Cop and councillor complacency

Tuesday's post about the improvements in Dundee's Ardler area was predictably brought into perspective by an article in yesterday's Courier about Charleston, another part of Dundee with long-term social problems, but which hasn't had the full-on bulldozer treatment that Ardler has enjoyed. Indeed, and as mentioned in the previous post, could the displacement of Ardler's 'undesirable' element merely have foisted the associated problems onto other areas like Charleston?

Anyway, the story - headlined 'Authorities accused of leaving Charleston to degenerate into a 'slum'' - outlines the familiar litany of problems: "Tales of drug dealing, persistent noise and anti-social behaviour, vandalism, graffiti and criminal damage were all aired by angry locals," at a residents association meeting. Indeed, much of the article reads like a carbon copy of another recent article about another area of Dundee, as mentioned in this blogpost. Thus it's the residents complaining about crime and anti-social behaviour, and also what they perceive as the inadequacy of the official response:

I don't think anybody acts on anything. You don't see the police because they don't turn up. They just don't show up for anti-social behaviour or for fights. The whole scheme is just becoming a slum and the only people we can speak to about it are not doing anything.

We're fed up of hearing about councillors, police and ASBOs - that's why we called this meeting.

Which brings to mind yet another blogpost on a local press article relating to a nearby area of Dundee. But residents are reassured that these things are taken very seriously, blah, blah. And that Tayside Police's community engagement team has been re-deployed in the area for three months. Which perhaps provides some indication as to at least one major problem - as I said almost a year ago when the community engagement team was initially deployed, when it's engaging with some other community, what happens then? Back to square one? Well the residents' complaints would seem to suggest so.

A few hours later and yet another area of Dundee and its anti-social behaviour problems are featured in the Evening Telegraph, this time in the form of a letter from a councillor, who employs the usual phraseology of "absolute commitment", "hard-working" and "working hard" (eh?), and the letter ends by saying that "we will certainly never give up". Which is certainly appropriate, because the same problems and the same platitudes were being aired long before this particular individual became a councillor.

Of course, there's also a certain element of complacency about the letter - these problems are not unique to Dundee, crime is decreasing, etc. Well it would be if police don't even turn up to record it. As Courier columnist John J Marshall says on another page of yesterday's edition:

Statistics are, of course, a subject all police forces have become expert in as successive governments have encouraged them to go head to head in this art. So skilled are they, in fact, that crime figures have become virtually meaningless, apart that is from endeavouring to make individual forces and governments themselves look good.[...]

Then there are the detection rates which include cases where police "think" they know who did it but can't actually prove it. When certain crimes show a reduction it is because of solid police work. When other figures have risen it is as a result of "robust" investigation techniques.

And perhaps more pertinently to the specific problems outlined at the outset, the recent HM Inspector of Constabulary report - which claimed that police had to a large extent given up on the streets - said:

Very importantly, the public draw no meaningful distinction between crime and ASB. They exist on the same spectrum of bad or very bad behaviour. The public find it immaterial that the most insidious individual incidents of ‘pestering’, ‘taunting’ or ‘targeting’ individuals – including the most vulnerable - may not qualify technically as “crimes” with a prospect of prosecution. They dislike ASB, worry about reporting it, and are intimidated in significant numbers when they do.

However, for some people in policing and some outside, dealing with issues that qualify as crime is ‘real police work’. After all, for almost 20 years the police record of accomplishment and failure has been expressed, increasingly strongly, in terms of crime statistics. Meanwhile, the “non-qualifying” ASB issue, and its variants, that signal lack of control on our streets, have grown and evolved in intensity and harm.

And while that relates specifically to England and Wales, is there anything to suggest Scotland is fundamentally different, despite claims that increased police numbers mean the situation here is quite unlike that pertaining south of the border.

Nonetheless, news last week of a "significant" drop in Dundee crime saw an Evening Telegraph leader column headlined, "Reminder that Dundee is a superb place", which, despite a nod towards some problems areas, says "the majority of us are still safe to go about our daily business", which must represent scant reassurance to the minority who "fear for their safety inside their own homes".

But the more positive perspective echoes that of senior police officers, who often tell us what a great place Tayside is to live in, with a six figure salary and commensurate pension no doubt cushioning the blow of having to live here - presumably there aren't many six-figure earners who feel trapped in Dundee's Charleston.

As Lorraine Kelly said in last weekend's Sunday Post, "The lives some people are forced to live is unimaginable to those of us lucky to live in a good neighbourhood."

Communitarianism v individualism

Dundee's Evening Telegraph had an interesting double page spread last week on the Ardler area of the city, which "used to be one of Dundee's most deprived areas, but has been transformed by regeneration into a flourishing community". Crime has reduced significantly, and the estate is now the safest in the city.

Of course, it would be difficult to spend millions bulldozing the old "high-density" concrete blocks and multis, and replacing them with more traditional houses, and not have some additional impact on the area, but how precisely has the transformation been achieved? And how did the area's various problems arise in the first place?

The articles quote various of the powers that be, with eminently predictable feelgood words and phrases such as "efforts of the community themselves in taking pride" and "a remarkable spirit and dedication in their pursuit of a better future", neatly encompassed in the headline "Community spirit praised", while some of the actual residents quoted are equally predictably slightly more circumspect.

However, the detail in the articles outline how the change was achieved. Police work closely with the local community safety panel - more feelgood phraseology - and the housing authorities, and any problems are nipped in the bud. Ah, so it was a failure of organisation and policing which caused the problems?

Or perhaps it was environmental factors. One resident mentions the absence of the old tenement buildings: "When someone went in you didn't know what door they were going into." By the same token, another resident attributes the changing population as being a significant factor: "I think a lot of the bad ones moved on when the multis came down."

Oh, so the problem has just been moved on elsewhere? Not the kind of thing that councillors would suggest, of course. Interestingly, and perhaps instructively, a couple of pages away on the Tele's letters page, a resident of a street elsewhere in Dundee complains that it: ...used to be a nice area. It is now being destroyed by troublemakers. There have been flats given to anti-social people and there are large numbers of young people who come into the area and end up fighting." I wonder where they might have come from?

And, of course, the overarching community spirit explanation begs the question, where was this ethos in the past? Equally, the 'community' that is talked of is likely to consist of the small proportion of local residents who get involved in local politics, and when the chair of the Ardler Village Trust and residents' association says that the community policeman "knew everybody", she more than likely means members of the neighbourhood's miniature political bubble rather than the population generally.

Which leads on nicely to an accompanying Tele editorial which, amid the feelgood stuff, says:

People have obviously responded well to the fact that they were given real homes with a front and back garden. Simple things, such as being given the responsibility to look after your own green space, can have a massive impact.

Of course, even the Tories seem to be jumping onto the more collectivist-leaning bandwagon these days - although whether the Big Society is a left wing con or a right wing plot is another question - but perhaps the front and back gardens in Ardler demonstrate that individual responsibility and all that is the key to many of society's ills?

On the other hand, the analysis above clearly shows that the explanation for Ardler's transformation is multi-faceted. Community spirit is no doubt a factor, but however much the politicians like to emphasise it it's perhaps individuals and families and their own little piece of real estate that provides the overriding rationale.

And, of course, the multis were all shiny and new and held up as high-rise communities for the future, once upon a time...

Scotland couldn't have bailed out banks, says leading economist?

A few months ago Courier columnist John J Marshall questioned whether an independent Scotland would have been able to bail out RBS and HBOS during the financial crisis, citing figures which put the UK Treasury's total exposure to the banks at the thick end of one trillion pounds.

In a subsequent letter to the newspaper, Dundee MSP Joe FitzPatrick rebutted JJM's claim, stating that the Treasury itself said that eventually the transaction could in fact make a profit for the taxpayer, or at the very least the eventual loss would be minuscule compared to the headline bail-out figure.

Which seemed to miss the point a bit. Surely the issue was not so much the eventual outcome in terms of profit or loss to the taxpayer, rather it was the ability to finance the rescue in the first place that was in question - even the most financially illiterate UK citizen could have made a substantial profit on buying and selling a house during the last few decades, but raising the money to purchase the property in the first place would have been a different matter.

And recent support for this view comes in the form of leading economist Professor Andrew Hughes Hallet, who said in a radio interview that the burden of saving RBS and HBOS would have had to be shared, because both the banks have significant activities in England and elsewhere, and he went on to cite international precedents.

Which would seem eminently fair, but the fundamental point is surely that this undermines Mr FitzPatrick's argument, and despite any eventual profit the bail-out would have accrued to an independent Scotland using his analysis, undertaking the rescue in the first place would have been a problem.

Thus, to put it another way, an independent Scotland would have had to go cap in hand to the UK/England to save the banks. Which, of course, hardly lends support to the argument that Scotland is too small to be independent, because states large and small have had to helped out on occasion, such as the UK regarding its IMF loan in the 1970s, and Greece's rescue by its fellow EU members more recently.

But perhaps not surprising, then, that the SNP's press release on the professor's interview concentrates on matters other than the bank bail-out.

Municipal minimum pricing

I was interested to read in the Courier that Councillor Rod Wallace, chairman of Dundee’s licensing board, has asked officials to investigate the possibility of the council introducing minimum pricing for alcohol sold in the city, following reports that other local authorities were considering implementing such a policy.

But it’s only half a dozen years since Dundee City Council and a handful of other Scottish local authorities abandoned such measures after a disgruntled licensee mounted a legal challenge. The Court of Session ruled that the legislation “did not give licensing boards the power to regulate, either directly or indirectly, the minimum prices below which alcohol may not be sold”.

The more recent Licensing Act is similarly lacking in such powers, but the Courier's report suggests that the Scottish Parliament could amend the legislation to allow councils to make by-laws with regard to minimum pricing.

But if MSPs won’t enact legislation to introduce the policy on a national basis, what is there to suggest they would consider provisions allowing councils to do this locally?

Also, as a Tory councillor surely Mr Wallace should be aware that his party has consistently questioned the legality of minimum pricing under EU law.

As for his comments linking excessive alcohol consumption to anti-social behaviour, it should be recalled that it’s not that long since licensing councillors effectively introduced all-night drinking in Dundee by the back door, in the form of a casino adjacent to the city’s main nightclubs.

An attempt by a nearby nightclub to extend its hours to match this due to a consequent loss of trade was rejected after Tayside Police objected because of the problems that would be caused, so why give the casino an extended licence in the first place?

Perhaps councillors should get their own house in order rather than effectively trying to blame other factors.

(A version of the above was sent to the Courier as a letter.)

Spending review

No, not that one. This is about my own personal spending and the challenges of being a consumer. In our market-based economy competition is king and we all benefit from transparent and competitive pricing, right?

To an extent, perhaps, but as we all know these things don’t quite work in the way suggested by the textbooks. The complexity of modern markets and the myriad choices available can often serve to baffle and confuse. And we often legitimately feel that we’re being ripped off.

Even within the confines of a large Tesco superstore, for example, the pricing is often un-transparent, inconsistent and generally baffling. It’s quite well known that it can be cheaper to buy two small tins of a product rather than a larger one, for instance – the opposite of what we would expect. Whether this is a deliberate selling ploy of some kind or a simple error is unclear, but it’s often not easy to compare the various prices and sizes of products, so we may not be aware of these anomalies.

Along the same lines, I’ve quite fancied a special pen to write on my blank CDs/DVDs, since normal felt pens don’t seem to work, and ball pens don’t leave much of an impression. Tesco stocks packs of four on the shelves beside the blank discs, but in my local store they’re priced at around £4.50, which intuitively seems overpriced, so I’ve always baulked at buying a pack. OK, I’ve never looked very far for them – and do almost all my shopping in Tesco - but I spotted a similar product in Asda last week for £3.00, so I bought a packet, thinking I’d secured a bargain.

However, I was looking in the stationery aisle in Tesco yesterday and spotted a four pack of disc marker pens for £1.30! Feeling a bit peeved I checked the aisle with the blank discs, and here were the similar pens still selling at £4.50. Between the three separate products there seemed little to differentiate them – each had a black, blue, green and red pen – except for differences in the packaging, and the fact that the significantly dearer pens were in the same aisle as the blank discs rather than among the other writing materials. Sneaky or wot?

By the same token, in HMV last week I bought a CD from the bargain section for £4 or so – Muse, if I remember correctly - and then noticed the same title in the normal section for £17 or thereabouts. I also saw a Metallica CD that I’d bought for £5 (two for a tenner) a few weeks ago on sale now for £15, while the same title is available on Amazon for £4.99 – I don’t mind paying a pound or two more in the shops, but a tenner is just ridiculous, particularly given the previous price in the same shop. And, of course, with the amount of products in such stores it’s impossible for shoppers to always make such comparisons – and it’s often just a question of luck that we come across these discrepancies – thus we might in fact pay the higher price and never know we’re effectively being ripped off.

On a different tack, I pay £15 a month for 5GB of mobile broadband bandwidth, and after 18 months or so into a two year contract I’ve managed to exceed my monthly allowance for the first time, and now I’m charged at a premium rate. Fair enough, I don’t mind paying maybe double or perhaps even treble my contracted rate. Er, no, it’s 10p per MB, so around £100 for a GB, as compared to my usual £3. What’s that all about? Presumably it’s to exploit the captive market of those who rely solely on their mobile broadband account and have exceeded their limit, like poor old me! So now only essential internet access until midnight tonight, which is why I’m composing this on a word processor, rather than ‘live’ on the usual Blogger software.

On the other hand, last night I thought I’d spotted a bit of good news pricing-wise. A few weeks ago I dropped the extended battery I’d bought for my netbook, and it didn’t survive the fall. So I was considering buying a new netbook rather than a new extended battery – which would cost the thick end of £100 – for my current machine, which currently provides two hours or so on the original battery.

The Argos catalogue has a Samsung model with a 14 hour battery life (aye, right!), but for weeks this has been out of stock both in the stores – you can check availability online – and for mail order via the website. Last night I checked to see whether it was back in stock, and was pleased to see that the price was now marked £20 off. Thus two bits of good news. Except that it still isn’t in stock. Either in the numerous stores I checked or via mail order. So presumably they haven’t reduced the price just to shift all that stock they can’t get rid of. Bizarre.

Anyway, what’s all this got to do with Planet Politics? Not much really, but I suppose it does raise profound philosophical questions about price transparency, market failure etc, and the extent to which government should intervene in the market to correct such shortcomings.

Or perhaps it just demonstrates that a consumer dealing with businesses is just like a voter dealing with politicians – tread carefully and never take things at face value. The words ‘marketing’ and ‘spin’ may normally be used in different contexts, but essentially they mean the same thing.

And have you ever noticed that the first four letters of ‘politicians’ are the same as the first four letters of ‘police’?

It's time...for SNP déjà vu

It was perhaps appropriate for this blog that the SNP's latest party political broadcast was aired yesterday, following my post about the crudity of political soundbites in a complex and often conflictual world. In a way it's a nice little film, but in the final analysis merely yet another cheesy, schmaltzy and ultimately vacuous demonstration of hopelessly idealistic politics, at best. At worst, yet another attempt to deceive the public. But, hey, either way it's a PPB, so nothing new there then.

Onyhow, the good news is that the SNP has finally dumped that extremely cheesy and schmaltzy (again!) electronic-bagpipey tune that's accompanied many/all of its recent PPBs. In its place is a guitar-driven, bluesy-sounding interpretation of the song probably best known here as Bryan Ferry's classic Let's Stick Together, by Scottish group Jakil, and it's no worse for that. But still the same eminently predictable feelgood factor much in evidence, unfortunately bringing to mind new Labour's use of D:Ream's Things Can Only Get Better as its theme in 1997, preluding its general election victory. And look what happened to them.

But in its latest offering the SNP seems to have eschewed the slightly base nationalistic message portrayed in the spring's general election PPB - the much panned chap running for the hills to stand on a summit and shout 'SCOTLAND' - which might have appealed to the Tartan Army, but politics is supposed to be about real life, not fitba!

This time round the party seems to have reverted to its message for Holyrood 1997, which in essence was that 'It's time' for fundamental political change, this time of course alluding to independence, because it can't be time for a change to an SNP administration, because they'll have been in power for four years come May 2011. However, in essence the message is fundamentally similar, but now it's time to ignore the SNP's lacklustre term of office, and instead up the ante to the ultimate goal of independence. All of which will avoid the need to proffer substantive policies because, of course, the spending cupboard is bare, thus the free this, that and the next thing won't work this time round.

But the new PPB depicts the same scenes of ordinary Scots going about their business and all getting on famously in a hard-working, healthy and prosperous nation, which of course is an accurate portrayal of what an independent Scotland would be all about. But like the two police officers in the earlier broadcast who patrol a late night town centre with not a drunk, rammy or vomit pool in site - and gaze at the town clock, then at their wristwatches, presumably thinking it's time we got back to the nice, warm police station - most of us will probably think of the real world when watching PPBs and thus this begs the question, do PPBs engender anything in anybody, other than cynicism?

While watching stuff like this these days I always think of Lily Allen's LDN (shorthand for London) music video, which juxtaposes both a highly upbeat tempo, lyrics and visuals with a more downbeat portrayal of life:

A fella looking dapper, he's sitting with a slapper
But then I see it's a pimp with his crack whore*

When you look with your eyes
Everything seems nice
But if you look twice
You can see it's all lies

Indeed. And what is it with the SNP and slogans? 'It's time' was effective. 'Keep on' sounded truncated, and a bit too 'down wiv da kidz'. 'More Nats, less cuts' was panned as being grammatically imperfect, before even considering the substance. 'Local champions' evokes images of the winners of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League rather than the (presumably) intended meaning of a person who fights for a principle or cause, thus again one for the Hampden crowd rather than the wider public?

So now we have 'Be part of better', which sounds sufficiently awkward that it will have people thinking about the syntax rather than the politics. It's either a bit stupid, or too clever by half. Either way, not a good political slogan.

But watch Ms Allen's video, which is a lot more insightful than the SNP's.

*Lyrics censored in the video!

Standing up for Stewart Hos...er...Scotland!

At least Alex Salmond and the SNP always stand up for Scotland - or so we're told. Of course, all but the most blinkered of Nationalists will recognise "standing up for Scotland", "putting Scotland first" or suchlike as largely rhetorical and lacking in substance, to a greater or lesser extent; most SNP supporters would probably at least support such a claim as pithily representing one of the party's core principles, but which of course sometimes has to be compromised in practice.

One local issue brought to mind when considering this kind of thing is the proposed downgrading of Balmossie fire station in Dundee. It should be recalled that Tayside Fire and Rescue has proposed downgrading the station and transferring resources to Forfar, because it's considered that this would optimise public safety - the Angus station is busy, while Balmossie is cynically described as a 'sleepy hollow', a fact emphasised in numerous Courier news articles and comment.

However, as described here previously, the issue has become something of a political running sore in Tayside - and in Dundee in particular - with councillors on the Tayside Fire and Rescue Joint Board having twice defeated the management's proposal for downgrading Balmossie, and the issue likely to be revisited again in the future, with the Courier's ongoing coverage and the impending public spending pain likely the keep the embers of the dispute glowing, with a real conflagration perhaps never far off.

And the Courier has been relentless in pursuing a political faultline in the SNP over the issue. The board's convener and vice convener are both Nationalist councillors, and the former in particular - maverick Ken Lyall - has clashed with the Dundee SNP group over the issue. Dundee's SNP politicians are generally keen to see Balmossie stay open, and claim they are representing the view of their constituents in this regard. Of course, cynics and political opponents - except to the extent that politicians from other parties broadly agree with the SNP's pro-Dundee agenda - will clearly see the issue in terms of votes and seats, but in an email to Ken Guild, leader of Dundee City Council's SNP administration, Councillor Lyall said:

I have given my all for this party and in return only been kicked in the face. I will not be bullied on this topic and if the truth about it has to come out in the public domain then so be it. I will be able to hold my head high, unlike others. If [SNP MP Stewart] Hosie is so afraid of losing the election this year maybe he should have wound his neck in a bit (regarding) Balmossie.

Indeed, Councillor Guild had earlier written to Mr Lyall that he was "very disappointed at the timing of this controversial proposal in a key sector of a marginal seat". In an email to MSP John Swinney, Mr Lyall also wrote:

I know you have me down as a pain in the a*** and maybe not loyal to the party... but (Mr Hosie) needs to be spoken to. How the hell can I support keeping frontline services and firefighters in jobs when he wants to keep open a station which is not only the quietest in Tayside but one of the quietest retained station (sic) in Tayside open and in full time work? Forfar is just as busy but is full time retained, what about the lives lost there due to this present service? It is madness in the extreme and blatant politics ... We have to appear as one party. The last thing I want is to be part of a party which is just as bad as the Liberals -- one policy for every different street. That is the danger here.

Indeed! And in an email to the chief fire officer, Mr Lyall said he had a "very angry John Swinney on the phone" regarding comments he had made on the situation (although an allegation of "bullying" made against Mr Swinney was later retracted by the Courier, and in response the MSP made all the right noises about politicians being "fully entitled" to have differing opinions on the matter).

All this was published in a Courier article about three months ago - adding fuel to the fire of earlier comments by Mr Lyall saying that the views of Dundee's Nationalist politicians were "completely skewed by the fact that there is an election coming up and they want to get their faces in the paper" and that Dundee councillors seemed to be "off their trolleys" - but the issue has resurfaced more recently, with the newspaper publishing an email from SNP board vice convener Christina Roberts to Mr Hosie expressing disquiet about how Nationalist politicians in Dundee had not communicated with board members over the issue.

A few days later a further email was published, and this disclosed that the board convener Mr Lyall had suggested Mr Hosie might have been "bankrolled" by the Fire Brigades Union in relation to Balmossie. In response Mr Hosie said that although he had in the past received a donation from the FBU, this was not related to the issue in hand, and other politicians and parties had also benefited in this way.

Of course, the finer details of this internecine strife shouldn't detract from the fundamental point here, which is that some in the SNP can't even stand up for the interests of Tayside as a whole - as opposed to the narrower needs of Dundee - never mind any pretensions to 'stand up for Scotland'. As Mr Hosie said, trying to close down the issue: "All's well that ends well." Which cynics might well interpret to refer not to the fire board's decision not to close Balmossie, but to Mr Hosie's re-election to Westminster in May's general election.

Which is all perhaps just stating the obvious - Scotland is just one tier in a multi-layered and multi-faceted society of often conflicting interests, with all of us being part of numerous different interest groups - to a greater or lesser extent - each with varying degrees of co-operation and conflict, and to which we all contribute differing views.

For example, in the scenario described above the interests of Dundee residents clearly conflict with those elsewhere in Tayside, while to a large extent the interests of politicians generally run parallel to this, while individual politicians may take a broader - and arguably more principled - view, as will individual members of the public, albeit perhaps in not so vociferous a fashion. Courier columnist John J Marshall goes against the grain of Dundee public opinion by being critical of Mr Hosie's stance on Balmossie, but on another issue on which he's currently having a spat with the Dundee East MP on - the proposed wind turbines and biomass plant in Dundee's dock area - Mr Marshall clearly expects Mr Hosie to toe the voter line in opposing the plans but, presumably in view of previous Dundee SNP internal conflict on the issue, Mr Hosie is playing a straight bat and kicking the issue into the long grass of 'experts' (how's that for a sporting mixed metaphor?!), much to the consternation of Mr Marshall and several Courier correspondents.

Then of course there are the interests of the FBU - no surprises there - and the union's interaction with the politicians. And the politicians' loyalty to their party, which in this case seems to be playing second fiddle to loyalty to constituents. Or perhaps to themselves! Mr Lyall, on the other hand, seems to consider the interests of Dundee voters to run parallel to those of the SNP, and to that extent the fire board convener clearly thinks that the party more generally views him as a traitor.

Of course, we all face such dilemmas. The politicians like to portray us as 'communities' - particularly in cases where we're anything but! - yet the market-based foundation to our economy depends on the 'invisible hand' of self-interest and competition, which may be conducted amicably, but can often be reasonably portrayed as cut-throat and part of the 'rat race'. And the supposed solidarity of the workplace is often not dissimilar to the competitive market.

Then we have school versus school, housing scheme versus housing scheme, city versus city, sporting rivalries, competing religions etc, all of which may be amiable and constructive, but on the other hand may manifest themselves in terms of anything from gang fights to terrorism. Moreover, most of us would probably prioritise family, or even friends, in preference to any of the above.

And coming back to the more political, the SNP's 'local champions' soundbite in May's general election can of course be in fundamental conflict with the 'standing up for Scotland' rhetoric, as Dundee's Balmossie dispute ably demonstrates. Then there's the Nationalists' increasingly ambivalent attitude to the UK defence industry - including the nuclear capability part - born of the dependence of many Scottish communities on defence-related public spending in general, and jobs at the constituency level in particular.

And at the supra-national level there's a further conflict between 'standing up for Scotland' and the SNP's commitment to join the EU. If the SNP considers that Scotland plays second fiddle at Westminster, who do they think Brussels would put first when passing directives and regulations, or which economies will the European Central Bank in Frankfurt consider paramount when setting interest rates (assuming an independent Scotland joined the eurozone countries)?

Of course, it's wrong to pick on the SNP in this regard. For example, Labour's Westminster/Holyrood conflict with a supposedly United Kingdom - and often contrived and superficial attempts to reconcile the two - have been considered here several times lately.

And the Byzantine nature of the Scottish Labour Party in the west of Scotland in particular was well documented during the Purcell affair.

But perhaps as we meander through life - and thus become more aware of the complexities and conflict inherent in the numerous competing interests in both public and private life, then mantras like 'standing up for Scotland' become increasingly meaningless and, in view of the realities of life, almost delusional and a deception.

Turning a blind eye on police discretion

An interesting article in today's Herald about police officers losing their ability to exercise discretion, accompanied by the headline 'Police must be freed from time-consuming red tape', thus clearly a shortcoming that in general has been a concern for some time now.

However, this particular piece mentions an operating standard which, for example, compels officers to record and investigate any complaint, which could well be a spurious claim for insurance purposes or to secure a crisis loan from the benefits agency. Another specific gripe is that performance targets decreed by senior officers - for example, more detections for public urination, which may be driven by their bonuses - may not allow beat officers enough discretion on whether to book someone found breaching the letter of the law. A rank and file representative says:

A police officer has to behave in different ways when he comes across, say, teenagers peeing in the street because they think they can or when he discovers an elderly gentleman with a bad prostate caught short.

The article encapsulates the problem thus:

Scotland’s most senior operational officer has warned that rank-and-file constables have effectively lost the ability to use their professional judgement. [...] "We need to empower our officers, to train and equip them to make decisions on their own discretion. We need to trust them."

But the idea that police are as hidebound by rules and procedures as portrayed by the article is frankly ludicrous. For example, officers will turn a blind eye to numerous motoring offences in the course of their work, even assuming they do anything about them at all, for example administering an informal slapped wrist. Perhaps the problem with the article is that it fails to emphasise one or two important points, most obviously that the standard compelling officers to record and investigate all complaints relates to those made by members of the public rather than offences observed by officers themselves.

Indeed, the article is nicely juxtaposed with a letter in today's Herald complaining about the behaviour of drunken football fans on a train:

They were obviously drunk and yet once on the train were allowed to drink even more liquor. I did ask a railway official to at least ask them to mind their language, but this according to him was just the usual for a Saturday night.

Of course, the comments from officialdom doesn't involve policing per se - and clearly it's all ultimately the fault of the supermarkets - but the general ethos is surely neatly demonstrated by the railway official, whilst as regards policing specifically the powers that be are more concerned with crude electioneering centring around officer numbers, not to mention soundbites about 'frontline' and 'community' policing etc.

Indeed, last night I witnessed a group of drunks shouting and bawling in the early hours, yet the chances of either me complaining about it or the police taking any action were remote. And this ruckus was taking place outside my local police station, which is indeed probably part of the attraction for the drunks!

Sky News presenter paralysis

It can be slightly excruciating for the viewer even just watching television presenters becoming helpless with a fit of the giggles, but when this happens to three different people at the same time, and when a particularly sensitive subject is being discussed, then it's perhaps not something to be enjoyed, but it's car crash television nonetheless - you just can't help watching it.

Thus on last night's Sky News paper review the Mirror's Kevin Maguire introduced a piece from the Express about a possible advance in medicine by saying that the science was coming on in "leaps and bounds". Unfortunately the article is about stem cell research and how it might help paralysed people walk again. Whether his unfortunate pun was deliberate or not, Maguire immediately noted that it wasn't the best choice of words, and his co-reviewer also remarked upon it, but by this time both the journalists and the presenter had dissolved into fits of giggles and seemed unable to compose themselves.

Thankfully the Daily Mail's Andrew Pierce eventually managed to get things back on an even keel, but no doubt there will be a few complaints about this. Now, where's that YouTube video? I can't find it.

Arc of contrivance?

There seemed to be a flurry of stuff from Nationalists in the press following Iain Gray's recent question about the 'arc of prosperity' at FMQs. I sent the following to Scotland on Sunday in response to an article by Duncan Hamilton and this is published as a letter today, minus the paragraph with the reference to 'mighty Belgium', although the draft sent to the newspaper didn't refer to Alex Orr by name.

The second part below was sent to the Sunday Post in response to an article by Lesley Riddoch, although on past form it probably hasn't been published.

............

I cannot disagree with the basic premise of Duncan Hamilton's article ('Independence is not the problem for wounded Celtic Tiger', Opinion, 3 October), namely that size doesn't matter as regards a nation's prospects of economic success. On the other hand, it's surely not particularly instructive to use the wealth of exceptionally small - and thus unrepresentative - states such as Qatar and Luxembourg to draw any inferences about the relative benefits of size.

To match the USA's population requires aggregating the other 20 states in the IMF's list of wealthiest nations in terms of GDP per capita, with Qatar at the top, and the UK and Germany at the bottom.

However, the USA's GDP per capita exceeds this notional aggregate state of the world's 20 other wealthiest countries by a significant margin, arguably suggesting that one large state is a better income generator.

Mr Hamilton also denigrates Scottish Labour and the UK media for schadenfreude and a "superior tone" over Ireland's economic woes, and for using this to argue against an independent Scotland. However, there is copious evidence of similar Nationalist gloating over the parlous state of the UK's economy, and of this being used to argue against the Union. And, lest we forget, Scotland is a constituent part of that entity, and the Scottish people show no particular inclination to leave it.

Mr Hamilton himself refers to "mighty Belgium", which is presumably not intended as a compliment. This seems an odd remark in the context of his article, particularly when the same phrase has since been used by Alex Orr, an SNP list candidate in next year's Holyrood elections. What have the Belgians done to attract this "superior tone" from the Nationalists?

Also, Mr Hamilton champions the "wider support" available to Ireland in relation to its eurozone membership, but in the UK context such collective assistance is generally pooh-poohed by the Nationalists, for example as regards the bail-out of the Scottish banks during the financial crisis.

............

For someone generally beating the independence drum, Lesley Riddoch's criticisms of Alex Salmond and the SNP are refreshingly frank.

However, her replacement of the 'arc of prosperity' characterisation of our small independent neighbours with an 'arc of resilience' seems more than a bit contrived. Considering the size and variety of nations and other political and geographical entities that have survived adversity in its various forms - such as war and natural disaster - Iceland, Ireland and Norway hardly seem unique in this regard.

Indeed, Ms Riddoch praises the prudent approach of Norway to the exploitation of its oil riches while at the same time lauding Alex Salmond as a "wide boy" who "enjoys taking risks", perhaps underlining that she's clutching at straws in trying to defect attention from the tarnished arc of prosperity soundbite.

'Living wage' v 'modest sum'

There's obviously been a lot of talk recently about the issue of income and wealth distribution in the UK, and it's often quite bemusing to compare the attitudes of people at various positions on the social/economic ladder. One particular comment caught the eye recently. This came from blogger...er...the Daily Telegraph's chief political commentator (who happens to write occasionally in a blog format which is only distinguishable from the paper's mainstream online content by its text size) Peter Oborne. He says, of Messrs Cameron and Osborne, and in the context of the Tories' political difficulties in administering the public spending cuts and welfare reform:

But Cameron and Osborne both come from a social milieu which has no comprehension of what it is like to live on such a relatively modest sum. Osborne, in particular, has a history of hanging out with the super-rich, a category that was much in evidence at the Birmingham party conference. The Daily Telegraph revealed this week that at one select dinner for party donors the company consumed bottles of Chateau Petrus – the most expensive wine in the world – at an estimated £1,000 a bottle, or just over £150 a glass.

I suspect the vast majority of the population could identify with Oborne's comments, but what precisely is this modest sum that he refers to? Earlier he had said:

The truth is that anyone trying to pay a mortgage and raise children on £40,000 a year is going to find life tough – which is why the loss of child benefit is so desperately painful and difficult for those on middle incomes.

Oh for pity's sake. Of course, Oborne may be referring to a joint income - although that's certainly not self-evident - and he does qualify the term modest as relatively so - but to use the word to describe an income of £40,000 per year is a bit much.

Oborne uses the clever headline "It's a bit rich for Osborne and Co to call £40,000 a year affluence", but in turn it's surely slightly rich of Oborne to call such a sum modest.

Iain Gray's proposed 'living wage' also has a four in it, but for a forty-hour week that equates to about fourteen grand per annum - a long way from Oborne's 'modest' forty grand. I wonder if the latter has "any comprehension of what it is like to live on" a relatively measly sum like the living wage, not to mention the current national minimum wage of less than six pounds per hour.

Red rubber band relativism

It's perhaps possible to work out how easy/difficult a person's life is by dint of the things they complain about, and one possibly instructive issue in this regard is the mini-hysteria evident in recent years about those red rubber bands that the posties festoon the streets with - ironically, the red colouring was supposed to make the bands more visible and thus easier for the posties to dispose of more appropriately.

Anyway, I couldn't help thinking along similar lines when reading an Evening Telegraph news article recently, which was prominently headlined: "Authority's pledge over anti-social neighbours." The story related a young Forfar family's "misery" and "nightmare" experience in an Angus council flat, and said they would rather "sleep on the street" than endure things much longer. The Tele related a catalogue of anti-social behaviour such as "bags of rubbish regularly left out on the landing", and...er...that was more or less it!

In fact the Courier's version of the article seems to portray things in a slightly dimmer light, and indeed the couple's young boy "cut himself on broken glass last year but thankfully wasn't hurt" (sic), but Angus Council's pledge to "take a tough line on anti-social tenants" should be contrasted with my neighbourhood, where it's an achievement for some members of the 'community' to put their rubbish in a bag at all, but this nevertheless hardly seems worth complaining about.

Which leads on nicely to another recent article in the local press, this time about a meeting of a "community forum" which covers the area in which the Planet Politics nerve centre is located. Forum members are complaining about a gang of youths who regularly hang around in the area until the early hours, drinking "chemical cider"(?) and scaring the residents.

Thus nothing new to report there then but, interestingly, the meeting was held without any police officers or local councillors present, which the forum's chairwoman explained was because sometimes "people don't want to tell you something when there are officials there".

To which a local councillor harrumphed: "I have a great deal of respect for the forum but this idea that people are intimidated by their councillors I find hard to believe because an awful lot of people come to speak to me." He also "praised the efforts made by the police, community safety wardens and the council's youth team"...."diversionary youth activities are good and are going on in the area"...blah, blah.

However, the reason I avoid such forums, police and councillors is not because I feel intimidated by them (well, a wee bit!) but because my perception is that police ignore so-called low-level crime as per the recent Chief Inspector of Constabulary's report pertaining to England and Wales, but community representatives and councillors are in denial about this. In my opinion that's the reality of the situation, and increasing police numbers and proffering rhetoric about 'community policing' and the like won't fundamentally change things below the level of marketing blurb (aka political spin).

Meanwhile, another recent Courier story from sleepy rural Perthshire tells of a father who was fined £600 after a minor assault on a youth. This followed 40 complaints to police and the council over several months, and in March, "the huge front window of his terraced Victorian property in Queen Street was smashed by the pair, who allegedly "patrol the street" most nights threatening to "batter" him."

So it's nice to see that all these extra police officers have managed to get things under control and are targeting the right people.

But perhaps there's a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. The chairwoman of the aforementioned community forum in Dundee says merely that the police are "working fairly hard", which almost sounds like criticism. Or it does so in the context of the normal politician blurb, for example the utterly predictable "police do a tremendous job" from a Dundee councillor in yet another recent crime story. That's more like it!

Ed 'gets' devolution. Almost.

The formidable Lallands Peat Worrier has seen fit to favourably mention both my previous posts questioning how the Unionist parties rationalise different policies north and south of the border, thus that's as good a reason as any for a third instalment! This one concerns the issue of sentencing policy and knife crime - which indeed LPW addresses in his own post - and the conflict between Westminster Labour's stance against short sentences with Holyrood Labour's policy of mandatory sentences for possession of a knife. Questioned on STV's Politics Now regarding the fact that Westminster Labour's stance on the issue seemed more in line with the SNP's policy for Scotland, Ed Miliband said:

This is the thing about devolution; this is what we have to understand. Iain [Gray] has rightly identified what an issue knife crime is in Scotland and has come up with his own policy for Scotland around knife crime - a policy I support. The rest of the UK has different needs; a different situation. And I think that is what devolution is all about, it's recognising that difference, and recognising there can be different solutions in different parts of the country.

Iain Gray was also asked about the conflict in a subsequent interview, and said:

We have a particular issue in Scotland around knife crime, we have a policy which we've enunciated... Ed gets that, that's one of the things about Scotland that he gets, and I really think the media should recognise that devolution means we will pursue different policies in some areas.

Thus - and ignoring the rhetoric - the rationale is essentially that knife crime is more of a problem north of the border, therefore justifying the tougher line proposed by Scottish Labour.

But without getting bogged down in statistics - which I don't doubt support Labour's general case - it doesn't seem that long since murders by stabbing were almost constantly headlining in the UK media, and this fairly recent Observer article seems to underline that the matter is still regarded as a major problem south of the border, with David Cameron describing it as a "priority". And indeed Labour's manifesto for the general election earlier this year seems to chime more with Iain Gray's rhetoric than Ed Miliband's: "We have strengthened the law on knife crime with jail more likely, sentences longer, and more police searches and scanners – and knife crime has fallen."

Thus even if knife crime is a particular problem in Scotland, does the more general profile of the issue in the UK-wide context justify fundamentally different approaches to punishment?

That appears unlikely. Indeed, it seems a strange justice system where the stringency of the punishment meted out depends on the prevalence of crime in the area - hardly the punishment fitting the crime. Thus should a murder in Glasgow attract a fundamentally more stringent sentence as compared to a similar crime in Angus, because murder is more prevalent in the former than the latter?

Indeed, since the knife crime problem is considered particularly bad in Glasgow, why should Labour's mandatory sentences extend to parts of Scotland where the the problem is less in evidence?

Moreover, if Labour's dual-approach did have substantive merit then presumably mandatory sentences would be better targeted at London (say) than rural Scotland?

Thus different policies north and south of the border may help justify devolution in a rhetorical, abstract sense. But for a UK-wide party there seems little as regards substance to rationalise different knife crime policies, any more than those regarding the likes of wages, speed limits and alcohol control.

Foot in mouth disease - it's catching!

There's a certain irony about Robert White's Herald letter (4 October), in which he accuses Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray of "hilariously contrived distortions" and excoriates a "Labour-led UK government negligence that allowed Scotland’s banks to self-destruct and, as a vassal state [sic], Scotland could only stand by and watch in horror, legally powerless to avoid it".

However, amid Mr White's rather colourful language, the following rings a particular bell: "An independent Scotland could have avoided the mess by following a path of its own more traditional financial probity and rectitude,"

Which echoes the words of no less than Alex Salmond, who on the eve of May 2007's Holyrood elections - thus not much more than a year before the near collapse of Scotland's major banks - said: “We are pledging a light-touch regulation suitable to a Scottish financial sector with its outstanding reputation for probity, as opposed to one like that in the UK, which absorbs huge amounts of management time in ‘gold-plated’ regulation.”

I'm inclined to agree with Mr White's assessement regarding Iain Gray having one or even both feet in his mouth, and about reappraising his intelligence, but clearly none of us is perfect.

(Published as a letter in today's Herald, minus the final paragraph.)

Dundee's dangerous precedent for democracy

It seems likely that most of the debate on the matter is born of partisan politics, and one recent letter in the Courier makes it sound like the decision of the opposition groups on Dundee City Council not to take part in the proposed secret meetings on the budget is detrimental to democracy and accountability. However, it's arguable that the suggested procedure usurps these ideals rather than enhances them.

As I understand it the various parties would have decided the budget behind closed doors and thus the formal council meetings would have been a mere formality to rubber-stamp it. Therefore the public would be presented with a fait accompli, and would be unaware who wanted what or the various arguments adduced, thus to that extent rendering future elections pointless.

And the arguments cited in favour of a clandestine process could be applied to any council debate or decision - particularly those of a more sensitive nature - so why the secrecy now, even if it's all likely to be even more fraught than usual in view of the scale of the necessary cuts.

The Courier's correspondent refers to petty party politics in his criticism. However, I suspect the SNP administration's desire for secret meetings is born of the fact that there's likely to be little upside for them in having the dirty linen of the cuts washed in public. On the other hand, the opposition councillors will view the budget blood on the carpet as an opportunity to make political capital.

That's the dirty world of politics, unfortunately, and it's an ill wind and so forth. But stitch-ups conducted wholly in private would set a dangerous precedent for openness and democracy.

(This subject was discussed in a previous post. A version of the above was sent to the Courier as a letter, but was not published.)

MacBlogosphere - Summertime blues or winter of life?

Below is an extended version of July's 'MacBlogosphere in decline' post, which appears as an article in the recently published 2010/11 edition of the Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging in the UK. In addition to the well-established league tables for the various categories and related 'State of the [...] blogosphere' pieces, this year's guide also contains numerous articles on blogging and its impact, and there are also several essays on the Twitter phenomenon.

I suppose it's all a bit anoraky and introverted, but for keen bloggers and Twitterers/Tweeters(?) it's a must read and handy reference guide. It can be purchased from the Total Politics website and Amazon, and no doubt via other sources.

The estimable Malc - previously of 'in the Burgh' fame, and now blogging on the collaborative Better Nation - does this year's State of the Scottish Blogosphere piece, and it's interesting to contrast his more upbeat assessment with my own below. Indeed, despite having only read a handful of the articles in the book my own piece could well be the most pessimistic of the lot, so no change there then!

Please note that the following was written on the assumption that the readership would have limited MacBlogosphere knowledge. The earlier version was pitched towards existing MacBlogosphere authors and readers.


MacBlogosphere - Summertime blues or winter of life?

Is the Scottish political blogosphere past its sell-by date? As someone relatively new to the 'MacBlogosphere' I'm probably not the person best qualified to provide the definitive answer, but my short(ish)-term perspective on the issue is that there are indications of a long-term malaise, and some evidence points towards a permanent decline in the medium.

Of course, the blogosphere is ephemeral in nature and neither this nor its slightly anarchic nature lends itself to statistical or scientific analysis, but at a more intuitive level recent months have certainly seen a downturn in MacBlogosphere activity, while the longer-term trend seems to indicate the gradual retreat or retiral of the big hitters, with little indication of these being replaced by new talent likely to set the heather alight.

The short-term torpor is perhaps easily explainable. Of course, there was always going to a degree of blogging fatigue in the wake of the general election earlier this year and, in particular, many bloggers will have felt thwarted by their own personal disappointment at the result. Then there's the nice summer weather, the holidays and distractions like the World Cup, not to mention factors personal to particular bloggers and affecting their enthusiasm or ability to pound the keyboard. On the other hand, the Scottish Parliament elections will take place in May next year, and the unprecedented UK political scenario since May's Westminster elections has provided ample material for bloggers to get their teeth into.

But in a wider context perhaps the general election will prove to have been a turning point for the blogosphere, for this was to be the poll that would be won and lost on the internet, but of course that was the political dog whose bark transpired to be more of a whimper.

Thus there was no Obama-style internet-based groundswell, and last year's mini-hysteria over the Daniel Hannan video viral perhaps demonstrated the rather inward-looking perspective of the blogosphere and Web 2.0 generally, at least insofar as that the vast majority of those who decide elections - the public generally and floating voters in particular - still haven't heard of the Tory MEP.

Hence the election was won and lost not in the blogsphere, on Facebook or via Twitter, but by way of good old traditional door-knocking, leafleting, the MSM generally and, of course, the new leaders' debate format on the old television medium. But voters generally still don't 'get' the internet as far as politics is concerned, and this seems unlikely to change fundamentally, in the medium-term at least.

So perhaps the realisation now is that the blogosphere's ability to change the world is limited. As a non-partisan I recall a discussion last year when I was pointing out how difficult it is for independent candidates to get their message across during election campaigns in view of limited resources for canvassing and leafleting, not to mention the difficulty of attracting the attention of the MSM. My view on this was pooh-poohed on the basis that future elections would be won and lost online, and to that extend the internet would act as a leveller. Of course, I would have liked to have been proved wrong on that point, but unfortunately this was not to be. In fact on the eve of the election top Scottish blogger Jeff Breslin - of SNP Tactical Voting fame - wrote a particularly perceptive and indeed modest piece on the likely impact of the blogosphere, in which he said: "Let’s face it, blogging is enjoyable but irrelevant, self-indulgent but inconsequential."

That perspective is probably even more sceptical than my own, but in the Scottish context perhaps the biggest impact the internet had on the general election was when Labour candidate Stuart MacLennan was sacked over a series of injudicious Tweets which abused both political opponents and members of the wider public.

Thus the lack of electoral impact last May - and indeed the fact that the internet often appears more of a political liability than an asset - seems unlikely to endear the medium to prospective bloggers.

Moreover, these more recent events probably merely serve to cement the impression that the blogosphere's impact seems likely to remain limited, and also that there's a potential downside that can bite bloggers on the bum.

Of course, few people who start writing a blog are likely to see their aspirations fulfilled - we all want to have the impact of Iain Dale or Guido Fawkes but, of course, only a very small number will go on to enjoy a high profile. However, in the early days at least, success seemed attainable - getting published in the MSM was a pipe dream, but anyone can blog, and the entire world population and their dogs are sure to come flocking to mine!

Er, no, and like the prospect of winning the National Lottery, initial enthusiasm has given way to more realistic expectations. Thus many established bloggers eventually give up or wither on the vine, while prospective new blood can adopt a more rational perspective and is often consequently deterred. And to a large extent even the Guidos and Dales require an element of MSM crossover to exert any kind of influence on the real world - ie that outside the blogosphere bubble - thus in many ways it's back to square one.

Moreover, the MSM has tried to neutralise the threat by jumping onto the blogosphere bandwagon, and to a large extent this crossover strategy has been successful. Indeed, in the purely Scottish context the Scotsman newspaper group's political blog - The Steamie - co-opted several of the country's top bloggers to join its MSM journalists as guests, but this experiment largely fizzled out, as has the blog more generally, perhaps on the realisation that the MacBlogosphere threat was overstated. Also, Scotland's only plausible equivalent to Iain Dale - the aforementioned Jeff Breslin - has not enjoyed a particularly happy relationship with the MSM on the occasions that he has featured there.

Which leads nicely on to the distinctly more negative aspects of blogging, and the MacBlogosphere suffered a mini-crisis towards the end of 2009 which proved terminal for some bloggers, and probably also detracted from the long-term attractiveness of the medium.

An uncompromising Nationalist blogger called Wardog attracted the attention of a MSM journalist. The semi-anonymous Wardog thought this was a hoax and confronted his interlocutor in the starkest terms, and consequently ended up the subject of a Sunday tabloid newspaper article which included lines like: "...spewing the whole lot out in a vicious PUKE of hatred." As a consequence the real-life Wardog terminated his employment as a part-time lecturer, and the episode may also have impacted on his own architectural practice.

Smelling blood, the tabloid journalist managed to uncover the identity of another controversial Nationalist blogger, who wrote The Universality of Cheese under a pseudonym. It transpired that Mark MacLachlan worked for Scottish Government cabinet minister Mike Russell. MacLachlan's employment was terminated, and Russell denied his claims that he had knowledge of the blog and threatened to sue. An unfair dismissal claim ensued, and police involvement resulted in a breach of the peace charge.

Cue a mini-panic among elements of the MacBlogosphere, with several either shutting up shop permanently or withdrawing until the dust settled. Indeed, one anonymous blogger who I had been on friendly terms with claimed to have reported me to the police after I advised that their identity could be ascertained from publicly available information, but needless to say I never heard a peep from the local constabulary, never mind being carried away in handcuffs!

But the upshot of these unfortunate interactions with the MSM is that blogging as a medium is likely to be considered less appealing. In short, when the MacBlogosphere comes to the attention of the public generally it's likely to be via the MSM and for purely negative reasons. In fact the MacLachlan incident was the main topic at one session of First Minister's Questions in the Scottish Parliament.

Of course, that's not to denigrate the usefulness of the blogosphere as a tool for political discourse but, like politics generally, a degree of realism has perhaps superseded the heady earlier days of democratic idealism afflicting (if that's the right word) bloggers.

Thus hopefully the forgoing has helped rationalise a thesis of decline, but what of the empirical evidence? Again, this isn't particularly scientific, but of the Top 50 blogs in the Scottish section of last year's Total Politics poll, a clear majority have either given up completely or curtailed their activities to such an extent that their site barely qualifies as a 'weblog'.

Of course, the nature of the beast means that bloggers come and go, and this might be considered a sign of a vibrant and healthy environment and perhaps be viewed in terms of "creative destruction", to use an analogy from market economics. However, the problem in the MacBlogosphere context seems to be that there is little sign of any nascent big hitters likely to replace the retiring or declining big beasts. And that's not to say that there aren't still good blogs starting up, but this analysis is about profile and impact rather than quality per se, and likewise there's little evidence to suggest that sufficient people care enough to provide any newcomer with a groundbreaking impetus in terms of support.

In this year's inaugural Scotblog awards the top newcomer spot went to Lallands Peat Worrier, and indeed his is a blog of some distinction. But probably too intellectual in stance and idiosyncratic in style - as the name might suggest - to be the next STV Tactical Voting, never mind a MacDale. Another top newcomer was the aforementioned The Universality of Cheese, which was resurrected once the media storm had subsided, but it too seems to have fizzled out somewhat, perhaps losing its edgy appeal along with the anonymity.

Of course, there are still new blogs appearing and there are vibrant sections of the MacBlogosphere slightly away from the mainstream which may buck the overall trend - the edgier Nationalist authors and the libertarian blogs, for example - and clearly there are other social media which compliment but may have detracted from blogging per se. Meanwhile, some prominent Scottish bloggers power on - most notably Tom Harris, but his focus is on Westminster, while the MacBlogosphere generally gravitates towards Holyrood - and many professionals have managed to successfully compliment their mainstream work with blogs, but it's probably the numerically dominant grassroots section that's perhaps exhibiting something of a crisis of confidence.

Of course, some have already dismissed my basic thesis as over pessimistic and point out that blogs will continue to come and go and the medium will evolve anyway, and that this is all to the good.

But perhaps the Scottish political blogosphere is like a Blair, Obama or Salmond - it all looks fantastic in theory, but the reality is slightly different. They don't change the world as hoped, disillusionment sets in, the whole thing fizzles out and is largely replaced by something else.