Two-faced politicians offer blood, toil, tears and sweat. And milk and honey.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. But nae jist noo. Which seems to be Alex Salmond's latest offering to the Scottish people on public spending.

The SNP's current message seems to be slightly more nuanced than the constant carping about 'Westminster cuts' that was, until fairly recently, the Nationalist response to the need to trim public spending to help reduce the UK's increasingly unsustainable national debt. Now there seems to be a greater recognition of the need to face up to painful cuts, but this is qualified to the extent that it's claimed the economic recovery is too fragile to risk with a fiscal squeeze at the present time, thus spending reductions for Scotland must be postponed for a year or two. (But no doubt Mr Salmond's £60,000 golden handshake from the Westminster Parliament would have survived even if it was a couple of years down the line.) As the SNP leader said in his valedictory speech to MPs yesterday: "Put simply, you can’t cut your way out of a recession, but you can cut your way into a double-dip recession. Yet despite this is precisely what the Chancellor proposes [sic]."

Which is all very politically convenient for the Nationalists, because they either get brownie points by wringing concessions from Westminster, or they revert to the 'Westminster cuts' mantra.

However, the SNP leadership seems to be a bit two-faced about their approach to debt and public spending, because John Swinney recently referred to "bankrupt Britain", thus if that's the case then how can action to reduce the deficit be delayed?

Which seems a bit like the contradictory stance of the Tories, as outlined by Anatole Kaletsky* in this morning's Times, where the party's stance on facing up to the hard choices entailed by Labour's 'economic Dunkirk' is contrasted with George Osborne's promise to at the same time protect public spending while also cutting taxes.

Of course, all the mainstream parties are having problems reconciling their desire to sound fiscally responsible with the near-universal political imperative to be seen to protect 'frontline services', which presents them with a perennial difficulty, but currently exacerbated by the nexus of the precarious economic recovery and the equally uncertain debt situation, and made more urgent than usual by the proximity of the General Election.

But these policy contradictions and constant toing and froing ensure that despite weeks of wall to wall coverage between now and polling day, by the time it comes for voters to mark their ballot papers they're unlikely to really know where the parties stand on these fundamental matters. Worse still, the politicians themselves probably won't know either.

*Whose reference to Churchill's famous wartime speech provides the inspiration for my headline.

Enforcement fallacies

Lies, damned lies and crime statistics. Or so the phrase nearly goes. One particular facet of the crime statistics conundrum is the question of minor offences, which are usually only recorded when some sort of enforcement action is taken. Thus we can only really guess at the number of drivers who illegally use hand-held mobile phones, for example, because the chances of being brought to book for this - and therefore appearing in the statistics - is remote.

Likewise, the recent revelation that only three people have been prosecuted in the last two years for selling alcohol to someone already drunk hardly seems to be representative of the scale of the offence.

Thus it was slightly bemusing to read a recent article in the Courier about the smoking ban, which proclaimed that because no fines had been handed out in several areas recently, this means: "Adherence to the smoking ban is virtually complete".

It's not entirely clear how the authorities go about enforcing the ban, but reading the Courier's article it seems like they think that if anyone wants to flout the ban then it will be obvious, thus a ticket can be issued and that's the end of the matter. Of course, the reality is perhaps that smokers have become adept at flouting the ban and making sure they get away with it, which perhaps explains the decline in the number of fines issued by Fife Council, for example. And perhaps the significant number of fines still being handed out in Dundee merely indicates more robust enforcement rather than any genuinely higher level of actual offences as compared to that in other areas.

A more obviously anomalous scenario relates to littering, where it should be clear to all that the number of fines handed out are negligible compared to the number of offences committed, while it's equally self-evident that the authorities could conceivably issue no fines at all or increase numbers several-fold merely by dint of a change in enforcement policy.

By the same token, another recent Courier article hailed a drop in the number of fixed penalty notices handed out by police for low-level anti-social behaviour as meaning that this type of offence is "on the wane". Tayside Police are claiming that this proves the FPNs are having a deterrent effect, but it's arguable that the reducing numbers merely reflect enforcement issues rather than actual offences committed.

It's certainly the case that the number of FPNs issued is not insignificant - between three and four thousand in each of the last two years - and thus there could be some deterrent effect, but on the other hand at less than ten per day the reality is surely that the vast majority of these offences go unpunished and thus the number of fines doesn't really tell us anything truly significant.

Blackballing the Black Stuff

In the ongoing debate about alcohol it should now be obvious that the so-called 'drinks industry' has no common purpose as regards its approach to the SNP Government's minimum pricing proposal, and a proper appraisal must distinguish various competing interests.

These nuances have been mentioned here once or twice before. Most obviously, the profit motive dictates that where a drinks industry player stands on minimum pricing will depend on its position in the market. A distiller of a premium whisky, for example, would have no objection, because minimum pricing could stifle competition from cheaper brands, while the latter are clearly less likely to be in favour.

Since the pub trade tends toward higher pricing than off-sales outlets, the former will find the proposal more attractive than the latter. But it should be recalled that when several local authorities introduced minimum pricing for licensed premises in their areas it was other pubs that mounted a legal challenge which resulted in the policy being declared illegal. What matters is the level the minimum price is set at and where the business competes in the market.

And yet more evidence of the heterogeneous nature of the drinks industry comes via a story in yesterday's Sunday Post, which says that some Scottish pubs are threatening to boycott several brands - including Smirnoff vodka, Whyte & Mackay whisky and Guinness - because the drinks companies involved do not support minimum pricing.

And it's perhaps instructive that there's little talk from the publicans about the social responsibility aspect of the proposals, and their complaints seem largely about competition issues, as per the publican in Newburgh who (unsuccessfully) asked Fife Council to review the licenses granted to supermarkets.

Of course, despite the SNP doing the publicans' bidding for them, it seems unlikely that we'll be hearing the politicians beating the drum for pub profitability, although of course that goes hand in hand with minimum pricing.

And I wonder if the pubs themselves might be in breach of competition law if they get together to organise a boycott?

TV undermining parliament?

I wonder what MPs and MSPs hope to achieve with the weekly shouting and bawling matches that are called PMQs and FMQs, respectively?

It's little more than political points scoring, which provides the media, bloggers, politcos and partisans with something to talk about, but it surely merely alienates any members of the wider public who are interested enough to tune in. But the essential truth of the matter is that although these weekly verbal jousts are studiously evaluated by some of the aforementioned, with winners declared and losers decried, surely nobody's mind is actually changed by the whole charade.

Instead, these occasions are merely an affront to democracy. At last week's PMQs a Lib Dem MP was shamelessly barracked while asking a question, and an SNP MP was similarly treated the week before. Of course, this is small beer in comparison with the overall atmosphere of cacophony and confrontation.

The optimistically 'consensual' Scottish Parliament is little better, with last week's unparliamentary 'numpty' and 'sap' invective merely symptomatic of the overall tone and quality of proceedings.

The House of Commons speaker has little control, and just appears to be going through the motions of trying to keep order, but with a realisation that his admonitions are mere futile gestures. Indeed, it almost seems that he considers the whole thing a bit of fun, thus Punch and Judy politics are considered inevitable or even desirable rather than unedifying.

By contrast, the Scottish Parliament's presiding officer at least gives the impression that he is serious about civilised discourse and tries to exert order, but again this usually seems pointless. Indeed, that he often sounds like an angry teacher scolding his charges is perhaps indicative of the level of maturity on display.

I'm old enough to remember when neither radio nor television broadcasts were allowed from the Houses of Parliament. At that time the newspapers carried verbatim summaries of the exchanges, like a condensed version of Hansard. But from the late 1970s radio broadcasts were allowed, and inevitably the TV cameras followed a few years later.

I wonder if things were a bit more civilised and constructive when the politicians weren't playing to the cameras?

Unhealthy smoking ban?

Dr Peter Rice (Scotsman letters, 25 March) claims that thousands of jobs have been lost in the pub trade due to the "cost-driven shift to home drinking".

How precisely is this quantified? The price differential between off- and on-sales was obvious even when I started drinking around 30 years ago, and if it has increased since then it's surely difficult to extricate other factors encouraging home consumption, most obviously the more recent ban on smoking in pubs.

Indeed, despite comparisons often drawn between the minimum pricing proposal and the smoking ban, presumably the latter has been detrimental to health in that it has encouraged home drinking and thus greater consumption due to cheaper prices?

Also, it should be underlined that the smoking ban has had little effect on the proportion of the population smoking, thus the health benefits must be limited, unless the passive smoking of consenting adults in pubs is deemed more significant than the likes of children in the invigorated home drinking/smoking environment.

Of course, the health lobby is now targeting the latter scenario, but I wonder what the next unintended consequences will be?

(Sent as a letter to the Scotsman. Note that my recent link to Scottish Government statistics on the proportion of adults smoking was not to the most recent figures, which can be found here. Figure 10.1 shows that the long-term downward trend accelerated slightly when the ban was introduced, but the limited benefit of this was largely reversed the year after when the proportion increased slightly. But it's obvious that the ban has had negligible effect on the proportion of adults smoking. The earlier link has been updated.)

Do-gooder turned libertarian?

Everyone changes their views over time, some more so than others. One example is perhaps Times columnist Melanie Reid, who has greeted this week's proposal to extend the smoking ban with a degree of hostility, which seems at odds with her reaction to the initial prohibition relating to enclosed public spaces such as pubs and restaurants. Thus presumably Ms Reid has moved from what she now calls a 'do-gooder' to someone of a more libertarian bent. Or perhaps consenting adults in pubs are more deserving of the nanny state than kids in the back of a car. Anyway, peruse the following and decide. Or, better still, read her 2007 article in its entirety then take a look at her perspective this morning.

2007
So clean is the air now, that being exposed to the smell of cigarettes is a physical shock. I do not exaggerate.

When you pass someone smoking in the street, or meet someone who has just had a cigarette, you recoil at the smell from their clothes and their breath. Incredible to think that we all, as smokers, used to smell like that: and never noticed. We used to kiss each other too! Today, given the sensory shift that has taken place over the past year, it feels quite offensive: an unwelcome whiff from some grim past.

2010
Of all the different kinds of harm that can be inflicted on a child in the home, passive smoking would seem to be low on the list. Certainly, compared with having parents who are absent, drunk, inject drugs, suffer from a very low IQ or dress like Jordan, inhaling cigarette smoke would not seem to be the worst fate for a child.


2007
For a start, there will be no rebellion. All those rumblings you’re hearing about boycotts of pubs, of unrest and civil strife? Fights over the B&H? Of landlords defying the law? Forget it. Those are but the defiant mutterings of a defeated army, beginning the long retreat from Moscow. There will be no trouble at all. The smokers, meek as lambs, will either stand obediently outside or refrain from smoking.[...]

Indeed, instead of lawlessness and hostility, be prepared for the exact opposite: a widespread and generous welcome for the ban, even among confirmed smokers, and an intangible, unquantifiable uplift in the national mood.

Now, not to put too fine a point on it, we all know what the Scottish psyche can be like: chippy, somewhat negative, a little begrudging in spirit. Against all the odds, the smoking ban has had a positive effect. Scotland, for me, feels like a country that’s been to a health farm and come back with a clear complexion, open tubes, and a spring in its step.

How can I pin down why, over such a brief period, this feels like a markedly more modern, fashionable country? Above all, it’s the clean air; the removal of constant pollution in our noses wherever we went. Perhaps too, at a less conscious level, it is a sense of self-worth, of freedom from something rather destructive.

2010
The private lives of vast swaths of the population who have done nothing wrong are invaded as a kind of diversion therapy. We are cannon fodder for the do-gooders who perpetually feel the need to criminalise somebody, even if it’s just for smoking Embassy Regal in the playpark.

This is both irrational and unfair. It’s reached the point where we are all familiar with the feeling that, although the real villains go free, someone is always scheming new ways to catch us out, or ban something, or oblige us to do unnecessary things.

Politicking and private hire

The following was drafted as a letter to the Herald - but not sent - and follows on from my recent blogpost 'A little politics and organised crime'. Clearly the issues involved (private hire vehicle licensing and organised crime) aren't exactly the talk of the steamie, but by coincidence a related news article and leader column appeared in the Herald a few days after my post, hence what follows.


Your recent leader column, "New licensing step is welcome in the fight against crime" (March 18), could usefully be clarified in two respects.

First, strictly speaking a taxi is a vehicle which can be hired in a public place or pre-booked, and these are generally London-style black cabs in Glasgow and Edinburgh, with ordinary saloon cars more prevalent elsewhere. A private hire vehicle (PHV) can only be pre-booked, and these are generally ordinary saloon cars.

However, as well as some confusion being caused by significant crossover in vehicle types between the two licences, this is compounded by mixed fleets of taxis and PHVs used for pre-bookings from booking offices, outwith Glasgow and Edinburgh at least.

Second, you say that prior to the ongoing licensing of booking offices, "previously only individual drivers had to be licensed". In fact mandatory licensing for vehicles and their proprietors has been in operation for some years.

While perhaps appearing pedantic, the above points are important because it's often claimed - by justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, for example - that a limit on the number of taxi vehicles (but not drivers) is the only thing stopping that side of the trade being infiltrated by criminals.

As a corollary, the argument goes that parts of the private hire trade are controlled by organised crime because there's no limit on vehicle numbers, hence to that extent it's clear that proprietor vetting for PHVs has failed.

However, there's little real evidence that controlling vehicle numbers is genuinely relevant to the presence or otherwise of criminality, and my suspicion is that this is more about vested interests and monopolising the market.

But if the numbers argument is relevant then clearly long standing PHV regulation has failed to deter organised crime, so why bother with the ongoing extension of licensing to booking offices?

Thus this all smacks of politicking. Either the vehicle numbers argument is spurious or the current extension of licensing is pointless.

MSP pot calls whisky industry kettle, er, non-white

The shortcomings in the evidence provided to MSPs by John Beard, chief executive of Whyte & Mackay, have rightly been highlighted and berated, but it's surely ironic that it's politicians and their partisan supporters - of all people - who have been leading the charge regarding this latest episode in the minimum pricing for alcohol legislative process.

For example, a letter in the Herald berates the "loaded and selective evidence from business-motivated witnesses such as Mr Beard". Yet the support of the similarly motivated licensed trade for minimum pricing is often cited. Indeed, on a previous occasion the same correspondent said: "The Scottish licensed trade may actually benefit by a reduction in the alcohol consumed other than in public houses."

Thus presumably the trade's support can be "safely disregarded", as per Mr Beard's opposition?

The correspondent also compares the "opposition for opposition's sake" to minimum pricing with the SNP's "principled stance" on supporting the smoking ban, saying that the former's claimed health and domestic abuse benefits would emulate the latter's.

However, the posited benefits of the smoking ban are surely also rather "loaded and selective". For example, the Scottish Government's own statistics (Figure 10.1) show that the long-term (thankfully downward) trend in the proportion of adults smoking has barely changed as a consequence, with a slight initial downward push in the first year of the ban reversed the year after.

Likewise, I would have thought that by encouraging consumption of cheaper alcohol at home the smoking ban will have been both detrimental to health and the cause of more domestic abuse, hence the irony of the current alcohol pricing proposals.

It's surely telling that even minimum pricing's supporters concede that it's no magic bullet, hence it's likely to be no more effective than the licensing legislation introduced by the previous Scottish Executive, which has largely been forgotten about except in relation to its bungled implementation and often farcically pettifogging consequences - so much for the consensual politics responsible.

Thus whether or not the legislation is passed it's likely to prove little more than a distraction from the real issues like Scotland's increasingly welfare-based licensing, policing and justice systems, where rules and boundaries are seen as 'coercive', laws are considered 'authoritarian' and drunks are deemed 'victims'.

Heralding the poodle biting back

While the Steven Purcell affair has raised serious questions about the conduct of local government in Glasgow - and, indeed, underlined concerns about the wider issues of scrutiny and accountability in Scottish public life - a related matter has been the role of the media in reporting the controversy, with accusations of bias and a consequent reluctance of one newspaper group (the Herald and Evening Times) in particular to analyse and investigate the allegations as befits the Fourth Estate's 'watchdog' role. In turn this has shone the spotlight on the role of media lawyer Peter Watson of Levy and McRae and PR guru Jack Irvine, who have been representing Mr Purcell and whose influence it is alleged may have been detrimental to full and free reporting on the various issues.

One compelling read alleging media bias is by Mandy Rhodes in Holyrood Magazine, while in the Sunday Times Joan McAlpine provided an equally illuminating analysis on the role of Messrs Watson and Irvine.

However, while Rhodes questions whether the Herald/Evening Times "may have forgotten their role as watchdogs and turned into poodles", a leader column in yesterday's Sunday Herald robustly addresses the claims. And while it does a pretty good job it does admit to a confict of interest and that such problems are inevitable in Scotland's goldfish bowl of politics, media and the law, but concludes that this is "no barrier to the truth".

Anyway, the purpose of this post is not primarily to take sides but to draw the articles to the attention of any readers who may not have read them, leaving them to make up their own minds. Thus there follows selected quotes from the pieces mentioned and links to the sources.

Joan McAlpine in the Sunday Times, 7 March 2010:

A number of newspapers took heed of the warnings [from Levy and McRae and Jack Irvine] and kept coverage low key. What their readers probably do not know is that Levy & McRae also advise several Scottish newspapers on what it is safe to print. That means their lawyers sit in the newsroom beside journalists, reading stories and alerting editors to potential legal problems.

Levy & McRae are a respected firm and would have declared their conflict of interest and asked the newspapers to get another company to legal any stories about their client Purcell. But it would be surprising if informal professional and friendship networks did not influence editors’ decisionmaking in such cases. It is certainly worth noting that the most serious allegations about Purcell were published by The Scotsman, a paper which does not use Levy & McRae.

Irvine is also a persuasive man. One of Scotland’s most successful public relations experts, he is robust in his defence of his clients. He controls access to an impressive range of individuals and companies. As a consequence, he is in many ways more powerful than the celebrities and businessmen he represents. He works closely with Watson of Levy & McRae.

Leader column in the Sunday Herald, 21 March 2010:

There remains the question of a conflict of interest regarding Peter Watson in his roles as legal adviser to the Herald & Times Group and as a listed shareholder in Media House. Levy & McRae’s website offers a service described as “reputation management”. It states: “With a low profile, we aim to keep our clients off the front page and take swift, effective action where required. Being networked at the highest levels and having access to major decision-makers is key to our success.”

One media organisation asked the Herald & Times Group last week if such a statement could be reconciled with the aims of our newspapers.

Herald & Times managing director Tim Blott said he was extremely concerned at the conflict of interest which had arisen in the Steven Purcell case. He said: “We are taking this problem very seriously and are assessing our relationship with our legal advisers this week. We certainly need to be assured that there is no potential for similar conflicts of interest in future and we are making our position very clear to Levy & McRae.”[...]

Mr Irvine referred to previous “problems” he had experienced with the Sunday Herald, including discussions this newspaper had had with Mr Watson over a story concerning another Media House client earlier this year.

Mr Irvine claims to the Press Complaints Commission that the Sunday Herald’s article on the Steven Purcell tactics was “heavily influenced by spite, bad blood and malice”. The Sunday Herald will defend itself against Mr Irvine’s accusations through the normal channels.

Mandy Rhodes in Holyrood Magazine, 15 March 2010:

...the claim that some Glasgow-based newspaper editors actually chose to keep a lid on a story that is potentially so explosive, it threatens to not only irreparably damage one man’s life but also our whole notion of local democracy, politics and freedom of the press. Did a misguided loyalty to a regular Friday afternoon drinking date, dubbed ‘The Ritz Club’, which included the editors of rival red tops, the Herald’s departing editor-in-chief and Purcell himself, influence reporting of the unravelling scandal? And why was it left to the Edinburgh-based Scotsman newspaper and the Scottish edition of the Daily Mail to go big on what could prove to be the biggest political scandal of the year for all the press? Coverage in Glasgow has been remarkably limited. The Herald has published scant few letters about the affair despite it being the talk of the steamie. Bloggers are finding their posts being rejected if they contain the word Purcell and in the days following the scandal breaking, the story was hidden well inside the pages of that paper and others based in the west.

Leader column in the Sunday Herald, 21 March 2010:

There have been other references in the media to the friendship between Steven Purcell and leading newspaper editors, including Herald & Times editor-in-chief Donald Martin. Mr Martin met Mr Purcell and prominent figures in the Glasgow business community on a fairly regular basis and both were part of a network dubbed “Team Glasgow”.

Mr Martin told the Sunday Herald: “I was glad to play a role in Team Glasgow along with other individuals who believed in co-operating for the good of the city. Our aim was to encourage actions which would help the city. As a newspaper editor it is an important part of my job to make contacts in the political, business and other spheres and I also believe it is part of my job to work for the good of Glasgow and indeed Scotland. There is no conflict between that aim and my commitment to publishing the facts of stories which are important to the lives of our readers.

‘‘The Herald broke the news of Steven Purcell’s resignation and has continued to inform our readers of the major developments in this story. We remain committed to uncovering the full facts surrounding Mr Purcell’s departure, many of which remain obscured. We will work to uncover the truth, no matter how long it may take. There is no evidence of a ‘conspiracy of silence’. Indeed, the facts render such an allegation ridiculous.”

Obviously the real world is messy and imperfect, thus quite unlike the crude absolutism of some of the Herald group's more vociferous critics, who I haven't bothered to quote here. But while it's self-evident that the media runners and riders have been jockeying for position since the story broke and may well have felt constrained by legal and/or other influences, on the other hand the Herald group has published numerous articles detrimental to Glasgow's Labour group and has clearly not simply kowtowed to Jack Irvine and Peter Watson.

Were you at the game, councillor?

He's sorry, but he's not buying it. He's being offered "hidden issues behind Steven Purcell's resignation, internecine struggles that will paralyse the city, secret and corrupt networks within the Labour Party, party patronage which has established a network of power across the west of Scotland", but he's clearly unimpressed. Michael Kelly, former Labour lord provost of Glasgow, that is.

I'm sorry, but I'm not buying Mr Kelly's response to the allegations - as published in the Scotsman last week - either.

Granted, he concedes that once upon a time "there was plenty of room for corrupt practices" in Glasgow's local government. But that was all "swept away years ago", see? And Mr Kelly suggests several reasons for this. First, proportional representation has undermined Labour's numerical dominance of Glasgow Council. But this hardly seems to preclude the kind of accusations being made.

Second, Labour has handed two powerful committees to opposition councillors, says Mr Kelly. But again, this isn't quite the definitive argument in response to the various allegations.

Third, there's the council's reform agenda, moving from a "service provider to a strategic role", "divesting powers" and "placing the delivery of services" with arms-length companies. "Hardly the actions of power crazy councillors", opines Dr Kelly.

Wait a minute, though. Either he or yours truly is missing something here. Wasn't it one such Purcell-initiated arms-length company - called City Building - which was last week the subject of allegations regarding ballooning salaries and perks, extravagant hospitality and a de facto donation, all of which benefited the Labour party and its members?

Then there were claims last year that these arms-length bodies were being used in effect to grossly inflate councillor salaries. And, of course, there was the more recent expenses scandal at the SPT quango.

Not to worry, though - Mr Kelly reassures us the council is driven "pragmatically, not by dogma". And he says there's no better illustration of this than City Property now becoming a limited liability partnership to sell of unwanted council land and buildings. Hugely reassuring. Not.

Ah, but the Labour group's search for a new council leader - stand-in Jim Coleman has "neither the ability nor the media appeal" (ouch!) - will be a "dignified fight", as all are committed to reform, there will be neither a "lurch to the Left" nor "capitulation to special interests", Mr Kelly says.

Hmm...sounds like the kind of things that were being said in the days of Steven Purcell's reign. But that's a bit unfair, perhaps, because we're reassured that one of the front runners is currently steering the Commonwealth Games (!).

Another has a background in law and the procurator fiscal's office. A third has an MA degree, a postgraduate diploma and is currently studying for a diploma in financial management. Excellent, but from where I'm standing many councillors, however intelligent, well qualified and otherwise able, seem to inhabit, er, Planet Politics.

Which brings us nicely to Mr Kelly's closing "killer question", which he says has "silenced many a football fan with an ill-informed opinion": "Were you at the game, caller?" Which I find hugely ironic, in view of the title and theme of this blog. And, indeed, as regards the current scandal, since Michael Kelly was lord provost way back in the 1980s, surely the question to him is: were you at the match, Dr Kelly?

Thus while he claims the current imbroglio is all "innuendo, speculation and smears" and "political intrigue dreamt up by opposition spin", Mr Kelly's defence seems largely spin itself, with grandiose sounding language about reform, delivery and pragmatism rather than dogma and doctrinairism, but with little concrete evidence proffered to refute the various specific claims and allegations being made.

That's not to say that I either wholly believe the allegations or dismiss completely Mr Kelly's analysis - only the proper authorities can even hope to provide the definitive answer, and even their conclusions may be open to question - and indeed one intriguing facet to the whole affair is why opposition councillors and politicians didn't previously flag up the issues that they now seem to be complaining about. Granted, elements of the media - the Sunday Times and Scotsman group in particular - have done sterling work bringing some of the disputed matters to light, but much of it seems the type of issues that opposition councillors should have been onto at the time rather than waiting for a scandal and subsequent media scrutiny to expose these things to proper scrutiny.

Perhaps this is unsurprising, however. Because, to again paraphrase Mr Kelly's challenge to the hypothetical football fan, the apposite question in local government so often seems to be: were you at the match, councillor?

Perhaps the answer is that, to extend the analogy, they're often on the park, but not in the game.

Cheers for the cheap cider!

Well, free cider, actually. With the SNP Government's minimum pricing proposal for alcohol still staggering through the legislative process and in real danger of being forcibly ejected, Anne McLaughlin, one of the party's MSPs, blogs, regarding the Magners Comedy Festival:

First of all there was a reception where they made us drink free cider so it got off to a very good start.

Good start indeed! Well I'm sure Anne is just having a bit of a McLaugh, but her approach to this doesn't seem entirely consistent with the SNP's stance on cheap booze, irresponsible drinks promotions and the like.

And I'm sure Magners - of Irish Cider fame ("WM Magner Ltd of Co. Tipperary are committed to responsible consumption of alcohol") - didn't really make the lucky recipients drink their beverage, but in any case their approach hardly seems to chime with the Scottish Government's slightly puritanical stance on alcohol consumption - does Kenny ken, does Nicola know, has Shona been shown?

However, this kind of thing brings to mind Jack McConnell's advice to teenagers - while lecturing them on the evils of binge drinking - that "by all means get drunk once in a while".

OK, not nearly as bad as that, perhaps. Maybe more like jubilant SNP supporters being plied with free booze in the wake of the Glasgow East by-election in order to circumvent the licensing laws and keep the drink flowing all night.

On a related point, yesterday's Scotsman quoted the Lib Dem justice spokesman Robert Brown as claiming that in the last two years only three people have been prosecuted for selling alcohol to someone already drunk, which might just be understating the extent of the offence but surely also underlines the neglect of the authorities.

But it's this kind of thing that makes politicians look so hypocritical at times. For example, some councillors in Fife have recently backed a publican's call for supermarket licenses to be reviewed, and a hearing will take place at a later date. The publican claims:

...the supermarkets are guilty of offering “irresponsible drinks promotions” and have failed to adhere to four out of the licensing act’s five objectives—prevention of crime and disorder, prevention of public nuisance, protection of children from harm, and improvement of public health.

No doubt the publican runs a tight ship in the small village of Newburgh, but I suspect that if he was to wait outside pubs and clubs elsewhere in Fife at closing time then he might well question their adherence to the licensing act's objectives, despite his claim that the on-trade is "particularly well regulated". Aye, right!

And reading the Courier's report on the issue, the publican's gripes seem more related to competition issues rather than to liquor licensing. Soon restaurants will be complaining because they can't compete with Tesco ready meals.

However, that councillors can even entertain this complaint in view of the enforcement neglect highlighted by Robert Brown demonstrates a level of delusion, at best. Of course, it's only a few weeks since one Fife licensing board member was calling for 16-year-olds to be served in pubs because they were so well controlled, so I suppose their latest move is hardly a surprise.

(The weak [unlike the cider, presumably] attempts at humour at the outset were intended to be in keeping with the spirit of the Magners Comedy Festival. Although perhaps 'spirit' isn't the best word in that context.)

NB The mention of the Glasgow North East by-election and the subsequent SNP celebrations was based on a Scotland on Sunday article by Eddie Barnes, which said:

"Salmond chose not to be present at the count in Glasgow's east end on Thursday night, spending the evening instead at his Bute House residence in Edinburgh. His first appearance was at around 4am, when he turned up to wild cheers at the Barrachnie Inn in the east end, the pub that had been booked out by the SNP for the night. A special licence had been obtained until 3am for the election party, but so great were the celebrations that, with 3am having passed, the pub started giving away the drinks."

However, blogger and SNP Westminster candidate Calum Cashley disputes this and says in a comment below:

"The pub had a late licence and shut when that expired. There was no alcohol supplied after hours and any drinks remaining were removed after drinking-up time. The staff, very kindly, allowed us to wait there for the new MP to arrive. The hostelry in which Labour supporters were waiting (very close to the place we were in) was still open after midnight - it would have been getting on for 1am that I went to get my stuff out of the minibus which was parked beside it."

More Nats means Britain closer to bankruptcy?

I thank the Herald for including the following in this morning's letters column, but perhaps my point comparing the SNP's approach to fiscal restraint on the one hand and spending profligacy on the other was lost slightly by omitting the part about the original correspondent's reference to the council tax freeze.

Perhaps the passage in question was considered too flippant, or maybe it just doesn't make sense! Anyway, here is the full, unexpurgated version:


Bryan H Stuart (Letters, March 15) posits Alex Salmond's experience of running a "successful", "stable" and "constructive" minority government as justifying the first minister's inclusion in the forthcoming televised leaders' debates for the Westminster election, but this perspective seems more than a tad rose-tinted.

Surely the SNP Government's stability is born merely of the disinclination of the minority parties at Holyrood to bring the ruling administration down because they see no attractive alternative scenario. At the same time, the opposition have failed to support the SNP's major legislation, thus resulting in a governmental impasse, with the likes of the doomed independence referendum Bill being dragged out to fill time before the next election in 2011.

Also relevant in this regard is that the SNP has had to dump several big ticket manifesto promises due to overreaching itself on spending commitments, thus it's a bit rich of Mr Stuart to complain of an "almost bankrupt Britain".

But perhaps he could remind Mr Salmond of this in view of the SNP's constant mantra about Westminster cuts, including the latest "more Nats means less cuts" election slogan. Presumably Mr Stuart thinks "more Nats means Britain closer to bankruptcy" would be more appropriate?

He also cites the three-year council tax freeze as a success, despite the resultant cuts in spending at the local level.

But in promoting fiscal restraint when it suits while ignoring spending profligacy when it doesn't, Alex Salmond would certainly fit in well with the hypocrisy, flip-flopping and disingenuity likely to be displayed by the main UK party leaders, thus to that extent I agree with Mr Stuart's basic proposition.

Clayton apology: heartfelt or grudging?

'Cybernat' Alan Clayton hasn't been enjoying the best of press since the resignation of Glasgow City Council leader Steven Purcell. First he suggested that Mr Purcell may be dying due to a "lethal viral infection" and then compounded the consequent bad press by asking whether teenage Labour activist Danus McKinlay, who died suddenly shortly after Mr Purcell left his post, may have had an addiction to crack cocaine. This was clearly alluding to Danus's friendship with Mr Purcell, who has admitted to using the drug.

A post-mortem indicated that Danus died from an "undetected underlying heart problem", pending further tests, and his dad described Clayton's claims as "utterly disgraceful" and the "lowest of the low".

Clayton has tried to reverse the damage, however, and in a letter in today's Herald he says:

I would like to repeat profound apologies to the parents of Danus McKinlay in suggesting he may have had an addiction to drugs. My lack of reflection and circumspection contributed to inaccurate expression of considerable proportions. It is a matter of deep regret. I have become concerned about young people being drawn into what press investigations increasingly suggest are the secretive and corrupt networks around and within the Labour Party in the west of Scotland. It is an extremely sad time for Danus’s parents. To the extent to which I may have exacerbated this, I can only say my apologies come from my heart.

While the apology seems sincere enough, if perhaps a little fulsome, Clayton seems to have undermined this by the rather odd passage in the middle (italicised above) which seems to jar with both the tone and flow of the letter, and acts to make his apology seem both grudging and exploited to make a wider political point, not to mention seeming like an attempt to partially save face.

Of course, there are legitimate questions to be asked about Labour party power and politics in the west of Scotland, but surely Alan Clayton would have looked more plausible if he'd left them for another time and place?

The Herald and Labour are already making fresh 'outrage' hay out of the letter. Perhaps Clayton should have proffered an apology to Danus's family and left it at that.

Purcell affair Labour's epiphany?

While last weekend might have been slightly more timeous, the Sunday papers today get stuck into the red meat of the Steven Purcell affair, shedding some light on the "murky Labour establishment/Byzantine network" of power exerted by the party in the West of Scotland and Glasgow.

Scotland on Sunday highlights lingering questions over what precisely tipped Mr Purcell over the edge a couple of weeks ago, and the paper has also looked into one of his babies - a construction quango called City Building - which its alleged doubled its wages bill to the benefit of Labour members and also lavished money on hospitality benefiting the party.

Meanwhile, an extremely lengthy piece in the Sunday Times outlines links between the former Glasgow City Council leader and top Labour donor Willie Haughey, in what it describes as a "cash for favours/access" row. Mr Haughey refutes the links with Mr Purcell, and a shorter story in the Sunday Herald highlights his denial.

Back to SoS, and in view of the fact that much comment has been passed to the effect that Mr Purcell merely stoked the flames of intrigue by hiring his own legal and PR team to handle his resignation, particularly interesting are comments by his media guru Jack Irvine, who has responded to criticism regarding his handling of the affair by saying:

There are many hidden issues and many layers to this. All sorts of issues about internecine Labour strife, and Old Labour versus New Labour in the council. It was not in my client's interests for all this internecine stuff to come out.

Well if that's the case why highlight this now? Surely this only adds to the intrigue? Thus Mr Irvine either seems to have further fanned the flames or he's trying to divert the fire away from Mr Purcell and on to the wider Labour movement in Glasgow.

And back in the Sunday Times commentator Gerry Hassan continues his Byzantine Labour theme, and suggests that the party must take the bull by the horns and renew itself to invigorate Scottish politics, calling this possibility Scottish Labour's Clause IV moment:

The party has dramatically and publicly to change, to renew itself. It has to announce this change and attempt to reintroduce itself to the public. This would involve a Labour leader having the courage to say openly that the old ways don’t work any more and are counterproductive, that the party was going to dismantle the old Labour state and embark on a new era of politics.

This would be Scottish Labour’s Clause Four moment and could be bigger than that. It would be a moment of epiphany, igniting Scottish politics and terrifying Labour’s opponents.

Thus could the Purcell affair represent a turning point in Scottish politics of revolutionary magnitude, or could the whole thing fizzle out as per previous scandals? Who knows, but there certainly does seem to be something in the air. On the other hand, like the Westminster expenses scandal as the precursor to epoch-making reform in London, after a bit of cosmetic change and a few people hung out to dry, things might well continue largely unchanged.

Wot, no car dealers?

Last weekend I blogged about the slightly anticlimactic nature of the Sunday papers' coverage of the Steven Purcell affair and, in particular, mentioned that Joan McAlpine's following promise on her blog seemed to fail to live up to expectations:

Our paper also has a great Focus news feature which shines a light on the murky Labour establishment of councillors, lawyers, quangocrats, property speculators, car dealers and nightclub owners who still exercise enormous – but often invisible – power in the West of Scotland.

However, the promise was fulfilled to an extent a few days later by a fascinating article in the Scotsman by commentator Gerry Hassan:

This Labour Party, even though it is no longer in power in the Scottish Parliament or running most of local government, is still a party shaped by patronage, preferment and clientism, and the more so in the West of Scotland and Glasgow, where it has long been used to getting its own way without democracy or scrutiny.

This has resulted in a weak, hollowed out Labour Party, which has exerted much of its power indirectly, rather than directly. It has done this through a Byzantine network of councillors, quangocrats, lawyers, property developers, nightclub owners, and other unusual supporters of a supposed ‘progressive politics’.

What makes me connect the two articles in particular is the near identical list of players in what Joan calls the "murky Labour establishment" and what Gerry describes as a "Byzantine network", except that the latter omits the reference to "car dealers".

It's not clear if there is any significance in the otherwise near verbatim nature of the two lists, but nevertheless Gerry's article makes for hugely compelling reading and if anyone hasn't read it because of an aversion to the Scotsman or because it's behind a paywall, it's available on Gerry's blog and is a must read.

Of course, to an extent his article also fails to put much meat on the bones - the SPT scandal specifically mentioned is old hat in the contemporary media environment - and similarly we've been hearing largely identical noises for years elsewhere, but Gerry recognises the seminal nature of his piece towards the end, when he says:

A degree of effort and imagination is needed to challenge and break up this way of things. What is required is something like an independent initiative such as a Commission on Transforming the Public Sector. This could, perhaps under the auspices of a respected institution such as ‘The Scotsman’ look at what we do with the state on a number of levels.

Wishful thinking? Perhaps - the article also points out that some posited devolution as a means towards undermining the more insidious aspects of Labour's grip on Scottish public life, but while the party has lost formal power in many spheres its informal influences survive unchecked.

I would also argue where Labour have lost office this has to an extent merely been replaced by other insidious political power bases, albeit perhaps less partisan in nature - the political class as a whole are also plausibly viewed as acting against the public interest.

A confession!

Courier political editor Steve Bargeton seemed unimpressed by the recent Electoral Commission declaration that the Labour Government took too long to hold the Glasgow North East by-election. Big deal, he said - if that's all there was to worry about in politics, we would be in a happy place. He continued:

In the real world most people cannot even name their MP, or MSP for that matter. Millions don't even bother to vote.

And does anyone really give a hoot when MPs vanish for months at a time on their hols and MSPs are in recess-but-by-no-means-a-holiday for 17 weeks of the year? [Abdul Rauf? - ed]

In truth there are MPs and MSPs who might not exist at all for all the use they are - people who have turned invisibility into an art form, who pop up once every four or five years to get elected again before settling back into their cosy lifestyle.

Any regular readers of this blog won't be surprised to read that I wholeheartedly concur with these sentiments.

Indeed, as regards Mr Bargeton's remarks about public apathy, I have to admit to not even knowing which constituency I live in, despite residing at the same address in Dundee for nearly two decades. Thus I don't know whether my constituency MP is Labour's Jim McGovern or the SNP's Stewart Hosie, or whether my representative at Holyrood is the latter party's Joe Fitzpatrick or Shona Robison.

I'm fairly sure, however, that I live reasonably close to the border between Dundee East and West, hence the reason for my lack of awareness, since even the most politically apathetic resident in a large, sprawling constituency is likely to have a better idea who's representing them in our parliaments.

But my ignorance as regards what constituency I live in might come as a surprise to anyone regularly reading this blog, who will hopefully have discerned at least a modicum of political awareness from its author.

As an explanation, I've never been much of a voter - as opposed to being politically apathetic - and my perception of Dundee when I moved here almost twenty years ago was that it was pretty solidly Labour, and thus voting was to that extent pointless. And by the time the city became a bit more interesting voting-wise I had become alienated from all of the mainstream parties. I did vote in 2007, but shunned the two main parties in favour of either the Lib Dems or Tories (can't remember which!), since there were no others standing.

This post was drafted soon after Steve Bargeton's column appeared on the last Saturday in February, and in view of the above an ironic little piece appeared in his next offering.

This concerned Alberto Costa, Conservative Westminster candidate for Angus, who has distributed a glossy brochure to constituents. This contains an endorsement from Angus Councillor John Rymer, who says: "My vote is going to Alberto."

Unfortunately Mr Rymer actually lives just inside Dundee East so, no, he won't actually be voting for Alberto Costa.

But if even a party member/councillor can't work out which constituency he lives in then there's hope for yours truly yet!

And perhaps best not to pass comment on the Conservative excuse that Mr Rymer is dyslexic.

Don't call Dr Karol...

Apart from GPs at my local medical practice and the odd doctor who has a high profile in the media, I can't say that I could name many members of the medical profession.

One exception is perhaps a Dr Karl, namely the fictitious Karl Kennedy of Neighbours fame, who seems to somehow be involved in every case arising in Erinsborough Hospital, despite the obvious size of the establishment and the fact that, as I recall, he was similarly involved when he was a GP rather than in his current capacity of hospital registrar.

However, that's the world of soap opera, but back in the real world another doctor with a similar first name hit the headlines this week. Of course, few will forget the tragic case of Lisa Norris, the Ayrshire teenager who was in 2006 given an accidental radiation overdose as part of her treatment for brain cancer. Her subsequent death was blamed on the accident, but earlier this week a Fatal Accident Inquiry was abandoned after experts concluded there was no link between the overdose and Lisa's death:

A report by Professor Karol Sikora concluded that, if Lisa had been given the correct treatment, she would have survived for a further five years. However, [procurator fiscal] Ms Thomson said yesterday that there was no longer any "controversy" surrounding her death.

She told Sheriff Principal James Taylor: "One expert thought there was a link between the accidental overdose of radiation and Lisa's death."However, by mid-February 2010, as a result of further detailed inquiries and discussions with experts, it was established and agreed this was not the case."

Dr Karol Sikora? That's another member of the medical profession whose name rings a bell. Ah, yes - presumably this is the same "cancer expert" about whom it was reported in August 2009:

A cancer specialist who has visited the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing says the Libyan has an "aggressive" form of prostate cancer that is no longer responding to treatment. With Kenny MacAskill set to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi today, the assessment given by Professor Karol Sikora goes some way to explain why the Justice Secretary may have reached the decision he has.

Dr Sikora, who visited Megrahi in prison, had called for an "urgent" decision on the future of the Lockerbie bombing prisoner before his condition worsens further. "We believe he has only a very short period of time to live," said Dr Sikora, who assessed Megrahi last month.

So Dr Sikora must have made his assessment in July 2009, and shortly after the Herald's article Kenny MacAskill released Megrahi on the basis that he had less than three months left to live. Hence Megrahi is still alive and kicking around eight months after Dr Sikora's assessment .

Thus perhaps anyone contemplating assisted suicide and therefore requiring a forecast of life expectancy or otherwise requires a cancer prognosis should perhaps avoid calling Dr Karol Sikora.

A day off or political posturing?

As someone politicised by the miners' strike of 1984-85, in my more idealistic days I was very much of the 'up the workers' ilk. However, having since been personally shafted by union-supported policies over a number of years, these days I'm perhaps more inclined to the view of trade unionists as self-serving bully boys (and girls, obviously, or perhaps the term should be 'bully people', but that doesn't quite roll off the tongue so well!). Of course, that view is not really representative of the average union member, but suffice to say I'm a bit less sympathetic to the likes of yesterday's picket of the Scottish Parliament than I would have been twenty-odd years ago.

But putting personal views aside for a moment, what does union action like yesterday's picket achieve, objectively speaking? Clearly, answering that question comprehensively would take some considerable time but, equally clearly, on many such occasions the answer is simple - not very much.

However, perhaps the more pertinent question today is what was achieved by the fact that dozens of Labour and a handful of SNP MSPs yesterday refused to cross the picket line, other than the obvious answer - in view of this morning's headlines - of halting much of yesterday's business at Holyrood?

'Not much' is again surely the obvious answer. Of course, it allowed the MSPs to show solidarity with the downtrodden workers and to that extent perhaps appeal to their natural voting constituencies/union sugar daddies (oops, 'sugar parents'?), or suchlike, but as with the narrower issue of the picket line per se, was anything else achieved other than disrupting the supposedly vital work of the parliament, alienating a significant element of public opinion and perhaps further cementing the view of politicians as very often superficial and posturing? Even more cynically, perhaps the MSPs just used the whole thing as an excuse for another day off from their busy schedule of, um, parliamentary recesses and vacations?

But the superficial and posturing perspective of politicians is perhaps underlined by the fact that party spokesmen..er..spokespeople have responded to public criticisms by pointing out that those refusing to cross the picket line were not in fact having the day off because they spent the time dealing with their other MSP duties, hence their respect for the pickets was surely largely symbolic.

Of course, perhaps symbolism is what it's all about anyway, and only cynical capitalist appeasers could characterise such demonstrations of principle as posturing?

As for the disruption to parliamentary business per se, perhaps the broader point is that if we have a sometime cokehead running a local authority and drink-addled politicians falling out of taxis to vote in parliament, not to mention that fact that in any case their ability to serve the public good might be severely hamstrung by ignorance of the subject matter, blind party allegiance or personal business interests, does anyone really notice when either Westminster or Holyrood has the day off?

Belonging, togetherness and a sense of community

The Highwayman Community Centre in Dundee's Hilltown is to be demolished as part of the area's regeneration, and a local community forum has declared it 'vital' that a replacement facility is built, particularly in view of funding being withdrawn from other community projects in the area. The forum's secretary says:

A single centre which is eclectic in its activities allows for a sense of choice, belonging, togetherness and diversity. A new, purpose-built community facility...would encourage a sense of community.

Having never been in the Highwayman centre I've no doubt that this provides an apt description for what could be found there before its recent closure. However, as a resident of the area for [far too long] I would have to say that such words could be a tad inappropriate in describing the area more generally.

Indeed, the night before reading the above in the Evening Telegraph I ironically came across the YouTube video below, which shows a scene near the Highwayman centre one idyllic late afternoon.

While the scenes in the video represent a bit of a caricature as regards what normally goes on in the area, on the other hand they accord slightly more with my view of the Hilltown than a sense of belonging and togetherness.

(The Highwayman centre is the building with the small stairwell, top middle of the screen at 0.55. The second half of the video focuses on the same pub, but from a camera further down the street.)

A little politics and organised crime (revisited)

All the current talk about politics and organised crime in Glasgow brought to mind a public exchange of letters I had with Cllr Colin Keir, who is convenor of City of Edinburgh Council's regulatory committee, and which appeared in the Scotsman a couple of years ago.

I'm still of the opinion that Mr Keir's response contradicted his original stance and thus vindicated my criticism. However, the Scotsman didn't publish my response (which was sent twice!) and thus seemed to let Mr Keir off the hook. The letters are reproduced below, as are the original press articles referred to.

Any elucidation would be gratefully received.


Confusion over taxi trade

Your report (22 October 2007) on organised crime in the private security industry stated that new regulations could drive illegal activities into other businesses. To that extent, it would be interesting to know what has happened to the measures intended to address long-standing allegations of similar activities in sections of the taxi and private hire car trades.

It's perhaps instructive that two leading Edinburgh councillors recently made fundamentally contradictory statements regarding this issue. In July this year, Colin Keir, convener of the city's regulatory committee, criticised private hire licensing because the trade is "deregulated" and councillors "don't have any bearing over" the sector. A fortnight later, Steve Cardownie, the deputy council leader, refuted allegations of criminality in the private hire sector by telling a Sunday newspaper "people with a criminal record cannot get a permit or licence in this city".

In my opinion, both these statements are misleading, because official vetting is similar in both the taxi and private hire sectors, but the criminality problem seems to relate to the operation of unregulated booking offices rather than licensed vehicles and drivers per se.

Mr Cardownie's statement was made in defence of his business interest in Edinburgh's private hire trade, and Mr Keir seemed to defend numerical controls on the city's taxis by alluding to a (specious) link between a lack of such controls on private hire vehicles and criminality in that sector. With these people running the show, is it any wonder such problems arise?

STUART WINTON, Dundee


Taxis free of criminals

Stuart Winton (Letters, 30 October) claimed contradictory statements were given from councillor Steve Cardownie and myself regarding criminal interests wishing to take over taxi and private hire car companies in Edinburgh.

Mr Winton should know that although there is no limit within the city of private hire car numbers, they are still regulated, therefore I see no conflict between the statements of Mr Cardownie and myself.

Drivers and operators of taxis and private hire cars are subjected to rigorous police vetting. Should anything be found in these background checks, the police will bring the information to the attention of the city council regulatory committee.

I can assure Mr Winton that when this type of information has been made available to committee members in the past, they have shown a particularly robust attitude towards their decision making.

Because of this, Mr Cardownie was correct when he said he was sure there were no criminals running taxi and hire car operations within the city of Edinburgh. There can be no compromise when it comes to the safety of the travelling public. I can assure everyone that taxi and cab companies within Edinburgh operate to the highest standards. Should they fail to meet these standards they face losing their licences.

COLIN KEIR, Convener, regulatory committee, City of Edinburgh Council, High Street, Edinburgh


MacAskill meets cabbies amid fears over Glasgow gangsters

Andrew Picken, The Scotsman, July 2007

JUSTICE Secretary Kenny MacAskill is to meet with Edinburgh's taxi and private hire drivers to discuss fears about Glasgow-based rivals trying to buy into the Capital.

There are fears some Glasgow businessmen looking to move into the city's private hire trade may have links with criminal gangs.

Several Edinburgh private hire operators say they have had lucrative offers to sell up their businesses in recent months. One senior figure in the Edinburgh taxi trade said: "We are concerned about our business but people should be worried about the drugs, violence and money laundering that comes with some of the people looking to come here."

Police raised fears last month that west coast gangsters want to infiltrate the Capital's private hire car firms, tanning salons, security businesses and the sex industry as "fronts" for drug dealing and money laundering.

Mr MacAskill, the MSP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, will meet representatives of the Scottish Taxi Federation and the city's taxi and private hire firms to discuss their concerns.

Unlike black cabs, there are no restrictions on the prices private hire operators can charge. The existing operators are worried their west-coast rivals will start a price war with a view to driving them out of business.

Bill McIntosh, secretary of the Scottish Taxi Federation, said: "Some members have concerns about the situation in Edinburgh and we hope to raise these with the minister.

"You have to remember there are no restrictions on private hire licences as long as they meet the police checks. "So anyone is perfectly entitled to apply for as many licences as they want."

Councillor Colin Keir, convener of the city council's regulatory committee, said he welcomed the Justice Secretary's meeting with the taxi and private hire trade.

He said: "Because private hire is de-regulated, much of the movement within the trade is just down to commercial decisions taken by the individual organisations, which we don't have any bearing over."

Two weeks ago, police told of their fears that some of Glasgow's most notorious gangsters were attempting to expand their crime empire into the Capital - among them associates of millionaire gangland boss, Tam McGraw, known as "The Licensee".

Officers fear organised criminals could use the taxi trade to help mask illegal activities, including drug dealing, in the Capital.

Mr MacAskill is understood to have discussed the issue with Lothian and Borders chief constable David Strang and Graeme Pearson, head of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency.

McGraw, 55, is rumoured to be worth more than £20 million, having earned his nickname after establishing himself in Glasgow's pub trade.


Council boss says taxi firm is clean

Fiona Young, Sunday Mail, July 2007

A COUNCIL chief has defended his work for a taxi company after it was taken over by the boss of a firm linked to a gangland family.

Steve Cardownie, deputy leader of Edinburgh City Council, insisted his new bosses at Festival Cars, the capital's biggest private hire firm, are "legitimate".

Four weeks ago we revealed Festival had been taken over by Allan Gibson, director of Glasgow's Network Private Hire, which has links to the McGovern crime clan.

In 2004 Network were raided in Operation Maple, Scotland's biggest money laundering crackdown.

Police also searched a petrol station belonging to McGovern lieutenant Russell Stirton and his pounds 500,000 home.

SNP councillor Cardownie, a member of the council's police board, owns a Skoda Octavia at Festival and employs two drivers to run it for him.

Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill has met police, licensing officials and other cab firm owners to discuss fears that Glasgow criminals are trying to buy into the capital.

Last night Cardownie, 54, said: "I have had the taxi for a year. Since then Festival has changed hands twice. "As far as I'm aware these are bona fide businessmen. People with a criminal record cannot get a taxi permit or licence in this city. "I'm happy to stay at Festival."

Gibson became a director of Festival in May and visits their HQ in Broompark Business Park, Granton, every day. He has been on the board of Network for eight years.

Not much in the Sundays - move along now

It seems that the promise of some big Sunday paper exposé in the Steven Purcell saga was slightly misplaced. Today's various stories appear to do little more than fill in the blanks and tell us little of great import that we didn't know yesterday morning.

Mr Purcell developed a cocaine and/or alcohol habit, a specialised police drugs and organised crime unit warned him that this could compromise his position, this and running Glasgow City Council got on top of him, he suffered a nervous breakdown, resigned and has now left the country. End of. He may have tried to kill himself by drowning and officials considered sectioning him. Let's leave the guy alone and allow him space to recover.

Of course, this would have been a jaw-dropping and fantastic scoop for one of the Sundays last weekend, but the way the facts of the case have leaked out over the past week means that today's revelations are a bit of an anti-climax.

Granted, there are still many questions to be answered, not least of which is how Mr Purcell managed to squander a claimed £30,000 of either his own or someone else's money last week to achieve little more than to prolong his own agony.

And, of course, the political ramifications are significant, but perhaps not quite what Labour's opponents initially hoped for. For example, last night Nationalist Sunday Times columnist Joan McAlpine teased us with the following:

Our paper also has a great Focus news feature which shines a light on the murky Labour establishment of councillors, lawyers, quangocrats, property speculators, car dealers and nightclub owners who still exercise enormous – but often invisible – power in the West of Scotland.

However, the only reference to property developers, car dealers and nightclub owners I can find in the Sunday Times relates to their presence at a Labour party fundraising dinner in which items like a Manchester United jersey signed by Sir Alex Ferguson and a two-week holiday in Florida were auctioned. And Joan has removed the above text from her blog.

Thus no lunches at Holyrood under the hammer then, so perhaps the Man Utd top wasn't 'murky' enough?

Ah, but no doubt the Sunday Times fell victim to a bit of last minute nobbling from the Unionist Labour-legal-media complex!

(Haven't read everything in the papers yet, but if you can only read one article then this lengthy and comprehensive analysis by Eddie Barnes will probably tell you all you need to know!)

Tweedledum and Tweedledee - a clarification

Interesting to read elsewhere that some may consider a reference to 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee' as some kind of slur on the targets' physical appearance or other abuse of a personal nature. Since I've used these words once or twice on here in the past then it's perhaps useful to clarify their meaning, as per readily available online dictionaries:

Collins: Any two persons or things that differ only slightly from each other; two of a kind.

Dictionary.com: Two persons or things nominally different but practically the same; a nearly identical pair.

The Free Dictionary: Two people or two groups resembling each other so closely that they are practically indistinguishable.

Thus the phrase in its most obvious meaning is similar to "like two peas in a pod", rather than any pejorative allusion to physical or other personal characteristics.

However, it seems that the names were used to refer to two "little fat men" in Through the Looking-Glass, which perhaps explains why some read a bit more into the term than a mere reference to similarity.

But as the dictionary definitions make clear, and the Dictionary.com explanation below further elucidates, the potentially more offensive allusion in the term does not accord with most people's usage of the phrase, and indeed it was adopted by Lewis Carroll because of its meaning, rather than the author defining it:

Two matters, persons, or groups that are very much alike, as in Bob says he's not voting in this election because the candidates are tweedledum and tweedledee. This term was invented by John Byrom, who in 1725 made fun of two quarreling composers, Handel and Bononcini, and said there was little difference between their music, since one went "tweedledum" and the other "tweedledee." The term gained further currency when Lewis Carroll used it for two fat little men in Through the Looking-Glass (1872).

All of which brings to mind the phrase Alice-in-Wonderland, something else often used in political discourse with negative connotations. Must use it sometime!

Purcell and privacy

The Steven Purcell affair has predictably led to calls for the former Glasgow councillor's privacy to be respected, and such pleas aren't based wholly along partisan lines. However, it was former Labour minister Brian Wilson who said, on STV's Politics Now programme:

Obviously the guy has a problem...I don't know the nature of that problem...I don't want to know the nature of that problems...it's not my business...he's now no more than a local councillor...maybe he could be given a break.

That's all very well, but there's a legitimate public interest in the affairs of public figures, and there's no clear dividing line between that and the purely private - which of course is none of our business.

When the news of Mr Purcell's resignation broke earlier this week I argued that his statement should be taken at face value and speculation about his motives was unfair, thus to that extent concurring with Mr Wilson's later perspective. However, my judgement on this was clearly both correct and incorrect. Correct insofar as some of the speculation - for example, that he was standing down to fight a Westminster seat and using the stress excuse as a pretence - was clearly rubbish, but incorrect to the extent that there seems to be far more to the story than Mr Purcell's initial statement suggested.

Of course, it seems highly unlikely that all the pertinent facts have been disclosed yet, and clearly it will only be after all such facts are known that we will be able to evaluate to what extent the matters are of legitimate public concern and thus to what extent the current media scrutiny is justified.

Hence the obvious difficulty in balancing the public interest with Mr Purcell's right to privacy. But what does seem clear thus far is that his attempts to thwart the public interest have and will impinge upon Mr Purcell's privacy, thus to that extent he's hoist by his own petard.

Rather than acting as an astute piece of damage limitation, his health, reputation and bank balance seem likely to have been damaged further by his rush to hire legal and PR gurus rather than proffer a full and frank disclosure.

Inevitable scrutiny becomes avoidable frenzy

Although earlier in the week I charitably portrayed Steven Purcell as a victim of the media scrutiny that would predictably surround his sudden departure from his position of Glasgow City Council leader - his appointment of lawyers and a PR guru was a defensive move required to protect his reputation - it now looks increasingly like Mr Purcell has merely exacerbated his problems rather than executed a well judged exercise in damage limitation. Thus the inevitable media scrutiny becomes a media frenzy.

Of course, it may well be that the initial "stress and exhaustion"rationale offered for his standing down still represents the simple truth, but the published revelations since then - never mind what's being said in private - strongly suggest that there's a smoking gun in the offing that will damage Mr Purcell's standing in a way that will make his own version of events seem like a storm in a teacup.

While his professional advisers have went some way to refute the claim that Glasgow City Council were to reveal that its leader was labouring under a "chemical dependency", on the other hand this again has to an extent fuelled the speculation. Today's Sun appears to accept at face value the claim by Mr Purcell's consultant psychiatrist that he was not treated for a drug problem when admitted to an addiction clinic earlier this week, but the Scotsman points out this doesn't preclude the possibility of an addiction issue, merely that he wasn't treated for it this week.

Meanwhile, Mr Purcell's legal team have reported Glasgow City Council to the information commissioner for an alleged breach of the Data Protection Act in relation to the disclosure of the "chemical dependency" allegation, but the local authority is denying that it was responsible for the information.

And the statement from his media team - as reported in the Herald - says the report of the chemical dependency is "without foundation", yet at the same time claims the council is in breach of the data protection legislation by releasing the information, but how can there be a breach if the allegation is incorrect?

Thus it's all getting very messy, and the Scotsman has posed a number of questions relating to the addiction claim, while a leader column proclaims: "Nothing but the truth will do if Purcell is to rise from the ashes".

Absolutely, and as is demonstrated time and time again, the unwillingness of politicians to confront the truth very often blows up in their face and makes a bad situation considerably worse. Thus assuming that Mr Purcell could have confronted his problems and re-entered the political arena at some time in the future, climbing back up the greasy pole would not be an easy task. However, any attempt not to disclose the full facts now is likely to render the task Herculean, and also likely to dissipate any sympathy that might have been afforded initially.

While lawyers and PR experts can protect against unwarranted attacks on a person's reputation, hiding the truth is a different matter altogether, and if the allegations are correct - or indeed, the real problem relates to something substantively different - then there's surely a significant degree of inevitability that they would make it into the public domain eventually, thus attempts at a cover up are always likely to add a JCB as well as shovel to the self-dug excavation.

'Eureka!' indeed!!

We're well used to spin from politicians and spiel from businesses, but the prize for vacuous nonsense of the week (OK, last week) must go to train operator East Coast in announcing an additional one train per day from Dundee to London, to be incorporated in its planned new timetable.

Good news for train passengers, obviously, but of course not much of a story on its own, so it has to be puffed out a bit. Hence the Dundee press reported that East Coast's communications manager said:

[Dundee Station] would be able to service the extra train services that are planned.

Well that's reassuring, but if we're told that an extra train is to run then wouldn't the above be assumed? Do we need to be told that specifically? She went on:

The train station here provides a safe environment for our trains to come to.

Ditto - there doesn't seem to be any question marks over safety, so why mention the issue?

Our trains depart punctually and that is key to delivering a timetable.

With such a devastating insight it's no wonder this person is employed by a train operator. But as a caveat I suspect that the trains only depart punctually when they're on time.

We believe the station would be able to serve the extra train services that are provided.

Didn't she say that earlier?

And Dundee councillor David Bowes joins in the fun, apparently doing little more than stating the obvious when saying: "The focus is on safety and the station is safe and the trains run on time."

Except, of course, when they're late. Oops, I'm repeating myself. It must be catching.

To be fair, the remarks are made in the context of ongoing criticism about the appearance of Dundee Station, but safety has never been in question, thus the remarks seem to be made a tad defensively.

The new timetable is called Eureka! and has been in development for more than 10 years (ie in the days when GNER ran the East Coast franchise before it went belly up and was presumably then continued by National Express until it too went to that great train scrapyard in the sky) and it will also reduce journey times between Dundee and London by a mighty two to seven minutes.

Which all suggests that the term Eureka! is being used ironically, but somehow I doubt it.

Let's hope that the new timetable will bring benefits elsewhere on the East Coast mainline commensurate with the Eureka! label, but the term seems a bit overdone in relation to Dundee itself, thus the need for the blurb.

Can't they just announce the additional train and leave it at that?

(Note that the additional service is literally one train per day, because it runs southbound and there's no extra train northbound.)

Purcell, Brown and the political bubble

While not wishing to appear hypocritical in view of yesterday's blog exhorting a cautious approach to the facts surrounding the standing down of Glasgow City Council leader Steven Purcell, on the other hand repeating on here what's in this morning's MSM is unlikely to add much to the dissemination of the speculation. Thus it's perhaps instructive to look at the approach taken by the Herald and Scotsman to the question marks surrounding the resignation of Mr Purcell.

The latter plays a pretty straight bat, except for one particular paragraph, which employs the trick of publishing an allegation by stating that it has been refuted: "[His spokesman] denied reports Mr Purcell had been admitted to an addiction treatment centre and said he was staying with relatives."

On the other hand, the Herald cocks more of a snoop at the official line emanating from Mr Purcell, and the substantive claims of its edgiest article employ the usual phraseology associated with those who do not want to be attributed, such as "close friends", "close colleagues", "the former council leader's nearest", "senior figures within the Labour administration" and "the Herald understands". In particular, Gerry Braiden's article says:

On Saturday, concerns about his wellbeing had led to close friends and some family members visiting him at his home in the west of the city, and by Sunday there were genuine fears for his safety, such was his mental state. By Monday one close colleague said he was barely comprehensible when efforts were made to engage him in conversation after he had confirmed he would step down.

As I said yesterday, it's this kind of thing - perhaps best demonstrated recently with the Gordon Brown bullying allegations - which presumably led Mr Purcell to employ his own legal and PR team to handle his standing down. But, although presumably some of the more lurid allegations have not been published, on the other hand his decision to appoint "crisis management" experts has no doubt just fuelled the allegations - as Gerry Braiden points out - thus upping the ante in the usual cycle of allegation, smear, counter-claim and damage limitation.

Of course, to a large extent this is all political/media bubble stuff, and as someone very definitely on the outside of this I'll leave the substance of the allegations for others, but it's perhaps pertinent to compare the Steven Purcell scenario with a passage from an article in today's Times by leading commentator Danny Finkelstein, who says, regarding the Gordon Brown bullying allegations:

Yet you have to be pretty obsessed with politics before you even become aware of any of this, and more so before it bothers you. Instead what most people got was a story that started about bullying (not, in any case, a good description of Mr Brown’s behaviour) and ended up with people rowing about who said what about bullying. It ended in a confusing mess of allegations and counter allegations. As far as most people could tell, no one proved anything, no one got anywhere. Yeah, maybe the Prime Minister shouts a bit. Or maybe he doesn’t. Whatever. .

In other words the story slipped into the huge gulf of distrust, disbelief and lack of interest that now separates the political class from everyone else. Into this gulf slips much else. Prime Minister’s Questions almost every week, almost every row about political donations, almost every campaign promise, every campaign slogan.

Of course, a broadly similar point could be made about much of the present coverage of the forthcoming General Election, and when the poll takes place in several weeks time it's likely that 99 per cent plus of the campaign and its coverage will have been totally lost on 99 per cent plus of the electorate, but meanwhile the ongoing governance of the country and holding the Government democratically accountable will play second fiddle to what is effectively an electoral sideshow.

And Scotland is merely a microcosm of the UK in this respect, with the recent relative trivialities of the twin Salmond/Sturgeon debates replaced this week with speculation over Steven Purcell's woes.

Purcell and PR

The news that Steven Purcell has hired his own legal and public relations team following his decision to stand down as leader of Glasgow City Council has reportedly raised some eyebrows. Indeed, this does not stand well with the fact that he has resigned from his position for stress-related reasons and has been hospitalised, as reported on tonight's Reporting Scotland.

However, given the character of today's media and the image-conscious (obsessed?) nature of today's politicians, in Mr Purcell's defence it could be said that in this regard he's merely a victim of the environment rather than cynically attempting to retain his perceived status as Scottish Labour's perhaps pre-eminent rising star.

Of course, it's the political milieu of spin, accusation and the resultant response that's the main driver here, and the recent Gordon Brown bullying allegations and counter claims ably demonstrate how it's so difficult for politicians to escape this cycle, and how it's equally difficult for the public to get to the truth of such matters.

In Mr Purcell's case, there was some early speculation on the internet that he may have been stepping down to stand for a Westminster seat and that the stress issue was being used as some sort of pretence. Quite what the logic of such a move - which would surely have been just a tad transparent - would have been is anyone's guess, but presumably such a cynical interpretation of the events of the last 24 hours will now have been replaced by a more measured perspective.

But while the speculation over his long-term future in Scottish politics is perhaps a more legitimate debate, in the meantime it's surely more appropriate to take what Mr Purcell says at face value and also to wish him a speedy recovery.