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Joan of Ack

Mar 6

Posted by Kirsty in Constitution | 107 Comments

I assumed that a political party as astute at communications as the SNP would be familiar with the term ‘damage control’. But, given Joan McAlpine MSP’s Daily Record column today, it seems such political acuity hasn’t filtered down to the backbenches.

In her column, McAlpine’s compares the union to a “marriage of a talented, well-educated girl with good prospects and her own income, to a domineering man”.  A man who thinks she “can’t be trusted to manage her own money” and who will cut the pin money “if she gets uppity”. But fear not gentle reader. For Scotland eventually “recognises the relationship for what it is – an abuse of power”.

Coming just over twenty-four hours after the Sunday Herald’s revelations alleging how Bill Walker MSP mistreated his three ex-wives and step-daughter, McAlpine’s invocation of spousal abuse and control is utterly crass. Comparing politics to domestic violence is at best tasteless, and at worst deeply insulting.  Labour MP Owen Smith apologised for making similar comments in 2010, and I think McAlpine should do likewise, instead of declaring herself proud of such ill-thought polemic.

And it was all going so well. It was even going well in yesterday’s Daily Record feature, where McAlpine herself states:

“We all want a more successful, fair and equal country where everyone shares the success.

“That’s what Daily Record readers want and what I want as well but you can’t make the case for that by moaning – you have to be positive.”

So where’s the positive agenda? I don’t think I need to remind the SNP of their ‘women problem’ facing them when it comes to a vote on independence – plenty of others have catalogued it. I suspect however successful the local election results in May, the new troops of SNP councillors will remain male, pale and stale.

I know there are SNP members, both activist and elected, who care deeply about the problems facing Scottish women. But when I read drivel like McAlpine’s column, it just leads me to think that the only goal for too many nationalists is independence and independence alone. Not day 2, or year 2, or the second decade after independence.

Despite Nicola Sturgeon noting yesterday that independence is the means and not the end, such distasteful and negative comparisons like those drawn by McAlpine between Scotland and England makes me think that for some, winning the referendum is the only thing that matters.  Scottish passports as more important than supporting the 1 in 5 women who experience domestic abuse in their lifetimes. Saltires given more prominence than getting rid of the 12% gender pay gap. Wrangles over the constitution instead of righting the wrong of child poverty.

It may seem the Scottish people are now more receptive than ever to arguments for independence, thanks to the Scottish Government’s ability and expertise, and its positive and progressive outlook, but women remain more dubious.  Lesley Riddoch rightly identifies the turn-offs: “constitutional nit-picking and ego-ridden banter”, instead of the big ideas and ambitions that drive politics and change. McAlpine’s column is yet more ill-put grievance, when the SNP needs to keep talking about vision and ambition.

Give Scottish cyclists a break, place assumption of guilt on drivers

Mar 6

Posted by Jeff in Transport | 25 Comments

I have to admit that I am one of those annoyingly cocky cyclists. I gamble on gaps between taxis, pay scant attention to red lights and often ‘forget’ to wear safety equipment in order to avoid ‘helmet hair’ at work. I’ve cycled since I was young, I tell myself, getting into accidents is for other people. The process is as much entertainment and fashion as it is a means to getting from A to B. For example, I wouldn’t be seen dead in one of those humptious yellow vests.

The ugly truth of course is that I’m more likely to soon be dead when cycling without one of those vests.

I wonder if the Edinburgh cyclist who died in Edinburgh this week thought similarly to how I do, or the other 15 cyclists who have died on the Capital’s streets since 2000. Not that complacency is the main reason for cyclists getting into accidents, it is cars, but there is precious little being done to make the roads safer for those on two wheels when up against numerous, too many, people on four wheels. The Greens, of course, are leading the arguments and are quite rightly calling for a cycle safety summit.

Perhaps Scotland should take a lead on this issue within the UK by taking a leaf out of The Netherlands’ book by implementing the following:

“Cyclists in the Netherlands are well protected as the law assumes the stronger participant (i.e. the car driver) is guilty until proved innocent (i.e. is the guilty party in all accidents involving weaker traffic unless evidence of the opposite is provided). Furthermore, drivers know to expect a high volume of cyclist traffic. Due to these issues the number of car-bike collisions with serious consequences is not alarmingly high in the Netherlands”

For a Government that is often so keen to get a jump on Westminster in bringing in legislation and making Scotland a noticeably better place to live than down south, I would have thought that this was right up their cycle path.

I don’t know why lycra-clad cyclists are a target for so many drivers, metaphorically and physically. This was recently taken to extremes in Bristol when a bus driver used his vehicle as a weapon to purposefully take a cyclist out on the road (the incredible BBC video is here). That is an extreme example but if cyclists were less of a target and more of a risk to ending up in prison or having to pay a large fine if you hit one of them with your, regardless whose fault you believed it was, we would most likely see less people dying on our streets and more people dusting off their mountain bikes and enjoying the satisfaction and occasional thrill that is cycling through your home town or city.

Cyclists need to do their bit too of course, paying attention to red lights, knowing their Highway Code and having a second look at that garishly yellow high visibility jacket, but the Scottish Government can, and should, take a lead. It once considered taxing cyclists but they should go the other way and protect them by placing an assumption of guilt on the driver in any car-on-bike accident on Scotland’s roads.

After all, if it saves one life…

SNP MSP Bill Walker suspended over domestic violence allegations

Mar 4

Posted by James in Holyrood | 24 Comments

An investigation by the Sunday Herald’s unofficial Standards Commissioner, Paul Hutcheon, has led to the suspension of Bill Walker MSP from the SNP group. Not one, not two, but three of his ex-wives have reported domestic abuse, either while divorcing him or now, and he also admits hitting his stepdaughter with a saucepan. He’s like Sean Connery without the glittering career, and the SNP have done the right thing by suspending him “pending a full investigation of the facts and circumstances”. There can be no way back, even given just the bits of these depressing tales he doesn’t contest.

When the paper’s front page went round Twitter last night, without an indication of who’d been suspended, I can’t have been the only person hoping it wouldn’t be one of the Nats I liked. And Walker certainly isn’t that. Quite the opposite.

Walker’s part of the under-vetted 2011 intake, and is known in political circles for one thing only – being so homophobic that he made John Mason look almost reasonable. In August last year, when Mason was stirring the pot with his weasel-worded motion (brought to public attention by Jeff here), Bill Walker went a lot further: “There are things called civil partnerships, which I accept, but I’m really concerned about the use of the term ‘gay marriage’ because to me it’s a contradiction in terms and anything that puts homosexual relationships as any way equal to male-female marriages is just not right.” Although I can’t find the link for it, he also used the classic “the dictionary defines marriage as a man and a woman” line of argument. First, it doesn’t, and second, the dictionary defines “United Kingdom” in a way you’re seeking to change.

And the politics? Landslides in a partly proportional system are relative, although 53% of seats on 44-45% of the vote was a pretty generous deal for the Nats. Using their numbers to put one of their more partisan members into the Presiding Officer’s chair took them down to 68 MSPs, three more than a bare majority. Bruce Crawford must be having wee palpitations this weekend, although even falling below 65 would hardly be the end of the world. They got more done more competently last session with just 47 MSPs, after all, and there are still at least three more votes for independence beyond their ranks.

Also, crucially, Walker is the constituency member for Dunfermline. If he’d been a regional MSP, it would have been possible for the leadership to try to persuade him to stand down on behalf of whoever was next on the list, despite the evidence from 2003-2007 when the likes of Campbell Martin and Dorothy-Grace Elder stuck two fingers up at them and stayed on as independents. But no, and Walker’s majority was just 590. A by-election in these circumstances in Labour’s former heartlands is not on Alex Salmond’s to-do list. An independent ex-SNP MSP without any credibility who keeps his trap shut and probably votes with them on everything is probably the least worst outcome for Ministers. But pressure will build to have him out, both from the opposition and from those who believe someone responsible for an apparent career domestic violence is unfit to serve at Holyrood.

The election of someone this unsuitable was part of the price of the SNP’s success. They’d never have expected Dunfermline to fall into their hands: Dunfermline West, which preceded it until the last lot of boundary changes, had been narrowly won by the Lib Dems over Labour in 2007. And so the Nats selected someone with a personal history one assumes no-one in the local party knew about, which suggests no-one really knew him at all. The story about Salmond meeting a new MSP the day after the election and not knowing who he or she was must not seem so cute now at SNP head office.

Scotland should be proud to stand alongside Ireland and Iceland

Mar 3

Posted by Jeff in Economy, Europe | 15 Comments

The Guardian is part way through a commendable series of questions on independence in a ‘Reality Check’ series. I suspect however that a key factor for the dim and distant referendum result is one that may not get picked up in this series – Is there still a Northern Europe arc of prosperity for Scotland to join?

As unfortunate as it is to think that the success or failure of other countries should determine Scotland’s constitutional fate, this is an issue that still dominates the independence debate, so much so that I often wonder whether Alex Salmond regrets uttering the following lines:

“Scotland can be part of Northern Europe’s arc of prosperity. There are three countries (Ireland, Iceland and Norway) there which are all in the top six wealthiest in the world. In contrast, devolved Scotland is in 18th place and the UK as a whole is only 14th. With distant London in charge, Scotland will just keep slipping further behind.”

In the occasional discussions that I get into on whether Scotland should break away from the UK or not, it is not so much an emotional or rational tie with the United Kingdom that makes people keen to vote No but rather it is the fear of being the next Ireland or Iceland. I honestly rather suspect that many such people don’t even stop to consider if that would be such a bad thing.

The logic goes that Ireland is a basketcase and Iceland effectively went bankrupt so why would Scotland want to risk following suit? So far I have not sensed much consideration over the likelihood of following suit or, for that matter, how bad the situations in these countries actually are. Headlines, unfortunately, are sufficient for conclusions to be drawn.

So, the IMF’s list of countries’ GDP by head for 2011 will make surprising reading for some:

3rd – Norway, $96,591 per head
14th – Ireland, $48,517 per head
21st – Iceland, $43,226 per head
22nd – UK, $39,604 per head
26th – Scotland, $33,680 per head

Norway, Ireland and Iceland may not be in the top six any more but suggestions that they are part of some sort of ‘arc of insolvency’, as Labour’s Jim Murphy once put it, are very wide of the mark indeed.

Even looking at growth for the most recent quarter available, 2011 Q3, makes for interesting reading:

Norway, +1.1%, (2011 Q2: -0.3%, 2011 Q1: +0.5%)
Ireland, -1.9%, (2011 Q2: +1.8%, 2011 Q1: +1.4%)
Iceland, +4.7% (2011 Q2: +2.8%, 2011 Q1: -3.6%)
UK, +0.5% (2011 Q2: +0.3%, 2011 Q1: 0.0%)
Scotland, +0.5% (2011 Q2: +0.2%, 2011 Q1: +0.1%)

I’m struggling to see how the UK is doing significantly better than these supposedly insolvent countries, if we’re even doing any better at all. On an aggregate basis, Scotland and the UK were outperformed by each of Ireland, Iceland and Norway in the first three quarters of 2011 so there is clearly some sort of potential for an ‘arc of prosperity’ to be tapped into for an independent Scotland.

Worthy of consideration here, as it was one of Salmond’s primary reasons for raising the arc of prosperity in the first place, is what the Corporation Tax rates in these countries are:

Norway, 28%
Ireland, 12.5%
Iceland, 20%
UK, 25%
Scotland, 25%

As much as I personally am concerned about a race to the bottom across Europe if countries start undercutting other countries on Corporation Tax, particularly given France and Germany have rates set as high as 33% and 30% respectively, it is clear that Scotland has a difficult challenge ahead of it to compete with London, Dublin and Iceland in attracting investment, whether it is independent or not. London may have the same Corporation Tax rate but it also enjoys closer proximity to the continent and better transport links and can expect to be at the front of the queue. Iceland and Ireland of course just have cut rate deals, while Norway has enough oil revenues to keep its tax rates high.

Perhaps the saddest aspect of Ireland’s current difficulties is the number of bright young things leaving the country for better prospects abroad. One could argue that this isn’t a road that Scotland would want to go down through independence and, yet, that is precisely what is happening now. (I know this from experience as I moved to London strictly because Scotland couldn’t provide the PhD that my partner wished to study. Wales, incidentally, could).

The Irish population in 1961 was 2.8m. The population today is 4.5m.
The Norwegian population in 1961 was 3.6m. The population today is 5.0m.
The Icelandic population in 1961 was 179,000. The population today is 318,000.
The Scottish population in 1961 was 5.2m. The population today is 5.2m.

There is clearly only one stagnant, problem child in the above list and that is because there is an historic, corrosive brain drain taking place in Scotland that is damaging growth from both a population and an economic viewpoint. It is little wonder that ‘London-based parties’, to use an unfortunate phrase, are championing the continuation of the UK when it is London that is the prime beneficiary of this very brain drain.

Kids wanting to get away from it all in Sweden move to Stockholm, kids wanting to get away from it all in Norway move to Oslo and kids wanting to get away from it all in Iceland move to Reykjavik but too many kids wanting to get away from it all in Scotland move to London, and we are haemhorrhaging talent and creativity as a direct result.

This post has largely consisted of financial or demographic related data based on growth, and there is a strong argument that constantly chasing growth is the wrong direction given the global equality and environmental problems that we face. So, which countries are simply the happiest? Surely if Ireland and Iceland are facing such tough times, the arc of prosperity will have been replaced with an arc of despondency instead?

Well, the UN’s most recent ‘happiness index’ has results as follows:

Norway – 1st
Ireland – 7th
Iceland – 14th
UK – 28th

Is it worth Scotland risking breaking away from the United Kingdom in order to simply be a happier place, even without considering whether it would be better off? It does appear that is worthy of consideration, based on the statistics.

I’m not saying that Ireland, Iceland and Norway’s situations are in themselves a reason for Scotland to be independent but what I am saying, quite categorically, is that their situations are not, as many seem to believe, a reason for Scotland not to be independent.

Too many Scots are considering exaggerated risks while turning a blind eye to the benefits that independence could bring. I don’t know if this is wilful ignorance or simply a resistance to change but it is stultifying the independence debate and, to use the Guardian’s phrase, a ‘reality check’ is long overdue.

An arc of prosperity is still there for Scots to be a part of, all they have to do is want to see it.

Do the Lib Dems have an LGBT problem?

Mar 2

Posted by James in Media, Parties, Westminster | 27 Comments

It seems like an odd question even to ask. At Holyrood the rump of the Lib Dems is four square behind equal marriage, and their activist base is almost certainly less heteronormative than the other larger parties.

Furthermore, parliamentary politics as practiced either at Holyrood or Westminster hasn’t that much residual homophobia going on. As it was put to me in conversation this week, every political party is essentially LGBT-friendly now, even the Tories (imagine Ruth winning even ten years ago) – with the possible exception, my friend noted, of the SNP, where LGBT MSPs have to rub shoulders at group meetings with the likes of John Mason and Bill Walker. Even Jackson Carlaw, probably the most right-wing person at Holyrood apart from Fergus Ewing, has signed the Equal Marriage pledge.

And yet, and yet.

The story of Simon Hughes and his relationship with both the newspapers and his own sexuality is back on the agenda again. For those who don’t know the original story, he was the Liberal Party candidate in the 1983 Bermondsey by-election, taking on Peter Tatchell, then in Labour and now someone I’m proud to have met while we were both out campaigning for Caroline Lucas in 2010. Peter had already been an LGBT activist with the Gay Liberation Front, and as a result the Liberal Party leaflets were larded with innuendo, endorsing Hughes as “a straight choice” for Bermondsey, despite, as it turns out, his closetted bisexuality. Peter’s accepted Hughes’ apology for the hypocrisy and negativity, but that’s just because Peter’s a better person than I am.

The story has come back again because, as the Guardian reports, Hughes finally pre-emptively outed himself to the Sun in 2006 following alleged phone-hacking that would have revealed he’d called gay chat lines.

That’s an understandable response to another shocking breach of privacy, but the article also contains a peculiar new angle. The Guardian quotes Hughes indirectly as follows. “Hughes added that he believed the forced revelation came at the time he was running for the party leadership and pushed him out of contention.” Really? Being bisexual would make it impossible to lead the Lib Dems? Either that’s true, in which case their membership is a lot more homophobic than one might expect, or Hughes has not just seriously misread his party, he’s also bad-mouthed his colleagues.

Hughes is not an isolated case, though. Leaving aside the more complicated situation of Mark Oaten, consider also David Laws. Despite the best efforts of his supporters, it wasn’t his sexuality that brought him down – it was the sight of a millionaire chiselling the taxpayer by lying about his living arrangements, not to mention doing so after making probity on his expenses a major part of his election campaign. But he couldn’t feel comfortable being out, and it wasn’t clear whether that was because he feared for the reaction from friends and family, or the party, or the electorate, or the media, or what combination of those.

What’s more, the specific language and way in which he announced his resignation were problematic. As a former Lib Dem friend of mine put it to me: “He said the past few days had been the “longest and toughest” of his life because he was outed – what a message to send to young people thinking about coming out. The whole thing about wanting to keep his sexuality a secret just had this tone of gay equalling shameful. It was horrible.”

The expectation is that the Lib Dems would be a safe crowd to be out amongst. But perhaps Simon Hughes is right, and perhaps that’s not the real truth.