Murdo’s idea seems to be that the current arrangements and policies of the Tory party, with its heart, soul and base all firmly rooted in London, is not Scottish enough to garner the support he feels it naturally deserves. His proposal, then, is to establish a New Scottish Conservative Party. If that were the end of it, then I would be quite happy to welcome such a party to the Scottish political scene. Where it all starts to go wrong is the further stated plan to field joint candidates with the Old Conservative Party for Westminster elections and to accept the party whip there. In essence, no change. The plan for Holyrood seems to be to develop new right-of-centre thinking and policy for Scotland. This, I feel, is an important line of thought. Scotland’s natural Tories need proper representation with properly focussed policies which take their philosophies into account and which expends its efforts on promoting those in Holyrood and in Scotland as a whole. Murdo’s twin lines of thought strike me and many others as incompatible. In a nutshell, he wants independence for Tory politics in Scotland, but apparently not for Scotland’s politics as a whole, and heaven forbid the very thought of independence for Scotland. To my mind this all adds up to cosmetic tinkering with no real change

His proposals have given rise to a bout of in-fighting among Scottish Tories with what may be, tongue in cheek, labelled as Rifkindite and Forsytheite wings lining up to support or deride his plan. The other potential candidates in the leadership campaign will be obliged to come out against his idea on their own grounds. At this moment it appears that his plan will be opposed in its entirety by whoever puts themselves forward. Nobody seems to want to back the possible break-up of the united unionist front within the Tories.

What would be interesting would be for a candidate to come forward and propose similar plans but with certain modifications.
No joint candidates for Westminster; that would split the right-wing vote, so maybe a better idea would be to field no candidates for Westminster at all. This, of course, would imply at the very least an acceptance of the inevitability of Scotland’s independence from the U.K. at some point in the presumably not very distant future.
Given the unlikelihood of that scenario being played out, then non acceptance of the Westminster Tory whip would carry similar overtones. Tories voting for Scotland’s interests before U.K. interests. Another non-starter I’d suggest.

There is another possibility. Murdo and his supporters, allowing that he has any, should simply resign their membership of the Old Tories. Set up their new party, pragmatically accepting that Scotland is on its way to leaving the U.K. and focus their attentions solely on Scotland. Ignore Westminster. In an independent Scotland, Westminster will have no more importance than the White House, or the Elysée Palace. Holyrood would become their sole point of attention. This would gather support I am sure. There is already such a group in existence; The Scottish Democratic Alliance puts itself forward as a right of centre grouping with independence as its starting point. Perhaps Murdo should be talking with them. Perhaps they should be seeking to recruit Murdo.

This contemporary act of government initiated vandalism is being carried out to save £2 billion in operating costs over a period of 10 years, and will itself cost the not insubstantial sum of £200 million to carry out. That would thus represent an end saving of £1.8 billion over the ten years. Or would it?

The consequences of reaching for this saving will incur other costs, not all of them reckonable in advance, and not all of them financial. The reasons given for the destruction of the virtually completed planes (for these are the present day Nimrods under consideration) have been presented in almost entirely financial terms. Other opinions have been proffered, but they smack somewhat of late additions and seem to me to be trotted out as back up for a decision which many believe to be rooted in ideology rather than any defence based reasoning.

One such reasoning is the claim that the systems which were to be used in the planes is already all but obsolete. Peter Felstead, of Jane’s Defence Weekly, has stated that the electronics systems are already out of date, adding that, “You wouldn’t put them in last year’s Playstation.” Keith Hayward, head of research at the Royal Aeronautical Society states, “That is the paradox of military development – you will always be outpaced by civil technology.” These two remarks, taken together would suggest to me that any future development of military electronics should be contracted out to Sony, or Nintendo or, if the, “look and feel” is important, perhaps Apple would be interested in a bit of diversification. I have to say at this point, that Mr. Hayward’s claim runs contrary to what I was told when I worked in the electronics industry in the 80s. At that time I was informed by one employer (a defence contractor) that non- military applications tagged along on the coattails of military development. I was later told by one of my supervisors in a non- defence related company that the work we were doing was heavily based on military application of the previous decade, albeit with some refinement and a little lateral thought. Perhaps times have changed.

It is widely accepted that defence spending had to be reduced and that some of the technology on which much of our defence is based would have to be sacrificed. The next question I have is, why are we scrapping a search and recon technology while retaining and probably replacing a system which, if used, would, literally, lead to the end of civilisation as we know it? Put it another way, if we scrap Trident, we could have Nimrods aplenty.

Earlier in this article I mentioned that not all the costs of scrapping the Nimrod fleet would be financial. These costs have already begun to be paid in Moray. There are service personnel whose futures are placed in doubt, some of those people are facing the ending of their careers. Imminent redundancy creates and extracts a cost in terms of stress and related ill health among families. The resulting fall off in economic activity in the surrounding towns of Forres and Elgin will also have knock-on effects as businesses close and more jobs are lost, leading to other businesses suffering and closing, costing yet more jobs and starting a downward spiral of gloom and despair.

In the first instance these things will not feature in any government budget calculations. They are human costs. The financial cost will come later on and it is unlikely that the eventual price will be ascribed to its real cause. The financial costs will come in the form of increased benefits bills and further, essentially avoidable, costs will eventually be borne by the NHS as doctors prescribe medications and therapies to assist those whose lives are fractured and shattered.

In Scotland we are now used to the idea of devolution, but starting this week, in an industrial complex in Cheshire, the U.K. government is responsible for an act of de-evolution. Today, a high tech multi billion pound aeroplane: tomorrow an empty baked bean can tossed into the recycling bin.

For my part, I will try to consider the repercussions of these figures, working on the assumption that they just might be carried forward into real votes come polling day. Let me state at the outset, however, that it is my dearest wish to be proceeding on a premise that ultimately proves to be wildly wrong.

Let us gaze into the crystal ball then… The Scottish Parliament has reconvened with a Labour led administration. What then for the other major parties in Holyrood? Well, first of all we would be waving bye-bye to Annabel Goldie. Her days are surely numbered irrespective of who wins the election, for we can be virtually certain that it wont be her party who do so. Alex Salmond may well be following her out of leadership status, which, to my mind, would be a disaster second only to losing the election. At this moment Mr. Salmond stands so far above all the others in Holyrood, and most if not all in Westminster, as a worthy leader of not only his party, but his country. Whoever replaces him will have an uphill struggle to match his ability in either arena. Turning to the LibDems, I would think that Tavish Scott’s only hope of retaining his branch manager status would be a coalition agreement with Labour. In the event of a hung parliament, I would expect such an outcome; the LibDems once more covering themselves with inglorious opportunism in their eternal search for a sniff of power wherever it is offered.

While disapproving most heartily of the LibDems and their craven ways of doing politics on a U.K. basis, I can only offer the hope that, if projected back into a coalition with Labour at Holyrood, they make a better fist of it this time than they did in the previous Labour led administrations there. I fear that my hope would come to virtually nothing as the bombast and bluster of the Labour mafia would once again overwhelm their, once up a time, moderating influence. Such influence is not to be looked for with any realism though. Nick Clegg blew that hope out of the water as far as Scotland is concerned when he entered his unholy partnership with the Tories at Westminster.

This, then, leaves us with the Labour regional office to consider. The thought of Iain Gray holding any position of real power fills me with dread, despair and a sudden urge to start buying lottery tickets with a view to financing emigration. To put it mildly, I see him as a liability.

Ploughing on through my nightmare though, i should try to ask and answer a question or two. What would an in-power Labour administration do in Holyrood? Well, there is a list which I think would quite likely include such things as; Rising prescription charges, rising council tax bills, a reinstatement of GARL, a reintroduction of tolls on the Forth, Tay, Erskine and Skye bridges, the sale of Scottish Water to the highest bidder, cancellation of numerous renewable energy projects, removal of free care for our elderly, siting of new nuclear power stations in Scotland, cancellation of the proposed new crossing of the Forth, a reduction in the number of police on our streets, student tuition fees introduced for Scottish resident students…
The list could go on and on, but in writing it out I am succeeding only in depressing myself and topping up my own despair. The incomplete list I have given should, I hope, be more than enough to persuade any reader currently considering voting for the red-rosetted mafia to turn their thoughts inward and then come out the other side and switch their voting intention and then their voting action to give Labour an almighty bodyswerve and put their crosses in the appropriate squares on the ballot to re-elect an SNP administration.

Critics of the SNP Government at Holyrood have levelled the accusation of their, “picking fights with Westminster.” Well, that’s what we elected them for, to look out for, fight for and try to safeguard the interests of Scotland without regard for the interests of others. If Labour win in May, any fights they pick will not be with Westminster, they will be with the Scottish people. Their interests are not ours. I found it rather telling when I saw a short interview with Ed Balls on his moving up to the Westminster Shadow front bench. He spoke first of all about his predecessor, Alan Johnson, saying he was a, “fine servant of social democracy, the party and the public.” Am I alone in seeing the possible anomaly there? Is it even an anomaly? Perhaps not; we should, by now, be well used to the concept of a Labour politician labouring on behalf of the party before even considering labouring on behalf of the people. If we elect Iain Gray and his cohorts to power in May, that is what we can expect. They will work for the party first. Let us not forget where that party is based, and where its allegiances truly lie. London and London again.

In advance of May, we would do well to remember which one of all the major parties here has its focus, its base and its allegiances firmly rooted in Scotland. Just in case any of my readers are in doubt about this, I’ll tell you that those qualities (focus, base, allegiances) are not to be found in the Tory party, the LibDem party or the Labour party. Only the SNP can boast all of them. Think on that as you head to the polling station.

The ConDem coalition currently in office in the big-pretendy-parliament in London has taken up the issue and is proposing to bring forward legislation in the current session to set a minimum unit price across the board. The fine detail of their plan is yet to be revealed as it seems this is still a work in progress, but the intent is clear. From a cursory reading of the plans as they stand, they will certainly need some further thinking, as the present offering would leave the minimum price of a can of ordinary strength beer at a mere 38p. A booze-hound’s paradise in the making. Where can such a bargain basement price be found? I suggest that it can’t, unless the can in question is very, very small.

Leaving the ConDem plans’ unfinished detail to one side for the moment, the thing that springs to the front of my mind is the blatant exposure of the hypocritical stance adopted by the opposition parties at Holyrood who combined to vote down a much stronger proposal from the SNP administration only a few months ago. Dave C says it’s a good thing, but poor old Annabel G. rejected it as being bad for business. Nick C is backing it because Dave C says it’s a good idea. Tavish S hasn’t been told what to say yet, so we’ve heard nothing from him. Ed M hasn’t been very vocal on the matter thus far, but we can be sure he will have a few oily words to say which will without a doubt leave Iain G. flapping around without a policy. To be honest, that’s not a new thing; puir Iain hasn’t had many (if any) of those to offer us in a fair while.

The thing that would make me laugh out loud if only it wasn’t so serious a matter is the clear splits within the three parties. Tories, Labour and LibDems all flailing around with the south hand having not a clue what the north hand thinks. Questions rise in my head; Do the English branches of these parties not know that their Scottish branches have already voted this policy down in Holyrood? Do they care? Do the Scottish parties now find their collective faces reddening? Do they care? Do Scottish voters now, finally, see that their Scottish based representatives have not and never really have had the faintest intention of doing the right thing for Scotland and the Scots? Do they care? Will the Labour party’s Shadow Health Secretary at Westminster come out with the grand idea that caffeine is the “real” problem? Will Those Labour double-salaried MSP/MPs vote against the proposal in Westminster as they did in Edinburgh? Will anyone care?

As you will have noticed (I hope you noticed) the “do they care?” question was asked a few times there. It is the really big one. Do our elected public servants care that their hypocrisy is being exposed? Do they care that they are seemingly in such blatant disagreement on opposite sides of the border? To be honest, I despair of the answers which i expect will turn out to be applicable to each and every asking of the question. I fear that the answer will be, “no much,” to all of them.

Recent events on the political scene in Scotland are filling my head and heart with despair. This latest fandango of nonsense isn’t quite the straw breaking the back of this particular camel, but the load is slowly and steadily approaching that critical point. The piling up of these insults and slights is such that, if I were a wealthy person, I would, by now, be seriously involved in a property hunt in some country far removed from this sad island. I truly despair at the multiple faces of the majority of our political representatives in both parliaments. I truly despair at our devalued and degraded democracy. I truly despair just thinking about the possibility of anything other than a substantial SNP victory at the forthcoming Holyrood election.

My despair brings me back to my oft-asked question; Do they care?
It is my sincere hope that Iain G, Annabel G and Tavish S do indeed care, and have the required decency to publicly admit that they and their party compadres got it wrong and take some action to remedy their self seeking actions. On this issue, if on no others, their party leaders down south are leaving them with, to quote Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, “nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide.”

Let’s have a wee think about what actually happened. The snow fell. That is not the fault of anyone in government. The snow wasn’t cleared off the roads. The responsibility for that can be distributed. Mother Nature shoulders much of the blame mainly for the overwhelmingly large amount of the white cold stuff She deposited on us. A range of private contractors and councils across (mainly) central Scotland can take a good lump of the blame for their inability to clear or keep the roads clear. The Met Office can take a lump too as their forecasts as furnished to government and councils were conflicting and inaccurate. The Holyrood government minister can take a bit of it as well as the responses from government were a bit slow and ultimately inadequate.

Thus far, so good. Now comes the bit where I risk making myself unpopular. A very large part of the responsibility for the chaos we have seen on our roads can be squarely laid at the feet of the people who ventured out on Monday with blithe disregard for the conditions they were already aware of and in blissful ignorance of the conditions they were about to face as the mis-forecast snow was dumped across the country. This may seem like a contradiction, and to an extent, it is. However, it is December, snow had already fallen in huge quantities and there was little sign of a thaw in progress. Any rational person taking their car onto the roads with the prospect of even a light fall of snow needs to take responsibility for their own situation. While accepting that many people had good reason to be out and about on Monday, it is hard to accept that problems on the roads were going to come as a surprise. The plethora of jack-knifed HGV lorries clearly could not be predicted, but the delays in reaching them to assist in getting them moving again was compounded by the accumulation of all the factors already mentioned; Mother Nature, contractors, councils and unprepared drivers.

The only innocent in this part of the scenario is Stewart Stevenson. His failure, if indeed it was such, was limited to the possible lack of co-ordination at a strategic level. The slowness of response and the apparent lack of information provided to those in trouble can be partly laid at his door, but the media didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory either. BBC Radio Scotland provided what they called, “weather updates.” What that means is that a reporter informed people stuck in the snow that it was still snowing. Wonderful stuff!

So… in the end, the roads will be cleared, traffic will move again and the snow will melt away. There may be further snowfalls and there may be further chaos and mayhem on our roads to come this winter, after all it is only December. Today in the chamber at Holyrood Alex Salmond talking in terms of climate change and how it can and should be dealt with, spoke of how our nation’s infrastructure will need to upgraded in order to deal with such conditions in years to come. His remarks were a clear call for consensus instead of blame.

Will he get such a consensus? Sadly, it has to be said that in our parliament there are three problems which make it highly unlikely that any such agreement can be made while the SNP are in office. Those three problems are the Labour party, the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrat party. All three would rather snipe and carp than offer any real assistance to an SNP administration. All three would rather pile on the blame when, if being effective in opposition, they should be making alternative proposals. All three would choose to join in with the hysteria and let their media friends put more skewed reportage into the newspapers and TV news bulletins.

They may call it politics. I call it pathetic.

The Report of the Ministerial Working Group on the Scots Language was published with very little by way of fanfare. Indeed, I would have remained as unaware as most Scots had it not been for this wee article on Newsnet Scotland. When I read the article, I immediately went in search of the report. It can be downloaded from this page on the Scottish Government’s website.

The report is hugely positive in its outlook and the aims, goals and recommendations it contains squarely address an important part of the disgraceful phenomenon commonly known as the Scottish Cringe. For those who are unaware of what this term means, let me outline some of it; the feeling that we are somehow, “second best,” that our culture and heritage is somehow, “unworthy,” that our institutions are somehow, “parochial,” that our nation, nationhood and nationality are things best played down or, even better, subsumed into the greater British state… these are things that go to make up the Scottish Cringe. In political arguments you may have heard it said that Scotland is too wee, too weak, too poor, too stupid to run its own affairs. That, my friends is the sort of thing I’m talking of. Talking Scotland down is the outward manifestation of the Cringe. The Union stands at the root of it.

Throughout history, colonising powers have recognised that imposing their language on a subjugated people is a powerful instrument in keeping them suitably subjugated. It has happened here, in our allegedly united kingdom. After the 1745 rebellion the expression of Scottish culture and the use of the Gaelic language were repressed and severely frowned upon. This repression has continued until recently, with Scots language and dialects being actively, “educated out,” of children in our schools. I can bear personal witness to this. I grew up in Elgin where the local folk speak a variant of Doric Scots. The Doric of the North East is a rich, expressive and venerable tongue, but, while a pupil at Elgin Academy I was once belted for persistant use of Doric expressions and words in the classroom. I know I was not the only pupil thus treated. There were also teachers in our school who even tried to educate us out of our local accent, trying to tell us that we would never be understood or accepted by the wider world if we didnt modify our speech and ensure we spoke only, “proper English.” This is a resentment I have carried for 40 years. In those 40 years I have roamed the continent and have indeed learned how to express myself in, “proper English.” I needed to be able to communicate effectively with people who dont speak my language, so I took the time and trouble to become proficient in theirs. To that end, I can now get by fairly well in German and Greek as well as English, but among Scots, I speak in my own Doric tongue.

Some time before ill health curtailed my career in the entertainment industry I moved back to Scotland and worked in Aberdeen with a range of theatre companies. Among them was the now sadly defunct Aberdeen Children’s Theatre. This group was part of the Education Department which staged annual performances within one of the venues in which I worked. For several years I was able to make a contribution to their productions and was delighted to find that part of their ethos was to ensure the use of Doric. An enduring memory of my involvement with the Children’s Theatre is a production of The Pied Piper narrated and delivered in rich flowing Doric. Changed days from my own time in school.

The Scottish Government’s report discussed the furtherance of the Scots language and makes a number of key recommendations. Among these are:

Broadcasting organisations have to be made aware that given all the developments in lesser-used languages throughout Europe, negative attitudes towards Scots are no longer tenable, and that they must be seen to be active in promoting the mother tongue of a large proportion of the Scottish population.
Scots is recognised as a language by the Scottish, European and UK governments and is seen by the Scottish people themselves as a major badge of their identity: it should therefore have a regular, prominent and permanent place in both local and national broadcasting schedules.

and,

Scotland should be presented internationally as a trilingual country, with Scots and Gaelic listed as official languages alongside English.

Nae afore time!

In closing, I’ve come up with a quote from a song and, for a change, it isn’t a 60′s soul classic. This time it’s the Proclaimers who supplied the inspiration with their song titled, “Throw the ‘r’ Away,” when they neatly wrapped up the attitude of some of my former teachers with the lines, “You say that if I want to get ahead, the language I use should be left for dead….”

To that attitude I say, “awa you an bile yer heids.” Seemingly, in their more restrained and refined way, the Scottish Government agrees with me.

Popular belief in Scotland seems to indicate that devolution was never supposed to be about an administration being willing to make real changes in the way our country is run. It was never supposed to be about anything more than mirroring Westminster dictats and paying homage to the Union. The fly in the ointment, of course, is the current administration. That is something else that was never supposed to happen. Devolution was supposed to, “kill nationalism stone dead.” Nobody told the Westminster lobby that once people get a taste of something they like, they aren’t going to be very willing to hand it back. The very hint of a possibility of some form of Scottish solution to Scotland’s needs was all it took for the SNP to secure their paper thin margin of victory at the last Holyrood election and all of a sudden there was a breath of fresh air around Holyrood. That was never supposed to happen either of course. We were supposed to elect the same old bunch to administer Scotland on behalf of London’s power brokers. We were supposed to elect ourselves a, “glorified parish council.” Aye! Right!

It must have come as a shock to Westminster when we chose to do the unexpected and voted for a party who would actually stand up for Scotland’s interests first and be prepared to buck the trends and actually do things the Scottish people wanted their government to do. Some may call the policies populist, with a pejorative sneer in their tone of voice as they do so. Personally, I’d think that a government which doesn’t at the very least make substantial efforts to do exactly that, would be highly unlikely to get a second chance. That, of course, is allowing for a reasonable and honest media representation of their work. We don’t have that. There is not one Scottish newspaper which supports or even honestly reports on the work and policies being pursued by the SNP administration. That is a matter of editorial and proprietorial choice and although it skews people’s view, there isn’t an awful lot that the SNP can do about it. Nobody in their right mind is going to try to start up a new newspaper in Scotland at a time when sales are in decline. What raises the hackles of many in Scotland, however, is the blatant bias of the state broadcaster, the BBC. Their political coverage in Scotland sometimes appears to be little better than a rehash of Labour party press releases, and recently a BBC reporter was heard to refer to the Labour party as, “we.” Impartial? Aye! Right!

Anyway… back to the Calman proposals and the resultant Scotland Bill. The Secretary of State for Scotland, (Michael Moore MP) is a Liberal Democrat currently acting the part of a Tory party stooge. His party campaigned on a manifesto which included the abolition of the job he is currently holding. To my mind he is merely one more principle-free zone, willing to ditch his beliefs for a sniff of power. He recently said, “The Scotland Bill will empower the Scottish Parliament and see Holyrood answer to the public for the decisions it makes on raising revenue. That brings far more transparency, clarity and accountability to the Scottish Parliament and is to be welcomed. It bridges a gap in accountability, and is a major step forward in improving devolution and bringing it closer to the people of Scotland.”

My understanding of this is that the Scottish parliament will be empowered to set a rate of income tax to be raised in Scotland. The amount raised will then be subtracted from the block grant as worked out under the Barnett Formula. The administration costs will then have to be deducted. The net result in this “empowerment,” will be an effective budget cut for the Scottish Government to allocate to meet its various responsibilities.

The transparency involved in this, to my eyes, involves a Westminster plan to make the devolved government appear to be less capable than it already is of delivering the sort of changes Scotland needs. The machinations will be so dense and incomprehensible to the majority of Scots that clarity disappears. Accountability will only ever be measured at the ballot box, and by the time these proposals work their way through the system, I would expect Scots to be so utterly fed up of it all that many would simply ignore the process. Thus, in a few years time, Holyrood will have failed Scotland. Just the way Tony Blair hoped it would when he was blackmailed into setting it up, and just the way David Cameron would like to see it happen too. The truly staggering thing about this is that three of the four main political parties in Scotland are willingly going along with it. They either cannot see, or, even worse, tacitly approve of the way that the Scottish parliament is being set up to fail Scotland’s people. It is being manipulated to become a modern day parcel o’ rogues.

Mr. Moore’s mention of, “bridging the gap,” brought a smile to my face though. It also brought an image to mind. Bear in mind that the proposals are intended to give Holyrood the power to raise 35% of it’s working budget, then think of how well a gap can be bridged without the remaining 65%

Photo copyright:Phil Wilson, Aberdeen, Scotland.

It seems to me that our media, and thus our view of the world and our place in it are being played with. Our perspectives and priorities are being manipulated for us by external forces apparently beyond our control. If we are to accept the news as it is being fed to us then Ireland is hellbound all packed up in its very own handbasket, having been neatly plucked from the same shelf as Greece; a royal wedding is scheduled in the middle of an election/referendum campaign with the undoubted trivialising of our mass media that such events entail; Scotland’s unwanted, unused and soon to be altered tax raising capabilities have disappeared thanks to our elected government’s intransigence and unwillingness to fork out huge wads of cash to maintain it, and last night’s STV Scottish News would have us believe that a possible strike by football referees is the top story in our weak, poor, stupid, wee, backwater country.

Obviously there is more going on in the world than these few examples I’ve picked on, they are merely the ones that have narked me before I even had my second cup of coffee this morning, but, since this blog is all about my view of the world, I’m going to expand on them a little and hope to recover just a little of my own equilibrium.

The Irish economy is in dire straits we are told. The banking system there is on the verge of meltdown. A little deeper reading into the matter tends to lead me toward thinking that, in common with other troubled economies, the bulk of the debt which the Irish people are being forced to pay for is in fact private debt. The banks have, for years, been given an open playing field in which to play their arcane games, and having piled their non-existing profits on top of their other non-existing profits, have suddenly found that all the money they thought they had simply didn’t exist and IOUs are now being called in by other, mainly foreign, banks who need the cash to cover their own non-existant profits which are in turn needed to pay off their own IOUs to cover the calls made by yet more foreign banks to cover their own… etcetera, etcetera. The whole economic whirlygig goes on and on, round and round and those at the top of the financial marketing mess pocket silly money and retire to lives of luxury, the chaos and heartache their greed has engendered being left for others to cope with. Governments around the world, most notable in recent times those of Iceland, Greece and now Ireland, have been forced into a position where, in order to maintain some semblance of control of their nations’ finances, they have had to effectively nationalise the leading banks and thus shoulder their catastrophic debts. What that then means is that the ordinary folk, the citizens, people just like you and me are paying for the greed and blind stupidity of a system set up to benefit the few. My equilibrium is not yet restored, but at least I’ve vented a wee bit, so, moving right along to the next wee nark….

Young Bill Windsor and his girlfriend Kate have set a wedding date. I hope they will be happy and have fulfilling and fruitful lives together. The setting of their wedding date has, however, raised a few eyebrows. Their big day has been set for the 29th of April next year. That is 6 days before the Holyrood election and the UK’s AV referendum. The media build up to the event (the wedding i mean, not the election/referendum campaign) will begin well before the actual date. Newspapers and TV news reports will be full of it, and barring some major global catastrophe, it will take precedence over any other news.

A couple of quesions rattle around in my head as I consider this. First of all, does the future direction of Scotland’s parliament really come second (or third, or nowhere at all) in importance to the wedding of the second in line to the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? The same question could be applied to the future of the UK’s electoral system with the AV referendum happening on the same day as the Holyrood election. Another question would be, is the wedding of this young couple actually news at all? or is it really just another piece of celebrity type gossip? I make no bones about it, I’m not a royalist, so I tend to favour the, “celebrity gossip,” view of the whole thing.

Laying my own view on that aside though, it is clear that the media focus will be overwhelmingly dominated by the build up to the event, the event itself and the, “nation’s joy,” will be so distracting that politics will be pushed off the front pages of the papers, and down the running order of the TV news reports. It will take over our media to the detriment of the democratic process. A true cynic may argue that this is deliberate, and was plotted in some backroom in Whitehall with the approval and encouragement of those resisting change vis-a-vis the voting system of the UK coupled with the hoped for upswing in the sense of, “Britishness,” among Scottish voters thus discouraging a return of an independence minded administration to Holyrood. Am I being petty in thinking this? Perhaps I am, but, being a self declared cynic, I’m sticking with it as a highly likely scenario. Nexxxt!

The freedom of Holyrood’s elected administration to vary the rate of income tax in Scotland has, we are told, lapsed. This is apparently due to the administration’s failure or perhaps refusal to pay the demanded fees to HMRC for maintenance and upgrades to their IT systems which would be used to collect and administer the punitive tax. There has been a bit of a media furore about this, and, no surprise, the response of Alex Salmond, Scotland’s elected First Minister, has been notable for its eloquence, robustness and virtually total absence in the mainstream media reportage.

It isn’t a terribly complicated matter when reduced to the bare bones. HMRC and thus the Westminster government are bleating that the Scottish Government has not paid up for the right to tax the Scottish people when in fact they have no wish, plan or desire to. Not one of the other parties currently forming the opposition in Holyrood has ever intimated that they would want to make use of this power either. They are not stupid people(really! they aren’t!). They all know that proposing to raise the levels of tax in Scotland would 1) gain virtually nothing for their spendable budget and 2) be tantamount to electoral suicide. On second thoughts there, perhaps the LibDems would go for it, as electoral suicide is already something their London masters seem to be willing to commit, but perhaps I understimate Tavish Scott. I doubt it though. The desire of Westminster to extract cash from Scotland’s devolved administration to provide admin services for punitive taxation is unblievable, bearing in mind their stated intention to render the ability to do this obsolete when or if they force the Calman proposals upon the Holyrood administration. Another case of the ever decreasing circle of stupidity which seems to engulf the politics of our blighted union. No good reason remains for the proposal that Scotland should have 35% of the responsibility for gathering its own taxes. It is, frankly, insane. I ask, where is the rationale which says 35% makes sense and 100% doesnt? I would dearly love to have an acceptable answer. I dont expect to ever get one because I emphatically do not believe that such an answer exists anywhere in the real world.

And, finally… Scottish fitba referees are fed up of being harrassed, intimidated and threatened with assault and even murder, and consequesntly have intimated that they intend to withdraw their labour. This little snippet is apparently of greater national importance than the state of our nation’s economy, our democratic procedures and our political freedoms. This was the first story on last night’s STV News. I can agree, as a fitba fan (albeit of a middle of the table 3rd division team) that it has some importance but hardly of the level its placing in the main TV news bulletin of the day on Scotland’s commercial rival to the hopelessly biased BBC would suggest. At this point, I feel obliged to say that, if I was a referee in the SPL I would certainly be voting for strike action. The behaviour of some of the players and officials at some clubs is so full of callousness, spite, malice and overblown conspiracy theorising that I would personally be unwilling to officiate at any of their matches. The SFA are obliged to provide match officials for SPL games and their is talk of importing officials from Ireland or Wales to take charge of these games until the dispute can be settled. I wonder if, should one of these imported whistlers give, or fail to give, the decisions desired by the conspiracy theorists, will they then be subjected to the same levels of vituperation our home based refs are? If they are, then it would be no surprise to see them and their representative organisations refuse to provide cover for future matches. Club officials…. ok.. I’ll come clean and name the names that come to mind.. Neil Lennon and John Reid need to give themselves a big shake and remember that, in the end, fitba is a game. That’s all it really is. Its a game.

Rounding up the varied topics I’ve been vexed by this morning, I’m reminded of a song. To any regular readers of this blog, there will be no shock in the quote I’m about to end with coming from a 60s soul song. The Four Tops put it very well in their plea for peace, sanity and co-operation in a mad world when they sang, “We are one, we’re all the same, and life is just a simple game….”

Time to run… I have a heavy date with a steaming cafetiere.

The daily newspaper sector shed 1.4% of its sales, and presumably a similar share of its ultimate readership, in the course of the year with sales dropping from 1,095,435 in 2009 to 1,080,141 in 2010. The biggest losers in terms of sheer numbers was the Scottish Sun which managed to bleed 21,098 sales, with the largest percentage drop being recorded by The Times which suffered a 13.8% drop.

Figures for the nationally available sunday papers were even worse, with overall sales dropping 7.6% from 1,337,040 to 1,235,698. The Scottish News of the World being the biggest loser in both raw numbers and percentage losses with 35,947 less sales, representing a 12.2% drop.

Given the economics of the times we are living in, some of these losses may be within the bounds of expected dips in trading, but there is a gathering mass of opinion which suggests other reasons. Recent weeks and months have seen the Scottish Blogosphere expend vast numbers of words on the topic of political spin and bias throughout the medium.

Considered analysis would tend to support that point of view. Every newspaper for sale in our shops has its political stance. We all know this when we go to buy one. We all know what to expect from the editorial policies they expound. The problem is not so much with the skewed opinion of the editorial pieces, it is, instead, with the editorial policies applied to the reportage. News is not being reported in a straight way. Opinions are being applied in such a way as to skew and distort facts with the editorial politics effectively twisting information to maintain those politics. The same story ends up being reported in very different ways under different proprietorial banners. The Daily Mail and the Scotsman (just to pick 2 titles out of my head) will relate the same story but their internal politics will twist the story to promote their own long established viewpoints.

As I already said, we all know this in advance. The real problem is that the viewpoints available to us in Scotland are not sufficiently pluralistic to enable us, the consumers of the products, to find a balance. To narrow this theoretical point down, there is no nationally available newspaper sold in Scotland which supports the Scottish National Party, or the politics of independence. This leaves those who are supporters of the SNP in a quandary. Do they buy a newspaper knowing they will disagree with almost every word written about political matters? Do they search elsewhere for their news sources? It would seem that the latter option is becoming more prevalent with independence minded online news sources gathering readership faster than the print media are losing it. The most recent news provider to arrive on the Scottish scene is Newsnet Scotland which has seen a rise of around 400% in unique site hits in the time since its inception in March till October of this year. Registrations on the site are rising daily, and through their growing ability to break stories that no other media are covering has already seen the first 2 weeks of this month promise to double their hit rate again. Other established sites aiming at the same readership include bellacaledonia and the caledonian mercury. There is a large and still growing number of blog type sites. Some are written by professionals, the most prominent one springing to mind being Go Lassie Go which I mention at this point because it’s my personal favourite. There are many others; the one you are currently reading is but one small and humble contributor to the rising tide of voices being raised in an attempt to spread news and opinion without the inherent bias of the mainstream, commercially driven press.

While the blogosphere is capable of disseminating thought and opinion, most bloggers have neither the resources nor the time to carry out lengthy research or conduct in depth interviews in order to find new stories. We comment on the news we are able to source from other places. This puts many of the so-called cybernats in the curious position of commenting on news and information gleaned from sources we do not always approve of. Much of the Scottish blogosphere would appear to be an attempt to untwist and re-present the news. Sadly, much of it (the Scottish blogosphere) is only reaching those of like mind. We preach to those already converted. To persuade and educate is the aim of many, but without the resources of the mainstream media, we can achieve very little. Does this then mean that we should cease our active attempts? Personally, I think the answer to that should be a resounding, “NO.”

Those who blog, and comment on others’ blogs, do serve a purpose. In our own smallish way we try to keep the press and other news deliverers honest and “on topic.” Without some level of this type of feedback we wind up with printed media closer in style and nature to PRAVDA than anything we really would wish to have. More Ace in the Hole than All the President’s Men

There has been a recent crescendo of unease among the cybernat community(sic) concerning a policy statement pronounced by Iain Gray, leader of the Labour group in Holyrood. Mr. Gray proposes to fund free newspapers for 18 year olds in Scotland. This has been costed at around £15million. While enabling Scottish teenagers with a means of accessing information and news is a good plan, funding it from our depleted governmental resources is not so smart. Furthermore, funding the already heavily biased print media to the tune of £15Million of Scottish taxpayers’ money is sailing very close to an attempt to pervert and demean our democracy. In order for democracy to flourish, it is widely agreed that a full spectrum of opinion and interpretation of a nation’s affairs should be as freely available as possible. That is the point and the meaning of the term, “free press.” What, “free press,” doesnt mean is a gift from a government to its pals handed over in order to promulgate that government’s party political views. The popular belief that many, if not most, teenagers rarely read a newspaper is not the point. The point is that this policy would appear to be a blatant move by the Labour party to buy some extended publicity and promotion of their bid to unseat the SNP as the largest party in the Holyrood parliament. It looks very much like a £15Million advance bribe to keep the print media, “onside.”

For Scotland’s hard pressed newspaper industry, facing year on year shrinkage in ciculation and thus revenues, it must look like pennies from heaven, or, more likely, money for old rope.

For those interested in seeing a truly free press, the choices have been narrowed once more. A vote for Labour, and their chosen Prime Minister, David Cameron, is a vote for lowered standards of reportage and news dissemination.
Bear in mind the old but true adage, “He who pays the piper, calls the tune.”

Hypocrisy is defined in my dictionary as, “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behaviour does not conform.”

Today, in Holyrood a medical doctor, Richard Simpson MSP (Labour) displayed crass hypocrisy while simultaneously betraying the spirit and ethos of Hippocrates. He, admittedly in company of 75 others, cast his vote in the chamber at Holyrood to vote down the minumum pricing clause in the Scottish Government’s Alcohol Bill. This action was hardly a surprise. The combined opposition parties had made it clear for some time that they intended to vote this clause down.

The LibDems offered no rationale for their decision. The Tories apparently saw it as an attack on business. The Labour party seemed to have no clear idea of quite why they opposed it, spouting a variety of pseudo-reasons, none of which held any water. Caffeine, poverty and Holyrood’s inability to manage the problem were all cited at various times in various formats and combinations. None of their excuses for voting down the proposal made any real sense.

Health officials and organisations as widely spread as local health trust officers in Scotland through to the World Health Organisation spoke in favour of using minimum pricing as a suitable mechanism to begin to reduce consumption of alcohol in Scotland. Police chiefs in Scotland and outwith our borders agreed with the plan. The opposition’s cries of, “no clear evidence,” were voiced and revoiced, even in the face of testimony to the contrary from all of these experts.

The Labour party’s Jackie Baillie and Richard Simpson (the doctor) have both made TV appearances in recent days and spouted about caffeine and poverty being at the centre of their opposition, but Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish Government’s Health Minister, struck the nail squarely on the head when she baldly stated in her speech in the chamber today that she expected the minimum pricing clause to be voted down purely and simply because it had been proposed by the SNP.

This clause in the Alcohol Bill was never going to be a cure-all for our nations ill starred relationship with booze. It was never intended to be one, even though Jackie Baillie tried to say as much in the course of today’s debate. It was part of a package designed to assist in reducing alcohol consumption in Scotland. Only a drunk person could possibly insist that this is a bad thing to do, or, at least attempt to do.
Based on that, of course, the opposition parties must have had a liquid lunch before passing their self centred hypocrisy off as democracy.