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A boast and a toast to Scotland’s coast

Oct 3

Posted by Jeff in Culture, Economy, Sport | 6 Comments

One of the areas in which Scotland punches well above its global weight is in terms of length of coastline it has at its disposal.

We enjoy 11,800km of sea-battered shoreline in Scotland. That’s 369% of England’s 3200km, 155% of Italy’s 7,600km, 161% of France’s 7,330km, 183% of Ireland’s 6,437km, approximately 66% of China’s £18,000km and infinitely bigger than Switzerland’s, Bolivia’s or Belgium’s 0km. Indeed our shores are so lovely in some places that a Carribbean country decided to use Scottish beaches in its tourist drive rather than its own sought-after sandy enclaves. On the 4.5 hour East Coast train stretch it is surely the sea-hugging 45 minutes down to Berwick that awards the best views.

In my sadly-not-so-recent travelling adventures there were several highlights, chief amongst them were swimming with dolphins, checking out the surfing at Bondi beach, eating some glorious fish and island hopping off the Vietnamese coast. Once in a lifetime some would say but, with a little bit of imagination and effort, all of the above could be permanent fixtures in any Scottish travelling itinerary thanks to our coast.

Whales, Dolphins and Sharks
I don’t know what it is about these creatures but there is a child-like delight in scanning the waves off the West coast (and parts of the East) knowing that there is a fair chance you may see one of them leap out from the watery depths.

Sadly hundreds of these animals, the dolphins in particular, are killed each year due to unsustainable fishing practises which are regrettably continuing, hopefully criminally so.

The healthier and livelier our seas and oceans are then the more likely that a gazing onlooker (tourist or otherwise) will enjoy that delightful experience of seeing that basking shark or pod of bottlenose dolphins.

That opportunity can be bottled, sold and banked for Scotland’s benefit, not to mention the personal benefits that living alongside a thriving nature brings.

Surfing
Scotland is sitting on a surfing goldmine and really is behind the curve in terms of utilising it to its full potential. One of my top highlights of my long period of living in Edinburgh was heading out to Dunbar to pick up a lesson on Belhaven Beach. 25 degree sunshine, 6 foot waves and regular drifts, it was perfect conditions and I was regrettably only one of two out there enjoying the free gift on that Saturday afternoon.

I see no reason why Dunbar, in time, can’t be an unmissable stopping off point for Lonely Planet-wielding backpackers travelling to the UK. A sweep of beachfront similar to that of Bondi Beach in Sydney, a headland perfectly ripe for a Surf School and restaurant/recreational village and only 15 minutes by train from Edinburgh City Centre. If I win the lottery I’ll be straight up there to get cracking on it.

This is of course to overlook Orkney, Thurso, Shetland etc; all world-class surfing locations that are a long way off realising their full potential and not yet luring enough bodacious, Quiksilver-clad thrill-seekers to their coastlines.

Fish
I was perhaps spoiled for seafood restaurants when I lived down at The Shore in Edinburgh with Kings Wark, Fishers, The Ship, Creelers, Teuchter’s Landing and Café Fish all less than three minutes away from my front door. That is to brazenly overlook the Michelin award winning Martin Wishart and Tom Kitchen which I was unable to save up enough pennies for.

It would be great if we saw an increase in line-caught fish and a decrease in mass-produced, processed seafood that relies on questionable catching techniques. We are blessed with bountiful waters and the efforts to protect them have been heartening. Why not really push our fishing heritage and pedigree further by including how to gut, fillet and cook a fish in the High School syllabus? Shouldn’t a country that boasts such a remarkable coastline ensure that it has those rudimentary seafood skills? It would certainly beat the Bran Cakes and Lentil Soup that I remember making as a jaded pupil in Home Economics class, a subject I got an F in despite my now being a keen cook.

Islands
Scotland has 790 islands. A quite remarkable tally and once again a thumping defeat over Switzerland, Belgium and Bolivia. I am loathe to say they are underused, two couples I know of honeymooned on two of them this very year, but their value, although largely qualitative, is something that should be considered and even quantified where possible.

Could we run more ambitious, more tourist-friendly island cruise boats? Old junk boats snaking through Harrs, Rum and Eigg at a leisurely pace with well chosen activities and areas of historic interest along the way? Maybe such events already exist but if all we are relying on to get around off the West coast is the reliable, no-nonsense CalMac, then I think there’s more that could be achieved.

It’s difficult to put into words the frustration that living away from a coastline brings with my now being based in London. The Thames, you won’t be surprised to hear, just doesn’t cut it somehow. Scotland’s coastline needs to be treasured, cultivated, leveraged, protected and enjoyed as much as possible and while this is generally the case already, there is so much more that can be realised from it.

So pick up that surf board, that fishing rod, those boardies or that CalMac explorer pass, cast off the bowlines and enjoy.

(Note – Yes, those photos really were taken in Scotland)

Smoke and mirrors on the cuts

Oct 2

Posted by James in Economy, Westminster | 13 Comments

You have to admire the way George Osborne and Nick Clegg are handling the public spending debate. They’re playing a blinder, and they’ve got some excellent allies. Later this month they’ll cut the UK Government’s budget by 25%. Or is it 40%? The Navy will be forced to put to sea in contraptions made of hemp and ice, the handful of doctors and nurses that remain will be forced simply to kiss it better, and no new schools will ever be built again. It’s a disaster, an exercise in ideological cruelty, with cuts so savage they’ll make Geoffrey Howe’s 1981 austerity budget look like the Milky Bar Kid just showed up.

It’s Labour’s fault, all Labour’s fault, and even Labour agrees. Never mind that each time Labour bent over backwards to facilitate the markets, the Tories urged them to bend further. No deregulation was ever opposed by them, or by the Lib Dems, or indeed by the SNP.

The left have fallen for it entirely, and could not be helping more directly if the Treasury was writing their content for them. On the media side, Polly Toynbee says today “Conservatives know their captain and his mate are storm-chasers, deliberately steering straight into a force 10 hurricane with the spending review on 20 October.”  John Lanchester mocks up Osborne as Edward Scissorhands. Labour’s conference talked of nothing else (aside from some family matters), and left bloggers write about little else. You can’t cut a quarter of the entire UK Budget? Won’t someone think of the children?

Except it isn’t going to happen. On the 20th of October the Chancellor will set out his Comprehensive Spending Review, and, magically, nothing will be as bad as we thought. Lollipop ladies and gentlemen won’t be sold off to foreign parts, and children in dank Victorian dinnerhalls won’t have to eat broken-up old aircraft carriers at lunchtime.

Some detail in the latest statistics isn’t as bad as we’d expected, he’ll say. I’ve spoken to my friends in the City, and they’re comfortable letting spending decline much more gradually than planned. 40%? Nowhere near. 25%? Not even that. We can still tackle the deficit without the pain we’d all feared. There will be no capital flight, no increase in the government’s cost of borrowing, and our triple A+ with a gold star rating can be maintained. The nation will breathe a sigh of relief, and Labour’s attack lines will suddenly pop like a soap bubble. Nick Clegg’s people will again brief that it’s the moderating influence of the Lib Dems in office that saved us all, the particularly cynical media strategy this coalition has afforded both parties, and the polls will show a bounce for both the coalition parties.

The trouble is that there still will be savage cuts. Maybe around 15%, perhaps up to 18%. And that’s still eye-watering punishment for the poor, an end to countless programmes intended to moderate the effects of poverty, ill-health and poor education. The fact that it’s significantly below what we were threatened with is entirely irrelevant.

If I was a steely right-wing ideologue like Osborne or Clegg, with a desire to weaken the state and ram through a neo-liberal economic settlement more extreme than anything even Margaret Thatcher achieved, I’d warm everyone up with warnings of massive cuts. They started with 25% but then it looks like they realised that was too close to their actual plans, hence the absurd 40% figures subsequently floated. In their position, if I had any intention of cutting 25% from the budget I’d have started with threats of 35% first off.

This period of deft high-balling by the Coalition and feckless stupidity from the left will make their cuts very hard to oppose. The public have been softened up, and Labour will flounder. There was a point where they could have set out a strong narrative here, but it was before they left office. Alastair Darling could have explained basic Keynes to the nation, that cutting public budgets in a recession just deepens it. Labour could have apologised for building up the deficit during the boom times, but then passed some kind of budget responsibility legislation to guarantee that wouldn’t happen again.

They could have said “this is a time for a principled choice: the Tories will cut services to the poorest, but we will raise taxes on the richest, and on the banks who got the country into this situation”, cleverly glossing over their own role in that deregulation. Instead they sold the jerseys, with Darling promising some £78bn of cuts, a move which makes any argument they have with Osborne or Clegg mere quibbling about the details.

In fact, the spending review will be exactly what the left say it is, an ideological move to reduce the size of the state, to leave the rich free to make more money and the poor free to fantasise about being rich. But we’ve fallen into their trap about the specific scale, so who will be left to make a convincing argument against it?

Prize competition. I will send the one hundred trillion dollars pictured above to whoever posts a comment containing the most accurate figure for the overall cuts set out in this comprehensive spending review. To one decimal place, please. My money’s on 17.8%.

London by-election – The fight for fairness

Oct 1

Posted by Jeff in Democracy, Elections, Parties | 12 Comments

I know this blog has a raison d’etre of bettering the nation of Scotland but I’m going to briefly interrupt proceedings to post on London council elections. No wait, where are you going, come back! This’ll only take a moment…

The London Borough elections of 2010 saw 1,861 councillors elected to their posts. I don’t know what the expectations were for the Green Party in the UK’s capital but they returned 2 councillors which I would ordinarily have thought was a poor result but, from the little I know of how elections work here, I know infact that it was actually just an unfair result.

There is an upcoming by-election for nearby Kentish Town in the area of Camden next month and this could see the Green Party increase its number of councillors by 50% if it were to win. Labour are probably favourites and, were they to win, they would increase their representation in the city by 0.114%. A bit of a difference you could say.

Indeed, if one were to look at the 2010 election results as a whole they would see what an uphill struggle the Green Party is fighting against in a local context.

The Labour party won 876 councillors, the Conservatives 717, the Lib Dems 245 and the Greens, as I say, 2. This result was with 3,388,437 votes for Labour, 3,301,966 for the Conservatives, 2,094,530 for the Lib Dems and 443,498 for the Greens.

Put another way, Labour received 3,868 votes for every councillor position it won, the Conservatives received 4,605 votes for every councillor, the Lib Dems received 8,549 votes for every councillor and the Greens received a whopping 221,749 votes for every councillor.

All parties talk of wanting fairness, all parties talk of a new politics. So, not that I’m suggesting the local Green Party isn’t up for a challenge, but shouldn’t all the other parties just sit out this Kentish Town by-election and let an organic justice take place?

Sadly it doesn’t work that way so it’ll be an old-skool winner takes all affair in Kentish Town. Good thing the Greens believe fairness is worth fighting for because they have a battle on their hands on that score.

Source: Borough Council Election Results

The State of the Scottish Blogosphere

Oct 1

Posted by Malc in Media | 9 Comments

The Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging in the UK 2010-2011The following article appeared as a short chapter in the Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging in the UK 2010/11, which you can purchase for yourself here (and which I heartily recommend).  One further thought – the article was written in July when I didn’t read quite so many blogs, thus there are some glaring omissions, for which I can only apologise profusely (I’m looking particularly at you, Bright Green Scotland, Bella Caledonia and Andrew Reeves).  Anyway, I heartily recommend those sites, and some of the following links as well!

“The state of the Scottish blogosphere is one of change and renewal, of continuation and emergence, and of quietness and controversy.  In short, we’re all over the place.

We’ve seen the focus of much writing shift from Holyrood to Westminster for the UK General Election (and likely back again for the Scottish Parliamentary election next year) which has changed the dynamic of Scottish blogging, with an outsider’s tone, almost – to my mind at least – mimicking the geographical sense of distance between us and London.  We’ve seen the departures from the blogging scene of several of the most prominent voices – and fond farewells go to Scottish Unionist, Wardog, Julie Hepburn and Yapping Yousuf who have wrapped up their blogs.  We’ve seen renewal in the shape of new voices – and old ones returning – maintaining a healthy spread of opinion throughout the Scottish blogosphere.  And we’ve seen controversy on several occasions, which led to the closure of some blogs and (from what I gather) some difficulty with employers.

All in all, an eventful time in the Scottish blogosphere, and yet it appears that (generally speaking) we’ve struggled to maintain the consistency of posting which marked previous years.  With the notable and laudable exceptions of authors at SNP Tactical Voting, Caron’s Musings, Stephen’s Linlithgow/ Liberal Journal, Subrosa and, of course, the fabled Tom Harris, who continue to exceed expectations with daily (and sometimes multiple daily) posts, motivation – and the time it takes – to blog seems to have deserted the majority of us.  Inevitably the lack of blogging has provoked some introspective discussion, with Doctor Vee, J. Arthur MacNumpty and Planet Politics all contributing to diagnose the problem and determining in conclusion that it isn’t really a problem at all.  “We’re in flux, we’ll go off and renew in time for the Holyrood election and we’ll have a grand old time when that comes round” seems to be the view from these luminaries.  And so we shall, for even though the frequency of posting – and the number of contributors – feels like it is down on previous years, we seem to have a little more in the way of partisan balance in the Scottish blogosphere.

Nationalist bloggers still lead the way, with the aforementioned SNP Tactical Voting, J. Arthur MacNumpty and Subrosa providing frequent posts – SNP Tactical Voting covering somewhat more in the way of economic and environmental, and partisan, politics, Subrosa with a focus on more military and, I think, more “high-level” politics and MacNumpty the weekly round-up of all the goings-on in Holyrood and analysis of key events.  More legal and articulate thoughts come from Lallands Peat Worrier while IndyGal, Bellgrove Belle, Calum Cashley and Scots and Independent give the perspective from representatives and would-be representatives of the party.

In Labour’s corner we have the Doctor Who-loving, PR-bashing Tom Harris, retaining his position among the higher echelons of blogs in Scotland.  He is joined by Westminster colleague Eric Joyce, whose frank and funny blog is surely on course to challenge Tom’s dominance of Scottish Labour blogging.  Edinburgh Councillor Andrew Burns still features with his “very brief comments” while activist Kezia Dugdale has moved from the Soapbox to her own website and blogs somewhat less frequently than previously.

The new UK coalition is somewhat more sparsely represented in the Scottish blogosphere, but what they lack in numbers, they more than make up for in frequency.  The Liberal Democrats have the relentless Stephen’s Liberal/ Linlithgow Journal and the eclectic Caron’s Musings, while the Conservatives have councillors Cameron Rose in Edinburgh and Jim Millar in Angus.  Neither party really matched their UK level of success in Scotland at the General Election, and their online presence perhaps reflects that.

Ready for an assault on the next Scottish Parliament election, the Scottish Greens have increased their online presence.  Leader Patrick Harvie established a blog on his website (which carries a recent promise to increase the posting rate) while Two Doctors remains the Scottish Greens most prominent voice.  The party itself have opened a blog on their website, and Aberdeenshire Councillors Debra Storr and Martin Ford have regularly contributed, while Suitably Despairing blogs from Edinburgh on matters environmental and frustrating.  A sizable online presence for a party with just two MSPs – but with designs on increasing that next year.

The media have also upped their game in Scotland, with Brian Taylor’s analysis at the BBC probably the best of its kind.  The Scotsman’s Steamie blog has seen collaboration between journalists and some of the Scottish blogosphere’s more frequent writers, though the latter’s contribution has lessened as the project has gone forward.  Joan McAlpine’s Go Lassie Go blog is as informed as it is exceptionally well-written (and independent) while Alex Massie’s Spectator blog always makes for interesting reading.  Newly arrived this year is Gerry Hassan, whose mix of academic and journalistic is a welcome addition.

Finally, there are the non-aligned – those many bloggers who are perceived as (or perceive themselves as) aligned with no political party.  I like to think I’m one of this band, but critics will inevitably have me in a couple of different camps.  Bill’s Comments Page – entering his eighth year blogging – deserves special mention for his longevity.  He sits on the centre-right but with less of a focus on the Holyrood bubble than most, especially since he spends some of his time looking at Scotland from sunnier Spain.  Also on the right, the inimitable Mr Eugenides makes a serious, funny and oftentimes crude examination of the political classes and finds them wanting.  In another life, he’d be a script-writer for a political satire in the vein of The Thick of It.  Jess the Dog is another who straddles the centre-right, probably with a more favourable inclination to nationalism than those previously mentioned, while Freedom and Whisky is a libertarian (and not a librarian as the original draft of this suggested!).  Doctor Vee does, I think, tend more towards Liberal Democrat politics though you probably wouldn’t pick up on it through his eclectic collection of posts.  He is also the mastermind behind the Scottish Round-up, a weekly collection of the best of Scottish blogging.

Ideas of Civilisation has recently returned to cast a philosophically unaligned eye over shenanigans while the Scott at Love and Garbage does the same from a legal perspective.  Political Dissuasion seems to be angry about most things political while Planet Politics is also anti-politics.  Both provide measured analysis, and both add much to the debate, while Underdogs Bite Upwards has become more vocal and outspoken in a similar role.  Finally, though he’s been around since 2007, Dispatches from Paisley has increased the frequency of his posting, particularly up to the election and provided non-partisan analysis, while Scot Goes Pop is perhaps slightly more aligned but no less balanced for it.  All in all, we have a fairly balanced non-aligned blogosphere, with voices from both right and left.

So those are the main protagonists – some changes, some renewals, new blogs and old.  As for the controversy, well, it has come in several forms over the last year.  In January, Universality of Cheese author Montague Burton (aka Mark MacLachlan) wrote some not-so-flattering posts about certain politicians – some of it not so different to what you might find on some of the more mainstream blogs at UK level.  However, his identity as an aide to a Scottish Government minister was uncovered by investigative journalism, and uproar followed, including all sorts of legal aspects which this humble blogger didn’t really understand.  In a similar case, Wardog, after his identity was uncovered, chose to shut down his blog after his employer didn’t take too kindly to being associated with his political views.  Micro-blogging also provided controversy in Scotland when Stuart MacLennan, Labour’s candidate for Moray in the May election, was sacked after tweeting some ill-advised rants, while SNP Tactical Voting found himself in a bit of hot water for discussing postal vote returns, though that was much quieter on the news front.

As we move on into the next electoral cycle, the focus will turn more towards Holyrood and the upcoming Scottish Parliament election, as well as the AV referendum, scheduled for the same date.  Along the way we’ll probably lose some more established writers, discover some new talent, see the frequency of posting ebb and flow and court more controversy along the way.  A dull time in Scottish politics this is not, and though blogging here has almost taken a short break in the past few months, we’ll return with a renewed focus and energy.  At least, that’s what has happened in the past.  As for the future, well, if I knew how to predict that, I’d be a lot less poor.”

NB – Stuart Winton, of Planet Politics also had a piece included in this year’s collection, a tome on the decline of the Scottish blogosphere.  If you like your blogging with a side portion of pessimism(!) I recommend his article, which he has published in full here.

Oil be damned

Sep 30

Posted by Jeff in Economy | 18 Comments

The headline debate at First Minister’s Questions today was the tiresome discussion over whether an independent Scotland would be a debt-ridden new Ireland or an oil-soaked new Norway.

I can’t imagine anyone outside the Chamber held avid interest in the discussion. Indeed, I daresay many INSIDE the Chamber tuned out and started thinking about their tea.

However, a new indirect dimension to the debate, and one worthy of significant debate, is that put forward by the Scottish Greens as Patrick Harvie is pressing the First Minister to support European plans for a moratorium on deepwater drilling, following the recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Is the Green Party attempting to leverage a unique tragedy in order to push through its economy-sapping agenda or is there a safety-first, environmentally-crucial opportunity here to usher in the beginning of the end for dirty oil?

Presumably we can only ease ourselves off oil once a sustainable, reliable renewables industry is up and running. We are surely still behind the curve on that score, though sprinting ever closer, leading the world infact, towards the ultimate goal of wind and wave powering our nation. Consequently, I would expect drilling to continue until we can leave the remaining, no longer necessary, oil safely underground.

Furthermore, the BP disaster notwithstanding, there is no reason to expect a similar problem in the North Sea given the lack of evidence that oil companies are not complying with the very strict safety regulations that are in place across Europe.

However, Patrick Harvie’s argument may well be that drilling for oil is taking place to cover our energy needs after the point at which Scotland can look forward to being fully reliant on renewable power. At that point my argument falls down and a potential objection that jobs need to be safeguarded would make me sound as silly as those who say we need billion-pound nuclear weapons in order to keep a number of people in the West of Scotland employed. After all, the best Carbon Capture System is not drilling for oil in the first place, even if it would make Texas-of-the-North Aberdeen an economically chilly place to be.

And what of the SNP’s aim for Scotland to be powered entirely by renewable energy by 2025? Does this not contradict the claims that Scotland can be the new Norway, as Stephen has pointed out? Well, yes and no I would suggest. There’s no reason why Scotland can’t power itself with Renewables and sell its oil abroad, though I accept that that is a dubious approach to fighting Climate Change.

So I fear the Greens are opportunistically playing up the possibility of another disaster on the scale of the Gulf of Mexico but at the same time making perfectly valid points about how much oil Scotland really needs to pull out of its seabed. This is not to forget that there is no way one can play up too far the environmental risks that are at stake.

It’s Scotland’s Oil. Yes, it is, but at what point do we decide to just leave our oil safely underground?

UPDATE – Caledonian Mercury has a good piece on the matter and the full exchange between Patrick Harvie and Alex Salmond