Couldn't organise a pis..er..drink up in a distillery?

Earlier this week it was reported that the Scottish Government had postponed the implementation of a new requirement for "personal" licences for managers of premises selling alcohol; a huge backlog of applications had meant that a significant number of licensed premises would be forced to close when the new regime came into force on 1 September. Now applicants will be able to continue trading even if they haven't been granted the relevant licence, provided they've applied before the end of August.

The relevant legislation was passed by the previous Labour/Lib Dem administration, but its implementation was of necessity the responsibility of the current SNP government. However, irrespective of the politics, it's self-evident that officialdom has had plenty of time to plan for this and ensure as seamless an implementation process as possible, but it's equally clear that this simply hasn't happened.

Moreover, the postponement smacks of pandering to irresponsible licensees, since part of the problem is a failure of significant numbers to timeously apply for a licence, which meant local authorities wouldn't be able to process the many applications that will inevitably be submitted at the last minute. Indeed, Cllr Rod Wallace, chairman of Dundee's licensing board said:

I'm really disappointed in the Scottish Government. We've been calling for establishments to apply for these licences for around 20 months. It's a case of moving the goalposts to suit people who haven't bothered to do anything about the fact that the licensing law is about to change.

We've called them, written to them and emailed them and still they did nothing about it. In my opinion this is simply a cop out.

The theory behind the new personal licences is sound enough - to encourage greater responsibility from the licensee - but given the lamentable failure to enforce existing licensing laws there was clearly a danger that the new provisions were simply more government spin and bureaucracy that would barely amount to a sticking plaster.

But as well as the administrative chaos evident in implementing the new regime - why wasn't an earlier date set for the submission of applications to provide a gap between this and the granting of the licences and thus allow sufficient time for them to be processed, since licensing authorities should be well aware of the eleventh hour nature of many applications for renewal under existing legislation? - Mr Wallace makes it clear the Scottish Government's last-minute postponement of the reforms is kowtowing to the very people the new provisions were intended to address: irresponsible licensees.

And today the Herald reports that the new regime has been further undermined by a court decision which thwarts the Government's attempt to prevent filling stations selling alcohol; an exemption intended to apply to rural outlets was deemed by the sheriff to be drafted with insufficient clarity and thus in effect all filling stations will be exempt.

Of course, with even more liquor licensing legislation being one of the major planks of the Scottish Government's remaining period in office it's clear that the SNP considered the Labour/Lib Dem coalition's reforms inadequate, but it's also self-evident that neither the political parties/civil service nor local authorities seem capable of organising a drink up in a distillery.

So what's new? These same people created the current mess, so they shouldn't be relied upon to get Scotland out of it.

Conservative contradictions

With the Labour Government in its death throes the commentariat is increasingly turning its attention towards a future Cameron administration, and a couple of opinion pieces in this morning's Times examine two themes which could cause problems for the Conservatives.

David Aaronovitch highlights the policy fault lines between the Tory modernisers and the more traditional wing of the party, and says the former is attempting to woo "Holby City Woman", who has a responsible public sector job and worries about the health service, schools, childcare and their ageing parents. Aaronovitch says that last year he was "almost astonished" by policy chief Oliver Letwin, who said that equality of outcome as well as opportunity was a "proper concern of a Conservative government" and emancipation from both absolute and relative poverty was a "central objective".

But the modernisers are outnumbered by the old guard:

Forget post-expenses reform, they will say, because it is enough that we have won; forget equalities and PC nonsense; disband this quango, cut that grant. Then there are the increasingly vocal “savage cuts” fetishists, for whom the sober duty of book-balancing is a positive pleasure...

Meanwhile, Rachel Sylvester examines David Cameron's "close knit circle of friends and advisers" - the Notting Hill Tories - and posits that this may develop into what could be regarded as "privileged clique".

She likens Cameron's set up to an "incestuous country village" and calls it less The West Wing and more an episode of Friends, while a Tory backbencher describes it as "dinner party politics". "Policymaking and strategy are driven by the gang", Sylvester says, while the Cameroons are friends and not just colleagues.

But the exclusivity and even wealth of the inner circle is causing increasing resentment, and Tory backbenchers are "remarkably grumpy" given the state of the opinion polls and last week's by-election victory. Shadow Cabinet ministers lament the lack of teamwork, policy discussion and consultation on key decisions. One frontbencher is quoted as saying:

The cliquiness is awful. Everyone should be very excited about the prospect of power but they’re not. People are very demoralised, there’s not much enthusiasm because the Cameron lot are so disdainful of everybody else.

Of course, UK governance in the coming few years is likely to be something of a poisoned chalice given the state of the economy and public finances, not to mention the tough tax and spending decisions required to rebalance the country's books, but the policy and personnel fault lines outlined by David Aaronovitch and Rachel Sylvester will merely add to the difficulties likely to be faced by a Cameron government.

However, these issues are unlikely to change the course of the next general election, since that looks almost certain to be lost by Labour rather than won by the Conservatives. Moreover, as new Labour demonstrated in the mid-90s and the SNP replicated a decade later, internal party contradictions are likely to be kept in check and under wraps with the levers of power within touching distance, and this is likely to continue well into a new administration's honeymoon period. But half a dozen or so years hence it's a fair bet that both David Cameron and Alex Salmond will be on a rapid descent towards Blair-Brown-Bush-dom.

Another moral compass!

There's clearly been some discussion in the Scottish press and blogosphere lately about the religous dimension to politics, and so it continued in the weekend press with a Sunday Times article about a leading politician's Presbyterian faith being his "driving force", with the religious aspect to his upbringing underlined, and also mention of how this has influenced his "moral compass".

No, it's not the 'son of the manse', it's Alex Salmond, but apart from the minor details much of the content of the article on his background might well have been about Gordon Brown.

However, and despite the article, Mr Salmond says: "I’m naturally suspicious of people who wear religion heavily on their sleeves — that’s just not me and my style.”

Perhaps he's hinting at someone else here?

Norwich North - it's business as usual

Last week's Norwich North by-election was the first opportunity for the electorate to pass judgement on Westminster politics following the expenses scandal, but it's clear that voters haven't given up on mainstream politics yet - as presaged by the European elections a few weeks ago - and to that extent it's another example of things returning to normal in UK politics, with little evidence that either the parties or the public are likely to endorse fundamental change.

Of course, Labour's vote collapsed in Norwich and the Tories gained the seat, and it's clear that some of the former's support went to both the Greens and UKIP, but other than that there was little to suggest any significant threat to the prevailing three-party system.

And it's certainly the case that, as in the Euro elections, the independent candidates polled disappointingly for those of us hoping the expenses scandal would precipitate a sea change in voter attitudes. The pro-independents did have a plausible candidate in Craig Murray, and while he's no Martin Bell profile-wise, his past record as a maverick did suggest the type of anti-Establishment figure who could rock the electoral boat, despite a slightly colourful personal life. But it wasn't to be, and Mr Murray polled little more than nine hundred votes.

In yesterday's Mail on Sunday he does, however, point out his lack of media coverage and the steamrollering effect of the Tories' by-election juggernaut, but his own electoral machine was certainly not devoid of resources, having spent around £50 per vote garnered, thus it's perhaps fair to say that even with equal access to the media Mr Murray would have still been an also-ran. (Iain Dale is unimpressed by Mr Murray's complaints, but there's clearly no love lost between the two).

But as far as mainstream politics and the three-party system are concerned, it's probably safe to conclude that Norwich North demonstrates it's back to business as usual, and with the rage over the expenses scandal likely to dissipate over the summer recess, fundamental change seems to be back off the agenda.

Gunning for David Kerr

Whether it's actually down to Unionist media bias or that David Kerr is genuinely gaffe-prone, the cyberNats will be going into hyperdrive in their apoplexy at the Sunday Herald for the latest instalment in the litany of negative press that the SNP's candidate for the Glasgow North East by-election has attracted.

This morning's slightly bizarre story concerns Mr Kerr brandishing a gun in a supermarket car park while also being in possession of a pistol and a large hunting knife. While this isn't as bad as it might first appear - he was using the replica air rifle and other weapons as props to illustrate a news story while he was working as a television reporter - according to the Herald the incident sparked an internal BBC investigation, raised speculation that Mr Kerr may have committed a criminal offence and resulted in suggestions that his job may have been in jeopardy.

Of course, this kind of thing makes the nationalist candidate an easy target for his Labour opponents, particularly in view of the SNP's frequent calls for a crackdown on the use of airguns and the ongoing tension between Holyrood and Westminster on this currently reserved issue.

And this come on top of several weeks of adverse press for Mr Kerr in relation to his initial rejection by the Glasgow NE constituency party, reports that he would be offered a job as a special adviser as a consolation prize, his subsequent endorsement as a third/fourth choice candidate, claims that he has downplayed sectarianism, past derisive comments relating to a Glasgow university and adverse reaction on news of his membership of hardline Catholic sect Opus Dei. Meanwhile, Labour's candidate Willie Bain has thus far came through the first few weeks of campaigning relatively unscathed.

While the SNP have plausibly complained that Labour have delayed the by-election until November to, ahem, spike the nationalists' guns, on the other hand Mr Kerr must surely be hoping that the long run-in to the vote will lessen the impact of the adverse press, assuming, of course, that most of the bad news is out of the way, or at least will be very soon. But, of course, the campaign proper hasn't even really started yet.

However, in the Sunday Times Jenny Hjul claims that Mr Kerr's membership of the socially conservative Opus Dei conflicts with the SNP's more modern, liberal stance towards social issues and that this will prove a running sore for the party and to that extent months of scrutiny will not work in his or his party's favour.

Thus the extended nature of the by-election campaign means it looks set to surpass all others in terms of politicking and muckraking. Therefore perhaps a summer godsend for the press, politicos and bloggers, but likely to prove an even bigger turn-off than usual for the voting public.

Faith in politics

There's perhaps a little irony in Scotsman journalist David Maddox - bête noire of the cybernats - writing recently that David Kerr, SNP candidate in the forthcoming Glasgow by-election, is "upset by the focus placed on his strong religious views" and that "some may attempt to create a religious stooshie", although Mr Maddox would no doubt claim merely that the messenger shouldn't be shot.

However, he is surely correct in the central thesis of his argument, namely:

To accept that religious views are an election issue does not mean embracing sectarianism, not does it lead to the preference of Iranian-style theocratic rather than democratic principles , as some of the more extreme critics of religion might suggest.

The reason that religious views are important is that you cannot divorce one set of principles from the convictions and beliefs that shape people's thoughts in other areas too.

Thus scrutiny of any politician's religious views is perfectly legitimate, and this is perhaps particularly so with regard to Mr Kerr's membership of controversial Catholic group Opus Dei - the nexus between religious precepts and practices on the one hand and politics and democracy on the other should not need spelling out, and thus the possible impact of the former on the latter deserves scrutiny, particularly where there's the possibility of inconsistency and hypocrisy.

Therefore George W Bush's Christian fundamentalism has, of course, been rightly scrutinised, as has Tony Blair's perhaps more covert religious views, not to mention the latter's (and the likes of Anne Widdecombe's) conversion from the Anglican to Roman Catholic church. Gordon Brown's 'son of the manse' Presbyterianism has also attracted much comment, as did Ruth Kelly's membership of Opus Dei.

In the Scottish context Stagecoach mogul Brian Souter's religiously-inspired social conservatism came to public prominence when in 2000 he financed a private referendum on the promotion of homosexuality in schools, while more recently his bankrolling of the SNP's 2007 Holyrood election campaign once again brought his faith and opinions into focus. Earlier this year Muslim SNP PPC Osama Saeed's advocacy of a global caliphate for the Islamic faith attracted criticism (although his recent appearance on Newsnicht perhaps suggested that Mr Saeed is of a dangerously naive and idealistic bent that might open the door to radical Islam rather than being an Islamist himself).

Therefore it is right that Mr Kerr's religious beliefs should be examined in the context of his politics, and indeed the Souteresque association of Opus Dei with social conservatism in general and homophobia in particular seems to be at odds with the SNP's language of diversity and inclusiveness, not to mention the irony of claims that Grant Thoms withdrew from the SNP slate for the Glasgow constituency because of fears that his sexuality might be exploited. Similarly ironic is perhaps criticism of Mr Kerr supposedly downplaying Scottish sectarianism given the subsequent revelations about his Opus Dei membership. (However, all this does perhaps confirm the SNP's characterisation as a broad church(!) held together by the party's independence quest, and thus an Achilles' heel that is currently kept under wraps by recent success at the ballot box and which the opposition parties are currently failing to exploit.)

Of course, when questions of faith are raised in the political context the kneejerk response is often that the two should be kept separate and that religion is being exploited, but unfortunately that's politics, and the usual hyperbole and hypocrisy evident in this regard is no different from any other issue; it's the inevitable price of becoming involved in party politics.

Indeed, if the SNP's opponents are exploiting religion then it should go without saying that the nationalists are hardly averse to exploiting religious symbolism themselves - the Christian roots of Saint Andrew and the saltire shouldn't be forgotten in the flag waving and populism over a public holiday on November 30, for example. On the other hand, if Mr Kerr is as influential in the SNP as is being suggested then perhaps his Catholic fundamentalism was instrumental in the Scottish Government's decision not to celebrate the Reformation!

There's nothing wrong with politicians having strong religious views and allowing this to influence their stance on what others regard as secular issues, but if we are to have faith in politics then openness and scrutiny are prerequisites.

Parental and political values

During a discussion regarding faith schools on the BBC's The Big Questions, commentator Ann Leslie said:

I have always been in favour of faith schools for the reasons, most parents try cheating and lying to get their kids into them because there is a discipline, there is an ethos of...'really hard work is not wimpish', that kind of thing.

So what are the dominant values here, the cheating and lying or the discipline and hard work, or is it all of them, thus symptomatic of mainstream society's moral ambiguity, to put it as euphemistically as possible.

Meanwhile, in a recent Telegraph article Janet Daley characterised the new Labour project as an "opportunist scam" and "systematic deceit" in an article entitled "We've had enough of con artists". But surely her analysis is applicable to all political parties; for example:

[New Labour] had managed, with quite startling effectiveness, to replace the actual substance of their occupation – governing - with superbly professional public relations, dazzling, but meaningless rhetoric and brazen self-justification which was sustainable so long as it did not over-reach itself. But with over-confidence came the fall. The palpable failures have been followed by public outrage.[...]

What [Gordon Brown] has not abandoned is the true lesson of New Labour: that governing need not be about what actually happens, but about what you can make people believe has happened. The real legacy of the-politics-that-was-not-politics was that the game was about appearance rather than reality, image rather than substance, media manipulation rather than actual changes in the world.

The most obvious similarities between Ann Leslie and Janet Daley are that they are...er...mature, female and right-wing, but what they both seem to outline is essentially a dishonest society, and indeed Anne Leslie almost seems to endorse this - the end justifies the means - while at least Janet Daley's conclusion is that we're in a state of both "disillusion and awakening"; the political and artistic (which she juxtaposes with new Labour in the article) conmen have been found out.

Of course, even this might be slightly on the optimistic side. For example, in the last edition of Andrew Neil's This Week before the summer political hiatus one discussion centred on the view that, despite the expenses scandal and some limited reform, politics is gradually returning to a scenario largely unchanged from what went before.

Thus yet another political 'plus ça change'?

By-election selection dissection reflection

So the press, blogs and message boards are getting a bit frenzied over the Glasgow North East by-election, and it won't even take place until...er, is anyone really that interested?

Well the politicos certainly are, and thousands of words have been written and numerous spats fought out already, but hardly a word about the real issues as yet. But, of course, from the perspective of the party tribes the 'real issues' are more about the personalities than the substantive policies, for the moment at least.

So the keyboards are red hot in the pursuit of early advantage even over who's actually standing. Indeed, it's not really clear to the vaguely interested like myself if anyone other than Labour and the SNP will actually be taking part, but who cares, because that would get in the way of a good dingdong.

Anyway, it seems that Labour have hit the ground running with their candidate, the only problem being that he lives in London. No he doesn't, he only works there, and lives somewhere else, which may or may not be in the constituency itself. Or maybe it's somewhere totally different, or perhaps it's all a Labour conspiracy to achieve something that the conspiracy theorists have yet to conspire about.

But he does have strong links with the constituency, because he lived there when he was young, except that it might have just been in the wider area rather than the constituency itself, but he was in his pram at the time and was only there for five minutes so wouldn't have noticed much or understood the implications of the Barnett formula or monetary policy or post-neoclassical non-endogenous growth theory, or was that the SNP candidate I'm thinking about?

Of course, it was an SNP top-level conspiracy that did for the constituency party's preferred candidate, because Alex wanted his own pet candidate in the slot, so they fed the Sunday Herald a story about the former being a bankrupt and thus ineligible to be a director of some charity thingy or other, so that was that for him, and Alex's pal was back in the slot again, except that he wasn't because the whole stushie had put him off the idea of a big fat salary and lots of allowances and nearly three months summer holidays at Westminster and anyway Alex would appoint him as a special adviser because he'd left a nice little number at the BBC to stand for the SNP and the constituency party were just being akward not doing what they were telt, except that Lie-bour had just made up the special adviser story and he was quite happy to work unpaid as the SNP equivalent of the Grumpy Spindoctor, but then again he stood unopposed for the selection last night but what if naebody in the local party wanted him, but all's well that ends well except that he's played down sectarianism in the past.

Anyway, to clarify a statement above, the previously selected candidate wasna really a bankrupt at all, except that he was for the purposes of the Cooncillors Poking Their Nose Intae Things They Dinnae Hae A Clue Aboot Cos It Maks Them Feel Good (Scotland) Act 1984, which defines a bankrupt as "a cooncillor late paying his cooncil tax if (but only if) he's also proving awkward to the SNP politburo".

Onyhow, even the kinda bankrupt cooncillor wasna the first choice candidate because there were two who stepped down before him. Except that they didna really step down because one was a blogger who got into trouble with her blog after becoming an MSP and so was never in the frame onyway, while the other was a blogger who would have got into trouble because of his blog if he'd put himself up for selection, except that it was nothing to do with that but he pressed the delete key onyway, except that it's still in the Google cache and on lots of hard drives and he didna step down onyway because he'd never really stepped up because it's a by-election and not a general election, see?

Of course, this is all good fun for the press, politcos and party tribalists, but the by-election itself is largely irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of people, even including those within the constituency, as will be ably demonstrated by the lamentable turnout. But that doesn't matter to the party members, who are more worried about the notch on the political bed rather than the implications of the by-election result for ordinary people, which effectively amounts to nothing.

Inspired local government

Excellent article in last weekend's Sunday Post (not online) about councils "splashing out on back-patting awards bashes for staff" while pruning expenditure on frontline services.

Top spender is expected to be West Lothian council, with its forthcoming Celebrating Success event budgeted at around £65,000 (albeit that over half the cost of last year's event came from sponsorship). The event will be compered by TV news presenter Jackie Bird, whose fee last year was £4,000, while catering is provided by celebrity chef Nick Nairn, with his company paid over £30,000 in 2008.

Ms Bird also hosted Glasgow City Council's Flourish Awards ceremony, and she also compered Cosla's awards for "inspired approaches" to local issues at the five-star Fairmont Hotel near St Andrews.

Thankfully most councils don't seem to indulge in this kind of self-indulgence and back-slapping (although they all seem to manage to do it in other contexts) and East Renfrewshire Council said that instead they "drop in on staff to congratulate them over a cup of tea at break times", which demonstrates admirable restraint.

But I too certainly share an "inspired approach" towards local authorities, and this kind of thing merely provides more inspiration, but I doubt if it's a perspective that councillors and officials would share!

Ad hominem

Interesting that there's been little evident blogosphere comment on this week's report that Scottish Labour are planning to concentrate their attacks on Alex Salmond rather than the Scottish Government/SNP generally or ministers currently perceived to be vulnerable to criticism such as Fiona Hyslop and Kenny MacAskill. Apparently the "gloves are off" and Mr Salmond is to be accused of "conning the people of Scotland" over broken election promises and claimed recent gaffes such as in relation to Diageo and the terrorist attacks on Glasgow Airport.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with personal criticism, assuming it doesn't get too ad hominem, but what is often so annoying and hypocritical about people who would assail Labour on this kind of strategy is that they are often guilty of attacks of the most personal nature themselves, and if it's not on Gordon Brown or Jim Murphy then it's supposed Labourite/Unionist journalists like the Scotsman's David Maddox who are the target in their "naebody's allowed to be biased but us" sort of style. (Mr Maddox himself wrote an excoriating critique of Mr Salmond in this week's Scotsman, and although I agree with the essential thrust of his article in my opinion it was perhaps slightly over the top and ad hominem in nature, but given the bile and vitriol to which Mr Maddox is subjected in the newspaper's online comments section then it's perhaps excusable if some of his more extreme criticisms are perhaps written with these people in mind!).

In a similar vein, another recent highly readable but slightly unedifying discussion is tucked away in the comments section of Richard Thomson's Scots and Independent blog, where the author (SNP Westminster candidate for Gordon) locks horns with Galen Milne (Lib Dem Westminster candidate for Banff and Buchan) in a rather robust as well as personal exchange of views.

Nothing particularly noteworthy about that, of course, but what is perhaps more interesting is a recent story in the Buchan Observer announcing Mr Milne's candidacy, which says:

He is looking forward to the challenge of unwinding the current nationalist majority in Banff and Buchan and will present a voice for real change compared to the tired politics of confrontation that is preferred by the other parties.

Comparing these fine words with the nature of his online comments, it's clear that Galen Milne would make a politician par excellence!

B in the dark about T in the Park

The crime count always seems to be a prominent feature of the post-T in the Park analysis, and with officialdom always keen to bask in the reflected glory of the event the behaviour of 'revellers' (often a bit of a euphemism in itself) always seems to be portrayed in the best possible light.

This year is no exception, with the officer in charge of policing the event describing the audience as "superb" and making the requisite noises about "community spirit" and suchlike.

Granted, there was no attempted murder this year, but the chief superintendent's assessment of the figures leaves the distinct but predictable impression that there's more than a little spin going on.

It seems that offences are down on last year. But arrests are up. Ah, but that's due to "pro-active policing work in relation to drug enforcement", but in turn this seems to conflict slightly with "drug amnesty bins" at site entrances which could be used "without being excluded from the event or prosecuted".

And if police are more pro-active in relation to drugs then perhaps as a corollary they'll be less pro-active elsewhere, hence the overall decrease in arrests..er..sorry, offences?

Who knows, but the difficulty in getting to the truth of these things was ably demonstrated on Saturday morning following the first day of the festival, when a Courier headline read, "Few delays and arrests reported", while the Scotsman went with, "Thefts and arrests mar opening day of T in the Park".

Smoking out the devolution dividend

A letter from a Dundee shopkeeper raising concerns about the proposed ban on the display of tobacco products was published in the city's Evening Telegraph last week, and the same letter appeared in next morning's Courier - unusual, but by no means unknown.

However, a near identical letter is published in today's Scotland on Sunday, but this time the author is an Edinburgh shopkeeper. Smelling a rat as well as some cigarette smoke, I Googled the letter and found it in both the Edinburgh Evening News and the Leicester Mercury, the former credited to the same author as the SoS letter but the latter in the name of a Ken Patel. An entry on the comments section of the Leicester website suggests that Mr Patel is a representative of the Tobacco Retailers Alliance, which is funded by the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association.

Thus rather than these letters representing the individual opinions of small shopkeepers, it seems that they are in fact part of a concerted campaign orchestrated by a group funded by the tobacco manufacturing behemoths BAT, Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco.

While not a fan of smoking myself I do think that the smoking ban in enclosed public spaces is over-restrictive and I can also sympathise with overbearing government making life difficult for small businesses, but it does make me feel slightly misled and short-changed(!) to see a campaign purporting to emanate from small and independent retailers but in effect financed by global cigarette manufacturers.

Meanwhile, it's noteworthy that the letters have been edited to account for the differences in the approaches of government on both sides of the border. Mr Patel's letter is reproduced below and to save anyone the trouble of perusing all the letters I've highlighted the only (obvious) difference as compared to those published in the Scottish newspapers.

As a local shopkeeper, I am extremely concerned at the proposed legislation to ban the display of tobacco in shops like mine.

Politicians at Westminster are currently debating the issue and will soon come to a decision. The Government thinks the ban will reduce youth smoking, but kids don't smoke because they see tobacco in shops. They smoke because of peer pressure and because they want to look older or tougher than they are.

This ban won't stop young people smoking, but what it will do is seriously affect my business. It will cost me hundreds of pounds to conceal my stock and will drastically slow down my customer service times, making it harder to compete with larger shops and driving customers elsewhere. I provide a valuable service to my community and I am a responsible retailer who would never sell tobacco to under-18s, regardless of whether it is on display or not.

If the Government wants to combat youth smoking they should make it illegal for adults to buy for the under-18s and reduce the black market in tobacco which is rife across the UK.

So much for devolution then. And with changes imposed by the SNP since it assumed power in 2007 it's perhaps ironic that even the word 'Government' doesn't require changing!

Weapons of mass bureaucracy

A recent Scotsman leader column counselling against the speedy devolution of all firearms legislation to Holyrood and calling for more effective enforcement of existing controls contains a wider lesson.

The Scottish Government has delegated powers to local authorities to control the sale of knives and earlier this year Dundee's licensing convener said he wanted the regulations to be "as strong as possible".

However, existing enforcement in the city does not inspire confidence.

For example, in 2007 the council and police rejected calls to use CCTV cameras to investigate allegations that private hire cars were picking up passengers from the street, warning of a "justified backlash from the public" if the system was used for this rather than to monitor crime, despite such a breach of the rules being widespread in Scotland, a criminal offence and rendering the vehicle uninsured.

However, a year later and an operation was launched involving plain-clothes police flagging down these vehicles in an operation entailing "weeks of planning and research".

Meanwhile, earlier this year council officials threatened to use CCTV cameras to prosecute smokers having a puff in pub doorways, while long-standing rules against publicans serving intoxicated customers have historically, of course, been flouted with impunity.

Thus the enforcement of existing legislation seems to depend largely on what's politically expedient at any particular time rather than on consistency or even the gravity of the harm being addressed, and this is not helped by the mishmash of different rules and regulations throughout Scotland where powers are delegated.

By the same token, debate over the Calman proposals and devolution of firearms legislation generally should prioritise the public good rather than political advantage.

Another unelected pygmy speaks out!

Earlier this week Labour blogger extraordinaire Tom Harris berated Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott as an "obscure rent-a-gob" in a post entitled "Unelected pygmies shouldn't throw stones". Lord Oakeshott's crime was to state that Michael Martin "should not be handed a p45 in an ermine envelope", on the news that ex-Speaker was to be elevated to the House of Lords. Mr Harris further described the peer's remarks as "gutless, nasty and self-serving" and compared Mr Martin's illustrious career as an MP and Speaker with Lord Oakeshott's limited experience as a councillor.

But it's surely a bit ironic to criticise an "unelected pygmy" for his views on the creation of another unelected pygmy?

And, to be frank, whatever Michael Martin's other attributes he seemed to have been elevated way beyond his abilities and probably wouldn’t have gotten very far politically or on merit but for Labour machine politics and Buggins’s turn.

Indeed, would Tom Harris himself have made it to the House of Commons or enjoyed a brief ministerial career but for the assistance of a major player in the party political oligarchy, despite his self-evident talents?

And his allusion that the merit or otherwise of a person’s views depends on their position or otherwise in the political hierarchy seems elitist and a negation of free speech and democracy, but in any case this unelected blogging pygmy is audacious enough to speak his mind!

Plastic bag politics

Wednesday's events to mark the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Scottish Parliament were exemplified by eminently predictable self-indulgence, self-aggrandisement and self-congratulation from members of the Holyrood political class, not to mention the likes of largely fawning and uncritical coverage of the event by BBC Scotland, but perhaps the overriding factor with all this is hopeless self-delusion.

But this was all presaged by an excruciatingly idealistic recent newspaper article by onetime Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander, and ably demonstrated on the day by the likes of the following waffle by a typically exuberant Alex Neil MSP, who said, on BBC TV:

...the fact that 55,000 schoolchildren have been through the Parliament, that wouldn't have been possible, 55,000 Scottish schoolchildren would never have visited Westminster in a period of ten years, in fact I doubt if ever, if you added up all the Scottish schoolchildren who've ever gone to London to see the Parliament there, I doubt if it would be much more than 5,000, never mind 55,000, that's all proof that people believe in their Parliament, and obviously want to see it grow and develop.

Quite. But might this have something to do with the fact that a Scottish school trip to Westminster was never really logistically feasible, whereas Holyrood is a bit more accessible in that regard? Anyway, this blog is equally predictably more sympathetic to a critical approach to devolution, and an example par excellence of this genre by journalist Gerald Warner was published in last weekend's Scotland on Sunday:

When you are an inarticulate numpty, unemployable in any commercial capacity, and you find yourself translated to the adobe slum at the bottom of the Royal Mile, glued to the public teat for £100k a year and exercising power without responsibility – bring it on, is your natural reaction to the prospect of invading people's homes and inflicting penalties on your fellow citizens. What is power for, if not to abuse?

Mr Warner was commenting in the context of the passing last week of the Climate Change Bill, which he describes as the Parliament's "most ambitious excursion yet into self-parody". Indeed, and while I don't necessarily share his scepticism regarding the climate change thesis, the legislation - with its commitment to a spurious target of cutting carbon emissions by 42% before 2020, a number seemingly reached not on scientific grounds but as a result of politicians trying to outbid their rivals - smacks of the legislative equivalent of a party manifesto commitment, but at least this helps address the perennial complaint that so many election promises never make it onto the statute book!

Anyway, it's probably best to leave these matters to the experts, but excuse me for being sceptical. But one thing that's brought to mind by the recent legislation is last year's not unrelated initiative by Tesco, Asda et al to reduce plastic bag usage by shoppers. All very green, of course, but unfortunately it was the selfsame big supermarkets who created the plastic bag problem in the first place by way of the marketing gimmick of giving them away free, thus presumably their volte-face is again as much to do with marketing than any real concern for the environment. And, of course, to an extent they still give out carrier bags willy nilly, for example at the self-service tills and indeed some check-out personnel clearly think it's better just to have the bags sitting out anyway rather than the customer having to grovel for a bag with a lengthy queue developing, and in any case there's already all the rigmarole over loyalty cards, vouchers, do you have a loyalty card, would you like the computers for schools vouchers, would you like a loyalty card, would you like a hand packing your pint of milk and a newspaper today, while the queue gets even longer, the BOGOF offer hasn't registered, so the supervisor is called, then the till roll runs out, without making the queue even longer.

Ditto the politicians, but for 'marketing gimmick' read environmental posturing, grandstanding, gesture politics, ie just the usual stuff.

I noticed another real world example yesterday. A police vehicle was parking up at the end of Dundee's Reform Street in the heart of the city's prime retail area, which was busy with late-afternoon shoppers and office workers making their way home. I ambled along to Tesco's Metro store a few hundred yards away to do some shopping (no, I didn't have my own bags!). Anyway, I returned to Reform Street about twenty minutes later on my way home, and the police vehicle was still there and had its engine running, and indeed looked like it had been running since I passed it originally, with two of Tayside's finest sitting in it presumably performing some kind of observation. It was certainly a warm day, and thus the usual explanation for drivers leaving their engines running in the heat - to take advantage of the vehicle's air conditioning - might have been relevant here. Of course, unless it's very hot then opening a window might do the job in a more environmentally friendly manner, but I suppose different rules apply when it's other people's money that's being burnt (almost literally here!).

However, in this case the vehicle's windows had been left open anyway, thus rendering the air conditioning a waste of time, or at least making the system's job much more onerous and therefore costing the taxpayer more and increasing emissions - so much for guff like seeking to "improve public trust and confidence by reducing our carbon footprint" in the Tayside force's latest annual report.

A minor example, perhaps, but nonetheless typical of how the marketing, spin, soundbites, rhetoric, spiel, blurb, glossy reports and suchlike should always be treated with caution and the real facts sought out.

Which brings things nicely back to Holyrood!