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Hark the Sunday Herald

May 23

Posted by Jeff in Media | 28 Comments

As most people probably know by now, the Sunday Herald opted for an extraordinary front page yesterday, showing the barely redacted face of the football personality at the centre of the superinjunction storm. More pertinently from a legal standpoint, the paper names the player on its inside pages, confident that its Scottish-only circulation will mean that it hasn’t broken a law that applies only in England and Wales.

While many applaud the bravery and determination of the Herald of being a harbinger of truth, was it a wise move?

I’m no lawyer so I guess I should be satisfied that Scotland’s favourite legal expert, not to mention Paul McBride QC, believe that the Sunday Herald has not done anything illegal but, nonetheless, here in London I saw that front page via Twitter so either the Scottish paper or the US social media company have broken the law. Furthermore, does it suggest to readers, bloggers and twitterers that they could and should also fly the flag of free speech and also name the player? Getting seduced into thinking you’re fighting the good fight is risky when you don’t have a legal budget.

The newspaper is also picking a rather odd battle here. This story is about who bonked who, public interest is minimal and the whole sorry tale should in theory only be good for the grubby, loathsome red-tops. The Sunday Herald will have boosted its circulation primarily because non-Twitterers will want to know who slept with Imogen Thomas, a factoid that wouldn’t have been so interesting if she hadn’t appeared in Big Brother. See how lame this all is? Salaciousness has pricked our curiosity, not for the first time and it certainly won’t be the last.

And yet, I am a hypocrite of the highest order in writing the above. I wouldn’t touch the Sun with a bargepole but I was on Twitter like a shot, quickly finding out who all the footballers were and which journalists are possibly facing charges this weekend. So, the most fascinating aspect of this whole issue for me is the goading that superinjunctions seem to carry. Ordinarily we wouldn’t give two hoots about these stories but once we learn that a rich person has paid money to stop us knowing something, we’re all over it like a rash. Psychologists may be able to explain it but it is a quite bizarre phenomenon. Who cares who Fred Goodwin had an affair with, superinjunction or not? Well, frustratingly, I do and yet I don’t, all at the same time.

And to further add to my hypocrisy, despite dismissing this as the domain of red-tops, I was right proud of the Sunday Herald’s stance yesterday. It was State of Play, it was West Wing and it was what most of us want to see from a free press – journalists zeroing in on problems within our country and presenting the problem in an eye-catching but intelligent, logical manner. Clearly, on some level, this story does actually run deeper than tabloid bonking.

The bottom line is though, the law is the law. Pundits have lined up all week to proclaim how unsustainable these superinjunctions are, and they are correct, but none of them that I heard made the point that, for these specific cases, a judge has made this decree and we should all just accept it. Arguing against the general principle of a legal system for the rich and a legal system for the rest of us is a separate and worthy objective but, in the meantime, we all have to accept the law. Individual users of Napster were targetted by recording companies back in the day and made to pay for their illegal behaviour, a move that caused genuine fear amongst the users of illegal music downloading. If I was this footballer’s lawyer, I would instruct the same zero tolerance and go after @billybob1234 and @suemaclfoggerty3234 for breaking the superinjunction, not just the journalists.

And should that “all” extend to the Sunday Herald? I suspect we’ll find out soon and, hopefully, Scotland will back the Sunday Herald by buying it more often from here on in too. Yesterday was a timely reminder of a newspaper’s important place in a nation’s structure.

The next step on Scotland’s journey

May 23

Posted by Guest Blog in Constitution, Holyrood | 18 Comments

A guest post today from the newly-elected SNP MSP for Renfrewshire North & West, Derek Mackay.  Derek has been the SNP group leader in Renfrewshire Council since 2004 and became Council leader in 2007, a position he held until his election to the Scottish Parliament earlier this month.  Independence is the word on every political journalist’s radar at the moment, so Derek decided to blog on that for us.

Some UK commentators claim we are already preparing for the creation of our independent Scottish state – what will passports be like, will we keep the monarchy etc. etc.  Well there’s the small matter of a referendum to get through first!

I believed this would be a turning point in Scotland’s political history.  There are now more MSPs who believe in an independent Scotland in the Scottish Parliament than who do not.  The SNP won outright, and every Unionist party lost support.  I’m not delusional in thinking that the historic 2011 election result was a vote for independence outright (I wish!).  But it was a vote of confidence in a competent SNP Government, with a desire to put the question to the people.

Impressive as that 45% of the vote and majority of MSPs is, it doesn’t equate to a mandate on independence – only a plebiscite could deliver that now.  The election signals support for the referendum policy.  Positive has won over negative, opportunity has won over opportunism – and independence can triumph too.

A message I received from an ex-Labour voter sums it up nicely.  He backed the SNP for the first time in May 2011, and in his words thought we were “the best team on the field” and would now give us a few years to convince him of independence.

Many voters hadn’t decided how to cast their vote in the Scottish elections just weeks before the 2011 election, so nothing can be taken for granted on the independence referendum.  Unionists aren’t as confident of defeating independence as they claim to be, and no Unionist Westminster politician would dare trigger a referendum bill in Westminster.  They just aren’t 100% certain they can win.  The days of second-guessing the Scottish electorate (and First Minister Alex Salmond for that matter) are over.  What they do know is the Scottish electorate are sophisticated and unpredictable.  Labour surge one year, wipe-out the next!

But of course levels of party support aren’t an indication of views on independence.  Many voters of other parties are comfortable with the concept of Scottish independence.  Labour HQ must be well aware of the propensity of independence-friendly Labour voters out there.  Former Labour MSP Charlie Gordon gave us an insight into Labour’s current doubts on their constitutional position;

“Then there’s the independence referendum; can we please stop opposing Scotland’s democratic right to self-determination?  If we still advocate the Union, we had better find reasons for its retention that Scottish voters find credible.”

To fight UK ConDem cuts, to give Scotland the government she elects, to follow a social democratic path – Scottish Labour needs independence, and for that matter so do the Scottish Liberal Democrats.  But the Scottish heavyweights left in these two parties don’t sit in Edinburgh, but comfortably in the green benches in London, and for as long as Westminster dispatches the orders their Scottish sovereignty has no chance.  The London establishment has too much to lose from Scotland leaving the Union, so the forces against independence will be substantial and intense.

The SNP Government will choose the referendum timing.  Opponents say Salmond will choose the optimum timing to win – of course he will.  The Scottish Parliament will determine the question.  The people will determine the result.  Democracy at last!

So what if three of the four so-called mainstream Scottish parties are sticking to opposing independence – the AV referendum showed the electorate will pay no attention to party lines if they so choose.  The SNP will deliver the referendum, but it will be the man and woman on the street who deliver the result.

Civic society must be motivated by our argument, and 2011 showed the electorate want reasons to vote positively.  It will be about hearts and minds.  I believe hearts can be delivered by a positive message of hope and opportunity.  Minds – the constant “can we do it” question.  I can’t think of a country that opted for independence on financial grounds alone, but we cannot win without proving “yes, of course we can!”.

Financial and administrative positions will be the Unionists battleground of choice, with economists bamboozling us with statistics to engender doubt and fear.  Even though we’ve proven Scotland isn’t a subsidy junkie, showing we have contributed more to the UK than we take, the Scots fiscal confidence has been shaken with the international economic turbulence, but some ‘confidence builders’ are coming incrementally – increased competencies and accountability with the Scotland Bill.

Albeit limited, this is progress.  Not just because the parliament’s powers are enhanced, but because the mechanics of the state are gradually being transferred also.  The Scottish Parliament will have a new borrowing ability and greater tax raising powers, HM Revenue and civil service structures will have to change to execute these powers.

The UK Government say they are considering their response to the 2011 results.  Scotland Bill enhancements should be London’s response, and a new clause removing all doubt about the Scottish Parliament’s legitimacy to hold a referendum on independence would be an act of respect and good faith.

Whilst the pace of devolution is slow, at least the direction of travel is in Scotland’s favour.  We have passed the Rubicon, self-belief is rising, and the giant ‘leap’ to Independence is getting smaller by the day.

Derek Mackay MSP
Renfrewshire North & West

What does progress look like for Ed Miliband?

May 21

Posted by Jeff in Parties | 5 Comments

I never did manage to watch Ed Miliband’s Progress speech this afternoon, as I had hoped; the draw of lazing in baking sunshine with a bottle of Vin Blanc proved too strong. Who’d have thunk it.

However, from my hayfever-encased and sunburn-crusted lack of a vantage point, I can at least pontificate over what i would like to have heard.

We’ve had a lot of discussion here at Better Nation recently over what Scottish Labour’s next steps should be, a situation that I am personally delighted with as Labour’s online presence north of the border was sadly minimal prior to May 5th so it’s nice to have a political balance on the still SNP-heavy MacBlogosphere (and if any Scottish Tories wish to write a guest post, get in touch!)

However, the next steps for Labour in Scotland are probably markedly different to the next steps for Ed Miliband’s still fledgling tenure as Labour leader in London. Fighting cuts from a Westminster perspective is different to fighting them from a Holyrood one.

For me, I guess I joined the Green party in England & Wales partly out of default because, for whatever reason, the Tories and Lib Dems were never viable options, Labour lost its way over the past decade and the SNP in London is more of a ‘fan club’ for me as I believe political party branches should be relevant and linked to their local community. So, basically, I guess I am hoping that Ed Miliband can somehow make my support for the Greens redundant by beating or matching their policies and leveraging the relative size of Labour to tempt me into voting red while I’m living in London. No easy task but not impossible.

The main message that I listen out for is where Ed sits on the ‘Blue Labour’/’Old Labour’ divide. The rich are getting richer while the relative poor are losing jobs and struggling from increased inflation. It’s ok for me as an accountant where job demand always exceeds supply but the shrinking career opportunities for swathes of people is scary and this is against a backdrop of rich people never having had it so good.  That’s the UK’s problems in a nutshell and it’s not something that Scotland can do too much about with the powers that Holyrood currently has, and it’s not something that the Liberal Democrats can reasonably argue against too vocally while shackled to the tax-cutting Tories.

So all progressive, redistributive eyes are on Red Ed then and a good place to start is the startling fact that the Sunday Times Rich List saw their collective worth increase by 18% in the past year. Given current economic conditions, this is depressing and shocking news. For me (and I am 30 pages into The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist so I know what I’m talking about!), traditional Labour values rule that a person’s job is not really ‘their’ job, a person’s house is not really ‘their’ house and a person’s wealth should also not really be theirs. We are all collectively trying to make it from the cradle to the grave in as healthy, as safe, as comfortable and as happy a state as we can and yet, as advanced a society as we often consider the UK to be, we still have a long, long way to go. It’s Labour’s job, duty even, to usher us all along that path as best it can and there are plenty of areas to start with.

Energy companies making multi-billion pound profits while old people can’t afford to heat their homes, supermarkets making multi-billion pound profits while food prices move dangerously higher every year and oil companies making multi-billion pound profits while the planet continues to change its climate and wreak havoc accordingly. A strong message that companies and individuals alike have to pay their fair share in order to move the UK closer to the Socialist solution is Ed Miliband’s job in my book.

A togetherness and fundamental of equality that transcends Westminster, Holyrood, private/public sector, rich/poor and national borders is the bare minimum benchmark for the Labour leader that I can see and fleshing that out with detailed policy would be great to hear. Higher income taxes for the relative rich and super-rich, a Project Merlin solution with teeth, a reversal of the various tax cutting presented as Osborne’s generous gift to companies, equal and extensive parental leave, a more benevolent foreign policy and bog standard green insulation rollout is on my wishlist, so I look forward to hearing Ed’s (seemingly very well received) speech later.

Anyway, back to the sun and the plonk. It’s not all bad in the UK after all….

The (actual) new Scottish Government

May 20

Posted by Malc in Holyrood | 30 Comments

Well, my predictions – as ever – were pretty wide of the mark.  First Minister Alex Salmond announced his Cabinet yesterday and his ministerial team this afternoon.  They are:



The Scottish Cabinet line up in an unorthodox 4-3-2 formation

First Minister: Alex Salmond MSP

Deputy First Minister & Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy: Nicola Sturgeon MSP
Minister for Commonwealth Games and Sport: Shona Robison MSP
Minister for Public Health: Michael Matheson MSP

Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth: John Swinney MSP
Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism: Fergus Ewing MSP
Minister for Local Government and Planning: Aileen Campbell MSP

Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning: Michael Russell MSP
Minister for Children and Young People: Angela Constance MSP
Minister for Learning and Skills (with responsibility for Gaelic & Scots): Alasdair Allan MSP

Cabinet Secretary for Parliamentary Business and Government Strategy: Bruce Crawford MSP
Minister for Parliamentary Business and Chief Whip: Brian Adam MSP

Cabinet Secretary for Justice: Kenny MacAskill MSP
Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs
(with responsibility for tackling sectarianism): Roseanna Cunningham MSP

Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment: Richard Lochhead MSP
Minister for Environment and Climate Change: Stewart Stevenson MSP

Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs: Fiona Hyslop MSP

Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment: Alex Neil MSP
Minister for Housing and Transport: Keith Brown MSP

Law Officers
Lord Advocate: Frank Mulholland
Solicitor General: Lesley Thomson

Initial thoughts are… well, that I was quite wrong with my thinking as to how it would be constituted.  There is, for example, no Cabinet Secretary (or Minister) for the Constitution.  None of the new faces to Parliament have made it into the team – which is probably not that much of a surprise, and perhaps I was being a little bit ambitious with some of my thinking there.  I still maintain that Derek Mackay and Aileen McLeod would have been excellent additions to the team – perhaps we’ll see them in prominent roles later in the (five year) term or in Committee roles when they are handed out.

There are new faces in the team though – Michael Matheson joins the Health team, which I did get right, though he switches roles with Shona Robison.  Alasdair Allan takes over as Minister for Learning & Skills (which although I didn’t predict, I did suggest he should be considered and I’m delighted he has been promoted!).  And Aileen Campbell, another who I considered, has gotten the nod to be Minister for Local Government & Planning.  That’s a tough brief – and I look forward to seeing how she tackles it.  Finally, last term’s chief whip Brian Adam continues that role alongside being Minister for Parliamentary Business, under Bruce Crawford – who got promoted to Cabinet Secretary for the same.

Its a proper reshuffle too – with some shifting around of ministers (Fergus Ewing takes on Jim Mather’s old job, Roseanna Cunningham moves to his old brief, and Stewart Stevenson returns to take on the Environment & Climate Change brief while Angela Constance takes on Adam Ingram’s post as Minister for Children & Young People – he’s the only minister moved out of the team in this shuffle.  Keith Brown adds Housing to his Transport brief after Alex Neil steps up to Cabinet level as Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment and there’s even a change in the law offices.

This is Salmond’s “Team Scotland”.  What do we think of it?

Update:

I see Labour have announced their shadow Cabinet (which is presumably temporary while Iain Gray is still LOLITSP):

Leader: Iain Gray
Health: Jackie Baillie
Finance: Richard Baker
Education: Malcolm Chisholm
Parliamentary Business: Paul Martin
Justice: Johann Lamont
Rural Affairs & Environment: Sarah Boyack
Culture & External Affairs: Ken Macintosh
Infrastructure & Capital Investment: Lewis Macdonald
Chief Whip: John Park

Thoughts?

Labouring to get things right

May 19

Posted by Guest Blog in Elections, Parties | 73 Comments

Another guest post today, and another look at the reasons Labour lost the election so heavily.  This time, John Mackay is the author.  John was Scottish Labour’s Holyrood candidate for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross, and was also his party’s candidate in the 2010 General Election in Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.

First things first, Labour had no chance of winning the Scottish election.  It was all about the scale of defeat. Forget what the polls said a few months ago, it wasn’t a case of which party was going to win; it was by how many.

Two things conspired to give Labour a hammering: SNP money and Labour incompetence.  I’ll touch on the former then concentrate on the latter from my perspective as a Labour candidate.  Scotland’s political media also get an honourable mention.

When a political party has the financial clout the SNP had, it enables them to run a blitz-like, Presidential campaign that builds and builds to saturation point come polling day.  Their strategists ran an excellent campaign to the extent it seemed like many of Scotland’s print, television, radio and online journalists were working within SNP Media HQ as well.

The SNP recognised Iain Gray was largely unknown and managed to easily frame the election as a personality contest.  There was only ever going to be one winner between Alex Salmond and Iain Gray in that sort of competition.  The SNP’s money then made sure of victory.  Yes, Labour contributed to its own defeat and the eventual scale of victory but I’ll get to that.  The Scottish Election in 2011 was won primarily because it was a well-funded Presidential campaign.  That must not be forgotten.

Before I get to my own party’s failings, what has happened to Scotland’s political journalists?  Why weren’t they highlighting the insanity of the SNP’s flagship policies?  Why weren’t they telling the Scottish people about the economic lunacy of five more years of a council tax freeze, continuing free higher education, increased NHS spending, free prescriptions, the lie of no public sector redundancies and 100% of energy being provided by renewables in 2020?  These policies will have Scotland admitting itself to the economic madhouse in a few years.  There will be no need to call for anyone in a white van with a straitjacket.

It will be pointed out that Labour copied, in whole or part, many of these policies.  I agree entirely but the media really should have been more rigorous in questioning both parties spending commitments at a time when the policies listed above simply can’t be paid for.

Whilst I’d have loved Labour’s manifesto to be realistic and to acknowledge the financial constraints that we as a government would have had to work within, the election was all about money and personality.  Even if we’d had the best manifesto ever written it would have had little effect and only slightly reduced our defeat.  There will be those who say that with decent, realistic, alternative policies Labour could have framed the election differently. I disagree.

So why was Iain Gray Scottish Labour’s leader?  And how did we come to run a negative campaign that started by being anti-Tory and Westminster focussed but then changed tack to being anti-independence?

I honestly believe Iain Gray was the best of a decidedly average Labour bunch at Holyrood.  It is this that is at the heart of the party in Scotland’s problems.  Twelve years on from devolution and Scottish Labour is still sending its best people down to Westminster (with very few exceptions).  At the next Scottish election in five years time, Labour has got to get its best MPs to Holyrood.

It’s been said there is no chance the likes of Jim Murphy and Douglas Alexander will become MSPs, as they are too ambitious at Westminster.  I hope this is wrong.  If you’re a Labour Party member then your twin ambitions are social equality and social justice.  For elected Scottish Labour members, Holyrood is the place you can most readily influence those causes.

The party also has to ensure it gets its best young talent to Edinburgh.  I hate to say it but the Labour benches in the last Scottish parliament were intellectually bereft.  There were far too many MSPs who were ‘time served’ in other roles within the Labour movement.  One of the few good things to come from losing so many MSPs unexpectedly is that we got rid of much of the deadwood.

Finally: the campaign.  I can only imagine Iain Gray’s strategists decided to go with an anti-Tory, Westminster focussed campaign because it was the one freshest in their memories from last year’s General Election.  Admittedly that was a successful campaign but it was in a different election.  The Scottish electorate is more sophisticated than we gave them credit for and no wonder they were leaving a party in droves that was fighting an election they weren’t even voting in.

To make things worse, Labour decided to change course to an anti-independence strategy with a fortnight to go.  It was the latter campaign that ensured the SNP got their majority as it nailed home the message Labour had been running a negative and irrelevant campaign.  We would still have lost but not by as much and not to an overall majority. Here’s a thought: it was a Scottish election, not a Westminster election nor an independence referendum.  Labour can’t make that mistake again.

Jim Murphy is chairing a review into Scottish Labour and he must see that he is a big part of the solution if he were to be an MSP and the Scottish Labour leader.  Much has been made of a Westminster MP leading that review because it was a Westminster focussed campaign that caused many of Labour’s problems.  That is missing the point though.  It was Labour in Scotland that decided to run a Westminster-focussed campaign, not Labour at Westminster.

The party doesn’t have to do too much to resolve its current problems: Get good MSPs in Holyrood.  Get realistic and credible policies.  And contest the next Scottish election on issues relevant to the Scottish parliament.  It really is that simple.  Oh, and if there’s a transport tycoon out there with a social conscience who wouldn’t mind slipping us a few million quid, that would be handy as well.