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Sign the petition – Include Patrick Harvie in Holyrood leader debates

Mar 10

Posted by Jeff in Democracy | 82 Comments

This evening, Patrick Harvie will make history as the first Green MSP to take part in the BBC’s flagship Politics Show – Question Time. Whether ‘HarvMania’ will be unleashed as a direct result or the longed for appearance will be a damp squib remains to be seen but any belief that the Greens have ‘arrived’ as a main party in Scotland can quickly be dispelled with the mere fact that Patrick has been frozen out of the Holyrood leader debates, as blogged by James yesterday.

I hold a particularly strong belief that this is an unacceptable situation, and not just because Alex, Iain, Tavish and Annabel should be given their fair chance to say ‘I agree with Patrick’ over and over again.

An arbitrary selection of party leaders should not get a free electoral leg-up from the media. We saw last year with Nick Clegg the electrifying impact that a good performance at these debates can have on a campaign but what we don’t see so clearly is the unfair detrimental impact that exclusion causes to those who are unfairly left out. So, I have decided to see if good old-fashioned people power can result in a fifth podium being added to the BBC and STV stages.

I urge anyone that agrees with me that it is unfair for the Greens to be excluded from these debates, irrespective of the strength of that feeling, to sign this petition calling for Patrick Harvie to be included.

There is no reason why this should be a partisan issue either. Those that disagree with the Green party’s policies would, I am sure, respect their validity and the contribution that they provide to the overall pre-election debate. There is simply no reasonable explanation that I can think of to excuse keeping a current leader of the current Scottish Parliament outside of the leader debates in advance of the election for the next parliamentary term.

Almost a year ago the SNP asked its members and non-member sympathisers to fund a legal challenge to what Alex Salmond called an “outrage“ when the Nationalists were not included in the UK leader debate broadcasts. This time around the microphone is on the other lapel, it is the SNP who have made the cut along with Labour, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives and it is the Scottish Green Party that is unfairly frozen out. I’m sure no-one will be mounting a legal challenge this time around but that same call for fairness is just as valid.

The Green slogan at the Westminster election was ‘Fair is worth fighting for’. That applies as much today with this petition as it did then.

Sign the petition, spread the word, tweet, join the campaign on Facebook and/or blog about it, put the pressure on the BBC and STV and let’s give Scotland the full political debate that we deserve.

Debating the debates

Mar 9

Posted by James in Holyrood, Media | 37 Comments

One podium missingIt seems likely that the Holyrood TV debates won’t get quite the same attention we saw when Cameron, Clegg and Brown faced off in April last year. For one thing, they’re not an innovation for a Holyrood campaign. For another, there really is a metropolitan media bias, and that media will probably spend more time wondering whether Clegg or Cameron wins the AV debate (as it sadly seems likely to be framed).

However, they will still matter. And who will be in them? The answer so far appears to be four out of the five leaders of the Holyrood parties, and as you can imagine I’m not delighted about that, just as the SNP were rightly disgruntled to be excluded from the Westminster debates.

It’s just special pleading to argue we should be in the debates, I’m told. But how are the broadcasters framing the programmes? Won’t that make it clear who belongs in them? To my mind, there are only two credible answers.

Perhaps they should be debates between the candidates for First Minister. Hands up anyone who has any plausible route for anyone other than Salmond or Gray to become FM in May? Nope, FM debates would have to be just those two, the first chunk of FMQs extrapolated to an hour or so, heaven help us.

The other sensible option is that the debates should test the parties that might take part in government in any form. Is there anyone prepared to rule out a government with Patrick Harvie in it, or supporting it from the outside? The most recent poll suggested that would be certainly a possibility, and even with just 2 MSPs we took part in talks last time that could have led to some sort of more formal arrangement. And does anyone think that criteria would mean including Colin Fox? Really? It also should be noted that both the Tories and the Lib Dems would be hard for either the SNP or Labour to work with formally given their roles in Westminster. So this option points towards five podiums.

Actually, there’s a third suggestion. Parties currently in Parliament should get in, with varying amounts of time according to group size. Yes, let Margo in too.

Any of these is logically consistent. But four out of five is purely arbitrary.

Footnote: On the comparison between the SNP in 2010 and the Greens in 2011, it should be noted that the SNP went into last year’s election with just 7 out of 646 MPs, a lower proportion than 2 out of 129, and although there was a way it could have happened, SNP involvement in government at Westminster government was always a considerably longer shot.

Football does not cause domestic abuse

Mar 8

Posted by Guest Blog in Society | 20 Comments

A guest post today for International Women’s Day, from Lily Greenan from Scottish Women’s Aid. We are most grateful, also because the Better Nation editorial team has a marked gender imbalance.

Lily GreenanLast week’s Old Firm game raised a few questions for me. The aggression used by some players during the game was more than matched afterwards by their managers/assistant manager. Was I shocked? I wish I could say yes, but sadly, I wasn’t shocked. There was nothing new here. Displays of macho posturing are not unique to football and though I agree that Lennon and McCoist should be more mindful of the influence they have and the messages they give out, I would say the same of many men in positions of power and influence in Scotland.

There has been a fair bit of coverage of the link between the Old Firm game and a reported rise in domestic abuse incidents. This isn’t news to anyone working in the field; nor is it news to the women, children and young people who live with it. Around Scotland, reported incidents increase after local football matches. I don’t know whether there is a bigger problem in relation to Old Firm games or not.

What I do know is that football doesn’t cause domestic abuse, any more than alcohol does. Women who experience domestic abuse talk about being controlled by their partner, isolated from family and friends, made to feel worthless. The violence their partner uses has a purpose – it reinforces the control he has over them. It happens every day, not just match day.

Men who abuse their partners don’t act in a vacuum. Their behaviour may be supported or challenged by what is happening in the community around them, by the effectiveness of the justice system and by the political priorities of the State. In Scotland, an incredible amount of work has been done since devolution to tackle domestic abuse. Cross party support has ensured a consistent message from Holyrood that domestic abuse is a political priority. This has been reflected in improved justice system responses, increased service provision and some world class work to address the needs of children and young people who experience domestic abuse.

What is missing is real engagement with the wider public. In particular, what is missing is the voices of men. What is missing is a much needed conversation about what it means to be a man in Scotland today and why it is so intrinsically linked to violence and aggression. As Gerry Hassan said in his thought-provoking exploration of some of the issues – “why do we seem to be uncomfortable and unwilling to begin a debate about men behaving badly?”.

It’s a question that begs a conversation. It’s a conversation that shouldn’t – and perhaps can’t – be started by women.

Today is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, a day which celebrates the struggles and achievements of women around the world. Today Alex Salmond will host a Summit bringing together the SFA and the Old Firm teams to “chart a way forward”. I wish them well and offer this suggestion – start the conversation about why men behave badly – not just at football matches, but in the streets and in their homes.

We won’t stop domestic abuse until you do.

I D’Hondt like Mondays

Mar 7

Posted by Malc in Elections, Holyrood | 35 Comments

With the Scottish Parliament election and the AV referendum (yawn) on the same day this year, there’s been a bit of chat on Twitter regarding whether the constituency element of the Scottish Parliament election should also changeover to AV in the unlikely event that people vote Yes.  But I think there’s a better way to bring some more proportionality to the system as it currently stands, and that is to make the list component a Scotland-wide list, rather than dividing it into 8 regions.

This has several advantages – we’d be looking at consistent levels of requirement to be elected across Scotland.  In 2007, for example, 10,749 votes got Patrick Harvie elected 7th on Glasgow list, and 10,663 got the last SNP MSP (Dave Thompson) elected in H&I.  However, Lord George Foulkes needed 15,099 to be elected as the last MSP for Labour in Lothians and Stuart McMillan 15,191 to be the last MSP in West.  If we had national lists, in 2007,  you would have needed 14,700 votes to be the last MSP elected, and you this could compensate for big votes in some regions and smaller votes in others.  In other words – every vote would actually count.

Secondly, and probably more importantly, the result is much more proportional.  I’ve been playing with the numbers for a while (and I can email folk my working if anyone is remotely interested!), but based on the 2007 result (on the boundaries at the time) and assuming the constituency vote stayed the same, this is what we’d be looking at:

Now there are several points which are worth exploring here, and I’ll get to some of them now.

First, you’ll notice this would elect a BNP MSP.  That’d be a downside its true – but if people will vote for them, then they will win seats.  They were particularly close to getting an AM in the Welsh Assembly in North Wales in 2007 – so that’s something to watch out for.  But electing 1 extremist is not a reason not to consider this (and there are ways you could minimise this risk, should you want to, which I’ll come to in a moment).

Secondly, you’ll also probably notice much more fragmentation of the party system, certainly compared to what we have at the moment.  That’s simply because parties in most regions accumulate anything from 1,000 to 6,000 votes in any given region, but haven’t come close to the 10,000+ required to win a seat .  But add them all together in this kind of system, and suddenly it is enough.

There is a way around this fragmentation – and its a threshold.  In Germany, they use a similar system to here (though their split is 50-50 between constituency and regional members, and its a national list they elect from) and they put a threshold at 5% of the vote – don’t make that, and you get no members elected.  It is designed to stop extremists (especially since German political parties are state funded).  If we did that with this system, the threshold may have to be lower, since only the “Big 4” would make 5%.  I’m instinctively against thresholds – again, they reduce proportionality and, in my mind, are anti-democratic since they ignore some voter’s stated preferences – but I understand the arguments for them.  Not so much the ant-extremist angle, but the controlling fragmentation (and thus allowing efficient government) I get.

I mentioned before that this would be a more proportional system.  And it would be – here’s the numbers:

For all except the Greens (who didn’t – with one exception – stand constituency candidates) I’ve averaged the vote on both constituency and regional vote to give a reflection of party support as a whole.  And you can see how close the correlation is:  The SNP and Labour seat shares are half a percent higher than they “should” be, the Conservatives’ are half a percent lower, and the Greens (and the remaining “Others”) win the seats their vote share suggests they should. Only the Lib Dems are out, by 2% – a direct result of their winning more constituencies than their national share of the vote would dictate.  They get “punished” for it on the top-up element (which happens with the regional system too).

I’ve run the figures for 1999 and 2003 as well – they appear in the table below – and the results are consistent with what I found running the 2007 vote:

You can see that in both 1999 and 2003, if the lists had been national instead of regional, then there would have been slight differences in the actual outcome.  Starting with 1999 – Labour would have returned no list MSPs (meaning 3 fewer seats in total) while the SNP and Conservatives end up with 1 and 2 more list MSPs respectively.  In similar circumstance to 2007, the Lib Dems lose out a bit because they win an over-representation in FPTP seats while the Greens and the SSP would have gained more than they actually did.  In 2003, again Labour don’t return any list MSPs (and, again, like the Lib Dems, are over-represented because of their constituency wins) and the Greens/SSP add to their actual figures while the SNP are the same.

What is interesting to note is the comparison between vote share and seat share – and the difference that AMS makes when the national vote share is the deciding factor (rather than regions).  In both 1999 and 2003, Labour’s share of seats is still much higher than its share of the vote – this is because each of their seats was won through FPTP and not AMS.  In 2003, the SNP’s seat share is down on their vote share – but that’s because there were not enough regional seats to make up for their poor showing on the constituencies.  And the Lib Dems are constantly over-represented due to their winning more FPTP seats than their vote share would allow.  But look at the rest of the vote shares compared to share of seats (the 1999 and 2003 figures in the table directly above, 2007 figures in the one above that).  They are almost exactly correlated.

My point is simply this:  If we are considering a “small step” towards making the system more proportional, let’s forget about AV and simply make the AMS element of the Holyrood system a national – and not regional – list.  Sure this would make governing coalitions more difficult (no Lab-LD coalition makes 65 in 2003, for example) and fragments the party system further, but it IS more proportional.  If that is our priority, then surely it’s something we should be considering.

Welcome to fees fantasyland (mind the credibility gap)

Mar 5

Posted by Jeff in Education | 31 Comments

In the run up to the 2010 election, the Institute for Fiscal Studies released a compelling report that clearly stated that each of Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats were not being honest about what tax rises they would have to implement and what they would have to cut in order to match the promises they were making during the campaign.

In terms of a funding gap, Labour were 87% short, the Conservatives 82% and the Lib Dems 74%. An abysmal performance at a time when trust in politicians was already at an all time low and a moment that should have sparked national outrage despite a seemingly largely unperturbed electorate.

We have of course seen the Conservatives and Lib Dems have to show their full post-election hands now that they are in power. VAT rises, NHS overhauls, massive cuts and huge job losses are a large part of the gap between the 2010 promises and the 2010-2015 reality. Added to that, of course, is the raising of tuition fees to £9,000/year for many universities south of the border.

As I said in a recent post and will say again, spending decisions that take place at Westminster have a direct impact on spending decisions at Holyrood. How can a block grant taken from an overall budget that does not include free elderly care, free prescriptions, free tuition, billion pound bridges and a bloated public sector stack up against the Scottish political wishlist of freebies, jobs and social security for all? The simple answer is that it can’t. We either have to top that block grant up with more money, rearrange priorities or fall in line with the approach taken down south, including introducing painful tuition fees. So far we have done none of the above to the necessary extent so the remaining option is for the whole devolution process to fall down like a house of cards under the weight of wishful thinking.

One party (the Greens) is saying that education should be free but we’re going to have raise some taxes in order to pay for it, other parties (SNP, Lib Dems, Labour) are saying that education should be free but we don’t have to make any noteworthy sacrifices to deliver this. I’m sorry, but who from the above sound like they have a solid grasp of the financial reality ahead of us? Who makes electorally toxic suggestions of tax rises lightly?

When I wrote the post on tuition costs only yesterday, Labour and the Lib Dems had not made their position on fees clear. They now have, university education will remain free over the lifetime of the next parliamentary term unless there is a Conservative majority in place or, perhaps with a little bit of history repeating, a Conservative/Lib Dem majority.

The funding gap for further education is estimated by some political parties and bodies to be £93m by 2014/15; a gap which NUS has called “clearly bridgeable” and which Scottish Labour said in a reply to me on Twitter was “eminently bridgeable”. (I wonder who composes the feed for @scottishlabour, hey?)

The problem is, that £93m gap is the wrong figure. As the Scottish Government’s report itself shows, that £93m (£97m in the report itself) does not take into account inflation (currently running at 4% and set to increase) and is based on an average English fee of £6,000 which is contradictory to the Treasury’s expected average tuition fee in England of £7,500. The ‘correct’ assumptions state that the funding gap is actually £202m, more than double what Labour, the Lib Dems and perhaps even the SNP are using to quickly pull their manifestos together. This is creating a financial black hole that will no doubt go largely unnoticed until governing parties have to break election pledges to fix it. Why not face up to the challenge now and treat the public like adults is all I’m asking?

Tavish Scott, to his credit, has tentatively mooted doing away with some ‘universal benefits’ in order to pay for free tuition. Although no detail was put forward, free bus passes for the elderly, at £199m a year (and rising), may plug the gap but it remains to be seen how bullish the typically flighty leader will choose to be on this. It’s hard to imagine a party so full of rural MSPs advocating a complete scrapping on free bus passes for the elderly.

Labour, who felt the need to charge students for studying in the good years of ever-increasing budgets when they were in power, now think they won’t need to when sitting in the cold, hard seats of Opposition. The SNP has not yet formally announced its official policy for financing students through their studies but you can bet that the next swirl of this downward spiral of overpromising and under delivering is just around the corner.

The Conservatives and the Greens are the only parties with a credible position on this. Either students pay upfront or back-ended fees in the form of a graduate contribution or other direct payment or we accept that a graduate contribution already exists in the form of income tax and fees are made free for students by raising the necessary funds elsewhere.

I believe in the latter and would vote so accordingly, neatly sidestepping the parties whose arguments simply do not stack up.

We have already been led up the garden path by political parties in 2010, let’s try not to have it happen again in 2011.