  Indeed, this isn’t a new problem – legislation has been passed by previous Scottish Executives which could use some review because of things missed or particular interpretations which hadn’t been recognised at the time they were passed.

But time is just one consideration.  Experience is another.  While I’m very happy that some (many) of our MSPs have no background in law (it means that they aren’t all lawyers) they have such disparate backgrounds that many wouldn’t know the parliamentary procedure a bill goes through in order to become a law.  Perhaps that is overstating my case somewhat, but I think you get the point – we’ve elected parliamentarians from multiple different backgrounds with different experiences (and that’s a GOOD THING) but what we gain in the richness of representation we perhaps lose in legal knowledge.  And when it comes to legislation – and specifically, scrutiny of legislation – this may well be a problem.

So if that’s really a problem, that what is the solution?  It was put to me that any politician who puts their head above the parapet and calls for fifty more politicians in Scotland might not be a politician for much longer… but it is certainly something that we should give some thought to.  Perhaps not as an elected second chamber (you’d end up with issues of who represents whom, how it was elected etc etc) but as individuals appointed according to their position.  For example, maybe the Scottish Government’s Law Officers, some of Scotland’s Law Lords (I assume someone like Jim Wallace would fall into this category?), the leader of say the six largest Scottish Councils and perhaps some of our senior judges might be the types of people we’d look for to do a job of scrutiny on legislation.

Its only an idea – and, I imagine, most of the democrats on here will rage about the idea of appointed officials making laws.  Except that they wouldn’t be making the laws, simply scrutinising and suggesting room for improvements – the actual law-making would still be done by politicians.

By all means dispute my outcome – but consider the problem as well.  Do you think we need more scrutiny of legislation?  Or are you happy that the legislation we get from Holyrood is as good as it could be?

By the way, I’m not writing this because we have an SNP majority – as I mentioned above, this system was wrong before the SNP entered majority government.  I’m just trying to think of ways we can make better laws in Scotland – and that’s surely something the SNP, and their activists, want too.

Nick Clegg’s Idiotic Share Giveaway Plan

Jun 23

Posted by Jeff in Economy | 14 Comments

Before the 2010 election, one of the tartan goodies that the Lib Dems, and Nick Clegg in particular, waved in front of the Scottish electorate was the promise of splitting Lloyds Banking Group to ensure that HBOS was returned to Scotland. It was an impossible dream, regardless of whether Clegg knew it at the time or not. You don’t sew two banks together for two years only to pull them apart on a political whim.

Fresh from that misguided move, Nick Clegg has today offered to hand out banking shares to the public as if they were little goody bags to be tossed around like confetti.

In promising free shares for all, Nick Clegg is trying to rinse one last poll boost from the drying cloth of anti-bank sentiment in the UK right now. He might as well be proclaiming that the Lib Dems are against ID cards, against the Iraq War and in favour of AV for all the timeliness good it will do him.

It is understood that the banks messed up but constantly bashing them for no other purpose than it feeling good is of no use to anyone, and the public saw through that a long time ago. After all, if giving away shares to the public was a good idea then a Government would have bought up parts of Shell, BT Group and Barclays in the past and arranged a massive mail shot. It didn’t do so because it would be a crass move and completely counter-productive to the British economy.

In many ways, George Osborne is adopting the same strategy for the Government as banks are, focussing on core services/customers and washing his hands of costly non-core services/customers as quick as he can because money and resources are tight. Agree with him or not, (and I disagree with him, people need the Government’s largesse as much as customers need banks to continue lending to them) but there is a plan in place that the coalition needs to stick to and Nick Clegg, for wishful partisan gain, is working diametrically opposite to this.

George Osborne needs the RBS and Lloyds share prices to reach a certain level whereby the Government can make a profit from its investment and then either pay down the deficit or reduce the rate at which spending is being cut. What the Chancellor doesn’t need is the Deputy Prime Minister landing a mischief-making, ‘muscular liberalism’ headline on the front page of the FT and promising everyone shares, candy floss and a pony each which results in the Lloyds share price dropping 3.68% at the close of business to a new 52-week low.

The Lib Dems got battered in the Council elections, they got battered in by-elections and they got battered in the Holyrood elections. The quickest route to total oblivion for Nick Clegg’s party is to fatally undermine what the Conservatives are trying to do in Government while pretending to be mature partners.

Nick Clegg took a large, silly leap forwards towards that oblivion today by cravenly suggesting free money for all.

The Lib Dems can work against the Government from the Opposition benches or they can work as a team alongside Cameron and Osborne, but they can’t do both at once.