One local issue brought to mind when considering this kind of thing is the proposed downgrading of Balmossie fire station in Dundee. It should be recalled that Tayside Fire and Rescue has proposed downgrading the station and transferring resources to Forfar, because it's considered that this would optimise public safety - the Angus station is busy, while Balmossie is cynically described as a 'sleepy hollow', a fact emphasised in numerous Courier news articles and comment.
However, as described here previously, the issue has become something of a political running sore in Tayside - and in Dundee in particular - with councillors on the Tayside Fire and Rescue Joint Board having twice defeated the management's proposal for downgrading Balmossie, and the issue likely to be revisited again in the future, with the Courier's ongoing coverage and the impending public spending pain likely the keep the embers of the dispute glowing, with a real conflagration perhaps never far off.
And the Courier has been relentless in pursuing a political faultline in the SNP over the issue. The board's convener and vice convener are both Nationalist councillors, and the former in particular - maverick Ken Lyall - has clashed with the Dundee SNP group over the issue. Dundee's SNP politicians are generally keen to see Balmossie stay open, and claim they are representing the view of their constituents in this regard. Of course, cynics and political opponents - except to the extent that politicians from other parties broadly agree with the SNP's pro-Dundee agenda - will clearly see the issue in terms of votes and seats, but in an email to Ken Guild, leader of Dundee City Council's SNP administration, Councillor Lyall said:
I have given my all for this party and in return only been kicked in the face. I will not be bullied on this topic and if the truth about it has to come out in the public domain then so be it. I will be able to hold my head high, unlike others. If [SNP MP Stewart] Hosie is so afraid of losing the election this year maybe he should have wound his neck in a bit (regarding) Balmossie.Indeed, Councillor Guild had earlier written to Mr Lyall that he was "very disappointed at the timing of this controversial proposal in a key sector of a marginal seat". In an email to MSP John Swinney, Mr Lyall also wrote:
I know you have me down as a pain in the a*** and maybe not loyal to the party... but (Mr Hosie) needs to be spoken to. How the hell can I support keeping frontline services and firefighters in jobs when he wants to keep open a station which is not only the quietest in Tayside but one of the quietest retained station (sic) in Tayside open and in full time work? Forfar is just as busy but is full time retained, what about the lives lost there due to this present service? It is madness in the extreme and blatant politics ... We have to appear as one party. The last thing I want is to be part of a party which is just as bad as the Liberals -- one policy for every different street. That is the danger here.Indeed! And in an email to the chief fire officer, Mr Lyall said he had a "very angry John Swinney on the phone" regarding comments he had made on the situation (although an allegation of "bullying" made against Mr Swinney was later retracted by the Courier, and in response the MSP made all the right noises about politicians being "fully entitled" to have differing opinions on the matter).
All this was published in a Courier article about three months ago - adding fuel to the fire of earlier comments by Mr Lyall saying that the views of Dundee's Nationalist politicians were "completely skewed by the fact that there is an election coming up and they want to get their faces in the paper" and that Dundee councillors seemed to be "off their trolleys" - but the issue has resurfaced more recently, with the newspaper publishing an email from SNP board vice convener Christina Roberts to Mr Hosie expressing disquiet about how Nationalist politicians in Dundee had not communicated with board members over the issue.
A few days later a further email was published, and this disclosed that the board convener Mr Lyall had suggested Mr Hosie might have been "bankrolled" by the Fire Brigades Union in relation to Balmossie. In response Mr Hosie said that although he had in the past received a donation from the FBU, this was not related to the issue in hand, and other politicians and parties had also benefited in this way.
Of course, the finer details of this internecine strife shouldn't detract from the fundamental point here, which is that some in the SNP can't even stand up for the interests of Tayside as a whole - as opposed to the narrower needs of Dundee - never mind any pretensions to 'stand up for Scotland'. As Mr Hosie said, trying to close down the issue: "All's well that ends well." Which cynics might well interpret to refer not to the fire board's decision not to close Balmossie, but to Mr Hosie's re-election to Westminster in May's general election.
Which is all perhaps just stating the obvious - Scotland is just one tier in a multi-layered and multi-faceted society of often conflicting interests, with all of us being part of numerous different interest groups - to a greater or lesser extent - each with varying degrees of co-operation and conflict, and to which we all contribute differing views.
For example, in the scenario described above the interests of Dundee residents clearly conflict with those elsewhere in Tayside, while to a large extent the interests of politicians generally run parallel to this, while individual politicians may take a broader - and arguably more principled - view, as will individual members of the public, albeit perhaps in not so vociferous a fashion. Courier columnist John J Marshall goes against the grain of Dundee public opinion by being critical of Mr Hosie's stance on Balmossie, but on another issue on which he's currently having a spat with the Dundee East MP on - the proposed wind turbines and biomass plant in Dundee's dock area - Mr Marshall clearly expects Mr Hosie to toe the voter line in opposing the plans but, presumably in view of previous Dundee SNP internal conflict on the issue, Mr Hosie is playing a straight bat and kicking the issue into the long grass of 'experts' (how's that for a sporting mixed metaphor?!), much to the consternation of Mr Marshall and several Courier correspondents.
Then of course there are the interests of the FBU - no surprises there - and the union's interaction with the politicians. And the politicians' loyalty to their party, which in this case seems to be playing second fiddle to loyalty to constituents. Or perhaps to themselves! Mr Lyall, on the other hand, seems to consider the interests of Dundee voters to run parallel to those of the SNP, and to that extent the fire board convener clearly thinks that the party more generally views him as a traitor.
Of course, we all face such dilemmas. The politicians like to portray us as 'communities' - particularly in cases where we're anything but! - yet the market-based foundation to our economy depends on the 'invisible hand' of self-interest and competition, which may be conducted amicably, but can often be reasonably portrayed as cut-throat and part of the 'rat race'. And the supposed solidarity of the workplace is often not dissimilar to the competitive market.
Then we have school versus school, housing scheme versus housing scheme, city versus city, sporting rivalries, competing religions etc, all of which may be amiable and constructive, but on the other hand may manifest themselves in terms of anything from gang fights to terrorism. Moreover, most of us would probably prioritise family, or even friends, in preference to any of the above.
And coming back to the more political, the SNP's 'local champions' soundbite in May's general election can of course be in fundamental conflict with the 'standing up for Scotland' rhetoric, as Dundee's Balmossie dispute ably demonstrates. Then there's the Nationalists' increasingly ambivalent attitude to the UK defence industry - including the nuclear capability part - born of the dependence of many Scottish communities on defence-related public spending in general, and jobs at the constituency level in particular.
And at the supra-national level there's a further conflict between 'standing up for Scotland' and the SNP's commitment to join the EU. If the SNP considers that Scotland plays second fiddle at Westminster, who do they think Brussels would put first when passing directives and regulations, or which economies will the European Central Bank in Frankfurt consider paramount when setting interest rates (assuming an independent Scotland joined the eurozone countries)?
Of course, it's wrong to pick on the SNP in this regard. For example, Labour's Westminster/Holyrood conflict with a supposedly United Kingdom - and often contrived and superficial attempts to reconcile the two - have been considered here several times lately.
And the Byzantine nature of the Scottish Labour Party in the west of Scotland in particular was well documented during the Purcell affair.
But perhaps as we meander through life - and thus become more aware of the complexities and conflict inherent in the numerous competing interests in both public and private life, then mantras like 'standing up for Scotland' become increasingly meaningless and, in view of the realities of life, almost delusional and a deception.
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