Another Nat Con?

The SNP's National Conversation always seemed more than a bit pointless. The party wants independence (doesn't it?) so why faff around with a costly diversion, while we all know that consultation-type exercises are largely either ignored or only listened to insofar as they produce the 'right' result.

Of course, the motives behind such a procedure aren't always as straightforward as they appear. For example they may serve to kick a difficult issue into the long grass. Or they may help shift the blame elsewhere for a difficult decision, or perhaps help provide legitimacy as regards the issue under examination, while the results can always be ignored if they are inconvenient.

Thus to yesterday's Independent Budget Review, which was commissioned by Scottish ministers to help pave a way through an unprecedented period of public spending austerity. Except that some of the report's major recommendations are clearly unpalatable to the Scottish Government. The Scotsman reports:

[Finance secretary John Swinney] indicated his government's determination to protect some SNP sacred cows, saying that Scottish Water should remain in "public ownership".The finance secretary also pledged to protect free personal and nursing care as well as concessionary travel for the elderly, even though the IBR said hundreds of millions of pounds could be saved taking a different approach. Previously, Mr Swinney has signalled his intention to carry on with the council tax freeze.

Thus the recommendations of the IBR are clearly inconvenient for Mr Swinney, but no doubt he'll also find much to commend in the report. But this begs the question, what was the point of the whole exercise? Simples - the awkward bits are dumped, and the recommendations that will be followed are conferred an added legitimacy and this also helps shift the blame for difficult decisions, as per the analysis above.

Thus a textbook exercise in political cynicism. And the credentials of the "three wise men" must surely be questioned, because as a Scotsman leader says: "Mr Crawford [sic] was trying to encourage the nation to move beyond political point-scoring towards a more mature political discourse about the future."

But, as the newspaper says, the politicians immediately reverted to political type, trying to blame each other for the cuts ahead of next year's Holyrood poll.

Do the report's authors really qualify for the description 'wise' if they were naive enough to believe that the politicians could rise above kneejerk base partisanship?

AV - It's a political bubble thing

Despite the fairly significant political ruckus over the Alternative Vote referendum, I can't really generate much in the way of personal excitement over it, nor I would have thought would many members of the public, as opposed to those inside the political bubble.

After all, the idea first really came to prominence in the fag end period of the Brown government, and at that time smacked of a desperate attempt to cling to power, perhaps as a way of currying Lib Dem support in a hung parliament.

Of course, now AV is being used as a sop towards the Lib Dems, but it's Cameron's Conservatives rather than Brown's Labour that's using it to help prop up a coalition.

Thus it's arguably born of opportunism rather than idealism, and of course neither Labour nor the Conservatives wanted anything too fundamentally different from First Past The Post, hence the limited change that AV is likely to represent but, as a corollary, since the Lib Dems want anything but FPTP then from their perspective AV is better than nothing.

Hence Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson's support for AV on last night's Newsnicht, but the limited rationale she proffered wasn't particularly appealing. Of course, that was merely that adopting AV would mean the successful candidate would have the support of 50% of the electorate, but this is largely contrived - would the elected MP have the real support of any more voters than before? Not really - the main difference is that their second and subsequent preferences would become know and these would be employed to contrive an overall majority, so to speak. But fundamentally the primary preference of voters is unlikely to change much.

But the current furore seems to be over the clash of dates with other elections, and one Tory MP on last night's programme perhaps inadvertently demonstrated the public's lack of enthusiasm for an AV referendum. Eleanor Laing said that minor local elections in England would produce a turnout of less than 30%, while Holyrood elections would produce well over 50%, thus those voting in an AV referendum would not be equally balanced throughout the country, which matters in view of its importance and would call the result into question.

Hence she seems to be saying that the public would not consider it important at all, thus the main driver for turnout would the be local elections in England and those for the devolved administrations elsewhere. So what would be the turnout in the areas of England where the AV referendum would be the only vote on the table? The mind boggles.

Therefore those trying to make political capital out of the AV vote and its timing should perhaps be careful that it doesn't cost them voters' support rather than gaining it.

Legal and political charade

[The following relates to the subject matter of another recent post, but this one was sent as an unpublished letter to the Scotsman, and as usual it's a slight consolation to post it on here for the delectation of my substantially smaller but no doubt considerably more discerning readership ;0)]

In attempting to reconcile past and current statements made by Kenny MacAskill on the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Bruce Skivington (Letters, 23 July) arguably underlines the contradictory nature of the justice secretary's utterances.

Mr Skivington points out that last year's statement by Mr MacAskill - the decision was "his and his alone" - refers to the fact that it was not for anyone else to decide.

However, to decide something necessitates some exercise of discretion, but Mr Skivington also points out that Mr MacAskill effectively had no choice in the matter, being bound by established precedent on the compassionate release of dying prisoners.

Indeed, the justice secretary's statement to that effect last week - that he had "little discretion in the matter" - seems totally at odds with the the process presented last August; he certainly didn't convey the impression then that the decision on Megrahi's release was effectively a fait accompli.

Thus If Mr Skivington is correct than last year's rigmarole amounted to little more than geopolitical grandstanding by the justice secretary.

Moreover, if Mr MacAskill effectively had a legal duty to release Megrahi then in the domestic context the Scottish public were proffered little better than a political and legal charade.

Who killed Bambi? The Tayside Police deer hunter...

Hot on the heels to the recent furore over the killing of a couple of seagulls in Dundee - "They shot its mother, climbed the fence at the car park, nabbed it from its nest and battered it about the head until it was dead. I was so sickened I called the police." - comes another nascent stooshie over the killing of a poor, defenceless animal, this time a roe deer which had been resident in a city cemetery for several years, but at the weekend was shot dead by a police marksman. The killing of "lovely little" Bambi seems likely to generate even more letters and column inches than the gull cull.

Naturally, the Evening Telegraph plays a pretty straight bat in its reporting, and has clearly avoided the more emotional comments from complainants. For example:

Val Bell (54), whose Ellengowan Drive home faces out on to the cemetery, said she had been traumatised by the incident. She said, “I heard the rifle shot and I was really upset. I called the police and they confirmed he had been shot. You’d see him nearly every day — just a lovely little deer. On Saturday morning, he was running around kicking up his legs and he was just so happy. I’ve been upset about this all weekend. I wish I hadn’t heard that rifle.”

Enough to bring a tear to a glass eye, clearly. But the reason for the deployment of the unsentimentally titled "deer dispatcher"? Well it seems that Bambi Roe (to give him his full name, presumably) could have caused a serious accident if he'd run out onto a nearby road.

Having once hit three different deer in a spell of a few months - one of which caused £2,000 worth of damage to my pride and joy - I can certainly appreciate the problem, but this episode smacks of one of those 'gesture policing' sort of things where a minimal risk is blown out of all proportion and significant resources deployed to deal with it, while other more obvious problems are effectively ignored. After all, they don't shoot the almost innumerable driver numpties - examples of whom you see on even the shortest drive - do they?

But Bambi Roe had to go, and it seems that nothing short of shooting him dead would have done the necessary. But personally I would have preferred to take the risk with wee Bambi and his "lovely red coat" while Tayside's finest used their resources on pursuing the driving donkeys (to extend the wildlife theme), even if the methods used fell short of summary execution.

NB The title is a rather sad attempt to accommodate the titles of two different films.

(The photo was sent to the Tele by reader Val Bell.)

Big questions on the Big Society

It's probably not a good idea to think too much about Dave Cameron's Big Society, if only because even brainy journalists can't seem to work it all out. For example, a right-leaning commentator in today's Scotland on Sunday thinks it's a left wing con, while a left-leaning commentator in today's Sunday Herald thinks it's a right wing plot.

First to Gerald Warner's neo-Marxist conspiracy theory. He concludes:

Big Society is a supposedly voluntarist enterprise fuelled by state money, a pretend local initiative directed by central government and a spuriously Conservative idea rooted in Frankfurt School Marxism.

As an example he cites the following:

There will eventually be a "neighbourhood army" of 5,000 full-time community organisers: if the gentry from Common Purpose are not in with the bricks they must have lost the entryist skills with which they are credited. No wonder leftist commentators are beginning to say that Big Society should not be dismissed with knee-jerk contempt as a Tory irrelevance, but should be given a chance.

However, across at the Sunday Herald Ian Bell - who I suspect qualifies as a "leftist commentator" - says:

...self-reliance and charity are not enough. They don’t answer when the old, sick and vulnerable are at stake. They don’t help the poorest communities. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is tricky if you’re on your uppers.

The Victorians – enterprising, self-reliant, greatly given to good works and local initiatives – discovered these things the hard way. Their social failures, those monumental atrocities, gave rise to precisely the sort of government that causes Cameron such offence. Victorian individualism never did provide enough schools or hospitals, housing or public services, to keep pace with the needs of the people, those ingrates.

Thus Bell thinks the Big Society will all end in tears, even assuming it ever gains a foothold:

So Cameron lays claim to another of his party’s grand old traditions: the refusal to learn. His zippy Big Society is Victorian liberalism coated in the fairy dust of wishful thinking. Back to the future, yet again.

Of course, these contrasting views on the Big Society in today's Sundays merely reflect elements of the wider debate, perhaps succinctly summed up by a sceptical David Davis, who described the idea as a "Blairite dressing", and said:

The corollary of the big society is the smaller state. If you talk about the small state, people think you're Attila the Hun. If you talk about the Big Society, people think you're Mother Teresa.

Thus the left is unhappy, the right is sceptical, while no one but Dave seems to know precisely what it all means.

So perhaps Gerald Warner is right when he says that a stubborn Dave missed his chance to bin the "cringe-making" Big Society when the coalition deal was being thrashed out.

Pointless provost and politicians

Tuesday's post about the predictable but pointless intervention of Dundee's lord provost in the debate on the recent spate of suicides involving young men in the city was perhaps vindicated by a Courier report a couple of days later.

It should be recalled that the LP asked Dundee City Council to report on how its various departments were working to prevent such tragedies. Cue the predictable official spiel about a "well established approach", supporting a "national strategy" and "working with a wide range of organisations" etc. Even more predictable was the LP's response that he was "fully satisfied" with the council's position.

But a couple of days later and it was reported that "a task group has been set up in the wake of a spate of suicides to help families and identify others at risk of taking their own lives". The "multi-agency group" comprises representation from the council, Tayside Police, the health service and a number of voluntary sector agencies.

So it seems that what the LP was "fully satisfied" with was quickly deemed inadequate and, for example, the "working with a wide range of organisations" had to be tightened up slightly with the multi-agency task group.

Of course, that's not to say that the council was in any way at fault regarding what has happened, even considering the need for the new approach, but the slight change in direction merely underlines the pointlessness of the LP's intervention, which smacks more of political grandstanding than anything of great substance. And this merely underlines what I've said previously about government by officialdom, with elected representatives existing largely to portray a facade of scrutiny and accountability, but with the real power lying elsewhere.

MacAskill, duty and discretion

This morning's Scotsman is making great play on what it's portraying as a volte-face by Kenny MacAskill on the release of the Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds. Eddie Barnes' story contrasts the justice secretary's portrayal of the original decision as one entirely at his own discretion - "these are my decisions and my decisions alone" - with yesterday's claim by Mr MacAskill that it was not a "judgement call", saying he was simply "exercising my duty" as the minister undertaking an act bound by "rules and regulations".

The newspaper's front page headlines "Wriggling MacAskill tries to get off the hook", thus alluding to the current political pressure emanating from the United States, not to mention the fact that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi is still alive eleven months after it was claimed he had only three months left to live.

Interestingly, Mr MacAskill's change in stance in one way represents the reverse of what happened during a political crisis which affected one of his cabinet colleagues earlier this year. It should be recalled that Nicola Sturgeon claimed that she had a duty to represent convicted fraudster Abdul Rauf because he was a constituent of the health secretary and had asked for her assistance when facing a jail sentence. Ms Sturgeon's subsequent mea culpa and acknowledgement that she had no absolute duty or obligation to represent a constituent gained the plaudits and was generally viewed as a skillful piece of political maneuvering.

On the other hand, Mr MacAskill is now trying to portray his original discretion as a duty in order to extricate himself from the political difficulty but, unlike Ms Sturgeon, seems to be providing opponents with even more ammunition.

Moreover, Ms Sturgeon's reversal effectively righted a wrong and confirmed that she in fact had a mere discretion rather than a duty to act for constituents. Mr MacAskill, however, seems to in effect be misrepresenting the legal position. Indeed, the Scotsman quotes a Scottish Government spokesman as saying: "As justice secretary, he does have the discretion to look at the advice and he could have decided, 'I am going to ignore that'."

Thus Ms Sturgeon admitted that she was wrong on the legal position and had a discretion rather than a duty, and consequently dug herself out of a political hole. Mr MacAskill seems to be wrong in now saying that he had a duty rather than discretion and seems to have grabbed hold of a shovel to dig himself further into his hole, as well as providing a stick for his opponents to beat him with.

SNP's UK defence dilemma

Last week the Courier underlined the tension between the SNP's core nationalist agenda and the party's warnings about the consequences for Scotland of cuts in the UK's spending on defence. In the Commons MP Angus Robertson had lamented the "wholesale destruction of conventional defence capacity in Scotland". The newspaper said: "One would almost think he supports the continuance of the United Kingdom and the forces that defend it: an odd position for an avowed Scottish Nationalist."

Indeed, on the same day the Courier had also reported on a claim by SNP MSP Christine Grahame that the Ministry of Defence was conducting a "campaign of deception" over direct approaches to schools in Perth and Kinross with a view to "softening up pupils" for recruitment when they reach the school-leaving age.

This is denied by the army, and Perth MSP Roseanna Cunningham has distanced herself from Ms Grahame's comments, while both MP Pete Wishart and MSP John Swinney declined to comment to the Courier. Alex Salmond has also refused to support the South of Scotland MSP.

A major plank of Christine Grahame's case rests on her claim that the Armed Forces are initiating school visits, while the MoD states categorically that they undertake such contact by invitation only. But the evidence presented in the Telegraph's article suggests that Ms Grahame's case is flimsy at best, and may arise due to the informal nature of the contacts and a misunderstanding of the process more generally. However, her more fundamental gripe seems to be encapsulated in the following:

Previously I was able to demonstrate that the army was deliberately targeting children from deprived communities in a cynical attempt to boost their flagging recruitment levels.

These latest documents show that not only is the recruitment strategy aimed at children in primary schools, but that representatives of the armed forces are now routinely going into nursery schools, too.

The mind boggles - kiddies signing up for Afghanistan between the nursery rhymes and colouring in?

However, the army puts its case thus:

We simply do not recruit in schools, primary or secondary. The Army is part of Scottish society and an important public service, and therefore supports school activities when invited and welcomed to do so by head teachers and their staff.

The Army gets numerous informal and official requests from schools every year and gets no special treatment or access, but neither should it be excluded or discriminated against.

It is a fine and honourable thing to be a Scottish soldier and we have a duty to explain to Scottish children who we are and what we do to protect our nation, and pass on valuable skills such as leadership, teamwork and citizenship.

Of course, Ms Grahame's case is clearly rooted in an antipathy towards the UK Armed Forces generally - with issues like Iraq and Afghanistan presumably exacerbating this - together with her own particular brand of progressive politics. And who could blame her for questioning the army's slightly romanticised perspective on a career defending the realm?

But her stance - and the reaction of other leading SNP politicians - merely underlines the paradox between the long-term goal of Scottish independence and the short-term value of the UK Armed Forces in terms of careers and communities, not to mention the question of electoral gain in parts of Scotland largely dependent on the UK's defence capability.

Provosts' pitiful politicking over suicides

Five young males have committed suicide in Dundee during the last fortnight, and the reported political reaction has been frankly pitiful.

Today's Courier lead story is headlined: "City council suicide prevention role praised". It outlines how Lord Provost John Letford had asked Dundee City Council's chief executive to report on what its various departments were doing to prevent such tragedies. The newspaper's report continues:

In response, Mr Dorward has assured the lord provost the council is playing its part in suicide prevention efforts.

He said the council has a well established approach to suicide prevention through arrangements which support the Choose Life national strategy aimed at reducing the number of suicides by 2013.

Mr Dorward said the council works with a wide range of organisations across Dundee with a clear focus on younger people, and has strong links with the police, NHS Tayside and a number of voluntary organisations.

...blah, blah, blah. Thus all eminently predictable, and equally so is the lord provost's response:

I am fully satisfied with the arrangements and initiatives that we have in Dundee and the work done by council officers to try to prevent suicides, work that is ongoing.

So what was the point of all that other than a headline in the paper regarding what amounts to little more than predictable complacency and self-congratulation? What precisely did the lord provost expect council officials to say? "We cocked up, guv?" And might the five suicides in a fortnight suggest to Mr Letford that the council's strategy is perhaps failing?

Of course, that's not to suggest that the council is in any way at fault regarding what has happened, but from an objective standpoint the lord provost's intervention and the council's response tells us next to nothing and smacks of the kind of crude political defensiveness seen in the wake of the Brandon Muir killing.

Meanwhile, deputy lord provost Ian Borthwick has similarly called for "an urgent review into how the city’s key organisations support people considering suicide".

Presumably Mr Borthwick is equally satisfied by the council's response, since it would be rare for any councillor to think otherwise in such circumstances, unless of course there's a stick available to beat political opponents with.

Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (Part 2,509)

While there are, of course, numerous examples of vacuous, synthetic and exaggerated disagreements in national politics, at least there's usually an element of substantive disagreement behind it all.

However, in Dundee's municipal politics there often seems a large degree of substantive consensus, with the political disputes blowing up over next-to-nothing. So it was with a recent spat, which in a national context would no doubt have been dubbed Buffoonery-gate.

Thus, at an education committee meeting SNP convenor Liz Fordyce called Labour opponent Laurie Bidwell a "buffoon" and a "disgrace to the council" after he produced an amendment to a motion on his laptop rather than in the usual paper format. Oh, and he was also accused of wandering around the room(!)

Cue the predictable, exaggerated and synthetic (hopefully - surely councillors in Dundee aren't quite so easily offended) offence from the opposition, with calls for an apology, a request that Mrs Fordyce be sacked and the threat of a complaint to the Standards Board for Scotland. And the city's only truly independent councillor (Lord Provost John Letford props up the SNP administration) predictably exploited the divide by calling for both sides to put aside their differences for the good of the city.

Equally predictably, perhaps, after a week or two of huffing and puffing Cllr Bidwell has decided to put the matter to bed - despite no apology from Cllr Fordyce - on the grounds that there are more important matters to be dealt with.

Which begs the question, why all the (faux?) outrage in the first place? Of course, Mrs Fordyce was wrong to use the term buffoon over what seemed little more than Mr Bidwell leaving his seat to show an official the text of the amendment on his laptop - he wasn't pacing around the room Hitler bunker-style.

But was the over the top reaction any more edifying? Probably not, and the opposition volte-face surely vindicates that view. And while there may be merit in Mr Bidwell's claim that Mrs Fordyce's outburst was made to deflect attention from the substantive issue, the opposition's reaction arguably completed the job for her.

Of course, the full quote from which the title of this post comes is from Macbeth: "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Which perhaps neatly sums the whole episode up, although maybe the word 'idiot' is inappropriate, in addition to the buffoonery. Shameless, hypocritical, clueless and incompetent perhaps, but calling a councillor a buffoon to their face is surely a tad too personal.

As for the issue under debate, er, it was an education committee meeting, so presumably something to do with schools...um...cannae remember...

T in the Park, Live Aid and good citizens

My post last month referring to 'T in the Dump' attracted a slightly caustic response from someone, who called me a 'grumpy old man' and asked if I punctured footballs that landed in my garden. Charming. Of course, this year's music extravaganza is over for another year, and I suspect that the organisers' 'Citizen T' initiative did little to alleviate the detritus left on the Balado site by revellers. Indeed, the Evening Telegraph's columnist Sean Hamilton refers to an area "covered in rich, green grass just a few days ago" becoming "an undulating sea of empty plastic pint pots that crunched underfoot", although I'm not sure if this is entirely or even partly meant as a criticism(!)

Anyway, the rich, green grass will no doubt be dutifully restored over the coming few weeks, and perhaps the organisers of this private money-spinner will even have the 'maturity' to ask the public authorities for help in this task, and won't be 'precious' about it.

But that (almost literally) sweeps under the carpet the wider implications of the culture on display last weekend, that being indifference to the disposal of rubbish and the expectation that someone else will pick it up. And no doubt many of the revellers simply aren't bothered at all, and indeed are like pigs in their own poo at events such as this.

Others - particularly the organisers, not to mention fawning police officers, politicians and journalists - will perhaps not feel particularly comfortable with all this, but, hey, it's just one weekend a year, it'll all be tidied up and we can all go back to our executive piles with their nicely tended gardens.

Unfortunately, for others it's not quite that straightforward, and the photo above was taken not a million miles from where I live at the rear of a block of flats, and obviously this kind of thing is all too commonplace these days. And the point is that it's effectively permanent and, short of spending a significant amount of time cleaning up after others, there's not a lot that can readily be done about it - according to officialdom this kind of thing does not preclude the "behaviour and attitude" of the perpetrators being praiseworthy, the point being that if indifference/ contemptuousness as regards the disposal of rubbish is concerned is their only foible then that's fine - they're not engaged in theft, violence or murder, are they?

But perhaps the powers that be would take a different attitude if they had to live amidst the kind of environment shown in the photograph, or if perhaps they made the connection between the T in the Dump culture and the despoiling of other public spaces such as the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. Indeed, in a recent Courier article a private landowner who accused "wild campers" of turning his estate into a rubbish tip referred to it as resembling the "aftermath of a music festival in miniature".

There are wider implications as well. For example, debate has raged recently in the Dundee press about attacks by aggressive gulls, and a small-scale council cull involved a furore about "shooting seagulls and battering a chick to death".


But with the prevalence of the T in the Dump culture it's not difficult to see how the gull problem has gotten out of hand, and the second photo was taken shortly after the first and shows an early morning scene in Dundee involving almost a dozen gulls and the juicy attractions of some rubbish, which looks as if it has come from the plastic bag towards the left of the picture, whether burst open by the gulls themselves or perhaps tipped out by a passing, er, reveller. But in the early mornings scenes such as this are commonplace in Dundee at this time of the year.

And it's not just careless and contemptuous attitudes that are the problem. For example, I recently witnessed a no doubt well meaning lady throw a whole loaf of bread on to a grassy area, and this immediately attracted dozens of pigeons and gulls.

Of course, the young will always be naughty and will always attract the opprobrium of "grumpy old men" like myself, and the former will replace the latter in a perpetual cycle. However, perhaps the more important point is the degree of naughtiness tolerated by the oldies, and surely the dominant liberal ethos has allowed this tolerance to create the T in the Dump culture.

For example, today marks the 25th anniversary of the original Live Aid, and while no doubt my memory is hazy, I seem to recall myself and my pals dutifully gathering our empty beer and lager tins into a suitable bag and taking them to one of the various skips situated on the hallowed (from the English football perspective, at least!) Wembley turf. And while no doubt others were less responsible, I'm quite sure the average Live Aider a quarter of a century ago was a bit more of a Citizen L than last weekend's hoped for Citizen Ts at Balado.

Oh, and did I mention it? I was there. AT THE ORIGINAL LIVE AID!!

But, as Sean Hamilton says of the T in the Park revellers, "unfortunately we have to come back to reality". Equally, unfortunately, the permanent reality for many people is the soul destroying environment portrayed in the photos.

(On a wider note, perhaps a more fundamental question has to be asked of the whole T in the Park rationale. After all, with Joe Strummer dead and thus a reformed Clash impossible, and a Fish-led Marillion reunion unlikely, WHAT WAS THE POINT OF LAST WEEKEND? Oh well, at least there's Stiff Little Fingers in Dunfermline to look forward to next month, not to mention the Buzzcocks in Dundee in September.)

SNP councillor anti-English?

An interesting letter in today's Herald in response to last week's call by the chief constable of Strathclyde Police for a single Scottish police force. SNP councillor George Kay, chair of Fife Council's Police, Fire and Community Safety Committee, slams Steve House for pre-empting a "mature debate" on the structure of Scottish policing, describes his remarks as "unfortunate, ill-timed and ill-advised" and says that this is, "in common with other matters on which I have heard Mr House pronounce recently." He also goes on to bemoan "having to deal with posturing at every turn of the card".

However, Mr Kay ironically seems to pre-empt the results of next year's Holyrood elections when he says:

I am equally sure that such a debate will be articulated by the SNP government when it takes on its next term in government in 2011.

I very much regret that the history of Scotland is punctuated by people who parachute in, make ill-advised decisions and then disappear back to wherever, without the necessity of having to live with the consequences of their decisions.

Which, at least compared to the situation in Tayside, all seems very politically motivated and non-consensual.

Of course, the second quoted paragraph of Councillor Kay's letter is particularly interesting because of its reference to people "parachuting in". Since there are numerous senior police officers in Scotland who have worked for several forces, presumably the reference alludes to the fact that Steve House spent his career with English police forces before taking the reins in Strathclyde.

However, Tayside's current chief constable spent most of her career with Greater Manchester Police, and the force's chief for most of the 2000s also came from south of the border, yet I can't recall any SNP councillors on the area's Joint Police Board - where the party is well represented - raising any objections in this regard.

But perhaps Mr Kay's objections can't really be construed as anti-English, because Steve House was born in Scotland. But his remarks seem likely to be made unwelcome by many, including, I suspect, some nationalists.

Gambling on public health

It transpired that what I described as "tokenism and gesture politics" was in fact not to be, since Glasgow's licensing board performed a U-turn on its decision to refuse several supermarket chains permission to expand the amount of space used to sell alcohol in their stores. That was a couple of months ago, and a few weeks later the Herald reported that the board had performed its volte-face on the threat of legal action, and its chairman blamed the inadequacy of the new licensing legislation, which requires councillors to consider the promotion of public health when making liquor licensing decisions, but which it is claimed has inadequate teeth in that particular regard.

The Herald's leader column slightly predictably slammed the supermarkets for selling "trolley loads of cheap alcohol" which allows drinkers to "front-load their drinking at home before heading out on the town". That's all very well but, even accepting this argument, would the Glasgow board's decision have represented anything more than a flea-bite on an elephant in this regard? Absolutely not.

And, as I blabbered previously, take the health promotion objective to its ultimate conclusion and where does that take us? Well, it seems unlikely that these people unhealthily front-loading will be heading for establishments which have as their objective the promotion of public health. Indeed, if they were so motivated, and an extra shelf of alcohol in a supermarket is detrimental to health, then they probably wouldn't even allow many of the front-loaders through the door.

And one particular facet of licensing which has probably increased front-loading as well as the consumption of alcohol generally is the liberalisation of licensing hours, which happened in Scotland over a generation ago. Of course, the idea was to stop drinkers necking copious amounts of drink as the 10 o'clock deadline approached, but what has since happened is that 'revellers' (often a euphemism for 'drunken idiots') neck copious amounts of drink at midnight or one in the morning, or whenever. Of course, all this was obvious decades ago, but south of the border they still went ahead with 24-hour opening a few years ago in the ludicrous hope that it would encourage a more relaxed attitude to drinking, but at best all it has done is stretched the night out, as had happened years earlier up here.

This has no doubt also encouraged front-loading, since the hardcore reveller's psyche requires that they are still out at closing time, come what may. But they can't afford to be in the pubs all night irrespective of opening times, so as the pub and club hours are extended they go out later, hence they have little else to do in the evenings than front-load on the cheap supermarket booze.

And despite the furore over the alcohol problem, there are still examples of extensions to licensing hours being granted, for example in both Fife and Dundee in the last couple of years. Not hugely significant in terms of the overall problem, but surely sending out the wrong message, and certainly at odds with Glasgow's stance on supermarket shelving.

Dundee's licensing board might refute the claim that it has extended licensing hours in the recent past, but an interesting development in the last couple of years is the opening of a casino in the city close to the main late-night 'entertainment' (another euphemism!) area. This has a licence until silly o'clock, and it seems that crowds of revellers are leaving city centre nightclubs with a mere 2.30am licence and making their way to the casino, which has perhaps essentially become an ultra-late drinking venue rather than performing its no doubt highly edifying primary function as a gambling establishment.

Dundee's Licensed Trade Association seems to have a regular slot in the local press in which it bemoans topics as varied as cheap supermarket booze, competition from large retailers and the disparity between prices charged in pubs and off-licences, not to mention the generally irresponsible approach of anyone selling drink at prices lower than those charged by its members. Its president just happens to be the manager of Dundee's biggest nightclub, where no doubt the health objectives of the licensing legislation are satisfied by revellers...sorry...customers imbibing mineral water and crunching on celery sticks.

But, unfortunately for the DLTA president, the early-morning casino rush seems to have impacted his nightclub particularly hard, and his company's no doubt health-driven response was to apply for a 6am licence, claiming the nightclub was under pressure due to the amount of people drinking at home and then at the casino. Which perhaps neatly sums up the rationale for minimum pricing from the perspective of pubs and clubs, although politicians are of course happy with the pretence that it's all for the greater public good.

Thankfully police objected and councillors refused the application, but to an extent the nearby casino has probably done a fair bit of damage already in terms of the public health objective, which was one of the reasons cited by the board for the nightclub's refusal. And although Dundee has had a late opening casino for some years, its location was a good bit away from the mainstream night-time economy, thus it probably didn't attract anything like the same numbers as the new venue.

Meanwhile, this week the Herald reports that hundreds of licenced premises are effectively trading illegally due to an administrative backlog concerning the processing of licences under the new regime.

Which once again underlines that the new legislation seems more about bungled bureaucracy than getting to the root of Scotland's alcohol problem, as the need for the SNP's Government's minimum pricing proposals and other measures ably demonstrates.

Fergusson sings the blues

The Sunday Post's Campbell Gunn is right to describe the party leaders at Holyrood as "long-winded". Although he made the comment in the context of FMQs, it's arguably applicable in numerous scenarios, but last week's pre-recess clash surely took the biscuit in terms of Salmond, Gray, Goldie and Scott hogging the limelight. To be fair to the Lib Dem leader, his exchanges with the first minster only occupied four minutes, which was quite modest compared to the latter's six minute clash with the Tory leader. However, at fourteen minutes the Labour leader's slog with Alex Salmond occupied almost half the session, and even this might have been extended if the presiding officer hadn't cut the first minister off in his prime.

And although Alex Fergusson extended the session by several minutes to accommodate a few more backbencher questions, the BBC's TV coverage only afforded one MSP the time to get his fizzog on the telly/allowed viewers to hear one question from a backbench member (delete according to level of cynicism).

But it's all clearly unsatisfactory, and the party leaders seem to treat the occasion as something akin to last May's prime ministerial debates rather than a simple question and answer session - perhaps they are limbering up for the televised Holyrood debates next May.

Of course, Fergusson has tried to get a grip on this before, but after a week or two things have generally returned to 'normal', so it seems that the political grandstanding has been allowed to trump the presiding officer's authority - all very Westminster.

Meanwhile, Euan McColm is surely being a bit harsh on Alex Fergusson in suggesting that he's a "standing joke" and should "resign now". The News of the World's political editor says that Fergusson's neutrality cannot be relied upon now that he's signalled his intention to return to Holyrood party politics in 2011, comparing this with former POs Davy Steel ("pompous and petty") and Dode Reid ("dignified and much missed") who quit the Lib Dems and SNP respectively on taking on the role, and walked away from Holyrood after leaving it.

But it seems unlikely that Messrs Steel and Reid were able to put party politics behind them completely merely by formally relinquishing their ties with their erstwhile ideological bedfellows; they must have been able to rely on a greater inherent capacity for fairness and neutrality other than that which would arise just by disposing of the party rosette.

Thus there's no reason why Alex Fergusson shouldn't be able to chair Holyrood in a neutral fashion, assuming that he's able to do so in the first place.

Of course, Euan McColm is right to say that the PO faces a difficult task, and that the Tories' opponents will try to make political capital out of the situation, but perhaps it's a change in the rules that's required rather than Alex Fergusson's head.

Blowing their own vuvuzelas

We've all seen those high-speed car chases on TV programmes like Police, Camera, Action!, but they seem to be a relatively rare occurrence, locally at least. However, Dundee played host to one such pursuit recently, when a speeding car raced at up to 70 mph through rush hour traffic, causing pedestrians to "run for their lives" and crashing into another car before being abandoned. Police spotted the Ford Focus and gave chase, but according to the Courier it was understood that "the chase had to be abandoned when officers lost sight of the black hatchback".

But full marks to Tayside Police for tracing the culprit, who appeared in court last week, where he admitted to a string of driving charges. However, of particular interest was the force's denial that it had been involved in a "pursuit" with the speeding car. Instead it stressed that a patrol car had merely been trying to "make ground" on the vehicle.

Well that hardly clarifies things, but it's not clear whether this obfuscation was due to embarrassment at losing sight of the car or a desire to convey the impression that members of the public were not unnecessarily imperiled by the "pursuit". Or "attempt to make ground".

However, perhaps a more obvious crime contradiction was reported in the press at about the same time, when a senior Dundee police officer encouraged the public to come forward with intelligence about "serious organised crime" in the city. However, a couple of days previously, in response to a string of violent incidents, another senior officer had been reported as saying, "Dundee does not have a problem with organised crime or gangs."

Indeed, the same officer also said that "there was no pattern to the recent surge in violent crime", but the same Evening Telegraph report said that the number of officers in the affected areas would be increased, which seemed to suggest that a pattern had been identified.

Or perhaps this all means that Tayside Police are more concerned with perception than the bare facts. And that this kind of thing would be questioned by Dundee councillors, and particularly those on the Tayside Joint Board. But it would seem not, despite the criticism in recent months from Audit Scotland, which said that scrutiny was weak and that board members didn't really understand their role.

Indeed, councillors perhaps understand their role as contributing to the self-congratulation in the likes of Tayside Police's predictably glowing annual report, which came hot on the heels of all of the above. Well perhaps this was justified, since the 2009/10 figures show a significant reduction in crime to its lowest level in a decade. But a day later and Grampian Police figures demonstrated similar trends, and this was attributed to the increase in the number of officers.

Indeed, at last week's FMQs Alex Salmond claimed that his government's additional police officers "protecting our communities" was the reason crime was at a 30-year low. But surely this trend was evident long before the SNP was forced by the Tories to meet its manifesto pledge of 1,000 additional officers?

And Tayside Police didn't even highlight the increase in force strength, which is probably just as well, because a few years ago it claimed that an increase in crime figures was due to officers being more industrious, which sort of contradicts the claim that more officers means less crime, but which the force didn't claim last month anyway. Indeed, Grampian Police also indulged in this sort of statistical gymnastics a few years ago by claiming that a slower increase in crime from one year to the next meant that the streets were safer.

Never mind though, is anyone really bothered if the gloss of the annual report allows police and councillors to blow their own trumpets? Indeed, one police board councillor put a topical slant on this when he greeted the figures by saying: "If ever there was a report that made you want to get your vuvuzela out, then this is it.”

Police and watchdog clash over "gangster gossip"

In a drive to disrupt organised crime, Strathclyde Police has been feeding information on suspect businesses to local authorities so that they can avoid doing business with private sector firms used to launder money and linked to drug-dealing, extortion and prostitution. The force intends extending this approach to legitimate private businesses which may be unwittingly assisting in illegal activity by engaging with fronts for organised crime.

Naturally, the human rights lawyers are licking their lips over the police's extra-judicial approach to the problem and, although broadly supportive of the move, the Herald warns of a "nod-and-a-wink culture in which individuals are blacklisted with no right of reply" and cautions that, "the possibility of a mistaken identity, a vexatious motive or someone with a criminal past who is a reformed character being unjustly accused raises a nagging doubt."

However, help has perhaps come from an unexpected source. Today the Herald reports on an unusual move by Joan Aitken, Scotland's traffic commissioner, who acts acts as regulator to the bus industry. Sandy Easdale, who operates McGill's buses from Greenock and taxis in Renfrewshire, was recently the subject of an inquiry conducted by Ms Aitken. He is apparently the object of much conjecture concerning the legitimacy of his operations, no doubt stemming from a jail sentence served in the 1990s for VAT fraud.

In her findings Ms Aitken criticised "gossip-mongers and those who expect me to act on their chit-chat” regarding the allegations against Mr Easdale, and said: “I have no evidence that any of the Easdales are engaged in any criminal activities; no evidence of money laundering; no evidence of drug dealing, or of harassment, or of threatening public officials.” She added: “No officer of Vehicle and Operator Services Agency, or Strathclyde Police, or HM Revenue and Customs, or Crown Office, or other public or private agency or corporate body or private citizen has brought me evidence (as distinct from supposition) of any wrongdoing."

However, police deny making representations to Ms Aitken in relation to Mr Easdale, and the public inquiry involved the failure of McGill's to run its buses to the published timetables, thus making the traffic commissioner's statements seem unusual indeed.

Thus both Strathclyde Police and the Scottish Traffic Commissioner seem to be engaged in what appears to be slightly dubious activity, with both acting as judge and jury without necessarily proffering evidence that would be permissible in a court of law. Of course, the two arms of the state are at odds here, because the former is doing the accusing, while the latter is in this particular case proffering a defence, but without the apparent need to do so.

If this sets a precedent then it could all get very messy.

MacBlogosphere in decline?

Having been an active member of the political MacBlogosphere for only around two years - and writing this blog for slightly less time - and not considering myself an expert on the scene, I'm probably not the best person to comment, but are there indications that the medium is in long term decline?

Of course, I'm sure this has been argued elsewhere in the past, but the recent announcement that Yapping Yousuf is to hang up his keyboard and that Duncan is to hand over the password to the Scottish Roundup has certainly cemented that impression in my mind.

Take Iain Dale's Top 50 Scottish Blogs from last summer, for example. Of the top 20 blogs which are neither Tom Harris nor MSM, a majority have either disappeared or are updated so irregularly that they barely reach the status of blog. Most of the rest seem to have had substantial hiatuses at some point or other, or even perhaps announced their departure, and even the indefatigable Jeff and Stephen seem to have stuttered lately.

Of course, there may be personal factors in all of this, but overall there does seem to be a trend evident. Equally, there are undoubtedly short-term factors in play - post-election fatigue and disillusionment, most obviously - but with an unprecedented period in UK politics in the last few weeks, not to mention things being teed up nicely for a tough Holyrood vote in ten months time, there does seem to be plenty for Scottish bloggers to get their teeth into.

But assuming there is a trend towards decline, why might that be? One short-term factor is that the blogosphere didn't have the expected impact on the general election, as I predicted at the time of the mini-hysteria over the Daniel Hannan video viral - 99% plus of the UK electorate hadn't heard of him then, and 99% plus of the UK electorate haven't heard of him now, and that was never likely to change because of the internet. Indeed, Jeff wrote a particularly perceptive post on the topic generally on the eve of the election campaign.

A longer-term but not unrelated factor is probably that many bloggers saw the medium as a chance to challenge the MSM's monopoly, but perhaps the realisation is now is that that challenge has been pretty feeble, and only a very small number of the top bloggers have had any real impact outwith the blogosphere bubble. Of course, that's not to minimise the impact that the internet has had on the MSM, but it's perhaps instructive that the newspapers have either met the challenge with their own blogs (Telegraph Online) or perhaps their blogs have withered slightly (The Steamie) with the realisation that the blogosphere threat was over-stated, or they have neutralised the threat more generally by putting their content online.

Of course, there are many fine blogs other than those considered above, but this analysis is as much about impact as quality, and there seems little likelihood of any of these less prominent blogs - like my own - changing the world, other than our own little corner of the blogosphere.

Another counter-argument to my basic thesis is, of course, that plenty of prominent blogs have come and gone in the past, but the MacBlogosphere generally has survived. Well it would take someone with a longer term view of things to put that into perspective, but perhaps it's instructive to consider who might replace or supplant the likes of Will, Duncan, Scottish Unionist, Scottish Tory Boy, IoC, Malc, Yousuf and James.

The short answer is probably no one really. I'm not sure if the frequency of new blogs is decreasing, but there certainly seem little sign of a Scottish Guido or Iain Dale appearing. Look at the fairly recent Scotblogs Awards newcomers' section, for example. Top came the inimitable Lallands Peat Worrier, and indeed his is a new blog of some distinction. But probably too intellectual and idiosyncratic to be the next SNP Tactical Voting. Then there was the likes of Mark MacLachlan's reincarnated The Universality of Cheese, but this too seems to have largely fizzled out, possibly on the back of the inevitable neutering following its post-scandal hiatus. But, irrespective of the inherent qualities of these and other blogs, do enough people really care to provide any newcomer with a groundbreaking impetus? Probably not, in the foreseeable future at least.

As for yours truly, I'm distinctly lacking in interest in mainstream politics at the moment. And when my own 'specialist subject' and personal hobby horse flashed briefly across the MSM firmament recently I thought that perhaps my time had come, but of course the predictable lack of political and other journalistic interest meant that the issue disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, and to that extent it's probably pointless spending days posting lots of stuff about it on here - no real interest evident outwith those directly affected, and I'd spend months worrying who might be "chappin' on my door"!