Snarling about a growling dog

The recent mauling to death of a London woman by a dog brought back memories of last summer's attack on Dundee schoolgirl Rhianna Kidd, which resulted in surgery and hundreds of stitches for the ten-year-old. Thankfully Rhianna was reported to be on the mend soon after and indeed subsequently returned to school, but the ever present menace of these 'status' dogs remains.

While there are many different motivations for owning these aggressive-looking dogs, it's self-evident that many people regard them as some sort of macho status symbol, thus often just another addition to the armoury of the hard man (real or imagined), or occasional woman. And the argument that the dog is used for defensive rather than offensive purposes isn't particularly compelling either - if the owner thinks they need a dog for protection then they're highly likely to come a cropper eventually anyway, dog or no dog. On the other hand, these man and beast pairings often provide good evidence to support the theory that dog owners often look like their charges.

Equally self-evident is that there are no easy answers to the problem, but since I live in an area where ownership of these dogs is commonplace then perhaps the issue is a bit more immediate for me than for the likes of the powers that be who are ultimately responsible for controlling them (or their owners).

Fortunately these dogs tend to be the smaller bull terrier-type beasts rather than the larger animals involved in the attacks mentioned above (perhaps the giro doesn't extend to the bigger breeds), but because they are often off the leash they can induce a certain level of apprehensiveness, particularly in view of the attraction often afforded to dogs by a male human being's private parts.

Indeed, occasionally these untethered - and sometimes unattended - dogs have ran towards me, and the thought of an attack rushes through the mind. What will the pain be like? How long will it go on? Would a passive response be best, or might fighting back scare it off? Would anyone come to my assistance? Never mind the injuries, what if the incident induces a heart attack? How should I react if I see someone else being attacked?

Anyway, shortly after the Rhianna Kidd attack I recall walking towards a couple with a terrier-style dog, which was off the lead and ran towards me. Thankfully it was just being playful, but as I passed the couple I heard the female indignantly snarl, "He just f****** growled at me" (and I assumed that she was talking to the owner about the dog rather than vice versa).

I felt like saying, "Err, isn't that what they're supposed to do?", but decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and kept my head down, as you do.

But perhaps there's a good argument for having these beasts put down, although the dogs themselves could be rehomed in a more suitable environment.

A PR paradox

There's a certain irony in a thesis central to Iain Macwhirter's recent Sunday Herald essay. He claims Lib Dem leverage in a Westminster coalition could have heralded a move to a "fairer" voting system, but that the party's coalition with the Conservatives - and consequent reversals of policy regarding tuition fees, VAT and the welfare state - means that: "It is hard to conceive of a greater betrayal of trust. Clegg – and Vince Cable – have undermined democracy by confirming everyone’s worst fears about politicians’ lack of collective integrity."

But it is precisely the "fairer" system of voting that would help perpetuate the hung parliament scenario which resulted from last May's general election. Thus PR would redistribute power away from the Tories and Labour, but consequently this would very probably result in permanent coalition governments and the type of betrayal that Iain denigrates. Or at least, greater betrayal than the usual litany of broken promises left trailing in the wake even of majority governments when the idealism of the election campaign and the gloss of the manifesto runs up against the stark realities of government.

Thus in all probability PR would undermine rather than enhance the public perception regarding politicians' "collective integrity". Of course, perhaps the problem many people have with the Lib Dems on this issue is that they joined the 'wrong' coalition; no doubt many would view broken promises under a "progressive" coalition with Labour differently to what has transpired with the Tories, while of course supporters of the latter would be considerably more critical had Nick Clegg jumped into bed with Gordon Brown rather than David Cameron.

Thus the "consensus" and "compromise" required to execute effective coalition government becomes "betrayal" and "sell-out" depending to what extent the commentator finds the administration ideologically palatable; in short, their perspective is born of the usual partisanship.

Of course, part of the Lib Dems' problem is that they are the significantly weaker partner in the coalition, and to that extent have little policy leverage. In turn this means that what they characterise as the compromises required to form the coalition - and thus rein in the Tories - become all the greater in magnitude. The cynical corollary of this underlines the lack of principle and makes the Lib Dems look like they are grabbing power for the sake of it, not to mention matters like the personal advancement of individual politicians.

Thus while defending the Lib Dems isn't a particularly popular pursuit at the best of times, would the other parties have behaved significantly differently in similar circumstances? Of course, supporters of the other parties will argue otherwise, but a major hurdle as regards testing this thesis is the historical lack of coalition government at Westminster. On the other hand, local government is a different matter, and the limited history - and engineered bias towards hung parliaments - of Holyrood also provides some evidence relating to coalition government in the UK context, but since arguably neither of these lower tiers of government play host to huge ideological fissures (other than at the level of soundbite rather than substance, and as regards the independence question) they surely provide little in the way of precedent either.

Are the Lib Dems therefore any more likely to abandon principle in pursuit of power than the other parties? Perhaps they are, but it's difficult to say either way. Of course, the popular perception is that politicians generally lack principle and integrity. On the other hand, perhaps the Lib Dems could argue that, given their predisposition towards "fair votes", they are similarly predisposed toward compromise, aka betrayal.

Thus the recent Telegraph 'revelations' concerning the private utterances of leading Lib Dem politicians on the coalition, its policies and their Tory 'partners' may be entertaining and indulge our appetite for political tittle-tattle and stirring, but substantively they are little more than a big yawn. So members of the coalition are at odds over policy and slag each other off in private? Big deal; worse than that can be found within the parties, never mind over two different ones.

By comparison, imagine if the SNP had entered into a "progressive alliance" at Westminster following May's vote, as was sought by Alex Salmond. This would presumably have entailed a compromise on the party's commitment to independence, and it would hardly have come as a great surprise if Alex Salmond, Stewart Hosie et al were saying different things about their progressive partners in private as compared to their public stance on them. But would Duncan Hamilton portray this as confirming "an overwhelming sense of duplicity - the arrogant assumption that it is acceptable to express one view for the consumption of a bovine public, and another contrary opinion in private".

But while opponents of the coalition will gleefully pounce on and exploit any evidence of conflict, perhaps this represents little more than the usual opportunism rather than any merited elevation to the moral high ground.

And if Iain Macwhirter hopes to enhance the integrity of politicians then perhaps he should be careful what he wishes for. Indeed, as IoC (who, with hindsight, must have, er, 'inspired' this post!) argues, perhaps the experience of coalition government will help kill off future hopes of a PR voting system. Duncan Hamilton says: "As avowed constitutional reformers, [the Lib Dems] might reflect on that as a spectacular own goal."

The Christmas shoappin' parliament

If yesterday's FMQs pantomime wasn't bad enough, the packed and raucous chamber was neatly juxtaposed with the token snippet of proceedings proffered on the Wednesday afternoon edition of the BBC's Holyrood Live. You know, that's the bit where they cut to a parliamentary debate, often on some extremely obscure subject and totally without context - and to that extent meaningless to all but the most anoraky - and after a few minutes of listening to some minister droning on about something like the Emancipation of Subjugated Crofters (Sutherland) Regulations 2010, the program reverts back to something juicier, such as Wednesday's preoccupation with the fact that some Westminster politicians have been caught out saying something different in private to what they've been saying in public. Shock, horror. In fact it might have been worth the headlines and the breach of trust and confidentiality if the revelations had told us something other than what everyone assumes anyway, but such is the 'public interest'.

Anyway, it's interesting to compare the BBC's wall-to-wall coverage of the political showbusiness of FMQs with its tokenistic coverage of other proceedings, but of course neither the public nor the MSPs themselves seem particularly interested in the latter, which concurs with recent claims from former first minister Jack McConnell and MSP Jackson Carlaw about Holyrood, neatly encapsulated in the description the "Hame by Teatime" parliament.

Wednesday's BBC coverage of the live debate was a case in point, quite apart from the difficulty in rationalising why the corporation bothers covering any of the live proceedings at all, excepting when it's about something genuinely newsworthy, if even that's often born of crude partisan nitpicking, posturing and politicking generally rather than anything of real substance. However, health minister Shona Robison was addressing the chamber about, er, a subject I can't quite remember, but I did hear words and phrases such as "action plan", "equality and non-discrimination", "fit for purpose", "reciprocity", "baseline equalities data" and "review group", so it could have been about anything Holyrood-related really.

But while the chamber is usually packed for FMQs, hardly any of the MSPs had bothered turning up for Wednesday's debate, which was probably due to exigencies such as last-minute Christmas shoappin', since because the Parliament only seems to sit on a part-time basis (presumably so the so-called "jumped-up cooncilors" therein aren't over-taxed) then surely the debates could easily be arranged such that they don't clash with the other duties of MPs, such as sitting in their ironically named 'think pods'.

However, it was perhaps fortunate for the Parliament that an SNP drone was usefully sitting behind Ms Robison during the BBC's brief sneak peek into the workings of Scottish democracy, thus this helped convey the impression that the chamber was a bit better attended than it actually was.

Unfortunate, however, because the Robison clone was clearly preoccupied on something other than the debate in hand, and this could well have been that all important Christmas shoappin' list. And the drone-clone provided the most interesting moment of the BBC's coverage when she seemed to find a hair (or some other foreign body ['scuse political incorrectness please]) on her jacket and proceeded to pick it off, hold it at arm's length and drop it to the chamber floor. (If this sounds a bit convoluted or hard to picture then it's one of those familiar human actions that's easy to recognise when you see it, but difficult to describe.)

Thus a parliament which only seems to meet a couple of days a week, poorly attended debates on workaday legislation and even some of those who can be bothered turning up seem to have their minds elsewhere.

Ah, I get it, the reason the BBC shows these random excerpts without context or continuity is that they're basically inviting us to have a bit of a laugh at it all - a kind of X Factor for Holyrood politicians.

And on that happy note, the best of festive cheer to anyone with the discernment and fortitude to actually read this blog!

The reckless Phaëton and spending irresponsibly

Dundee's SNP administration leader Ken Guild has been getting a bit hot under the collar about Gordon Brown again, blaming the former chancellor and prime minister for his "sheer incompetence" in claiming to "eliminate boom and bust, but leaving us only with bust", and for his legacy of a "financial mess" which is ultimately responsible for the budget cuts currently being decided by the council.

He's right, of course, but to claim that his own "conscience is clear" and that he "hasn't had any sleepless nights" over the cuts is surely a bit rich in view of the SNP's contribution to the spendthrift approach to public spending that contributed to the mountain of government debt, ultimately necessitating the current retrenchment. Of course, in view of his education convener's now infamous claim that cutting £4 million from the city's education budget would make schools "better", it's hardly surprising that Councillor Guild seems so unworried about the spending squeeze.

But when his SNP group took the reins in Dundee almost two years ago, about the most concrete promise that he made was that Nationalist control of the city would secure more public money for Dundee - presumably that's what he meant by "the best possible deal" for the city - so to complain when the wheels come off this governmental gravy train seems a tad hypocritical, particularly when he also accused Gordon Brown of trying to bankrupt Britain. So it's complaints over Mr Brown's fiscal profligacy, then complaints about reining in this fiscal incontinence and the consequent effects on local government spending, but then according to his colleague Liz Fordyce it's all to the better anyway, and indeed Mr Guild himself says the budget cuts will be achieved "without affecting frontline services".

So what's the problem with the "Westminster cuts" then? Nothing, presumably, but at least the stance of Dundee's SNP administration is more consistent with the party's council tax freeze - which was squeezing local authority budgets when the central government contribution to municipal coffers was still spiralling out of control, and the cuts agenda was just a neocon's dream - than blaming Labour, the Tories and Lib Dems for indirectly, ahem, improving services in Dundee.

Anyway, one example of Dundee City Council extravagance which hit the headlines recently is the official car of the Lord Provost, who it should be recalled is an ex-Labourite, now independent propping up the Nationalist administration, but whose pivotal position means that the Union flag still flies highest (literally) over City Chambers. But, as suggested here previously, the LP's four-wheel drive Volkswagen Phaeton looks extravagant even compared to the previous Volvo s80, which could very probably still be acting as an entirely adequate official car. Of course, the SNP group wasn't at the helm when the LP was handed the keys to the Phaeton (to hand on, of course, to his chauffeur) - although there's little evidence to suggest any strong objection from the Nationalists at the time - but there's still the question of the six-figure worth of the car's TS 1 number plate, which the LP considers worth retaining due to its vital contribution to the city's "heritage".

If this municipal vanity wasn't bad enough, a recent Courier story concerning the LP and the Phaeton rubs further salt into the wound of council spending excess, but which is also pertinent to the recent transport problems caused by the inclement weather, and that is also quite amusing.

It seems that the intrepid LP was bound for Edinburgh Airport in the Phaeton and was almost there when news came through that the runway was closed, but Mr Letford saw it as his civic duty to present himself at the airport in case a subsequent flight became available, and because in any case personal attendance was apparently necessary to secure a refund. However, the good councillor and two officials eventually had to return to miserable old Dundee, but such was the LP's keenness to get away from it all and the traffic problems that it took them a whole day to achieve, er, nothing, but we should perhaps be thankful that, presumably stuck for hours in traffic in his shiny limousine replete with little flags, Mr Letford bears little resemblance to either Prince Charles or Camilla.

But shouldn't the LP be praised for his determination to attend what was no doubt an event of great geopolitical import? Er, no, it was the Scottish Christmas Walk in Alexandria, which is apparently one of Dundee's twin cities (that's the one in the United States rather than its better known namesake in Egypt).

So when the powers that be are imploring us not to make unnecessary journeys, Dundee's Lord Provost is being foolhardy almost to the point of recklessness in pursuit of an inconsequential junket, or at least inconsequential to almost everyone apart from Prince Charleston.

However, perhaps that's being a bit too hard on Councillor Letford. After all, he was probably just trying to live up to the myth of Phaëton, who was a headstrong chap determined to drive his Dad's chariot (the Sun), which not "even Zeus (the king of gods) would dare to drive...as the chariot was fiery hot and the horses breathed out flames". Onywey, the story continues:

First it veered too high, so that the earth grew chill. Then it dipped too close, and the vegetation dried and burned. He accidentally turned most of Africa into desert; bringing the blood of the Ethiopians to the surface of their skin, turning it black. The running conflagration spreads below. But these are trivial ills: whole cities burn, And peopled kingdoms into ashes turn. Rivers and lakes began to dry up, Poseidon rose out of the sea and waved his trident in anger at the sun, but soon the heat became even too great for him and he dove to the bottom of the sea.

Gosh, that bit about the Ethiopians doesn't exactly sound politically correct, but the tale does help rationalise the LP's behaviour, albeit in the context of freezing cold rather than scorching heat. Indeed, the myth of Phaëton could perhaps be construed by Mr Letford's opponents as some sort of political allegory on his term of office - Lochee and Charleston as scorched earth, Labour's Kevin Keenan as Poseidon, sort of thing - except that for most of his tenure his current adversaries were his colleagues, but it certainly works for yours truly!

And given the rather staid reputation attached to Volvo drivers, perhaps another good reason for sticking with the Swedish chariot.

Public essentially foolhardy on 'essential' journeys

It was perhaps instructive to listen to John Swinney addressing Holyrood's transport committee last week on the recent weather-related roads chaos, since this provided some insight into why such problems arise in the first place.

His otherworldliness was ably demonstrated by a couple of remarks in relation to the public's contribution to avoiding these things in the first place, when Mr Swinney suggested that employers could be a bit more accommodating as regards requiring people to turn up to work (aye, right!) and that HGV drivers could heed calls by police to make only essential journeys. "It's no' worth the candle," he said.

The latter point in particular seemed particularly out of touch. Such warnings seem to be issued several times each year, and probably only the most circumspect of people pay much heed to them. One problem is that many people are foolhardy; an essential journey amounts to driving a few hundred yard to buy a packet of fags or a takeaway pizza. Another is that most of the time the warnings regarding essential journeys are not really necessary unless an ultra-cautious 'elf and safety' approach is deemed appropriate. This may well be appropriate for those officiating over such matters, but in the real world life has to go on other than in the most extreme circumstances. Hauliers won't just suspend their operations due to a warning, which indeed may well become more common in future in the hope that gridlock can be avoided - the industry is highly competitive, economic conditions are tough, thus truckers are already blasé about usually unnecessary warnings.

Granted, Mr Swinney did allude to the difficulties in this regard, but fine words are one thing, the practical realities another. But the more generally futile nature of his comments were ably demonstrated this weekend when parts of England experienced a near-carbon copy of Scotland's events of a few days earlier - heavy snow, jack-knifed lorries, gridlocked roads, stranded motorists etc. (But no obvious clamour for Westminster transport secretary Phillip Hammond's head!)

But warnings had been issued, and the Scottish experience should still be fresh in people's minds, even south of the border. However, it seems that little heed was paid to such warnings, thus the same problems arose. On a radio news item last night an official said he had never seen so many cars out on a Saturday evening, hence resultant traffic chaos. Ah, that would be the essential Christmas shopping traffic then.

The fact is that weather-related problems have to be extremely immediate and obvious before the public pay heed to warnings to undertake only essential journeys, even as regards leisure activities, never mind getting to and from work or running a business. Indeed, by that time it's probably too late for most people anyway; only the fact of the chaos existing deters and prevents it from getting any worse.

Likewise, the official plan to stack lorries to prevent problems seems unrealistic - truckers are unlikely to be readily amenable to such requests until traffic is at a standstill anyway. As for other elements of the Scottish Government's six point plan - such as grit at key points and traffic diversions as appropriate - this begs the question why such obvious measures aren't in place already, and of course actually implementing them is slightly different to politicians and civil servants promulgating them, as even a desk-bound senior police officer pointed out.

However, perhaps Mr Swinney made the most commonsense point of the session when he said that at times the weather can simply overwhelm the road network and any measures taken by the authorities in response; essentially, any expectation that a repeat performance can be prevented is unrealistic.

Meanwhile, it's probably just as well for new transport secretary Keith Brown that Scotland seems to have avoided the forecasted repeat of the weather of a fortnight ago in the last few days, since his gimmick of spending the night at the coal face would have misfired spectacularly, because it's difficult to see what he could have contributed to preventing a repeat performance of the traffic chaos; officialdom has had years of experience of cocking these things up, so what realistically could Mr Brown's presence have done to prevent this?

Indeed, the forecasts of significant amounts of new snow last week demonstrate why the public pay little heed to such warnings. Dundee was confidently predicted to have perhaps another foot of snow by now. As it is, we've had little more than a light dusting.

On politics, spin and snow

Despite the chaos caused by last week's snow, the political fallout is still perplexing. In fact it's easy to imagine a similar scenario without much of a political dimension at all, never mind the high-profile resignation of a Scottish Government minister, the first since the SNP took the Holyrood helm in 2007.

Unsurprisingly, the Nationalists are claiming that opposition politicians were, ahem, politically motivated, while the likes of Joan McAlpine takes a more nuanced look at Labour/Unionist connections at BBC Scotland and consequent bias, accusations denied in the strongest terms by the broadcaster in a letter in today's Scotsman.

While there may be some mileage in the BBC bias claim, something that SNP supporters seem to forget is that the media tends to be more critical of incumbent governments rather than opposition parties - indeed, that's why this blog tends to target the SNP in particular - but of course the Nationalists are not used to occupying such high office.

On the other hand, it was quite possibly the tabloid lampooning of Stewart Stevenson that got beneath the former transport secretary's skin, rather than what Jackie Bird et al were saying. And the fact that the issue took on such political significance could reflect the general lack of real news in the Scottish media/political village. I mean, how often does Newsnicht have to discuss the state of Scottish banking and the financial services sector, or the fortunes of the Scottish economy more generally, with the Scotsman's Bill Jamieson, the Herald's Alf Young and that economist chap who looks like he could do with a haircut presumably living within walking distance of the TV studio just in case they're called upon to do their bit, but might get stuck in the snow if travelling by car. (Or, in a slight variation last night, Mr Wendy Alexander aka Professor Brian Ashcroft, and the Scotsman's George Kerevan.)

Anyway, the one matter which seemed to particularly pique the public, journalists and political opponents was when Mr Stevenson claimed on TV that the official response to the blizzards had been "first class".

Bullocks, obviously, but his claim seemed merely symptomatic of bog standard political spin, and the type of black-is-white, fire-is-water bull that politicians spout as a matter of course, and which all but the most partisan or gullible take with a pinch of salt, but which doesn't usually constitute a sacking or resignation offence.

Indeed, it was interesting to listen to Nicola Sturgeon on the Politics Show immediately after Mr Stevenson's departure. He was portrayed as such a paragon of political virtue in his act of departure, and should be so "extremely proud of" his role in piloting "world-leading climate change legislation", that her eulogy begged the question, why resign in the first place? On the other hand, Alex Salmond asking him to stay in his post was entirely "reasonable". Meanwhile, the promoted Keith Brown and Angela Constance represented the "excellent appointment" of an "extremely good, effective and capable minister" with "enormous skills and ability" and a "very capable parliamentary performer" who will do an "excellent job", respectively. Thus "all in all, a good round of appointments". And splitting the transport and climate change aspects of Mr Stevenson's portfolio took place because events represented "an opportunity to look at how responsibilities best fit together" particularly when Roseanna Cunningham is an "extremely good environment minister", so why wait until last weekend to promote these people and rejig the ministerial responsibilities? Oh aye, and it was a' the fault o' the weather and the opposition's political game playing onyway, so why the resignation in the first place?

Thus an object lesson in making a virtue of necessity and attempting to spin the whole thing to best advantage, and to that extent just workaday political bull which the vast majority of people either despair at or have a wee chuckle about, depending on their mood at the time. Or much like the kind of thing that ultimately led to Stewart Stevenson's resignation, but the most significant legacy of Ms Sturgeon's ramblings is as part of the subject matter of this blogpost, thus already effectively forgotten about.

Meanwhile, a correspondent to yesterday's Dundee Evening Telegraph suggests that, since the SNP Government took the hit for the adverse weather then it should take the credit for "introducing a thaw", which seems eminently fair in view of last week's events, but since the Scotsman's lead story is this morning warning of another three feet of snow then perhaps the Nationalists should instead be hoping that political fortunes don't normally more directly reflect the state of the weather!

A clarification(!)

Further to Monday's post accusing the SNP of confusing the issues of independence and further devolution of powers to Holyrood in an opinion poll question in order to increase support for the former by alluding to the latter, a news article in the same day's Courier perhaps helped clarify things.

While seemingly about the same test of public opinion, it was headlined "Poll shows increased support for devolution", thus the author of the article clearly interpreted the results as showing support for more Holyrood powers rather than independence per se.

Thus I self-evidently misconstrued what the opinion poll question was all about, and am therefore pleased to set the record straight.

But wait a minute, the SNP's news release clearly claimed that the poll demonstrated support for independence rather than devolution, and this view was dutifully reported by newspapers often considered unsympathetic to the Nationalist cause.

Thus the Courier's story - which has no by-line and is thus probably syndicated, although it's not on the newspaper's website nor is there any sign of it elsewhere on the internet - perhaps reflects my own cynicism and seems in turn to be having a dig at the SNP's own cynicism. Or perhaps I'm missing something!

(Of course, the same question may well have been asked in past polls, thus to that extent the SNP's claim of a "surge" in support for [whatever] would be justified, but in any case the question seems far from transparent.)

Like Blogfather, like MacBlogfather

Blogfather Iain Dale's decision to retreat from the scene underlines what I said last month on the retirement of MacBlogfather Tom Harris; political blogging seems limited to representing a stepping stone to something else - a career in the mainstream media in Iain's case or one in mainstream politics as regards Tom - or as an adjunct to another activity such as the elected office of MP/MSP or councillor, party apparatchik, mainstream journalist or career outside politics.

Of course, the dynamic is slightly more complex than that - Iain was a blogging pioneer and it ultimately helped raised his profile considerably, while Tom came to prominence in the medium as an MP - but ultimately both decided that blogging was now detrimental to their current primary activities in the mainstream media and as a politician respectively. In short, however, this perhaps underlines that blogging is less an end in itself than a means to something else, presumably further up the political food chain.

Nonetheless, it's sad to see Iain go, but gratifying to know that he's clearly enjoying the pursuit of his publishing and radio anchor interests. Although I came late to the blogosphere, and with interest primarily in devolved matters probably wasn't his most regular reader, he was a bit like a blogging BBC - when the big stories broke Iain Dale's Diary would be top of the reading list for his take on events.

And while I'm not a natural Tory, particularly the libertarian tendency that Iain seems to lean towards, he seems a thoroughly decent chap (was about to say 'bloke' there, but perhaps that's the wrong word!) and his parting comments about the perennial "backbiting" and "character assassination" are unfortunately symptomatic of a debate repeated almost ad nauseum, and which will ebb and flow in the future but will never disappear entirely.

Indeed, if Iain's departure even partly represents the triumph of the bad guys over the good then his demise will do nothing for the long-term efficacy and integrity of the blogosphere.

He who pays the pollster distorts the tune

In view of Ireland's recent well-publicised problems it was bemusing to read an SNP press release announcing a "surge" in support for Scottish independence. Granted, the Westminster coalition is in the process of implementing many hard-to-stomach measures, and Scotland's ability to stand on its own two feet was ably demonstrated recently by its seamless adjustment to the major inconvenience of a few inches of snow.

Nonetheless, a surge in support for independence to 40% seems surprising, but as usual things are not quite as they seem. Of course, the first caveat is that the poll was SNP-commissioned, thus as usual it might have been expected to evidence slightly more support than a more balanced poll about, say, ripping the United Kingdom asunder at a time of international financial crisis when even Alex Salmond recently admitted an independent Scotland would have required the great Albion to rescue our basket-case banks.

OK, that question might look ever so slightly loaded, but by the same token that's surely why the SNP's poll identified a result more favourable than usual to the Nationalist cause. Indeed, the SNP's press release says: "The TNS poll conducted over St Andrews Day shows 40% support the Scottish Parliament having the powers and responsibilities to enable independence, with only 44% opposed."

Ignoring the tidal wave of patriotic sentiment likely to be evinced by conducting the poll on November 30, the key to rationalising the result is presumably in the highlighted part of the question. This isn't just a straight ask about independence; it talks about enabling independence and giving the Scottish Parliament the powers and responsibilities to do so. Indeed, the phraseology rings a bell. Ah, it's similar to the Scottish Government's independence referendum bill, which suggested the following question for voters:

The Scottish Government proposes that, in addition to the extension of the powers and responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament set out in Proposal 1 [either Calman or devo max], the Parliament's powers should also be extended to enable independence to be achieved.

As suggested here at the time, this convolution seems a hybrid between a straight question about independence and one asking about giving the Scottish Parliament more powers, and guess which is likely to elicit higher support?

Therefore hint to the public that the question is about more powers for Holyrood and tack the independence issue on top of that and, hey presto, support for independence "surges".

And while the poll question is perhaps not quite as loaded and contrived as that in the referendum bill, it's hardly the basis for an objective analysis of real support for independence.

Swinney's financial blackmail undermines local government autonomy

More traditional supporters of a separate Scottish state have long questioned the SNP's contradictory 'Independence in Europe' stance - if the intention is to repatriate powers from London to suit Scotland's particular circumstances, why is this juxtaposed with an enthusiasm to cede powers to Brussels, in particular with respect to monetary policy if the euro became Scotland's currency?

Another contradiction of this ilk is evidenced in the Scottish Government's approach to future funding of local government. While the SNP wants fiscal autonomy for Scotland, its Holyrood administration is attempting to put local authorities in a financial straitjacket by effectively imposing a continuation of the council tax freeze, and John Swinney has achieved this by way of threatening significantly bigger cuts in funding allocations if the Scottish Government doesn't get its own way. It's not just a case of maintaining the council tax freeze either; councils have to maintain police numbers and pupil-teacher ratios in primary schools to avoid a cut in their allocation of 6.4%, as compared to a more manageable 2.6% if they agree to dance to the SNP's jig.

This is all about helping meet SNP manifesto commitments made in the run up to the 2007 Holyrood elections, of course, with next year's vote concentrating minds in this regard.

However, this raises question marks about the SNP's commitment to autonomy and accountability at the local level, and the crude financial blackmail employed by the financial secretary merely underlines this. The efficacy of the party's original manifesto promises is also questionable in view of the fact that many of the measures were effectively within the remit of local rather than central government, even assuming the Scottish Government enjoyed a majority at Holyrood and was thus in a better position to pass the requisite legislation.

But the SNP's approach to governance - at the European level down to the lowest tier of elected government - clearly demonstrates a selective approach to independence and autonomy.

Even cold comfort thaws....

That a little known blogger writing on a little read blog normally critical of the SNP Government actually came to its defence yesterday will represent cold comfort to Nationalists, but unfortunately I jumped the gun slightly regarding the political reaction to the problems caused by the recent Arctic weather. This morning's press underlines that transport secretary Stewart Stevenson has important questions to answer over his approach to the affair.

In my defence, one problem was that the issue started as a central belt event. We had the worst of the weather in Dundee over a week ago now. Also, since the weekend the main TV channels on Freeview have been unavailable at Planet Politics HQ, thus my only source of immediate coverage of events recently has been Sky News, and its treatment of the Scottish weather situation has predictably been other than wall-to-wall. And I haven't been listening to the radio.

Thus while criticising politicians for a kneejerk reaction, my own response was similarly perfunctory. But as usual it's still difficult to get to the facts and put things in perspective. If Mr Stevenson did mislead Parliament over the weather forecasts and was to that extent justified in resigning then there should surely be few politicians left in any office. And even assuming he did take heed of a later and slightly more severe forecast, it's difficult to see what difference this could have made; would many motorists have paid any heed to advice to make only essential journeys, for example?

But with only time available for a quick blogpost I should perhaps leave detailed comment on events to those with a better handle on events.

And as I type Sky News is 'breaking'* that the family of the Lockerbie bomber expects him to die within days. More cold comfort for the SNP Government, or an unwelcome early Christmas present for Kenny MacAskill?

*Why is the same news 'breaking' for several hours on Sky News, for example the statement from Simon Hughes last night that he would vote against the coalition in today's student fees vote? Or was it for the coalition? Should really show more interest...

But in a supposed 'fast-moving' rolling news environment surely the same item should only be breaking for a few minutes? Just a thought...

I blame the weather!

This blog tends not to defend incumbent administrations at any level of government - which perhaps displays a lack of balance, but compare the time, effort and (public) money spent blowing their own unbalanced trumpets - but the political capital being made out of the current weather conditions is, as usual, symptomatic of kneejerk partisanship and hyperbole.

Of course, there's the usual crude juxtaposition of incompetent political opponents who can do nothing right with selfless public servants who are beyond reproach; salt of the earth, true grit (geddit?), sort of thing. As always, the truth lies somewhere in between. Of course, there's always things to quibble about and room for improvement, but it's ridiculous to suggest that the authorities could have coped fundamentally better with current conditions.

In Dundee we had the worst of the weather a week ago; something like 15 inches of snow in total (that's almost 40 cms in new money) and constantly freezing temperatures (around -4C yesterday afternoon). So the snow's hanging around, and there's no appreciable thaw on the horizon either.

Most years we get a couple of inches at worst, the temperature is around zero and often rises soon after the snow, and within a day or two most of it has disappeared. Indeed, and although last winter was of course severe, in the three winters prior to that I can't recall anything other than a light dusting of snow in the Dundee area.

Thus to prepare for the likes of recent conditions so that they can be dealt with almost immediately and to everyone's satisfaction is impossible. Those who career around in their cars in treacherous weather conditions and end up in a ditch and then blame the lack of gritting - a not uncommon scenario, even in normal winter conditions - are just another example of that sense of entitlement and shifting of personal responsibility which expects government to make the world idiot-proof.

And it's not just a question of financial and physical resources; the exceptional conditions which closed major Scottish roads and left drivers stranded for hours couldn't be dealt with by normal gritting, and indeed damaged several snowploughs.

Even a week after the worst of the snowfalls, drive around the streets of Dundee and it's like some sort of natural disaster has occurred. Piles of snow everywhere, and even on the ploughed and gritted main routes there are probably thousands of cars covered in snow and left marooned not just by the snowfall, but exacerbated by more of the white stuff piled up by the passing snowploughs.

One example is show in the photo above. These vehicles will take a fair bit of digging to extricate, and the elderly and infirm will need assistance. And many streets normally free of cars are strewn with them; drivers can't get parked in their normal spots. It's like the match day problems afflicting the streets near Tannadice and Dens Park, but all over Dundee, and it'll last for weeks. Thus although politicians have been predictably praising the element of community spirit brought out by the snow, on the other hand tempers will become frayed because of the need for more give and take required by the road conditions and all those awkwardly parked cars reducing many normally busy streets to effective single-track roads. And parking disputes will increase; people have dug out their own little space close to their own little piece of real estate, but someone comes along when they're at work and 'nicks' it.

Of course, that's just the car driver's perspective; the pavements and backstreets are covered in inches of often hard-packed snow. It'll take weeks to clear, and there'll be snow lying around until spring.

Even in the centre of Dundee - which of course is as usual a bit better than other areas - conditions are still snowy, icy and dangerous. The photo below shows a bus that had come to grief yesterday, close to Dundee High School and the main shopping areas, and several days after the worst of the snow.


Of course, there's plenty of room for quibbles. For example, while a city centre trader praises the efforts of council workers in keeping the pavements clear, at the top of the Hilltown - an area which politicians can't usually mention without using words like 'regeneration' - the pavements seem untouched (by the council at least) and are several inches deep in places with anything from hard-packed snow to messy slush. Indeed, it looks like several of the rather forlorn-looking shops in the area haven't even bothered opening in the last few days, while less than a week ago a local councillor was blabbering on about a 'facelift' to make the Hilltown an "attractive and welcoming place to live", with seating improvements because the older residents "struggle up the hill". Pity they can't even get out of their houses. (Although this referred to the bottom of the Hilltown; the snow-clearing efforts perhaps underline a contrast in priorities with the top [or tap o' the hill locally].)

And isn't it interesting how while council offices were closed for several days last week, I was able to wander round deserted DIY warehouses in a fruitless quest to acquire a spade or shovel (it's only in the last few days that I've really begun to appreciate the difference between the two!)?

Which I'd have to admit demonstrates my own lack of preparedness. I'd always considered shovels to be for wimps - why would a driver of my stature need one? - while last week my car got stuck and eventually marooned in an off-road parking area, and its extrication required the shifting of several tons of snow, which entailed a whole day's digging, although naturally a considerable amount of this time was spent leaning on the shovel!

Another predictable facet of anything other than normal conditions is that officialdom seems to treat what's going on as some kind of state or commercial secret. One example in recent days has been the "Live departure boards" on the National Rail Enquiries website, which has been displaying complete and utter nonsense at times (locally at least), which indeed it often does when the trains are anything other than on time or a few minutes late; for example, showing cancelled trains which are in fact running, possibly causing considerable inconvenience to passengers relying on this information.

Such is life, however, and things will never be perfect. But our "hame by teatime" opposition MSPs would do better putting effort into genuinely improving things rather than prioritising crude attempts to embarrass the Government.

(For a change I'm more inclined to agree with this burd than this burd (obviously I don't normally use such sexist language to describe females, which my sister always says reminds her of Richard O'Sullivan in 70s TV sitcom Man about the House), but the latter compellingly takes transport secretary Stewart Stevenson to task for his complacent and self-congratulatory reaction to the weather crisis.)

Lib Dems going that extra mile

Holyrood may not play host to troughing on the scale of Westminster, but it's still got that distinctive air of the gravy train about it, and one which hasn't quite hit the buffers yet.

The Sun got suitably worked up recently about former Lib Dem MSP Keith Raffan, who resigned six years ago following the exposure of his intergalactic mileage claim. He justified his departure on health grounds, which meant he receives a yearly pension of £15,000.

But he's back working on TV in Wales and as a writer, and the Holyrood authorities are powerless to stop his nice little earner, which of course is around three grand more per annum than someone grafting a 40-hour week for the minimum wage. Nice 'work' if you can get it.

Another Lib Dem in the news recently was former Scottish party leader Nicol Stephen, who resigned his position in 2008 to spend more time with his family, sort of thing. But now he's been handed a peerage, and will presumably take his seat in the House of Lords following May's Holyrood elections, when Mr Stephen is standing down.

But as the Courier's political diary points out, on resigning the Scottish Lib Dem leader position he claimed that as an MSP "representing a constituency well away from Edinburgh, I have been away from home at least four working days each week", but "the health and wellbeing of your family has got to come first" and "with four children between the ages of 4 and 12, my family has got to be my priority".

So what's changed in the intervening two years? Is the peerage just a frippery for services rendered, or will Mr Stephen's family be sidelined? Or will they be uplifted to London when they couldn't make the move to Edinburgh a couple of years ago?

As he said following his resignation, "That other cliché is for a politician to say he is looking forward to spending more time with his family. In my case it happens to be true."

So it was a cliché after all then?

Would a Scottish state have squandered oil revenues?

An interesting letter in this week's Courier from Gordon Wilson (him?), who seems to assume an independent Scotland would have accumulated a sovereign oil fund of the magnitude of Norway's.

I sent the following to the Courier questioning that assumption, among other things. Don't know if it will be published, but yesterday's edition carried a couple of other responses, so perhaps not!

Gordon Wilson's general premise is correct insofar as an independent Scotland would self-evidently have derived greater benefit from North Sea oil revenues rather than sharing them across the significantly greater population of the UK.

However, he cites rather selective statistics demonstrating the success of small countries, and also proffers the surely questionable assumption that Scotland would have accumulated a $300 billion oil fund irrespective of the wider economic picture.

For example, he cites Gordon Brown's "daft" recklessness, but Scotland generally and indeed the SNP Government have enjoyed the fruits of this public spending largesse, thus this is a bit like an addict blaming their dealer, so who's to say an independent Scotland wouldn't have been even more profligate?

Or perhaps an independent Scotland would have preferred lower taxation to accumulating an oil fund of that magnitude?

As for the future, is the SNP assuming that every last drop of North Sea oil will be squeezed out despite the current self-righteousness about renewables? If so the latter is making a virtue of necessity.

And perhaps the remaining revenues would be used not to accumulate an oil fund, but instead to festoon Scotland with subsidised wind turbines, thus little more than renewables hypocrisy.

Mr Wilson also alludes that the Unionist parties might use the "tartan tax" powers to raise income tax by 3p. However, the previous Labour/Lib Dem Executive didn't use the powers, and earlier the SNP had its fingers burnt with the "Penny for Scotland" election slogan.

Which is perhaps why the SNP inherited a situation whereby the tartan tax powers had fallen into abeyance under the previous Executive, and finance secretary John Swinney kept quiet about it.

To have made a fuss would have perhaps conveyed the impression to voters that they intended to use the tartan tax powers, hence better to keep schtum.

Which begs the question, why desire full fiscal autonomy if the Scottish political psyche militates against tax rises?

Probably for the borrowing powers, thus possibly Gordon Brown all over again.

Sexist Dundee City Council

Labour MSP Marlyn Glen is taking Dundee City Council to task over the proportion of women employed by the local authority. But there's no "glass ceiling" at the council, says SNP leader Ken Guild, and cites a number of women in senior posts as evidence.

However, the figures that Ms Glen quotes to support her case show that no less than 64.7% of the council's employees are women! Thus if there's any prima facie evidence of discrimination in employment selection it's clearly against men, and not the fairer sex (sexist phraseology there!). However, evidently not happy with this, the MSP's problem is that having a workforce comprising almost two-thirds women isn't good enough, and collectively the other councils in the north-east are nearer the three-quarters mark. And she thinks that women will be disproportionately affected by the spending cuts. Well they will be, if there's more of them employed.

Thus perhaps Ms Glen thinks that employers should be atoning for past sins, for example when the men toiled down the mines and the wifies stayed at home making sure the pipe and slippers were primed for hubby's return. And perhaps her stance is symptomatic of the culture of quotas and targets - meet one and another will be along in a minute.

So maybe Mr Guild should have told her to do one, and rather than sounding defensive should have questioned the fact that men comprise only little over one third of the council's workforce.

Of course, it's not as simple as that because, as the Courier's report points out, the figures are based on a simple head count, which may disguise factors such as part-time/full-time employment and services contracted out to arms-length organisations. And perhaps his figures demonstrate an under-representation of women in senior council positions anyway.

However, maybe that's because they tend to come up with nonsense like Ms Glen, who should at least find concrete evidence of real discrimination against women before making an issue of it.

A belated happy SAD!

A day late, perhaps, but that was because I almost forgot yesterday was St Andrew's Day, as is often the case. 'Almost' because I did in fact know about it, but didn't want to put a downer on anyone with my actually rather downbeat take on the day.

Indeed, the reason it slipped my mind was because my car - which I need for work - is well and truly stuck in the snow around the lower slopes of the Law hill in Dundee. And the buses aren't coming up the road adjacent to where I park my car, because it's too dangerous, and thus the council haven't gritted it, thus it's single track at best, and really only suitable for 4x4s. But I suspect I'd get going if I actually got onto the road, but it's getting onto it in the first place that's the problem.

Oh aye, SAD. As I was saying, apart from the above, for me things just carried on as normal yesterday, as it probably did for the vast majority of people. But I was asking a relative about how they were coping with getting to work in the snow, but they had yesterday off. A SAD holiday, you see. And guess what, they work in the public sector.

Thus those promoting the day as a public holiday can huff and puff about encouraging the private sector to follow the public sector all they want, but at the end of the day it's just another perk for the latter and yet another kick in the teeth for the former, with the weather related-problems just rubbing salt in the wound, when it should preferably be on the roads.

Naturally, Dennis Canavan had the obligatory letter all over the Scottish press recently extolling the virtues of making SAD a public holiday. Of course, even if this was extended to the private sector it would very probably just replace another holiday and wouldn't apply to the likes of the self-employed, thus very definitely SAD for some.

Equally predictably, Mr Canavan posits a SAD holiday as promoting national identity and raising morale, but I suspect most people would rather have a holiday on a Monday rather than on a random day of the week, making it easier to use the extra day to go out and get blootered on the Sunday evening or spend the day itself traipsing around retail parks and clogging up the adjacent roads for those still working and trying to buy their milk and newspapers at Tesco. Or negotiating the foul weather, as the case may be.

Because, like any other holiday, it would be just that rather than of any wider significance. Or perhaps, like the much vaunted success of promoting St Patrick's Day, it would represent just another excuse for students to go out and get hammered, but on Tennent's rather than Guinness.

'Twas ever thus. My first awareness of SAD was around 40 years ago when our primary school teacher told us all about the history of the saltire and all that, and we felt a warm glow of patriotism at it, or what passes for such when aged about six or seven.

And things have changed little since. I can't really recall anyone ever mentioning SAD on the day itself, and I've never really met anyone who sees it as an opportunity to promote national identity, or whatever, although of course there are plenty of people who do. Only, they're the exception rather than the rule - even in the town of St Andrews, blink and you'll miss it.

As for my 'SAD' characterisation, I hope those who were actually on holiday yesterday didn't feel that way, but for the rest of us it perhaps appropriately shares the same acronym as the rather depressing Seasonal Affective Disorder.

The photos show one of the Hilltown/Law area's normal bus routes on Monday, since when another several inches of snow have fallen. Now, who's been buying up all those shovels in Dundee?