One of my recent posts alluded to the creeping destruction of the renovated tenement block in which the Planet Politics headquarters is located, the result, essentially, of the concomitant destruction of many societal rules and boundaries by Scotland's powers that be. Indeed, the denouement of this process was neatly demonstrated on a much larger scale in the same area a few weeks earlier with the demolition of the Alexander Street multis in Dundee's Hilltown.
Typically appropriate, therefore, that just as my blogpost was hitting a handful of computer screens, that morning's edition of the Courier - which sells more than either the Scotsman or Herald - was hitting the loabby carpets and newsstands with the more prominent than usual headline "The rebirth of a city".
Of course, as regards which 'narrative' wins out there's no contest. The "stunning vision" for Dundee's Waterfront regeneration project in general and the V&A museum in particular is a no-brainer for the city's Establishment and elites - councillors, bureaucrats, politicians and the great and the good more generally. Equally, some of the benefit will permeate down to lesser mortals.
Not for myself, however, with a continuing diet of drunks and druggies the more likely scenario. Indeed, since the Waterfront development is scheduled for completion in 2031 then I will consider myself reasonably lucky to live long enough to see it.
In the meantime, however, all the redevelopment has meant for me thus far is years of delays associated with the periodic roadworks during the day, not to mention pointless and irritating delays at night on my way home from work, caused by the profusion of unnecessary and uncoordinated traffic lights in the area. For example, this entails having to stop at two different sets of lights on a single roundabout where not that long ago they were deemed necessary only during the rush hour, or a wait that has been as long as two minutes at junctions for the railway station when it isn't even open, and another for an office block that's closed at night.
But for Dundee's Establishment, elites and vested interests these matters are of little significance. What matters is the dominant narrative. Of course, that's not to say that the Establishment doesn't take an interest in matters of more concern to those further down the food chain - such as crime and anti-social behaviour - rather than that someone may have their view spoilt by a couple of wind turbines a mile or two away, say, or that - shock, horror - such a scenario might affect property prices by a grand or two.
Equally, however, the concern for the hoi polloi only goes so far. For example, the Baxter Park area of Dundee has long suffered from anti-social behaviour, even despite - or perhaps because of - significant sums of money spent upgrading the park and its pavilion. But it was instructive to read the recent response from SNP councillor Liz Fordyce to correspondence in the press about a random attack on two women in the park. Although the letter writer was wrong about the whereabouts of a local school prom (and to that extent the apportionment of blame) this had no obvious bearing on the violent incident itself. However, Councillor Fordyce harrumphed:
Which raises a number of issues, but clearly the tenor of the councillor's response is that if you don't appreciate my/our munificence/beneficence then please go forth and multiply, you ungrateful so and so - your complaints don't quite fit the narrative.This is not the first time people have publicly maligned the good name of the schools in the Stobswell area, nor is it the first time they have maligned the residents or the people who go to Baxter Park.
As ward councillor for Baxter Park and now Maryfield, I am getting exceedingly angry. Over the 12 years of my tenure, the residents of the Stobswell area have worked together to regenerate and restore not only the park, but also the community spirit of the Stobswell area.
If some people find it so abhorrent to live in this area then, for goodness sake, let them move away.
Of course, as per the recent hoohah over X Factor contestant Jade Richards' description of her home town of Buckhaven as a 'dive', here there's the usual attempt to denigrate the complainant with the well worn 'anti-[wherever]' or 'talking [wherever] down'. Then there's the contrast of that with positive words such as 'restore' and 'regenerate', not to mention that good old 'community spirit'.
Never mind that this kind of portrayal may all be a bit too rose-tinted and ignore the violent incident itself, or that a few weeks later the press would report on further problems in the area.
Or that for various reasons it might not be too easy for anyone finding the area "abhorrent" to move away. For example, that moving to such an area in the first place perhaps indicates that they don't have the wherewithal to choose, unlike (for example) senior police officers retiring on pensions of several times average earnings, and who can to that extent afford to take a more positive view of the area, and tell us how safe it is.
Indeed, a subsequent Courier correspondence involving the complainants, SNP councillors and the Lib Dems was also instructive. The latter said that at a meeting an SNP councillor "attacked individuals for writing to newspapers". Obviously if the dirty linen is to be washed at all then it shouldn't be done in public.
Even worse, the complainants seem to be regarded as serial offenders as far as washing the dirty linen is concerned. This earlier article has Mrs Fordyce saying the problems are over-exaggerated and: "As for the claim that the police are just not recording these incidents because they want to keep the crime figures down, I am appalled. That is a terrible slur on the policemen and women who, quite frankly, put their lives on the line for our community."
Wot, you mean all crime is recorded? Well let's assume that Mrs Fordyce is being delusion rather than dishonest, but again she (hopefully!) exaggerates her own reaction to the suggestion that not all crime might be recorded, and also demonises the complainants with what is frankly irrelevant. And to think she accuses others of "over-exaggerating".
Of course, the police are themselves part of the Establishment and broadly conform to the same narrative as councillors, each reinforcing this with a sub-narrative of mutual admiration. Thus in 2005, in response to complaints about prostitution and kerb-crawling in her area, Councillor Fordyce said regarding the police response: "They have been magnificent and seem to have everything under control."
Er, not quite, since a few years later the Scottish Sun reported that the area was an integral part of Dundee's "vice explosion", indeed playing host to an episode which resulted in a high profile court case on the definition of public indecency.
And no doubt police are magnificent and have everything under control in the Hilltown area of Dundee where Planet Politics Towers is located. Er, not quite (again!), as the litany of recent incidents described here perhaps demonstrate. And yet another incident a couple of weeks ago in a street just round the corner, this time involving an 84-year-old grandmother, who was "repeatedly punched in the head" by an intruder who barged his way into her home.
Almost precisely seven days later to the hour and I was walking nearby, and came across a group of police officers who were attending to a young male whose face was covered in blood and had presumably been assaulted.
The short street where the elderly woman was attacked also played host to a stabbing earlier this year, and a few of weeks later in the same street a fire necessitated the rescue of residents by firefighters. Also, in a strange twist the resident in whose flat the fire started was more recently convicted of criminal damage to an emergency response vehicle while he was being treated at Ninewells Hospital.
But that's all relatively small beer in the area. The photae below shows part of that troubled street from the rear of Planet Politics Towers, split by the road going up the middle. The stabbing and fire took place somewhere behind the vegetation to the middle left of the picture. The attack on the grandmother occured in one of the buildings towards the middle of the picture (the street is split in two and is rather, er, asymmetrical in layout). A few years ago someone was murdered in the green playpark area nearer to the camera. Within a year or so another murder had taken place on the road which dissects the street with the more recent problems (just off camera to the right of the picture).
So excuse me if I just don't quite get the area's "belonging, togetherness and sense of community". Call me anti-social, but I prefer to just lock the doors and immerse myself in my iPod, which both helps keep the noise out and doesn't annoy my immediate neighbours, who are mercifully very quiet.
However, there are some more pleasant areas nearby, including the greenery of the Law Hill, which is a mere few minutes walk from Planet Politics Towers. And where, despite its murderous history - a decade ago a female dog walker was "butchered" by a 16-year-old who lived nearby and a decade earlier parts of a dismembered body were found by another dog walker - I go walking several times a week. A few days ago I was ambling along when an almighty bang rang out a few hundred yards away - apparently heard over "half of Dundee" - and which later transpired to have been due to an arson attack on an allotment shed.
But of course after several years of SNP rule in Dundee things like that just shouldn't be happening in the city, and if you don't subscribe to the "community spirit" narrative then the likes of Councillor Fordyce will get "exceedingly angry" with you, indeed no doubt more angry than with the people who are actually causing the problems. It's the victims who're the problem, stupid, not the perpetrators. Moreover, with Tayside Police apparently more concerned about the use of supposedly offensive terms like "lady", "ethnic minority" and "immigrant" it's little wonder they don't have time for, um, policing.
A related subject revisited on numerous occasions on this blog is that of liquor licensing. Thus we have industrial scale intoxication in numerous licensed establishments and hence industrial scale flouting of the relevant law. It's what politicians call a "controlled environment", or suchlike. And police merely scratch the surface of drunk and disorderly and related anti-social behaviour. But our licensing councillors and those on police boards are indifferent to all this. Never mind the law, stupid, it's the fault of the supermarkets. Drunks are 'victims' and are 'vulnerable', and it's all down to cheap booze.
And yet even in the last handful of years councillors in Dundee and Fife have been significantly extending licensing hours, to the extent that huge queues can be seen outside one particular large scale establishment at 3am. Thus drinkers go out later, hence exacerbating the 'front-loading' with cheap supermarket booze.
A few months ago a Dundee nightclub tried to extend its opening hours to win back customers lost to the ultra-late drinking venue. The aforementioned Councillor Fordyce objected on the basis that this would "set a precedent" for other nightclubs. But that didn't seem to be a problem when the competing establishment was granted an all-night licence, hence precipitating the nightclub's application to extend its hours.
Presiding over all this in recent years as licensing chiefs have been Dundee's lord provost John Letford, and currently Councillor Rod Wallace. As well as their double standards as regards licensing and their selective approach to law enforcement, Mr Wallace seemed wholly ignorant of a high profile legal case concerning minimum pricing - which even as a mere interested bystander I recall vividly - and as regards a more recent case adverse to the council he simply said that the sheriff "got it wrong", while at the same time confirming that there would be no appeal.
Meanwhile, the Courier recently reported that licensing councillors in Dundee 'took note' of a breach of the licensing laws by a Tesco store in East Berkshire, England, since any such infringement "requires all Scottish licensing boards to be informed". You couldnae make it up.
Another fairly recent example illustrative of the problem concerned a new nightclub in central Dundee. Residents objected because of the potential for noise, but this was dismissed because the club had the necessary soundproofing.
Not long after I passed this establishment on a summer's evening and there was a girl lying on the ground outside, clearly the worse for wear. Several others were making an almighty racket, and there was a similar almighty racket emanating from the club itself. This was on a Monday evening in broad daylight. Problem is that licensed premises now tend to have smokers standing outside them much of the time, often behaving anti-socially. And many pubs and clubs leave their doors open, particularly in warm weather, thus the whole street gets to share the entertainment. But councillors had merely noted that the soundproofing box had been ticked, hence no problem.
Never mind all that though, because what matters is that the Lord Provost still swans around in his chauffeur driven limousine, repleted with little flags, royalty-style. The good news, though, is that he's announced his retirement, thus presumably presaging the complete removal of the Union flag from City Square, as opposed to its current position above the Scottish saltire.
But he's also endorsed...wait for it...Councillor Wallace as the "most outstanding candidate" to replace him, since he has "carried out his duties way beyond what was expected " - you can say that again! - and because he will continue to "take the city forward". To more drunkenness and illegality, presumably, while allowing the more irresponsible licensees to profiteer by affording them a monopoly on the late-night over-consumption of alcohol.
Thus again the same self-serving and self-perpetuating elite and Establishment. Oh, and apologies to Councillor Wallace, because he's a bailie rather than a mere councillor, but the decision to resurrect that particular title was another example of the self-aggrandising fluff so beloved of some members of the political class.
And talking of titles and baubles, the Lord Provost was also involved in the recent decision to exhume the civic order of burgess, which is to be part paid for by those seeking such personal adornment, but which also necessitates the recipient demonstrating a "commitment to equality and diversity in the promotion of civic pride in or contribution to the community spirit of the City of Dundee". Which must have something to do with Mr Letford having abuse shouted at him when he's driven to his home in one of Dundee's poorest housing schemes, not to mention his ever so wholesome contribution to Dundee's alcohol problem. As for his (and Mr Wallace's) oversight of the city's taxi trade, let's not go there.
Obviously the paid officials and civil servants in the political-bureaucratic complex are less overtly dismissive of those who don't conform to the narrative, but occasionally evidence of disdain for public opinion makes it to the surface. For example, a recent BBC Scotland investigation into alleged corruption and fraud in the administration of building contracts by Edinburgh City Council uncovered internal correspondence referring to a "moan letter" from an aggrieved member of the public. In a Scottish Review article Professor Walter Humes refers to a book by investigative journalist Heather Brooke (of MPs' expenses fame) about the "myth of British democracy", and says:
She also cites disturbing cases of individuals who have refused to be fobbed off by local authorities or other public bodies when they have sought to have complaints addressed. In one case a woman who kept pressing about the police and council's failure to take any action about an act of vandalism which she had witnessed and reported was told that she would have a 'warning marker' placed against her name for a period of 18 months and that this information would be passed to other agencies. Despite all the political rhetoric about community involvement and public responsibility, anyone who expects there to be an effective official response when they contact the relevant authority may well be disappointed.Slightly closer to home and a recent judgement in an unfair dismissal case concerning a sacked teacher was highly critical of Dundee City Council. In response another former teacher involved in a separate long running clash with the council claimed that senior officials "presided over a 'school bully' culture in the education department, marginalising anyone who spoke out against the system".
On the other hand, to an extent the media are also part of the Establishment and help perpetuate it. For example, a recent double-page Evening Telegraph feature on the blight of vandalism in Dundee was accompanied by a leader column extolling the virtues of our "beautiful city", which as the feature itself surely demonstrated depends on where precisely in the city you are. Again this comes back to the identity politics encompassing the geographical and political entity of Dundee, à la Jade Richards and Buckhaven.
Similarly, a recent Courier editorial following the aforementioend assault on the elderly grandmother in her own home made the point that the fear of crime was often greater than the reality. But as usual the reality of crime depends on factors like where you live and what you do for a living. Senior journalists and senior police officers on six-figure salaries can't plausibly characterise disparate entities the size of Tayside and Dundee as safer than other areas (say), but of course they do, and get away with it.
It's surely also instructive that the only time I can really recall the DC Thomson stable taking issue editorially with light touch/hands off policing was a year ago with regard to illegal gypsy/traveller encampments - perhaps underlined by a double-page news article on the issue in last weekend's Sunday Post, not to mention another two-page spread in the Evening Telegraph this week - while a similar approach to policing with respect to other crime and disorder is never mentioned.
Of course, the explanation here is presumably that that issue is one often preoccupying those of a certain social/economic status, while similar blight further down the pecking order is a different matter. Indeed, if gypsies and travellers can plausibly claim to be discriminated against then perhaps it's because they're taken to task by sections of the commentariat for behaviour that's tolerated in other sections of society, such as many T in the Park attendees or some residents of Dundee tenement blocks.
However, the media in general is self-evidently full of bad news stories, but presumably the trick is to stay on the right sight of the line between negativity in general and "talking Dundee/Buckhaven/Scotland down", sort of thing, a dividing line that I suspect this blog has been singularly unsuccessful in negotiating!
And of course there are numerous other ways in which recalcitrants like myself are demonised, although on the other hand being acknowledged at all is in some ways an achievement in itself. But, for example, in a recent online discussion, as a blogger I was to that extent considered uninterested in the public more generally, and this was juxtaposed with selfless party activists who give up their time to chap on doors and all the rest of it. Ouch!
It's barely worth dignifying that sort of stuff with a reply, but rather than considering my own attitude towards others it's perhaps instructive to point out that in almost twenty years at my current address I can only ever recall one party door knocker, and certainly no one in the last decade. Moreover, during May's Holyrood campaign I didn't even get the leaflet drop via the post, and in fact only received three communications of any kind, those via the less discriminating avenue of addresses clearly culled from the electoral roll. And indeed nothing about the AV referendum either.
Of course, the explanation for this probably has something to do with the fact that the neighbourhood is one of those where you actually tend to worry about people chapping on your door, and as a corollary the political parties tend not to bother, because they probably view such areas as generally apathetic and to that extent resources are better employed elsewhere - marginal seats, for example, at the macro-electoral level - and also because, like police officers who are scared to patrol my part of Dundee on their own, I really don't blame party volunteers for giving such neighbourhoods a very wide body swerve anyway. After all, 20% of voters is perhaps typical of the mandate the parties need to get elected, so why bother with those more likely to be indifferent or even hostile to the political process?
Of course, the apathy card is also another one regularly played in the game of political poker. Turnout may be low, but why should the apathetic be brought into the equation if they can't even be bothered turning out to vote? But the problem here isn't just that people don't vote because they can't be bothered - although clearly some do fall into that category - it's also because many view party politics as an unattractive self-perpetuating oligarchy that's proferred on a take it or leave it basis, and which does its level best to ensure that alternative perspectives are squeezed out.
Thus despite the self-evident competition between the parties on one level, on another it's back to the 'narrative privilege' argument expounded by Professor Humes. Therefore a bit like the Tesco/Asda/Sainsbury/Morrison's oligopoly in retailing - although they rule the market roost a significant number of people don't like them, and even if they do shop with them it's effectively because they have little choice in the matter. And economically the market domination by a small number of big players means that it's effectively impossible for newcomers to make an impact.
But to that extent the apathy argument is often misleading, and confuses indifference regarding how government intervenes (or doesn't) in our lives with hostility towards party politics and the self-evident shortcomings of our democracy. I may not support any of the political parties, but at the very least this blog has surely demonstrated that its author is far from apathetic!
However, those of us who feel alienated and disenfranchised by the political process shouldn't really grumble, because domestic representative democracy can never really hope to produce a result that satisfies everyone, or even the majority. Indeed, domestic governments are generally elected by a minority of voters. Factor in the turnout figures and 'popular' mandates seem to confer even less legitimacy and true representation.
But in the contemporary Scottish context - and to quote one blogger at least whose words are apparently awaited with baited breath by the upper echelons of Scotland's opinion formers and movers and shakers - SNP strategy and policy guru Stephen Noon recently blogged that:
People want a Scottish Government that is working hard for jobs and is doing what it can to protect family budgets and generally make Scotland a better place to live. These are the issues that speak to voters no matter where they come from. And that is what the people of Scotland see, and like. This is the reality of the SNP - a party for all of the people of Scotland - rather than the crude caricatures presented by the opposition. [Emphasis added]And without even the slightest hint of irony! But Mr Noon's paradoxical deprecation of his oppenents' exaggertion merely underlines his own. Barely one in five voting for the SNP may have translated into what's been called a de facto one-party state, but "a party for all the people of Scotland" it ain't. Thus while democracy may be inherently imperfect, it might be easier for the disgruntled to stomach the results if the political class refrained from what he himself calls "crude caricatures", which of course is just one aspect of the dishonesty and delusion which disfigures the political process. Indeed, if anyone should know that to win a Holyrood election a party only has to be endorsed by 1 in 5 voters then it's surely Mr Noon, and presumably it's helping secure this modest endorsement - a significant proportion of whom will in fact only vote for a particular party on a 'best of a bad lot' basis - that he's particularly good at, thus not only are such people largely unconcerned with the electorate generally, but the "party for all the people of Scotland" bull merely underlines this.
Well thanks for taking the time to read this post, which if it conveys even more of an impression than usual that it comprises a few random thoughts cobbled together in an unstructured fashion then that's because it indeed is! But if the foregoing provides a snapshot of some of the matters originally providing this blog's raison d'être, then sadly it also rationalises its demise.
Anyway, thanks to all readers over the last three years, and in particular those who took the time to leave comments, supportive or otherwise.
And a special thanks to the small number of fellow bloggers who have posted or sent complimentary messages over the last few days. It's at least gratifying that those have included some of Scotland's top political bloggers.
And while the politicians, elites and vested interests will no doubt continue to win the ongoing war, there may be a battle or two to be fought yet!
