Scotland needed UK to bail out banks, concedes Salmond

Further to the concession by leading pro-Nationalist economist Andrew Hughes Hallet that an independent Scotland would have needed outside help to rescue RBS and HBOS - spun as a "shared responsibility" and distorted by some as a pro-independence argument - SNP leader Alex Salmond recently confirmed this point in an interview with the BBC News Channel's Hard Talk programme.

Questioned on the perennial doubts over whether Scotland alone could have mustered the financial muscle to launch a bail-out, Mr Salmond said that the responsibility lay with the relevant monetary authorities, which post Scottish independence would either be the Bank of England or the European Central Bank, depending on which day of the week...er...whether Scotland had retained sterling or joined the euro party. Dubiously dismissing the point about the requisite capital injections, Mr Salmond continued regarding:

...financial support for the banking sector which depends on the currency area you're in, and as you well know we're not proposing to have a separate Scottish currency, Scotland will either be part of the sterling area or part of the euro area, responsibility for general financial support, currency support, liquidity support comes with the central bank whose monetary area you're in.

Pressed by Stephen Sackur on the fact this this meant Scotland could still be reliant on the "British banking system, English banking system", Mr Salmond said:

The argument we have is not to have an independent Scottish currency, but to have economic independence [sic!], to have control of our fiscal policy, and there the evidence...is not just strong it is beyond argument [sic] that that discretion over fiscal policy will lead to an increase in the Scottish rate of growth and that will increase revenues which will offset some of the otherwise enormous fiscal problem that we in common with the rest of the United Kingdom, otherwise will face.

Change the subject, who don't you! Of course, it's that simple, and beyond argument - give Scotland fiscal autonomy and we will power ahead of the UK in terms of economic growth. But the recent Tartan Tax hoo-hah and the SNP's ill-fated "Penny for Scotland" a decade ago demonstrates the reluctance of the major parties to raise income tax, thus it's all about borrowing powers and more debt.

Which leads on to another jaw-dropping moment in the interview, when Mr Sackur pointed out that an independent Scotland would have a deficit amounting to 12% of GDP. He then conceded that the UK would have a deficit a teensy-weensy bit more than 12%, thus providing Mr Salmond with his Eureka moment, as if a marginal difference in debt levels provided a compelling rationale for independence.

And his growth argument presupposes taking on more debt initially, thus rather defeating his point, and of course the possible exemplar of the delusion that debt-fuelled growth could continue in perpetuity - and indeed repay the borrowings - was a certain Mr Gordon Brown.

There was also the usual concentration on the fortunes of Norway, but little about the PIGS (is the plural PIGSS?), and blaming the UK for the spending splurge and consequent squeeze (a spending addict blaming his dealer?), but the other highlight was when Mr Salmond compared a virtuous Scottish finance minister to a profligate chancellor of the exchequer, saying:

When Alistair Darling was borrowing £170 billion, John Swinney wasn't borrowing anything at all, his contribution to that massive borrowing was zero. John Swinney produces a balanced budget.

Er, John Swinney doesn't have borrowing powers, so this is making a virtue of necessity. And the SNP do want borrowing powers, and clearly Mr Salmond considers that a substantial and ongoing sovereign debt for Scotland would be necessary to progress economic growth. It's also disingenuous to suggest that John Swinney's contribution to UK public borrowing is zero, since the latter has been necessary to maintain and indeed grow Scotland's public spending since devolution.

Thus a bit like a spendthrift child making a virtue out of the fact that they're debt-free, while their parents are taking on huge loans to pay for it all.

Of course, it's this parent/child and the pocket money analogy that nationalists fundamentally object to, but perhaps if Alex Salmond demonstrated a more adult approach then allowing the child to leave home would appear more palatable.

The feckless parents indulging their offspring was hardly an object lesson in responsible government either!

Labour attempt to sell pup in Dundee East?

Anyone reading this blog will be aware that the author tends to be, er, uninspired by some of the statements made by local councillors, many of which seem to have been littering the local press over the last few days in particular. Indeed, these were to be the subject of another blogpost, but they're coming in so thick and fast that I'll probably feel so overwhelmed by them that eventually they'll give way to something else. Like this post.

Anyway, one Dundee councillor who certainly isn't among those who feature regularly in the pages of the Tele and Courier is Mohammed Asif, who just happens to be one of my representatives in the Coldside ward. Of course, this blog tends to be a bit critical of the whole policing/law and order thingy, and one facet of this is the toadying nature of the councillor membership of the Tayside Police Joint Board, which Councillor Asif was previously part of.

But Mr Asif did get his name in the papers big-style a couple of years ago, and this was doubly ironic because it involved criticism of Tayside Police. However, this was the notorious black-puppy-on-a-postcard incident, which according to Mr Asif would offend local Muslims. But the Dundee press could find no evidence of this, theologians disputed his claim, and the Daily Mail went ballistic, blah, blah.

Onyhow, Mr Asif stood down from the police board shortly after the postcard incident due to, ahem, business and council commitments, and somehow I felt he would also stand down at the next council elections.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I picked up Friday's Courier and read that Labour had selected the good councillor to contest the Dundee East seat in next year's Holyrood elections!

Of course, there's more (hopefully!) to being a councillor than getting your name in the paper, but Mr Asif's low-profile (but see this intervention, which seemed to contradict his Muslim-offence stance) is certainly no way to bid for higher office. However, in 2007 the SNP's Shona Robison almost scraped a majority of the votes, while Labour's Iain Luke obtained less than one third, so perhaps the latter are regarding it as a lost cause already. Or maybe they're just trying to out-PC the SNP. Or perhaps Mr Asif has hidden talents, best considered beyond the confines of tomorrow's mealy-puddin' supper wrappers. Indeed, I perhaps recall recently reading something in the Courier about Mr Asif being rehabilitated in some way - perhaps appointed to some board or other - thus the rationale for this is now obvious, or transparent, even. And presumably those obstructive business and council interests have been overcome, or will we be seeing a Coldside by-election if Mr Asif gets to Holyrood?

Meanwhile, Lib Dem candidate Allan Petrie also faces an uphill struggle, with his party polling just 6.7% last time round. And Mr Petrie has enjoyed a highly eclectic political background, having been an SNP councillor, then standing as an independent, also campaiging under something called IVOTE (Independent Voice Of The Electorate) and according to these letters in the Tele he was part of Labour's campaign team for Holyrood 2007. Most bizarre of all was his leadership of a group of Dundee's taxi owners called something like the People's Party. And the culmination of this political odyssey is the Lib Dems, and I suppose supporters and detractors could spin this any way they choose, so no further comment on here.

(A slight declaration of interest is perhaps in order, since yours truly stood as an independent in Mr Asif's Coldside ward in 2007. And anyone guffawing at my 80 or so amassed (first preference) votes should be told that I was actually very pleased with that, particularly since I'd effectively given up before the campaign even got going and was also placed bottom of the ballot paper, although I doubt if I'll be standing as Stuart Aardvark next time round.)

Gloating double standards over schadenfreude

When critics attempt to portray the reality of Alex Salmond's 'arc of prosperity' soundbite, a common Nationalist response is to raise accusations of schadenfreude in relation to the fortunes of the arc country concerned. However, this has perhaps been slightly muted this week in view of the news concerning Ireland's debt crisis, although there are still jibes about 'vultures', the UK exploiting the situation by assisting in the bail-out etc, and one correspondent to the Scotsman even had the chutzpah to state that "the Irish economy is fundamentally in better shape than that of Britain", with the usual mention of Norway as a comparator, but that country's exceptionalism and the letter writer's somewhat optimistic perspective on Ireland are pointed out in responses published this morning.

On the other hand, many Nationalist blogs and websites almost seem to regard critiquing the UK as their raison d'être. And indeed there is a lot to be critical about, but it's surely grossly hypocritical to accuse others of gloating in relation to merely stating the facts about other nations - are we just expected to meekly accept the 'arc of prosperity' soundbite and leave it at that?

As per my post a few days ago, I had a letter published in Scotsman taking SNP Holyrood list candidate Alex Orr to task for this, and said: "...it's a bit rich of Mr Orr to denigrate others for "talking down" and "knocking" Scotland and other nations when he often does the same in relation to the UK, an economic entity which the Scottish people have generally been content to be part of."

In response Mr Orr said: "I am not denigrating the UK as Mr Winton claims..."

However, if the following sarcasm in relation to economic performance and various other quotes doesn't amount to "talking down" or "knocking" the UK (and Belgium, come to that, which is quite a small nation) then what precisely does?: "To be fair, the UK does eventually feature in 20th place, immediately after mighty Belgium."

Of course, as pointed out in last week's post, I sent a response to the Scotsman pointing this out and that Mr Orr had ignored my argument about the unrepresentative nature of some successful small nations - like the glorified oil well that is Qatar - but this wasn't published.

However, the reason for raising this again is that since then the Scotsman has published yet another letter from Mr Orr along the same lines as his previous correspondence; indeed this is his fourth such letter published by the newspaper in around six weeks, not to mention almost verbatim versions of the same missives in places like the Herald and Telegraph, and goodness knows where else.

However, it will be interesting to read EU and euro enthusiast Mr Orr's latest offering, bearing in mind that only last week he said: "...despite the impact of the recession, small nations such as Iceland, Ireland and Norway are still performing economically better than the UK."

Indeed, but however selective the statistics employed to demonstrate that, unfortunately this week's news rather puts things in perspective.

But since the Scotsman didn't publish my original response to Mr Orr I didn't bother responding to his letter from last week, but today the newspaper has published my letter on the 'tartan tax'/SVR imbroglio, but because this is essentially a rehash of Monday's post there seems little point in repeating it on here.

More legislative and law enforcement failure. And hypocrisy.

The recent political posturing in the Scottish Parliament over a proposal that would only have marginally checked the consumption of alcohol ably demonstrated the largely pointless nature of the liquor licensing legislation passed by the former Labour/Lib Dem Executive.

Last week's proposal by Kenny MacAskill for an accreditation scheme relating to taxi and private hire operations surely demonstrates the ineffectiveness of another recent piece of legislation - namely that for licensing radio despatch operations to complement long-standing driver and vehicle vetting regimes - since the justice secretary clearly thinks licensing alone does not provide sufficient assurance to the public that these businesses have no links to organised crime.

And the fact that the latest legislation was probably in gestation for as long as the Scottish Parliament has existed surely demonstrates the unsatisfactory nature of these and wider matters.

For example, in 2004 a newspaper report quoted SNP MSP Sandra White as being "shocked and amazed" at the lack of controls over stretch limousines, following allegations of money laundering. Of course, the vast majority of operators will not be involved in such criminality, but in any case these vehicles have variously taken advantage of an often dubious contract hire exemption in the current legislation, are subject to similarly murky regulations intended for buses, or are simply ignored by local authorities. This is another issue that politicians and officials have been procrastinating on for years, clearly considering inaction to be the best option.

This week Mr MacAskill said that the taxi and private hire sector was "particularly vulnerable to money laundering given the nature of its business transactions". Earlier this year Ms White said the grey market in taxi licence plates was a "very disturbing problem", and this was even ignoring subsequent allegations by a Glasgow private hire firm that these transactions are used for money laundering.

However, the SNP Government seems loath to even acknowledge the existence of the market in licence plates, thus lending a hypocritical edge to its latest initiative against organised crime.

(An unpublished letter sent to the Herald.)

Planted evidence?

Last year the Accounts Commission criticised the Tayside Police Joint Board for "weak" scrutiny of the force and accused councillor members of not understanding their role, naturally to a collective harrumph from the board.

I wasn't aware that there was any real attempt at scrutiny at all, but perhaps if a recent Courier report is anything to go by then it ably demonstrates what the commission was getting at. A councillor asked, "if there were statistics available to show links between crimes and drink and drug abuse and unemployment."

Well I suspect the dogs on the streets of Dundee know the answer to that one, but of course it gave the top brass at Tayside Police a chance to strut their stuff. But this looks like the kind of planted question that we hear from politicians from the governments' sides in PMQs and FMQs. If that's the best board members can come up with in terms of scrutiny, should they really be on the board - they should be able to construct some semblance of an answer to a question like that by themselves, surely?

On the other hand, the chief constable's answer does help set things up in the board's favour if crime rises due to the deteriorating economic situation - get the excuses in early - while if the crime figures stay on course then cue even more self-congratulation and backslapping than usual. It's a win-win for all concerned.

Meanwhile, a former Labour candidate in Dundee's troubled Stobswell (Maryfield ward) area writes to the Tele to say that the problems of crime, prostitution and ASB won't change because there are three SNP councillors in the area and thus no contrasting views.

What a load of nonsense. For as long as I've been following these matters there's been little evidence of any distinctive views from any of the parties in this regard. Instead it's just the usual something-must-be-done, we're-doing-all-we-can, we'll-never-give-up, sort of thing.

Indeed, a recent press letter on the issues from the SNP's latest councillor could have been written by any councillor of any party in the last decade or so - at least - and surely no one except the most blinkered partisan would notice any difference. In fact the same could be applied to just about any statement from any councillor in Dundee on such matters.

For example, guess the party of this councillor who made this statement to the press regarding the vandalism of a newly-built house intended for use by the disabled:

This is not just an isolated case, but an example of a problem that has been going on for some time. The same thing happened to the house next door recently. This kind of behaviour demonstrates a total disregard for people and property. It's the sort of thing that causes the community to lose heart — and our people deserve better than this. The police must also give the community its fullest possible support to help stamp this out.

Answer in the Courier's report. Actually, it isn't, but would it really matter if it was?

Blogging survey

No doubt most bloggers will have received an email from Weber Shandwick asking if they can complete a survey on their blogging experiences, the results of which will be used to produce a report on the 'state of the Scottish blogosphere'.

The survey can be accessed here, while a separate one for blog readers - which I assume bloggers aren't supposed to complete in addition to the authors' survey - can be found here. As is usual for surveys of this type, some of the questions don't lend themselves well to answers in the form provided, and thoughts turn to the purpose of the enquiry rather than the question per se. For example, one asks which blogs you visit most, which seems to allude to some kind of popularity contest. However, I may consider a twice-a-month blogger more worthy than a twice-a-dayer, but may well visit the latter more often based purely on the frequency of posting.

Also, many of the questions relate to statistical information on visitor numbers and suchlike, but since I don't bother with that kind of stuff - on the basis that on the handful of occassions I've looked I decided that it might be better not to know! - answering them wasn't possible.

Why keep schtum about the tartan tax?

So why the mystery over the tartan tax - more accurately known as the Scottish Variable Rate - which the SNP has allowed to slip into abeyance. And all the while keeping it quiet - in last week's Budget statement John Swinney said he wouldn't be using the powers available to raise the rate of income tax north of the border by up to 3%, but his stance on this was surely disingenuous. What he should have said was that the Scottish Government had effectively abandoned this option.

Precisely why remains something of a mystery, because, as Ian Bell says in the Herald: "You do not build a parliament, or advance towards independence, by ceding power, any power".

But, superficially at least, the reasoning is obvious. No major party wants to go into an election promising to raise income tax - of course, the Greens may want to, but they won't be forming the Scottish Government come May 2011, nor will any leverage they exert at that time extend to raising income tax - and the SNP had its fingers burnt with its "Penny for Scotland" policy nearly a decade ago, while Labour's Westminster election prospects suffered under John Smith's so-called "tax bombshell" and subsequent "double whammy" in 1992. Of course, the SVR is a totem of devolution but it is primarily just that - it's of symbolic value only, because the mainstream parties won't use it.

But, say the Nationalists, it's all London's fault. Spins Duncan Hamilton in Scotland on Sunday: "Scottish Secretary Michael Moore took it upon himself to brief the press that the SNP government had refused to hand over an additional £7 million to the UK Treasury to pay for a new IT platform designed to maintain the option of raising the Standard Variable Rate - pejoratively known as the ‘tartan tax'."

Ah, so that's the reason. But if so why not take the Treasury on over this rather than keep schtum? This almost seems heaven sent for the SNP. Indeed, a letter written by Alex Salmond and published yesterday comes out all guns blazing.

Of course, the answer is that the Nationalists didn't want to pick a fight on this because they didn't want to draw attention to the tax raising powers, because the opposition parties would have portrayed that as a sign that the SNP wanted to raise income tax. Thus it was electorally advantageous to keep the whole thing quiet.

And while Michael Moore's disclosure has forced Alex Salmond's hand on the issue, the latter's gung ho response merely underlines questions over why he hasn't done this previously, hence fear of alienating voters must be the answer.

Obviously jettisoning this measure of fiscal autonomy makes the SNP's clarion call for more financial powers seem rather hollow, and perhaps indicates that it's the ability to borrow that the party wants rather than the power to raise taxes. Thus perhaps a tartan version of the Brownite delusion that borrowing powers could be utilised to pay for all sorts of goodies in the hope that economic growth would raise sufficient tax to repay the debt, and without raising rates of taxation to do so. Or just like, er, Ireland.

Regeneration to trump party politics?

Politically, it looked like a bit of a no-brainer: RAF Leuchars is smack bang in the middle of Lib Dem-land - otherwise known as North East Fife - with Sir Menzies Campbell as MP, Iain Smith as MSP and a raft of councillors. RAF Lossiemouth is SNP country, with Angus Robertson, the party's Westminster defence spokesman, as MP. Thus following last month's defence review it was thought that Leuchars was safe, while Lossiemouth faced the axe. That would certainly be politically convenient for the coalition in Scotland.

But today's Scotsman suggests that Leuchars is being reconsidered for the axe in favour of Lossiemouth, because it's considered that the latter is more reliant on the RAF base and would thus be more difficult to regenerate following a pull-out. However, the fate of RAF Marham in Norfolk is also part of the equation, with pressure being exerted by the local Tory MPs.

Politically it would therefore be interesting if Leuchars was jettisoned in favour of Lossiemouth and/or Marham - the SNP and Tories would win out, while it would represent a major kick in the teeth for the NE Fife Lib Dems. On the other hand, given the dominance of the Lib Dems in both the NE Fife Parliamentary seats it's difficult to rationalise a real political downside for the party in terms of retaining power - the Tories were decisive runners up in both seats last time round - although David Maddox's report does mention a Labour threat due to boundary changes.

Of course, closing RAF Leuchars would represent a significant blow to the local economy. Leuchars is effectively a small village surrounded by the airbase and MoD housing. Neighbouring Guardbridge is still reeling from the blow of the closure of the paper mill there, which was a major employer in the area, but this would be chickenfeed compared to losing the RAF base. And although Leuchars' proximity to Dundee (St Andrews is closer but in the opposite direction) is cited as a reason that the area would recover better than Lossiemouth from an RAF withdrawal, Dundee and its politicians seem unlikely to be enamoured by the prospect of it closing either.

But whether the economic aspect would predominate - or Tory prospects in Norfolk are considered more important than the Lib Dems' in Fife - the closure of Leuchars would certainly do nothing for the long-term prospects of a stable Westminster coalition.

Making a virtue of renewables necessity

The SNP Government's renewables targets have come in for some criticism recently, and this has helped highlight the contradiction between the perennial Nationalist mantras relating to "Scotland's oil" and the more recent emphasis on renewables. For example, at a recent session of FMQs Alex Salmond had the chutzpah - or didn't notice - to in consecutive sentences speak of collaboration with Norway regarding renewables and then laud that country's oil fund: "I recently visited Norway and made a number of announcements about renewable energy and collaboration in Scotland. One thing that particularly impressed me as I visited Norway was the £200 billion oil fund that that country has accumulated by having access to its own natural resources."

A letter in the Herald earlier this week underlines this slightly hypocritical approach. The writer slams the industrialised world for sacrificing "the futures of our descendents [rather] than disrupt the profligate lifestyles enjoyed by the current generation, which has been getting rich by wilfully depleting the natural life-supporting externalities gifted by the planet such as clean water, hydrocarbons, minerals, forests, rivers, marine diversity and arable land, while delinquently choosing not to maintain sustainable flows."

All very eloquent and environmentally righteous, but he then says he hopes the Scottish Government "continues to give the world a lead in the drive towards sustainability".

Quite apart from the various arguments against this strategy, there's a very strong element of making a virtue of necessity here: there's no indication that the SNP would give up oil in favour of renewables, thus the wells will be pumped dry until the oil has either run out, or extraction becomes uneconomic having regard to prices on world crude markets.

Of course, there is certainly an element of principle - if not practicality - in the Nationalists' stance against nuclear power, but they - and the Herald's correspondent - are being just a tad too environmentally self-righteous, and their stance is not, um, sustainable.

(The above was to form the basis of a letter to the Herald, but I sent something else instead!)

MacBlogfather demonstrates futility of blogging

I didn't really consider attending the Political Innovations event in Edinburgh last Saturday; I work weekends, the event was 60 miles away and if I'd contributed anything to the discussion it would have been merely to underline that blogging is largely futile, thus to that extent the time and effort required to attend would have represented something of a paradox. Anyway, Peter Curran has some excellent posts on Saturday's proceedings, including a video of what appears to be the main blogging seminar. And James Mackenzie's contribution to the discussion therein is probably the most insightful and realistic of the views proffered.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things this blog is of marginal relevance only, thus no doubt anyone reading this will be thinking along the lines: "Well he would say that, wouldn't he?" Which would represent very fair comment indeed, but I think there's more to it than my marginal status as a political blogger, as I've sought to demonstrate in a couple of previous posts.

Indeed, one of those posts was published as an article in the 2010/11 edition of the Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging in the UK, and thus easily represents the pinnacle of my blogging career. Why? Because it was published in a book. But it was about blogging. All very flattering, therefore, but this blog's raison d'être wasn't really critiquing blogging. Oh, and a journalist from the regional press once contacted me about a post I did, but that was the end of the matter. Of course, bloggers get excited at MSM interest, which should perhaps tell us something. And my journalistic enquiry was about...yes, you've guessed, a spat with another blogger.

My other earlier post was about Iain Dale's view that the MSM's interest in bloggers - as political pundits, for example - demonstrated the success of the medium. I contrasted this with the relative lack of blogger/MSM interaction in Scotland, and also asked whether many of the more successful 'bloggers' were in fact better characterised as MSM journalist and politicians who just happened to have an online presence using a particular software platform - grassroots bloggers tend to define themselves apart from and in opposition to the MSM (while paradoxically celebrating when the MSM comes calling), thus isn't the like of Norman Tebbit an MSM journalist cum politician rather than a blogger per se? Surely a 'blogger' shouldn't be defined merely in relation to a software platform if the term and the wider concept of the 'blogosphere' is to have any real meaning other than as a mere part of a continuum with a grassroots blogger/citizen journalist-type environment at one end, and the MSM at the other.

In the Scottish context Joan Macalpine's upbeat assessment of the Political Innovations event - and the MacBlogosphere in general - perhaps illustrates the point. She says: "I already get invited onto the radio occasionally as a result of Go Lassie Go." Are you sure, Joan? Nothing to do with the fact that you were a Sunday Times Scotland columnist for a number of years, and now write for the Scotsman? If Joan had decided on a career outside journalism or politics and was now a grassroots blogger like most of us, would she have been invited onto the radio? And, of course, she again posits an MSM appearance as a measure of blogging success. But other than that her rather gung ho analysis of the MacBlogosphere's impact could perhaps be objectively characterised as self-regarding and self-justifying.

But the more futile nature of blogging is perhaps demonstrated by Tom Harris's decision to quit the medium. Probably Scotland's best-known blogger - and thus worthy of the title MacBlogfather - he seems to rationalise his move on the basis that blogging is detrimental to his political career and personal life. Thus to that extent blogging is essentially a glorified hobby which gets in the way of more important things, and this is despite Tom's relative success as a blogger.

Similarly, as mentioned above the Blogfather himself also uses MSM appearances as a yardstick of blogging success. And, more to the point, Iain seems to be neglecting his blog in favour of his radio show, book and magazine publishing business and television appearances (not to mention his former Telegraph column). Thus to reitearate, there seems to be a pattern developing here; blogging is a mere-stepping stone or adjunct to olde worlde TV, radio, newspapers and books, or as an elected politician in Tom's case or in Iain's aspiration. Witness also the hoo-hah on the rare occasions when the blogosphere breaks a story before the MSM, which of course is vindicated when the story becomes headline news in the..er...MSM.

Of course, that's not the denigrate the fantastic tool that the blogosphere - and Web 2.0 generally - is as a tool for political discourse, and if bloggers are realistic about the medium's limitations and still enjoy what they're doing then all well and good. But to an extent it mirrors the Westminster/Holyrood/political bubble - people talking among themselves while the real world carries on regardless. And even the biggest of the blogging beasts are demonstrating that when the blog and the wider world compete, the latter wins hands down.

Roll of shame

Back to last week's student riot in London, which neatly reminds me of one reason why I moved away from (aggressive) progressive politics. The most twisted interpretation of events probably comes via a letter in yesterday's Scotsman from Dr Carlo Morelli, a University of Dundee academic:

During the demonstration, over 5,000 students showed their determination to defend the future of education by occupying the Tory party HQ and its courtyards for several hours. The mood was good-spirited, with chants, singing and flares.

And that's the extent of his comment on what happened at Millbank. Except to praise the "magnificent show of strength". His letter was signed by 15 other academics, but this roll of shame is unfortunately not listed on the newspaper's website.

Which planet do these people inhabit? Of course, it's the ivory towers of academia, not a job of work or housing estate blighted by violence, intimidation and criminal damage. Perhaps if they worked or lived in the latter they might view last week's events differently, and they probably wouldn't be quite so cocky. Indeed, most of these cowardly people who attempt mob rule probably wouldn't say boo to a goose if they were on their own.

Runner up to Morelli is New Statesman columnist Laurie Penny (comprehensively demolished by Tom Harris in his swansong (eh?)), who compares the student rioters to the suffragettes (sic) and says:

Feeling that they no longer have a voice or a stake in the political process, that their votes are worthless if the parties who they supported instantly break their manifesto pledges, they took to the streets in their thousands and launched a furious attack on Tory HQ, smashing windows and dropping banners from the roof. Property damage, it seems, is still the last resort of citizens whose leaders prioritise the interests of private property above the interests of the people.

Take this puerility to its logical conclusion and if the democratic process doesn't provide us with what we want then we throw our toys out of the pram (or fire extinguisher off the roof) and go around destroying things. Except, presumably, Ms Penny's own property. But in the real world, you unfortunately can't neatly compartmentalize criminality for when it suits.

Edit: The two perspectives quoted above should be compared with a slightly different angle, this time from commentator and newspaper columnist Lesley Riddoch, who in last weekend's Sunday Post quoted an on-duty Met police officer who told a phone-in:

People were spitting at us, smashing bottles, hitting us with sticks and wood, throwing bricks and masonry at us. They tried to lift the visors of colleagues and poke them with sticks.

Yes, Dr Morelli, the mood clearly was "good-spirited".

Thanks, Mr Wishart. I think.

Regular readers will be aware that yours truly has letters published in the Scottish press on a fairly regular basis. For an armchair activist this avenue no doubt means a lot more readers than the small numbers reading this blog. On the other hand, writing letters to the press means you're in the lap of the letter editor god - is it too long, is the subject matter too arcane, is it a couple of days too late, should I wait until a better subject comes up in case I've filled my quota (real or imagined), is the tone too polemical, is that paragraph a bit too close to the bone for publishing etc etc. Of course, subject to defamation law and the possibility that someone unpleasant will take exception to what I write, these problems are irrelevant in the blogosphere.

I suppose it's a bit like search engine optimisation - you don't know how Google ranks websites, thus it's largely a question of guessing and tailoring your site in the hope that Google looks kindly upon it. And, of course, newspaper letter editors seem as inscrutable as Google's search criteria. The Scotsman once emailed me to clarify a point I'd made. And the Courier once phoned me regarding something I can't quite remember, probably because I was asleep in bed when they phoned, and was thus trying my best to sound merely compos mentis rather than cogent, and very probably failing dismally in any case. Other than that it's total silence, and I've always suspected that if you question their editorial judgement then that might be detrimental to being published in the first place, thus best to keep quiet. And, indeed, hope that none of them are reading this(!).

Anyway, the reason for this lengthy preamble is to point out that probably the most annoying aspect of the whole letters to the editor scene is that an exchange of letters is unlikely to continue for too long, thus in view of the lack of immediacy of the medium the correspondent afforded the last word in effect wins - they can largely say what they want and few will remember what the previous correspondent had said a couple of days ago. Thus a bit like the advantage afforded to the PM and FM at PMQs and FMQs, only exacerbated by the time scale of a day or two between contributions rather than a half a minute or so.

On a couple of occasions I've felt that correspondents have relied on this curtailment of the correspondence to make slightly misleading points hoping/knowing that I'll be unable to respond. This happened a couple of weeks ago in a response by Mr Alex Orr to a letter I had sent to the Scotsman critical of earlier correspondence from Mr Orr. His response seemed to misrepresent the contents of my earlier letter, but my subsequent missive pointing this out wasn't published.

In the grand scheme of things this is neither here nor there, but for the record my unpublished letter is reproduced at the end of this post.

However, this reminded me of a similar episode from a couple of years back, with a similarly prematurely (in my opinion!) curtailed correspondence in the Scotsman, a matter that I've highlighted a couple of times on here before, and which still rankles slightly yet.

In summary, concerns had been raised about organised crime infiltrating the private hire (licensed minicabs) trade in Edinburgh. In response SNP Councillor Colin Keir raised concerns that because private hire vehicle numbers cannot be limited - unlike black taxi numbers - then organised crime could more easily infiltrate that side of the trade. However, at around the same time his SNP colleague Steve Cardownie had faced criticism regarding his involvement with a private hire firm in Edinburgh, which had been linked in the press to organised crime. Councillor Cardownie responded by saying that vehicles and drivers were all council and police vetted, hence there was no problem. Which seemed to contradict what Mr Keir - who's responsible for taxi and private hire licensing in the capital - had said; what was the problem with the lack of control over private hire vehicle numbers if police vetting was in operation, as per Mr Cardownie?

I pointed out this contradiction in a letter to the Scotsman, and in response Mr Keir used the police vetting defence, which of course fundamentally contradicted his original stance - initially there was a problem, now there wasn't - but my response pointing this out wasn't published, thus Mr Keir's face was saved, and mine had egg on it, because I should have know this, at least according to Mr Keir!

Indeed, there's a whole lot more to the matter than that, but I've spent far too much time on this post already, and anyone actually reading this far will no doubt be willing me to wind things up.

However, the reason for all this is to point out yet another contradiction from the SNP on these matters, this time in the form of MP Pete Wishart. A few weeks ago the Courier reported that Perth and Kinross Council had proposed removing the taxi monopoly which operates in the Fair City. Mr Wishart responded by claiming this would "put passengers - particularly single women - at risk". Which seems to echo Mr Keir's original claim about numerical controls on vehicle numbers, but which Mr Cardownie and Mr Keir himself subsequently contradicted - what's the problem with vehicle numbers if police vetting is in operation? And P&K's SNP licensing convenor, Councillor Peter Mulheron, doesn't mention the safety or organised crime aspects in his reported comments.

In fact, the private hire cars which take up the slack caused by restricting taxi numbers in places like Perth already operate in the "free-for-all" environment slammed by Mr Wishart, yet I can't recall him raising such concerns in the past.

Indeed, I can't recall safety being a particular issue in the numerous Scottish local authority areas which have never limited taxi numbers, not to mention those - such as Inverness, Aberdeen and Dundee - that have removed such controls.

Surely the issue of safety depends on long-standing vehicle inspection and driver vetting procedures - as per Mr Cardownie and Mr Keir (depending on which day of the week it is) - and also the more recent regulation of radio control rooms introduced by justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, thus the control of vehicle numbers is a red herring.

Anyway, this is just the tip of the iceberg on this particular issue, but if anyone is even remotely interested in further reading on the subject then they'll have to wait on that book deal ;0)

Meanwhile, it's perhaps worth noting that both Mr Orr and Mr Keir are Lothian SNP list candidates in next year's Holyrood elections, which represents a slight coincidence as far as my prematurely curtailed correspondences in the Scotsman are concerned!



Unpublished letter sent to the Scotsman:

I don't doubt Alex Orr's assertion that GDP per capita is a "common measure of economic prosperity". However, his claim that I "derided" him for using it is wide of the mark; I merely said that the concept is undermined to the extent that it fails to take into account wealth distribution within nations, an argument he ignores.

In fact my point essentially was that from the perspective of the greater good it's misleading to pick out a few small but very successful nations if most of the world's population resides within significantly larger entities which perform better than the average; a bit like using individual people who are millionaires to prove that small is beautiful. Mr Orr's regurgitation of yet more statistics demonstrating the success of a few less populous nations suggests he also prefers to ignore that argument.

He also denies "denigrating" the UK, but I would suggest that if Mr Orr compares his own comments regarding the UK to what he describes as other commentators "knocking", "talking down" and "gloating" about Scotland and other small nations, then he might find some evidence of double standards.

Progressive means aggressive?

Further to yesterday's post about the rule of law and this week's student fees demonstration cum riot, it's disappointing but perhaps slightly predictable to see progressives like Jeff Breslin, Lallands Peat Worrier, Adam Ramsay and Sunny Hundal (courtesy of Dizzy) being (at the very least) slightly dismissive of the reaction to the violence, intimidation and criminal damage on display.

A student representative on Sky News refused to condemn all this, claiming in effect that the level of anger justified it. Well I'm sure I feel as angry - if not angrier - than these people about many things, and I've probably had a lot more time on this planet than most of them for it to well up, but I haven't as yet felt the need to express it in this particular way.

And I and no doubt many others are in turn slightly angry at the response of many people to the events in London, so does this mean we can justly go round to where they live and 'put their windaes in'? Of course not, but surely trying to justify living by the sword is a dangerous path to take.

Another rationale proffered, of course, is that in the grand scheme of things a few broken windows are irrelevant, but if excused then this kind of behaviour would represent the thin end of the wedge, and thus the road to rule by the aggressive and the violent. The rule of law would be replaced by the rule of the mob.

But I suspect I inhabit a very different world from these other bloggers, and indeed it's the threat of such a reaction that means I am less frank with some of my views than I'd like to be.

Ironically, the protesters trying to justify the violent conduct claim that it's the only way to draw attention to the substantive issues, but now they and their defenders are claiming that the media were more interested in the 'distraction' of the excesses.

Thus there's a poetic justice of sorts here, but let's hope that Wednesday's events do not detract from or influence the real debate on student fees.

Rule of the mob v rule of law

The descent of yesterday's tuition fees protest into the occupation of private property, extensive criminal damage to that property and numerous violent incidents - including the dropping of a fire extinguisher from a rooftop towards police officers below, which could well have resulted in a murder charge - wasn't perhaps the biggest surprise in recent history, but once again the incident demonstrates that the thin line between the rule of law and the rule of the mob is often close to being breached.

Older readers in particular may notice that these latter words echo Margaret Thatcher's during the highly fraught miners' strike of the 1980s, and back then I would have been more sympathetic to the cause of the euphemistically described direct action approach demonstrated yesterday. However, since then I've come to more appreciate the value of an ordered society and the role that the rule of law plays in this, and in particular the egregious effect that violence and intimidation has on this.

Of course, peaceful protest is entirely legitimate - although whether even orderly demonstrations ever achieve much is a moot point - but numerous protesters who have been interviewed in the wake of yesterday's events in essence say that, unfortunate as these things are, when push comes to shove they've no choice because the proposed changes to tuition fees are unfair and direct action is the only chance they have of making an impact.

Again this is a moot point - and it should be hoped that the unacceptable aspect of yesterday's protests have no effect on policy - but life is unfair and we don't always get what we want, and the answer isn't violence protest.

We all know that democracy in this country isn't perfect and can be substantially improved upon, but the coalition government isn't the Communist Party of China and Conservative Party HQ isn't Tiananmen Square, and it was appropriate that yesterday's news bulletins juxtaposed footage of the London events with David Cameron's visit to China.

Unfortunately the events of yesterday seem likely to be repeated in the next few years as the harsh financial conditions continue to take their toll on the economy generally and on public spending in particular, but ultimately the rule of the mob achieves nothing, and although there are possible targets more likely to elicit widespread support than Tory Party HQ, the principles at stake are far greater than yesterday's broken windows.

An over-provision of grandstanding

While it's effectively been dead and buried for months, today will see the formal last rites administered to the SNP Government's minimum pricing proposal for alcohol. Of course, this will be accompanied by lots of self-righteous oohing and ahhing, and accusations of political opportunism - which are probably well-founded - but the measure deserves to fail, if only because it would make only a marginal difference to the problem, unless the price was set at punitive levels.

But the paucity of thinking on the subject was ably demonstrated a few weeks ago, when West Dumbartonshire Council hit the headlines because of its decision to ban new alcohol licences over much of its territory on the grounds of over-provision.

While this blog has been here before in relation to a Glasgow proposal, it's probably worth saying a few words on the latest development in this area. This really is pitiful stuff. The Herald's article says:

The council said research has been carried out jointly by the local authority, NHS and police, which demonstrated “a clear link between the problems experienced in the area and the number of licensed premises” and calculated the number of licensed premises from a 2007 report by the health board.

Which is about as instructive as saying that more tins of beans are sold in an area with lots of supermarkets. So a moratorium on new licences would achieve what in terms of alcohol consumption?

Well it seems highly unlikely that anyone won't be able to buy a drink even with these new policies in place - stopping new supermarkets wouldn't reduce the number of tins of beans sold. But just suppose Soviet-style queues at pubs and off-licences meant that consumption is decreased there - what happens then?

Well drinkers will go elsewhere in the area, so no change there then. Ah, but prospective new operators in other areas will have to prove that drinkers from the over-provided areas won't travel there. Unprovable, so does this mean that there is effectively a blanket ban over the whole area? But even then the currently under provided areas will take up the slack, surely, on existing licences?

The irony is that in these areas of so-called over-provision there's likely to be significant over-capacity - to put it in more commercial terms - thus curtailing new licences won't reduce consumption one iota. It will merely provide a monopoly and thus lack of competition for existing outlets.

As a licensed trade lobby group said, this is more about political grandstanding than anything else. Unfortunately it's even cruder than that. Indeed, the only remotely conceivable - but still highly unlikely - deterrent to consumption would be that the pubs in the area become so busy that drinkers would rely on supermarkets and off-licences instead. And since people certainly won't be queueing at the door at such outlets, the consequence could well be to increase consumption through cheaper home boozing, à la the smoking ban.

Appeal judges deal blow to anti-vice efforts in Dundee

Further to recent posts concerning crime and anti-social behaviour in Dundee, a recent appeal court ruling will do nothing to help the authorities in their fight against prostitution in one area of the city. Appeal judges overturned a prostitute's conviction for public indecency, saying that it was not possible to determine the likelihood that the woman and her client - on whom she was performing oral sex - would be seen by members of the public.

But the location in question was Dundee's Eastern Ceremony, and the incident took place before 8.30 pm on an early July evening, thus at the height of summer and in broad daylight. And while the pair clearly took steps to avoid the public gaze, and the cemetery was unlikely to be thronging with people, this wasn't a cold January evening in complete darkness, when the likelihood of anyone seeing the couple would have been greatly reduced.

Thus it's not surprising that SNP councillor Craig Melville has branded the conduct "distasteful and insensitive", and in an Evening Telegraph report he raised the prospect of "someone going to visit the grave of a relative and seeing a prostitute there". And a lot more besides, presumably. Tayside Police also acknowledge the "sensitivity" of the location, but clearly there is a reluctance on the part of the authorities to directly criticise the appeal judges.

But it was the growing problem of prostitution in this area which last year led the Scottish Sun to claim that Dundee was "in the grip of a vice explosion". A claim downplayed, of course, by the city's powers that be, with SNP administration leader Ken Guild describing the newspaper's article as "unwarranted slurs". Which perhaps slightly contradicts Councillor Melville's description of the scenario depicted in the cemetery - which took place only days before the Sun's article was published - as "distasteful and insensitive".

Indeed, it was a letter in the Tele describing Stobswell as the "red light area of Dundee" which led to Mr Melville responding that the authorities "will never give up", which again seems particularly apposite in view of the ongoing nature of the prostitution issue, which periodically raises its head in articles and letters in the Dundee press. And in turn a response asks how many times we've heard this kind of thing from the area's councillors, and claims that "this is the language of people who are in denial".

Meanwhile, Lord Provost John Letford's claim that as a resident of the Charleston area for 50 years he finds "upsetting" allegations that it is being turned into slum has been challenged by a resident in yet another letter in the Tele. The correspondent says the problems represent the "reality that many of us are living through". Indeed, it should be recalled that reality for the Lord Provost includes being chauffeured around in a luxury motor car with number plates alone worth £150,000, which he has recently reiterated won't be sold to help replenish depleted council coffers, since they represent part of the city's "heritage". And Mr Letford will also have police at his beck and call, neatly exemplified by the time he had riot police sent to the door of an elderly Dundee resident for the heinous crime of calling the LP an "embarrassment" in an email. With Mr Letford living through this kind of reality, it's no wonder he finds the claims about his beloved Charleston "upsetting".

(For a more liberal perspective on the appeal court ruling see Lalland Peat Worrier's blogpost.)

It's curtains for crime in Dundee

Further to last week's post about claims that crime and anti-social behaviour has turned Dundee's Charleston area into a slum, Lord Provost John Letford - who lives in the area - has described the claims as "upsetting", and says most Charlestonians(?) are "lovely" but that some aren't quite so lovely. Mr Letford continues his devastating insight by shifting the onus...er...reminding people of their responsibility not to shut their curtains:

The only people I have a problem with are those who don't co-operate or those who turn a blind eye. We shouldn't shut the curtains and say 'It's nothing to do with me.' If we all work together and no one is turning a blind eye then we can change it.

Cynics might pooh-pooh this as a charter for curtain twitchers*, but a mere couple of days later and another Dundee City councillor had clearly taken on board the LP's words. In response to a vandalism spree in the city's Stobswell area involving seventy vehicles, Councillor Ken Lynn said:

It's such a hard one to police, but I thought about the idea of a neighbourhood watch [sic], where everybody takes a turn just sitting watching what's going on through the window.

Gosh. Has Kenny MacAskill heard this? Will it be in the next SNP manifesto? Are the 1,000 extra police officers really irrelevant, and the cuts won't matter? Or is this mere window dressing (boom, boom)?

Of course, this civic responsibility malarkey is all very well, but part of the problem is that many members of the public feel it's the police and other authorities who turn a blind eye, thus public confidence is lost and in turn they turn a blind eye and a vicious circle develops. Indeed, the LP alluded to this himself when he said:

Previously the priority of the police has not been the same as the priority of the people in the community. But over the last five or six years they have recognised that vandalism and intimidation are really important to people who live in these areas.

But have official attitudes really changed? It should be recalled that last week one resident of Charleston said:

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.

And as I said a year ago when the LP last reminded residents of their civic responsibilities, surely one problem is the crackdown/Community Engagement Team sort of culture, which might reassure residents when it's happening, but what about when police are not cracking/clamping down or the Team is engaging with another community? To that extent these clampdowns are mere charm offensives, and insofar as the public recognise this it doesn't reassure them.

"This can't go on," says Councillor Lynn. Well this certainly can, as well as the platitudes. As I said last week, it was certainly appropriate that his SNP colleague Craig Mellville said that the authorities would "never give up" on these matters in the Stobswell area, because they seem never ending. And the irony of the vandalism spree in the area a mere few days later is presumably not lost on Councillor Melville.

*Strictly speaking, the term 'curtain twitcher' seems to presuppose that the curtains are closed, but the LP suggests leaving them open, thus pedants might spot a slight contradiction, but you get my drift, presumably!

The legality of councillor politicking

Well it seems that councils don't have the legal powers to impose minimum pricing for alcohol at the local level, as I predicted in a letter to the Courier. Dundee's licensing board chairman Rod Wallace has "been forced to admit defeat" over his suggestion, because the licensing legislation doesn't afford local authorities the powers to bring in the necessary by-laws.

Interesting, however, is Councillor Wallace's claim in the Evening Telegraph that it might have been possible to amend the legislation to allow the by-law, but he didn't think "the Scottish Parliament would see that as a priority just now given the budget cuts it will have to deal with and the election that's coming up in May".

However - and leaving aside his suggestion that the Parliament will spend a considerable amount of its time between now and May just electioneering - as I said in my letter, if MSPs are ill-disposed towards legislating for minimum pricing nationally then why would they do so on a local basis? And if Mr Wallace is merely talking about a general power to make by-laws, why would MSPs afford this if they knew the intention was to use the powers to impose minimum pricing? And even if a general power to make by-laws existed at present, if councils tried to use such powers for minimum pricing then presumably they would run into the problem of a lack of specific authority to set such controls, which was what scuppered the actions of several local authorities a few years ago.

Anyway, another matter involving councillors and legal powers pertains to the Tayside Fire and Rescue proposal to redeploy resources, which has resulted in some political controversy and caused a split in the local SNP group. A correspondent to the Evening Telegraph says that the "Fire Board is non-political committee where councillors on the board are required by law to take a personal, non-party line". Which was my understanding until relatively recently, but given the self-evident politicking over the issue I thought I'd misunderstood the legal position. But if the letter-writer is correct then this raises some interesting questions. The correspondent alludes that the Labour group may have proceeded along party lines because they all voted the same way, thus acting illegally.

However, despite the split SNP vote, the political motive is more overt with the Nationalists. For example, board convener Ken Lyall said: "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."

Which hardly seems consistent with a "personal, non-party line", whether or not councillors actually toe it.

So what happens next? Impeachment?

'Nothing' is probably the more realistic answer.

Presumably no-one really takes this non-political theory seriously anyway. For example, the planing and licensing convenerships on Dundee City Council were previously carved-up with a view to forming a cross-party alliance to run the city, thus hardly a good basis for acting non-politically.

Political madness

It's been a 'good' few days for political hyperbole and overreaction, one facet of politics which has certainly featured with some regularity on this blog.

Exhibit 1 is the weekend's 'ginger rodent' jibe at the Lib Dems' Danny Alexander, comparing the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to the red squirrel (pictured). Cue accusations of gingerism, racism or whatever. Worse still, the remark was made by uber-politically correct Labourite Harriet Harperson - as many of the un-politically correct amusingly refer to her - thus more than a hint of hypocrisy in the air.

But what a hoo-ha over next-to-nothing. The term 'ginger' seemed used in a descriptive rather than pejorative sense. And I thought red squirrels were supposed to be popular - what's not to like? But perhaps it's the word 'rodent' that's the problem - although most commentators seem to be emphasising the ginger aspect, perhaps because rodentism wouldn't seem so hypocritical for Ms Harperson - because 'rodent' seems redolent of horrible rats rather than fluffy squirrels.

Not very nice either way, but that's politics surely? However, if Ms Harperson's remarks were ill-judged, they were surely trumped by cute-as-a-red-squirrel Shirley-Anne Somerville*, who's an SNP MSP for, er, somewhere in Scotland. Says Squirrely-Anne: "Her silly remark isn't anti-Danny or anti-LibDem, it's anti-Scottish."

Which really requires no further comment, except to underline that the SNP disseminated Squirrely-Anne's comments via its official website.

But perhaps this is an overreaction to the overreaction to Alex Salmond's reference to a "schizophrenic" Iain Gray during last week's FMQs, with the First Minister forced to issue an apology (Exhibit 2). Again this doesn't seem the best use of words, but frankly if Holyrood's presiding officer thinks that's the aspect of FMQs and Holyrood generally worth taking issue with then perhaps a better sense of perspective is in order. And what about words commonly used in political discourse such as 'madness' - did anyone notice I'd used it in the headline?

Thankfully, on this occasion there's little (reported) evidence of politicians trying to make political capital out of Mr Salmond's reference. But much of the response to Harriet Harman's remark is, of course, born of partisan and contrived hyperbole rather than any real concern for anyone who might feel insulted - frankly, if they genuinely think that's worth highlighting via the media then clearly they lead pretty sheltered lives, bringing to mind my red rubber band relativism post.

Indeed, even Fanny Alexander (gosh, this namecalling's infectious, isn't it?) took the remark in good humour rather than seeing red (or ginger), so hereafter he'll be referred to as Danny on this blog.

*Anyone considering that this remark makes the author a sexist pig should recall that it's inappropriate to compare people to unattractive animals.