Grumping with the Captain

Freedom of Information - a crucial change

2011-12-31T09:00:00.000-08:00

Is it really five years since the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act came into force? It seems longer somehow. It seems that this has always been part of the landscape, that public authorities - especially in Scotland - have known that information they hold is likely to be available to anyone who asks. Indeed the fact that the major campaign now is to extend the legislation to cover bodies not yet listed, tells you how much the Act has bedded into our political, media, campaigning and community activity.

Of course, the Act was passed in 2002, three years before it came into force, and those three years were spent building an infrastructure, and publishing the implications to anyone who would listen, but the main factor in embedding the Act was the appointment of Kevin Dunion (ex-FoE and Oxfam) as the first Scottish Information Commissioner almost nine years ago. Although his nomination was only passed by a majority vote in the Scottish Parliament, it was always clear that what was needed, was an enthusiast for Freedom of Information to establish the rights of individuals and set up a positive environment for the new legislation, - something that Kevin acknowledged when he spoke to the annual Holyrood Freedom of Information Conference, just before Christmas (see Holyrood interview here).

Kevin’s appointment brought hope to those of us who had been campaigning for Freedom of Information for many years - after all, he has been one of those campaigners - and our hope was not disappointed. Kevin and the staff he gathered around him ploughed a consistent furrow presuming that information should be released, refusing to accept rationalisations from public authorities keen to retain information in their own files, but guided by the law where exemptions are concerned. That he has been successful, not just in applying the law - he has issued 1,400 formal decisions on appeals - but in beginning a change in the attitude of the public sector, says much about how effective his approach was. It is true to say that not everyone in the public sector has got it, Tony Blair and Sir Gus O’Donnell down south, and Lord Smith, Chair of the Glasgow 2014 Ltd, the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, seem particularly deaf to the benefits of FoI, but the prevailing trend in the public sector now, is a trend to publish, rather than conceal.

Given this, surely the next commissioner has a clear steer on their direction of travel? The Scottish Act has long been held up as a more effective Act that the UK Act, and has led to better decisions (the decision to publish MSP’s expenses, for example surely meant the Scottish Parliament did not attract the level of scandal heaped on its Westminster counterpart). But that lead appears to be slipping. While the Westminster government ploughs on with proposals to extend coverage of its Act to such bodies as the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Local Government Association, the backtracking of the Scottish Government in doing the same - or more - is worrying many practitioners including Kevin himself. And, now that government has the Parliamentary majority to allow it to strengthen the legislation and extend the coverage, it appears not to want to do it. To introduce an amendment to the Act simply to decrease the duration of publication exclusions from 30 years to 15 for some records and to tidy up a legal anomaly, is surely a missed opportunity. The increasing ‘outsourcing’ of our public services requires comprehensive extension to cover local authority trusts and LLPs, private contractors, social housing providers and a range of other bodies. The Scottish Minister, Brian Adam MSP, at the same Holyrood Conference, came under strong pressure from both Kevin and the original architect of the Act, Lord Wallace of Tankerness to extend the Act. He failed to deliver.

Given such indications of retrenchment coming directly from the top of Scotland’s Government, it becomes increasingly important that whoever is appointed to fill Kevin’s vacancy in February, is also an ‘enthusiast for Freedom of Information’, and remains strongly committed to extending and improving the coverage of this important Act. The temptation might be to appoint a ‘safe pair of hands’ from a parliamentary or government perspective. While not wanting to pre-judge anyone going for the job, to have someone who wants to restrict information and increase exemptions, would be a serious mistake and risk the advances that the Act has given to ordinary people at a crucial time for their public services.

At a time when these services are under increasing threat, and the temptation to outsource grows apace, we should ensure that our right of access to information is not compromised. When Kevin delivers his final report to Parliament next month, I am sure he will point this out. It is up to our parliamentarians to heed the warnings, take the right steps forward themselves, and nominate a replacement to the first Scottish Information Commissioner who can maintain and extend our rights.

Huge turnout for Nov 30 shows new developments in activity, and some political mistakes

2011-12-01T09:05:00.000-08:00

Huge turnouts in rallies and marches across Scotland have given the lie to those politicians who have been accusing union leaders of bullying and intimidation. In Glasgow and Edinburgh march and rally attendance topped the 10K mark in each city. Glasgow had to put on an overflow rally meeting to cram ‘em all in. IIn Edinburgh the sight of SNP MSPs joining ConDem MSPs going through union picket lines inspired double the ‘permitted’ number of marchers to cram into the square outside the parliament and listen to an equally inspired Rodney Bickerstaffe demolish the attempts to divide public and private sector workers. “If one person has a leg cut off,” he said does that mean everyone has to have their leg cut off, because it’s not fair?”.

Rallies and marches took place across Scotland. In Kirkwall, Aberdeen, Moray, Inverness, Motherwell, Dundee, Falkirk, Dumfries, Glenrothes, Paisley, Livingstone. At all of them organisers were reporting double plus the numbers expected. While an estimated 300,000 took strike action in Scotland, around 30,000 also went on marches and rallies, picketed and gave other support.

In Glasgow ‘UNISON have filled the gathering point on their own!’ tweeted the PCS. The demonstration started at 12.30pm and the last got moving at 14.15pm! Those who could get in to the Barrowlands heard UNISON’s Scottish Secretary, Mike Kirby point out that “It could cost this country up to £15 billion to support the millions of private sector workers who have been locked out of saving for their retirement."

A number of commentators watching the rallies have been struck by the changing nature of the strikers. Trade unionists, they were certainly, and angry they were too, but they were not the traditional ‘middle-aged male’. Mike Kirby and Dave Prentis both pointed to the key role being played by women in leading the strikes, and others including the president of the National Pensioners Convention, Rodney Bickerstaffe noticed the high proportion of young people involved in the action. Many of the strikers were involved in their first industrial action, and some of the unions taking part - especially small clinical professional bodies - mark a new development, never having taken strike action before.

Are we seeing a new generation of activists taking the lead? It is maybe too early to say that this marks a significant shift in the levels of collective activity in the young, or in women, or that there is an ‘arab spring’, but there is certainly something in motion that political and trade union leaders ignore at their peril.

The political fallout from the strikes will be interesting, given the new numbers of activists. My old colleague Dave Watson has blogged about the position here in Scotland and I think his analysis is sound, if a little easy on the major tactical errors made by the Scottish Government. Yes there are very good trade unionists in the SNP ranks, but they are more than outnumbered by their backwoods colleagues. First Minister, Alex Salmond, who rejected union calls for a suspension of the Scottish Parliament, was booed when his picture was held at the Glasgow rally.

The ConDems in Westminster, too, have seriously misjudged the mood of the nation. Opinion polls and media straw polls for some time now, have been showing increasing support for the strikers, and Tory ministers like Francis Maude and Danny Alexander have been thrashing about trying to find a tactic to demonise trade unions. Now Cameron’s pal, Jeremy Clarkson has let the cat out of the bag. Calling for strikers to be shot in front of their families, is exactly the logical conclusion of Tory government and Daily Mail vitriol. Not that Cameron will be pleased by his dinner pals intervention. The Tories - instead of going on the offensive - have had to spend the day distancing themselves from their fascistic supporter. The BBC too (not for the first time) have spent the day digging themselves deeper into a hole. One does wonder what it would take for the BBC to actually address the damage this presenter is doing to them? As it is they flounder gracelessly making ‘apologies’ that compound the felony.

Media and government attacks will get shriller as November 30 looms - here (hopefully) is some sense.

2011-11-28T02:13:00.000-08:00

As the day of the biggest strike in recent history looms we can expect well-heeled government ministers like Francis Maude and Danny Alexander to ramp up the levels of hysteria, media commentators to attack the ‘unfairness’ of ‘gold-plated’ public pensions (from the right) or bemoan the ‘choice of target’ for the strikes (from the centre-left) and politicians to attack each other over tactics. In such a febrile atmosphere, it is handy to hold onto a few counters to the main myths peddled by such people.

Here are some. Public pensions are affordable now, and are likely to become more so in the future. Who says so? Not the PCS or other ‘militant TU leaders’ but the Assistant Editor of that comfortable read for Tory ministers, the Daily Telegraph! Yes Jeremy Warner, back in March pointed out that the Hutton report had identified that these pensions have peaked at 1.8% of GDP currently, and even without his ‘reforms’ will now decline steadily in cost. (interestingly, while he repeats the ‘crowding out’ myth, he also argues for better pensions in the private sector) - ‘there is something plainly unsatisfactory about "race to the bottom" policy, or levelling public sector pensions down to the disgracefully low standards that rule in the private sector.’

Of course, it is also the case that public sector pensions support the private sector. Something that polemicists on the other side tend to overlook as they scream about paying for ‘gold-plated’ bureaucrats’ pensions . As well as fair pensions meaning that pensioners can buy goods and services from the private sector, public pension funds are huge investors in private industry. And, as they are successfully and sustainably funded - UNISON estimates that £300m more is going into the Scottish LGPS before investment income, than is being paid out in pensions - that means, as Scottish Secretary, Mike Kirby says ‘Current attacks on both pensions and on public sector employment will be bad for the schemes - and in the long run bad for the economy. The UK Government won’t be putting any of the money they raise or save from stealing from pensions into the schemes - just using it to pay back debt run up to bail out their friends the bankers’.

The strikes are understood and generally supported by the public. Despite the constant battering of government and media attacks, the BBC is today reporting that 61% in an opinion poll they ran believe public service workers are justified in going on strike over the issue. That backs up previous straw polls run after the large UNISON vote to strike. These polls were run in the rabidly anti-union Daily Star, whose readers out-polled the liberal Guardian in support of strikers, and back to our old favourite - the Daily Telegraph. (Might have to think about changing my reading!).

Of course, many of those polled will be strikers or colleagues or family or friends themselves. The voting turn-out in the union ballots is phenomenally good, despite what Francis Maude and others say. Many of the MPs who lead the attacks on trade union democracy a) would give their eye teeth to have levels of support like these and b) are themselves directly responsible for the difficulty in getting improved turnouts in union ballots. Using on-line technology would have helped, (as indeed would workplace ballots), and at least one of those methods has been approved in principle, but not yet put into law. Even so, the ballots from the 30 unions, across many thousands of employers (UNISON itself balloted members in nearly 9,500 employers) show a huge consistency and massive level of support. The best summary is on the impressive ‘Pensions Justice’ site.

The level of support and the breadth of union coverage on this dispute also answers some of the (deliberately?) misinformed attacks by some ‘sympathetic’ commentators that pensions is the ‘wrong issue’. That unions should all co-ordinate a strike over ‘cuts’. Would that they could!! Failing to understand the realities of ‘Trade disputes’ in legislation despite having had them explained, could be put down to deliberate disinformation, more likely it indicates a deep-seated prejudice that is proving immune to reason.

Finally, the (somewhat cheesey, but well-intentioned) supporters single continues to build support. Watch and buy it here. The AFL/CIO (after Wisconsin) went for Tom Morello’s ‘Union Town’!!

See you on the picket line!!

Does increase in ‘constitutional froth’ mar our Scottish media?

2011-11-19T11:15:00.000-08:00

In a previous job, a colleague used to regularly advise us to be aware of what he would call ‘froth’ in some reporting of the political scene in Scotland. By that he meant stories that were headline news in some or even all newspapers, and consisted of opposing politicians attacking one another. These stories (of which there were many) were distinguished by the topic of the debate/discussion being either of minor importance, or incapable of any kind of resolution by the combatants involved, eg a consultation.

This has come to mind again recently. It currently seems that a whole raft of spats are being created in the media by pronouncements from Scottish or Coalition Governments (or Labour Opposition). From consultations on gay marriage, and Scotland’s rail travel, through pronouncements about the impact of independence on the Scottish economy and renewable energy targets to even the furore over ‘doing-gate’ in the Scottish Affairs Committee, the sight of our politicians attacking one another over the constitutional question is becoming less and less edifying (or significant).

To add to the spectacle, the reporting of these tiffs - from uncritical adoption of the participants’ view of their importance, to the sensationalist bigging-up of the ‘rows’ - seem to blank out sensible analysis and investigation of the issues at all. How much of this is due to continual cuts in journalistic and editorial resources, and how much due to the predetermined political stance of the media in question needs further study, but it does not lead to good reporting.

Now I don’t want to suggest that the individual topics and issues have no validity or importance, at all. Heaven forfend that I might suggest that the Catholic church secretly approves of gay marriage, for example! Or that CitiBank may have a vested interest in rubbishing renewable energy per se. But it is interesting how these disputes tend to end up concentrating on the ‘Referendum’ when we all know that this is some years away, and will not be able to be run successfully unless Westminster and Holyrood come to some agreement (or at least armed neutrality) on key issues. It isn’t even yet clear whether the SNP want a one or two question referendum - or what that would mean for any result!

Am I alone in thinking that at least part of the reason for this froth is to distract us from the key issues that impact on people in Scotland, and the failure of both legislatures to address these? And that this suits both of them?

After all, is Alex Salmond be pleased or upset that George Osborne attacks Scotland’s investment record? Is George Osborne? Is Salmond reasonably happy to be seen as a ‘modern, liberal-thinking FM’ over gay marriage? And while the archaic and macho operations of Westminster are indeed something to be opposed (as we all did in the Constitutional Convention, hoping and planning for a more co-operative and mature Holyrood!) is the SNP ultimately pleased to leave a vacant seat in the Scottish Affairs Committee and wash its hands of a scrutiny of the Scotland Bill where it doesn’t have a majority? Incidentally, the best comment on this episode must be by Joyce MacMillan in her Scotsman piece (on her blog here).

So there can be good reporting. We do have journalists (like Joyce, but not only her) who can blow away the froth and get to the nub of the issue. But increasingly this role is reserved for the commentators. News reporters tend to slot happily into pre-ordained nationalist or unionist tracks, using hyperbolic prose to inflate partisan pronouncements and prejudices into ‘facts’ or suggestions of ‘facts’. (I thought the idea - seriously mentioned by a senior Scottish reporter on Wednesday - that the Electoral Reform Society was part of an anti-SNP ‘conspiracy’ was the nadir of this tendency!)

The latest fight appears to be over an almost unbelievable consultation document on Scotland’s rail transport from Scottish Government agency, Transport Scotland. If you hadn’t had previous with this agency, then it might even look as though the outrageous suggestions in this document were there deliberately to be able to be removed as a ‘listening response’. I have to say that my experience suggests that they are not that forward thinking. But as Scottish Government ministers line up to distance themselves from their own organisation, a suspicion must remain.

At the end of the day, when people are crying out for an economic policy that addresses the crisis we are in, and uses the excess profits of the finance industry to support those who are suffering because of the fallout from the banks’ criminal risk taking, how are our governments responding? Apparently, by ignoring these problems in favour of claim and counter claim about ‘running Scotland down’ or ‘breaking Britain up’.

When two establishments are trying to tell us about the overwhelming importance of the constitutional question, we need more from our media than unquestioning/sensationalist reporting - from whichever side of the constitutional divide. It is also particularly important when the parliaments both have a built-in majority, compliant in one case, and scared in the other, that they are held to account. In this our media has a crucial role. When will we see it adopting this important task?

Independence - which way will the Trades Unions jump?

2011-11-07T11:57:00.000-08:00

This is the substance of a contribution I made to a recent debate organised by the Communist Party of Scotland on the topic of trade unions and independence. Other contributers included Chris Stephens of the SNP TU Group, Jimmy Cloughley of the CPS and ex-UCS Steward and Dave Moxham, DGS of the STUC. I believe it is planned to put out a pamphlet collecting the contributions together.

Despite the somewhat febrile, and often almost certainly manufactured reports that pass for debate on the issue of independence in the press - and not just the tabloids - This is certainly the first serious discussion that I am aware of that covers this ground - a fact that in itself is significant and says much about where TUs are at the moment. More on that later.

Who are we talking about?

The first thing to say about Scottish Trade Unions is of course that there are damn few of them! With the exception of the teaching profession, the vast majority of TUs operating in Scotland are UK organisations which sometimes have a Scottish organisation with a degree of autonomy, more or less broad depending on the organisation.

(Of course some TUs are actually British Isles-wide operations - with sections in the Irish Republic and/or Northern Ireland, but that would be to open up another whole debate).

Despite the increasingly separate nature of law, politics, media and attitudes in Scotland, very few TUs have properly addressed these factors. When I was appointed by Nalgo in 1989, I was the only TU publicity person employed in Scotland, and even then I was officially attached to the union’s London department, who told me that I should not be dealing with the Scottish media!

The arrival of a Scottish Parliament, a merger of unions and a reorganisation of HQ departments took place before even UNISON - and I venture to suggest that they were in the forefront of addressing the issues - set up the type of structure that took cognisance of the new realities in Scotland.

Now the recognition of these needs is wider, but I venture to suggest that it still isn’t universal in the TU movement. This, of course, has an impact not only in the union concerned but in STUC - a fully autonomous body, able to (and I suggest very successfully) articulate and promote the TU movement’s profile and views with Scotland’s politicians, media and civic society. The STUC, however, is resourced and financed by these same central UK organisations with varying levels of autonomy. The last factor of all to be autonomised, of course being finance!! (Even UNISON - with its high levels of Branch organisation, policy, media, campaigning, bargaining, and communications autonomy, still pays its STUC affiliation fees from London, and technically its delegation to Congress is bound by UNISON UK policy).

A rough count suggests that of 650,000 TU members in Scotland - 580,000 are in UK-based unions.

What shapes their policy?

Of course, if we are looking at attitudes to independence, it will not always be the case that this will be dependent on where the union is based. Policy-making is sometimes a complex process in our TUs and there are degrees of relaxation on whether policy on Scottish issues is made close to the source, or remotely from London - often degrees of relaxation that vary according to the issue. In UNISON for example, London would be relaxed about a Scottish policy decision being taken on (say) devolution of broadcasting, but would be far from relaxed on a Scottish policy calling for (say) the break up of the NHS. In either case, however, ultimately the union’s policy will be adopted by the union as a whole.

In fact the NHS proves to be an interesting case in point illustrating another factor that will influence TU attitudes to independence. It is something that has already caused waves within UNISON and will no doubt, have varying impacts on other unions. The principle that someone doing a particular job in one hospital or clinic (or any other workplace) should be paid the same as someone doing that job in another, is a strongly-held union principle and one that underpins grading structures in UK-wide organisations such as the NHS.

It is of course, also one that employers increasingly want to scrap, so the thought that independence may give that attack further support may well predispose TU activist minds (on both side of the border) in opposition to independence.

A similar concern may also apply in regard to reserved legislation such as that covering employment, work-related benefits and health and safety. Should you lose protection in work when you cross a border? Currently TUs would answer ‘No’ to that, though of course current Tory proposals to attack these rights may sway debate in this area.

Affiliation

A third factor that will militate against TUs deciding in favour of independence, is of course, affiliation to the Labour Party, which is not in favour.

There are 14 Scottish unions affiliated to the Labour Party. (One union affiliate has no members in Scotland). And they cover around 441,000 of the members in Scotland.

Of course, that isn’t the whole story in terms of their membership. Many of the affiliated unions will have substantial membership numbers in Scotland who do not pay the political levy or who do, but would support independence in any case.

I think UNISON is unique in its twin-track affiliated/non-affiliated political funding, but the SNP TU group has been campaigning for some years now for people to opt-out of affiliated political funds in other unions, (in my view a serious mistake). This will have had some success. Plus there will be members of all affiliated unions down South who don’t pay the political levy and/or who may be part of what I call the ‘sod-off Jock!’ tendency increasingly seen in parts of England.

So, you will have a membership, even in the affiliated unions, who may be ripe to hear the arguments for independence. Whether they will have the strength, the power or the tenacity to have an impact on their union’s policy on the matter, however, is debatable.

Non-Affiliated - potential supporters?

Of course to view those unions that are not affiliated as natural supporters of independence is also a mistake. in my view. While the likes of the FBU and RMT might be thought to be only too happy to be an awkward squad - especially if Labour is on the opposite side - it should be remembered that the FBU is of course part of a UK bargaining machine similar to that in the NHS. So too are the Civil Service unions. and for them you can add an almost pathological aversion to publicly siding with any political view that would be seen as party political - in the way that independence will.

Even in my own union, the NUJ - most likely to be relaxed about dealing with union organisation across boundaries - after all they already do it in Ireland, I think the view that as journalists we must be even-handed to all sides will hold a lot of sway.

But this brief survey is maybe a little missing the point. After all, TUs are essentially - much as we might not like it - not think tanks, not policy wonks breaking new ground with blue sky thinking - but essentially pragmatic organisations that have been created to defend and advance the living and working standards of their members. In many ways reactive rather than proactive organisations.

How will they decide?

I don’t doubt that in the fevered hothouses of TU research departments in Edinburgh and Glasgow (but of course mostly in London) there are people pouring over research, and analyses trying to work out the ‘what-if’s’ of Scottish Independence. But it isn’t occupying the waking hours of their members. No doubt, if and when a referendum is called, then the TU movement will take a decision (or many different decisions) on their policies, but I venture to suggest, if we are talking about reactive organisations with a clear function on defending members, then those debates will be set in the context of ‘what is the impact on our members?’. In a nutshell - will Scottish Independence be a benefit or a detriment to those members - not just in Scotland but across the memberships? At the current time it seems unlikely that this question will be answered in the affirmative.

Are concerns allayed by independence?

The current concerns of TU members - are remarkably similar and similar across the nations of the UK. The threats to jobs, pay, services and of course, currently pensions stems from the Westminster Government’s austerity measures and is being fought - in my view correctly - with a UK-wide co-ordination. While the Scottish Government is able to (and does) criticise these policies, they find themselves in the position of largely passing on the cuts to their recipients in the public and voluntary sectors.

Indeed, while ‘It’s all the fault of Westminster’, is a sentiment we can probably unite around, the suggestions so far about what an independent Scotland would look like, is currently unclear, and the signs are not good. For example, why does the Scottish Government want to control Corporation Tax so badly? To ensure that the bankers and financiers who drove us unheeding into the debt crisis pay back the bail out that they received from us? Apparently not, what is required according to the Scottish Government, is less tax on business to attract more overseas companies into Scotland. The Scottish Government has been notably business friendly in many areas - the Scottish Futures organisation with its attempts to continue the PFI route (watch out for more of that shortly, by the way), is merely another example.

On the positive side, of course, in Scotland there is a greater value placed on, and defense of public services and public provision. I wouldn’t want to ignore that courageous decision of Nicola Sturgeon to build the new SGH through public provision for example.

But this attitude to public services largely crosses party boundaries in Scotland - and, what is more, has been a distinctive feature of devolution in any case - so any specific advantage of independence still remains to be clearly spelled out.

Still a huge job to be done

In short, there is some way to go before the Scottish Government or other advocates of Scottish independence can articulate an argument that details a practical case that working people will significantly benefit from independence for Scotland, and such an argument will be important in attracting potential allies from TUs and their activists.

Does all this suggest that those who wish to call for independence need to look elsewhere and ignore the TU movement? Can I suggest they shouldn’t? When Alex Salmond celebrated his stunning victory on May, he said he planned to try and govern though consensus. There has, unfortunately been little practical experience of that so far, but I think that it remains the only sensible aim.

And maybe if it can’t happen inside the Parliament, maybe it should happen outside. After all the trade union movement - well at least the majority of it inside Scotland - isn’t, I don’t think, scared of independence. After all there are already many areas where they have suggested increasing powers to be devolved and contributed much of the evidence to the much-maligned Scotland Bill - devolution of broadcasting, equal opportunities, and immigration legislation are proposals that come immediately to my mind. There are more.

No, the TU movement currently cannot see the relevance of the independence debate, and when the issue looms larger in their ken, they will remain to be convinced. Not an impossibility, but a job that remains to be done.

UCS@40 - the reason for silence here!

2011-10-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

Just a short blog at the Captain's site to apologise to all followers for the silence here for a few months.
The reason - which might be suspected by many - is that I have been working on the celebrations for the 40th Anniversary of the UCS work-in. I was asked by FairPley to assist them with the communications and have been enjoying the work immensely.
Working with the UCS Work-In veterans has been a revelation, and their willingness to be interviewed on the topic almost anywhere, at any time has made the media work a joy (and is indicative of one of the reasons why the work-in got such a sympathetic press at the time). Also the input of the 'stars' especially the great Tony Benn, was key to the stories we were successful in getting into the media.
We produced some excellent material to sell at the gig (programme, badge, polo shirt) all featuring the 'UCS Work-In' logo drawn by the legendary Bobby Starrett - the Work-In cartoonist. These will all shortly be available to buy, for people who couldn't make the concert.
The releases and some of the media stories are listed on the other blog - UCS@40 . Despite the main event being over, a few key celebrations remain. One, announced today, is a second anniversary concert - this time run as part of Celtic Connections. Robert Dawson Scott has a nice piece on the launch on STV. Another - planned for March 2012 - is a screening of the Cinema Action films. Watch the UCS@40 blog for details.

Scottish Water failings outline exactly why Freedom of Information coverage must be extended

2011-08-25T15:56:00.000-07:00

UNISON last week ‘celebrated’ a ruling from Scottish Information Commissioner, Kevin Dunion that Scottish Water must reveal costings of PFI contracts that have been operational for some 10 or more years. The celebrations - which mark another step in the union’s long term campaign against this expensive and increasingly bizarre way of funding public service capital expenditure - may however have been somewhat muted.

One reason for this is that not all the information was able to be released. Incredibly Scottish Water do not hold Full Business Cases(FBCs) for nine multi-million pound PFI projects. That is, the documents that purport to show why the paying of £600 million in capital costs, and the continued paying of £130m a year of our money to private contractors to build, and operate sewage works, water treatment works and other vital public services is a good deal, don’t exist (at least in Scottish Water’s hands)!

So, while (courtesy of the Act, and Mr Dunion) we know what the projects are costing (although Scottish Water didn’t want to tell us all of that), we do not know what alternatives were investigated, and we do not know why other methods of funding were discounted - although we can make a guess!

One of the excuses that Scottish Water used was that the contracts were entered into before they existed, by the previous water authorities. Maybe they got lost in the merger. We all know how difficult it is to keep track of these minor bits of paper when bringing filing together! Come to think of it, maybe those advocating merged Police and Fire Services better keep an eye open for the contracts slipping down the back of the sofa!

However it gets worse! In 2001 Scottish Water told a Scottish Parliament Committee that three of the nine FBCs existed - the Scottish Government website still claims that two do! UNISON is rightly scandalised that a major quango misled Parliament in this way, and was/is so cavalier with your cash!

But that is the way of PFI contracts. As we are now finding out, the chickens are beginning to settle in the roosting barns with a vengeance. As most if not all of these contracts contain clauses ‘ring-fencing’ the payments to the private contractors, when public sector cash contracts (as it currently is), the only payments guaranteed, are these to PFI contractors. So other essential services suffer increased cutbacks while PFI contracts don’t (if you get my drift).

Oh, and by the way, the contractors themselves are NOT covered by the Freedom of Information Act so, no point in asking them the kind of questions that opened up the ‘mystery of the missing FBCs’ to find out how (for example) contractors take decisions in delivering these services, or what staffing ratios they choose to use, or a million and one other pieces of information on what they do with your money. Indeed, water and sewerage in England - as it is fully privatised - isn’t covered by their FOI Act at all!

Private contractors ARE covered (in both England and Scotland) to a limited extent through what are known as the Environmental Information Regulations. Indeed, Kevin Dunion specifically judged that these were the appropriate regulations to use in the UNISON case. But they only apply to environmental information. And in any case FOI is supposed to be straightforward, simple, open and transparent. Having two different standards does not help that aim.

Isn’t it time that the Scottish Government dusted off their proposals to extend the FOI Act in Scotland to cover the myriad of outsourced, private, voluntary, partnerships, trusts and other bodies that are being invented to deliver your services with your money? Not only should they be dusted off (even the Westminster Tories are planning some extension to their Act) they should - to mix a metaphor - be beefed up! They have a majority now...

Who knows where the money goes?

2011-07-13T14:12:00.000-07:00

The opposition of Glasgow 2014 to telling you what they are doing with your money, is yet another example of why the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland) should be extended to private companies and other organisations that increasingly deliver our public services, and spend our money. It is a pity that the last Scottish Government dropped its proposals to start that process.

The kind of outdated thinking expounded by Lord Smith, claiming that private companies will run away from contracts with his body, should they have to tell us what they do with our money, has long been dispersed from guidance that form the procedures that public bodies and the Scottish Information Commissioner have operated under since 2005. Indeed this guidance strongly advises public authorities NOT to include so-called ‘confidentiality clauses’ in contracts. Has Lord Smith included such clauses in their contracts?

But of course Glasgow 2014 is a private company, and they claim they are not subject to the FOI(S)A. Although, because they are one of the quasi-public bodies increasingly used (particularly by Glasgow City Council) to avoid the cumbersome business of accountability, it may not be quite as open and shut as they would like to think (publicly owned companies are already subject to the Act).

This sort of old-style resistance to telling us what is going on is, of course one of the reasons that the SIC and many other bodies argued strongly for the last Scottish government to extend the coverage of FOI(S)A. An extension they unfortunately dropped in the run up to the last Scottish Election.

Failing to divulge public information will, of course, increase damaging speculation about expenditure and motivation when events turn newsworthy. Contrariwise (you can see I’m reading a Lewis Carroll biography), openness is the way to effectively deal with public relations crises. Any (good) PR expert can tell you that.

So, in charge of of the 80% publicly-funded Commonwealth Games, we have an organisation that a) is apparently unaware of the guidance on contractual confidentiality that public bodies abide by, and b) either does not have, or chooses to ignore standard public relations practice. Not an impressive track record. No wonder we need private sector information to be opened up when they spend our money!

Tommy reviewers need a long spoon

2011-06-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

Let me say straight away I believe Tommy Sheridan made the biggest mistake of his political life in defying the advice of almost all of his friends and party comrades to go into direct legal confrontation with the News of the World. He would have known that he faced a mass of contrary evidence from others on the ultra-left and the case would tear that group apart. To take the case on, whether or not he lied, and got others to lie for him, automatically meant him putting his personal standing above the political needs of the far left.

Why then am I so disturbed by Paul Hutcheon’s review in Saturday’s Herald, of Alan McCombes book on the hugely damaging affair? After all, both McCombes and Hutcheon are of the same opinion - although they both would I think, take it a good deal further than me.

I am also well aware that media editors like to give books on controversial subjects to reviewers with strongly-held views on the topic in question, whether for or (more often) against the authors thesis. This review is an example of why it is often a bad idea. One doesn’t have to be a Sheridan supporter to find the eulogising of Alan McCombes somewhat OTT. To one who spent many meetings listening to and watching Alan and other acolytes of the Revolutionary Socialist League operate in the Labour Party of the late 1970‘s and 1980’s, this modest man brilliantly writing savage turns of phrase with his unimpeachable integrity must be a completely reformed character!

Maybe the clue to my uncomfortableness lies in the penultimate para of the review. Hutcheon’s states that “Downfall has not altered my own unshakeable conclusions about the 2004-10 disaster: that while McCombes is a man of unimpeachable integrity, Sheridan is the most despicable politician I have ever encountered.” He no doubt has both reasons and evidence for this view, and of course, is entitled to it, but I question the wisdom of giving this book to someone with such staunch views to review. Given their similarity of viewpoint, it would surely have been a miracle if Downfall even gently agitated Paul Hutcheon’s ‘unshakeable conclusions’.

This review may have given Paul Hutcheon an opportunity to let off steam, and welcome the ‘happy ending’ of Tommy Sheridan in a prison cell, but in terms of shedding light on the book, a panegyric is as ineffective as a hatchet-job.

Where is the TaxPayers'Alliance?

2011-06-21T23:46:00.000-07:00

Unaccountably, those upstanding (and unelected) champions of your tax dosh, the Tax Payers Alliance, seem to have missed a good news story for Scottish tax payers.

This is the recent announcement by the Scottish Government that the massive M74 extension is due to open 8 months early and £20m under budget. Given all those private business funded resources for monitoring the media, and the close working arrangement private contractors had with the council and Transport Scotland joint venture, you'd think that they would have noticed either the Scottish Government release - http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2011/06/14151514 or the later (but more balanced) UNISON one - http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/news/2011/mayjune/1706a.htm

Maybe only tax savings invented by the TDA and their private sector lobby make it into their PRs and onto their pages?

Stirring the clear yellow water of independence

2011-06-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

I was rudely awakened this morning by the sound of the normally calm, urbane and sophisticated Gerry Hassan shouting at some poor unfortunate on GMS! Intrigued as to what had exercised our commentator I listened further. Turns out that this outburst had been occasioned by a disagreement over Scottish Secretary, Michael Moore’s claim that independence would require two referenda to be administered before being achieved.

Gerry was otherwise minded and his ‘opponent’ Alan Trench got both barrels. (Although we found out later that both actually agreed on the advisability or otherwise of this approach.)

But it did suggest to me that Michael Moore might have inadvertantly raised an important procedural point. At what stage does a referendum take place? And what agreements have to be in place before it actually achieves what it sets out to do?

Amidst all the fog of independence-lite, and devolution-max, a number of crucial questions remain to be clarified before clear question(s) could be put to the Scottish people. Ones that immediately come to my mind are - monarchy or republic? boundaries? single currency or sterling? armed forces and defence? There may well be more and each of these - I would hazard - might cause disagreements, not just between unionists and nationalists, but even within the ranks of nationalists. Debate on them could take some resolving, but might make considerable difference to the views of voters. How much would an ‘independent’ Scottish monarchy under a ‘UK’ crown, using ‘UK’ currency, and defended by ‘UK’ troops be ‘independent’ for example - whether the ‘K’ stood for ‘Kingdom’ or ‘Kingdoms’? Would we be more independent in the Euro - shall we ask our Irish, Greek or Portuguese colleagues? Land boundaries might be obvious (leaving aside the question of Berwick-on-Tweed) but what about marine boundaries?

Would any negotiations around these (and other) questions be resolvable by agreement? What happens if the parameters are not agreed? Could we simply leave them to some constitutional court. At one time we might have looked to the UK Supreme Court, I suspect its even-handedness might now be a little more in question! So where would we go now? Europe?

This murky water, I think, is where Michael Moore has placed his size 11s. If we are talking one referendum, then the answers to these (and no doubt other) questions need to be clear to we who are voting. If not, then any early referendum would be about aspirations and would need to be followed by negotiations. On the outcome of these would rest any further vote.

It might be, as Gerry alluded this morning, a device for the British state to draw out and confuse the discussion, but I suspect two factors suggest that this isn’t likely. One, is that within nationalist ranks it seems there are some who are already flying kites on some of these very questions - coming down too definitively on one side or the other may not be in the interests of a united pro-independence campaign. Secondly, are we so sure that Cameron will be too concerned about a separate Scotland? It might be in his political best interests.

Meanwhile, the important (and more concerning) statement that the UK government was not inclined to devolve any more powers under the Scotland Bill, has almost slipped by unnoticed. Is this a ConDem double bluff? Do they want to hand such a key stick to the nationalists?

Word on The Street

2011-05-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

Anyone who reads this blog regularly (anyone?) will be aware that I have in the past, criticised the BBC for bowing to pressure from outside (or even inside) groups to pursue (or not to criticise) one political line or another. Today, however, I am pleased to be able to defend the Beeb against such a criticism - in this case from the Herald’s TV Critic, Mark Smith.

In Saturday’s Herald, Mark took exception to the Nick Robinson-fronted programme - The Street that Cut Everything. If you didn’t see this it was a bit of an experiment wrapped up in a ‘reality show’ format where a street in Preston had their council services withdrawn for six weeks, and their council tax returned to them. They then had to deal with the sort of problems that council services try to address - cleansing, benefits, school transport, noise pollution, lighting etc. etc. and also decide how to pay for them. After six weeks the relief on a residents face when the bin lorry rumbled back down the road was worth putting up with Nick Robinson’s smirk for!

While there were legitimate criticisms that could be levelled against the programme, the ‘game show’ approach of dumping loads of rubbish, dog poo etc on the street and then saying to the residents - well, what are you going to do about it? - did grate after a while, and no doubt academics and politicians would find plenty to ask about by way of what finances were returned (just council tax, or their proportion of central government grant)? What services were not withdrawn (we knew school.s and emergency services were still there, but what about all the services that no one on the street used? I didn’t see anyone try to go to a library for example. But this debate rather misses the point. What the programme did show, and what Mark Smith took issue with, was that councils provide a lot more services than people realise, that they cost more than they think, and that cutting funding for those services will mean that front line services will go. Mark apparently thought that this was just a publicity stunt for Preston Council (and indeed councils in general) and that as it ‘had an agenda’ shouldn’t have been made by the BBC.

It will not be a surprise that this is exactly why I think that a responsible public service broadcaster SHOULD be making such programmes. If they don’t, who else will? There are plenty of stories about the amount of public money supposedly ‘wasted’ by councils, and plenty of right-wing, big business funded, front organisations like the Tax Dodgers Alliance who very successfully feed these into the media (yes, even to the Beeb). To put the other side - however superficially - is in my view the essence of balance, and raised good solid questions about the received wisdom on public services that the private lobby puts out.

I never thought that I would say this, but well done to Nick Robinson (I’ve not been slow to criticise him before, so this too is a bit of balance!), and to the BBC. Around 18 months ago, UNISON pointed out in one of its Scottish Public Works briefings the actual cost of our public services. We also produced a leaflet showing how much we all use these services. Now the BBC has taken a small section of public services, and a single street and raised those same issues. The fact that many of the street’s residents found this out during the making of this programme, shows why it was in the public interest to do this documentary, and why the BBC should be congratulated for the attempt.

The word on the street, is not Agenda, Mark, it is Balance. Something the BBC should be producing at all times.

Party tales - 3; The SNP

2011-05-22T05:22:00.000-07:00

It seems almost sacreligious to attempt an analysis of the opportunities and pitfalls of the SNP after their tremendous success in the Scottish Election. After all, hasn’t it been ‘historic’, ‘seismic’, ‘ground-shifting’`? They now have what I (and certainly most others) thought was a psephological impossibility - an absolute majority in a (at least partly) proportional house. And they have a clear aim and programme - what could possibly go wrong?

Well, in fact in the seeds of their success could lie a number of problems. And it is clear that the policy and campaigning machine that the SNP created, (There is a good interview with Stephen Noon, SNP policy chief, here.) and which delivered so spectacularly for them this year is also aware of them - or at least some of them. Some of the early statements of Alex Salmond about ‘forgiveness’ make much more sense when that context is recognised.

Firstly of course, the scale of their majority might lead to a couple of problematic developments. Large majorities (and this in a Scottish context is the biggest!), can lead to both arrogance and dismissal of opposition, and/or to the development of an internal opposition. It also means the Scottish Government will now have to deliver on their campaign promises. The four years of ‘recognising-that-we-don’t-have-a-majority’ are over and difficult/uncosted promises must now be implemented. That will be more difficult than people think. The removal of the last local discretion to raise their own funding from our councils in the longer term, may well prove impossible without huge costs. UNISON pointed out early how the then proposed ‘local’ income tax fell short of raising sufficient cash to cover the council tax abolition, here. and the last Scottish Government’s desperate struggle to hide costs suggests there may be other problems.

In terms of the potential for steam-rollering, it is clear from Alex’s statements that he (and his SPADs) are wary of the impact that such an impression would give. Nevertheless, some straws in the wind show they are right to be concerned. The election of Tricia Marwick as Presiding Officer, while not ‘delivered’ by the Government, highlights one problem. The perceived ‘safe’ (for the Government) candidate was elected by the thumping majority over both a candidate from a party which has never supplied a PO, and a ‘awkward’ candidate from the majority party. The warnings about the danger of this were correct - however ill-judged the selection of the warnee was!

And the Government do have a problem here. They want to deliver their programme; they have had four years of frustration which they can now avenge; and they have the delirious clamour from their own members and supporters (many now in Parliament) urging them on. Can they balance that desire for progress/revenge with the public statements about ‘working with other parties/groups’? This has been the downfall of other governments elsewhere, and it is far from clear that, even if Alex himself is on message, other party colleagues will be. No-one has ever mistaken Alex Neil or Kenny Macaskill for shrinking violets!

I think it less likely that there will be the development of an effective internal opposition. While the SNP are less a political party, than an act of faith, and contain political activists from extreme right to left within their midst, most have had too much experience of how media and opposition exploit splits to want to create one. The large number of ‘new’ MSPs will want to maintain their position, and the party faithful - with their eyes on the prize of an independence referendum can be relied on to toe the line.

One thing that might upset this balance, is if the SNP fundamentalists think their referendum is being watered down by their own. It is clear from judicious leaks from SNP HQ, that the ‘Independence-lite’ option is being seriously considered. A win in the referendum - whatever the question - is clearly seen as essential. If the terms are lite-enough, might it be even a possibility that other parties (not just the Greens and Socialists) may shift to back a ‘Yes’ vote? That might prove a step too far for the Cyber-Nats.

A successful ‘hope-for change’ based campaign also contains dangers, as politicians from Tony Blair through to Barack Obama have discovered. The essence of the SNP’s successful campaign was a positive call for a better Scotland, and it caught a spark. (Pat Kane’s insightful piece on the success of positive campaigns should be read by all party strategists. Push past the psycho-babble, it’s worth it!). Plus the use of very strong public and internal communications also delivered for them.

Now, however the party faces the difficulty of delivering with straitened finances, and of keeping the trust of the voters who voted for them in such large numbers. We already see SNP ministers trying to ‘accentuate the positive’ (Swinney downplaying the high levels of Scottish unemployment blackspots recently for example). And at least one reason for the Scottish Government move to negotiate a strong Scotland Bill must surely be to try and deliver some levers of finance to give them wiggle room.

However it is dressed up though, service cuts and unemployment, are on the agenda, and on the agenda for a large number of the SNP’s ‘new voters’. Obviously one tactic will be (not unfairly) to blame Westminster, but the big business support evident during the election will want some form of ConDem policies (if window-dressed) in Scotland. With an overall majority, and if given extra powers, the blame game may well begin to wear a bit thin. As the STUC has already pointed out, for example - is it such a good idea to devolve corporation tax, so a Scottish Government can further cut money coming in to fund public services? Incidentally it will be interesting to see what Cameron delivers in terms of a strengthened Scotland Bill. What will Tory policy on this be? Give them enough rope or cut Scotland loose?

Oppositions don’t win elections - governments lose them. The last SNP government delivered a competent if uninspiring administration. This meant they were in a good position to ‘not lose’ before the campaign. What the campaign delivered was a scene-change, by successfully sweeping up disaffected voters (from all parties, but mostly from the LibDems), with a positive, but not too specific message.

As the Tories, LibDems (and before them, New Labour) have found however, when voters feel their positive trust in a party has been betrayed, they are very clear and very sophisticated in their ability to express their fury. That could still happen.

Party tales - 2 The Scottish Tories

2011-05-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

The announcement of the retiral of Annabel Goldie from the leadership of the Scottish Tories may signal the return of the ‘nasty party’ image that she (and her predecessor David McLetchie) had spent so much time trying to repair. Indeed the manner of her going is almost like the days of Thatcher and the ‘men in suits’. It may also signal the retreat of the Tory party back over the border, but this remains to be seen.

Everyone’s favourite auntie - everyone outside the Scottish Tories that is - she finally succumbed when the results showed that what many thought was impossible had happened. Although obscured by the virtually complete melt-down of the LibDem votes, there was a further drop of between 2 and 5% in what was considered the hard core of the Tory vote in Scotland. This may not be even close to the beating meted out to their coalition partners, but people voting for the Tories knew what they are getting and support their economics, unlike those who felt betrayed by the LibDems.

This level of drop may be explicable, given an unpopular Tory government in Westminster, but the Tory party is not given to tolerance of failure. It is ironic, too, as Annabel had probably more than anyone else, begun to rekindle sympathy for the Tories in Scotland.

The future direction of the party now hangs in the balance. Do they continue down the ‘One Nation’ route, which runs the risk of alienating them (in practice, if not in image) from their Westminster colleagues, or do they line up much more ideologically behind their economic liberalism and rekindled Thatcherism?

Of course, given the views of voters here, will any lurch to the right, consolidate them or further damage their electoral prospects in Scotland? How much was the Westminster leadership involved in the ousting of the Scottish leader? It strikes me that there are two possible scenarios.

One, the party continues in the positive engagement mode at Holyrood, that Annabel had championed. That would at least buy them some time and, who knows, if they made some intercessions on Scotland’s behalf, might even continue the respect-building. Two, the party lurches to the right, readopts a Thatcherite liberal, free market policy line, advocating Westminster ConDem policies in Scotland in the teeth of the bulk of public opinion.

Scenario one, I suggest, is unlikely. Given the size of Alec’s victory, who is there for the Tories to engage with? He doesn’t need them now, and if he wants to pick a fight with Westminster in advance of an Independence referendum, concessions to the Tories in Scotland are unlikely. In any case, if this was to be the course, why drop the pilot?

And in any case, does David Cameron want to ameliorate his government’s policies for Scotland? Might he not see the sloughing off of a public service-valuing, troublesome, socialist-inclined drag on his reforms as something he quietly welcomes? Certainly there is a clear shift in Scottish business towards the SNP and independence. The Tory-backing Sun advocated a vote for the SNP in the Holyrood elections, and some Tory commentators have openly advocated winding up the Scottish Tories and creating a separate Scottish free-market, right-wing party.

One way of doing this might be to replace Annabel, with a more toe-the-economic line leader, (say Jackson Carlaw or Murdo Fraser) who would more strongly advocate Westminster policies for Scotland. Any resulting unpopularity might make the case for Scottish independence more palatable to Tory backers, and similarly provide the impetus for a ‘new’ right-wing Scottish party.

This is not to say that Cameron will advocate independence. Indeed, he will be as strongly pro-union in any independence referendum as he was pro FPTP in the AV one. But he is likely to be pragmatic. If there are diminishing returns in a business, it might be better to hive it off. Let’s face it, how many more Westminster seats can the Tories lose?

A Heuch for Victor Jara!

2011-05-11T05:48:00.000-07:00

If you live in Edinburgh or within easy reach, why not go along to what sounds like a cracking night on Saturday 14 May.

A tonic for all bruised activists. (and a celebration for jubilant ones), A Ceilidh for Victor Jara with the Cosmic Ceilidh Collective is at the Tollcross Community Centre in Embra, @ 7.00pm. £10/8 - http://geomium.com/event/0005159792524075349/

Victor Jara was a theatre director and folk singer/songwriter who infused Chile and South America's cultural identity in the 60's and early 70's with a pride and respect for its local roots. He was tortured and killed during the days of Pinochet's military coup in 1973, and became synonymous with the Chilean resistance to Pinochet.

His widow, Joan Jara and one of her daughters, Manuela Bunster will be present at the Ceilidh. They set up the Victor Jara Foundation, which will receive the proceeds of this ceilidh. It exists to preserve the memory of Víctor’s artistic heritage and works on a range of cultural and human rights projects.

Party time for all in Scotland? 1 - the Scottish LibDems

2011-05-10T05:20:00.000-07:00

Now that the final losing Scottish party leader has had the visit from the ‘men in grey suits’, it is perhaps appropriate to look at what the results might lead to for all our political parties.

For the LibDems it is clearly desperation alley. Tavish’s too-precipitate resignation (from a LibDem party perspective who with any credibility is available to take over?) is surely so he can say more forcefully what he was hinting at in the final days of the campaign. That is that participation in the ‘cuts coalition’ - in particular after a General Election campaign predicated on ‘ a LibDem vote is a vote against Tory cuts’ - is leading to a massive haemorrhage of the LibDem vote, especially in Scotland where it was never the volatile ‘floating voter’ option that it is south of the border.

Ironically this will not lead to a break-up of the coalition. Indeed the spectre of a mass cull of LibDem MPs by the electorate north and south of the border if an election was to be called will concentrate their minds wonderfully. Plus, of course, Nick Clegg knows this is his only chance of a sniff of power - possibly for ever - and is most unlikely to threaten that. Despite his sabre-rattling over the NHS, he is only demanding what Tory cabinet ministers are already planning for the NHS in England & Wales.

In any case he and the rest of the ‘orange-bookers’ in the LibDems are probably more at home with the Tories in the UK Government than they are with the mainly social liberals of the Scottish Party. However, a split in the party is most unlikely at this stage for the reasons above and below!

Is Clegg himself likely to be challenged? After all the party faithful have allegedly only stuck with the strategy of accepting coalition to deliver PR, and this must now be dead for the foreseeable future. But the LibDems have always been capable of ignoring almost diametrically opposed positions of its elected representatives, and this won’t stop now.

More likely is a quiet drift away of activists, similar to the Labour Party’s losses in the Blair years.

However, it is likely that the Scottish party will take an increasingly separate line from that at Westminster. Who the new leader is will tell us this. Whether it improves the Scottish party’s position is doubtful. It will take more than this to overcome the betrayal their voters feel. In particular voters do not like to be obviously lied to, as Clegg admitted doing when he said on TV that he knew during the General Election campaign that major and urgent cuts were needed, yet continued to call for a LibDem vote to prevent such cuts. Neither will the coalition change tack on its economic policies.

The Scottish electorate is now very sophisticated. They know how to vote tactically to deliver their message. This time the message has been primarily aimed at the LibDems (and also at Labour), last year it was aimed at the Tories. Who is next in the firing line?

YouGov! What, MeGov?

2011-04-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

If opinion polls are to be believed, Labour is heading for an embarrassing dip in votes and seats at the forthcoming Holyrood elections. Some more excitable commentators have even been moved to predict a ‘crushing defeat’*. However, as most activists and politicians know, polls are more useful as weapons than as sources of clear information. They may (as these recent ones undoubtedly will) be used to galvanise Labour’s notoriously sluggish turnout. They will be used to glorify the name of Salmond. But in all cases polls are deceptive. They were when predicting a Labour lead of up to 10 points early in this campaign, they were when predicting a Lib Dem surge in 2010’s Westminster election, and they are now.

Anyone remember last year, the incredulity with which both media and politicians dismissed the TV exit poll, because it gave the lie to the polls’ prediction? For the record that exit poll forecast Con - between 303-306 seats; Lab - between 251 and 262 seats; LibDem - between 69 and 55 seats (the figures were revised as the night went on) The actual result? Con - 306; Lab - 258; LibDem - 57.)

There are at least three reasons why opinion polls need to be treated with caution. Pollsters themselves recognise that, unless the sample is huge, a margin of error factor of plus or minus 3%. So a poll predicting a 6% lead could equally suggest a neck-and-neck race. But this is well-known (although not well-reported). Less well considered are methodology and sample taking. YouGov for example, selects its respondents from an internet panel of people who have chosen to volunteer for this work in exchange for cash. The company, says it uses demographic information to balance its results, but there are two or three chances for skewing the sample here, and their methodology remains hotly debated.

Less obvious recently has been the introduction into Scotland of differential swings in local areas. It has been very obvious in Westminster elections that swings vary considerably in different parts of the UK - the increasing Westminster vote for Labour last time being a glaring example . It has been less so within Scotland. I suggest that this is changing, and will make this election virtually impossible to call by extrapolating from opinion polls. It is not just where the disenchanted LibDem votes go. The SNP will surely do best in rural constituencies if that vote does implode, but it may well be different in places like Dunfermline and possibly in Edinburgh. And in the second vote, any shift away from the LibDems will surely benefit the Greens. It seems also clear that the Tory vote will largely hold up - even if only because it has been bumping along the bottom for some time.

It isn’t simply the potential melt down of the LD vote (and in any case I suspect that the polls overestimate this likelihood too.) but the impact of local party politics via local council control. For the first time we have a Scottish Election being fought with councils under a variety of party and coalition controls. This may play out differently in different areas. Again Edinburgh, with the LibDems and SNP in coalition presiding over the debacle of the tram project, and proposals to outsource huge rafts of council services, will LD votes go to their SNP partners? Has the recent controversy over education cuts in Renfrewshire, and the SNP council leader’s climbdown scuppered his chances in Renfrewshire North? What will be the impact of the Aberdeenshire Council LibDem’s public fallout over the Trump development - particularly in the list where Cllr Martin Ford now tops the list for the Greens?

Of course the final reason that opinion polls never tell the whole story is that they are never told the whole story! The recent YouGov poll for example - even now finds that around 30% of those asked are either uncertain whether they will vote, or certain not to. That is a large undecided area to exclude. (YouGov also has a very low incidence of ‘won’t say’s - almost certainly because their sampling comes from the self-selected panel referred to in para 1).

So, while the trends are important and justify the Labour Party’s attempts to rejuvenate their campaign, the details of recent polls are no more (or less) significant than the earlier ones.

As ever, oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them. Only May 5 will tell whether the Scottish electorate is sufficiently annoyed with the SNP government for them to have ‘lost’ this one. I suspect that it is going to be a much closer call than opinion pollsters tell us.

*Peter Kellner in a commentary on his own organisation’s poll

Question Time cocks it up again

2011-04-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

Yet again the beleaguered BBC programme Question Time has shown us the reason why it might be a good idea for it to be produced outside London. The bland and supercilious response of the BBC and its flagship current affairs programme demonstrate exactly why the programme is no longer fit for purpose in the modern Britain.

To claim that the programme retains balance, because the ‘main parties’ had representation, misses the whole point. One was a candidate in an election and none of his opponents were given the opportunity to be there. The voters of that election received the broadcast. That is clearly against the guidelines that the BBC itself purports to operate under.

It is possible to overstate this, however. It isn’t an anti-democratic plot. It certainly isn’t a deliberate ploy to boost Alex Salmond. The other parties could, if they wished, have resolved the matter quickly by telling their invited representatives (and any substitutes) to withdraw from the programme. This was never going to happen - after all if they were prepared to sit on a panel with Nick Griffin, Alex Salmond was hardly going to be more objectionable!

But it is symptomatic of the real problem with this show, as was the reverse problem of Nicola Sturgeon being gagged by David Disdainful, back in October when the show apparently came from Glasgow. There is no understanding (nor is there any wish to understand) that the UK is now a multi-national entity, and to reflect that. As it was once said of then Tory Scottish Secretary, Ian Lang, ‘He is both too ignorant of the problem and too arrogant to care.” Any of us who have worked for the Scottish arm of a UK body knows exactly the issue.

The SNP too, in gloating over the discomfiture of the ‘unionist’ parties, would do well to not to throw too many stones as their own glass house has been upset by this before, and will be again (General Election Leader’s Debates anyone?).

But the sooner that Question Time’s production is moved away from London (or the ROSEland hinterland) the more likely that this problem will be addressed. If that means also jettisoning the current producer and chair, so much the better.

There is a better May - unions and artists come together to take the next step in the campaign

2011-04-05T03:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Glasgow Friends of MayDay, a new group of activists and artists set up to increase support for Glasgow’s MayDay celebrations, launched our 2011 programme. It is a series of events covering the three days before Sunday May 1 when the traditional MayDay March and Rally takes place in Glasgow.

Actor and director David Hayman, musicians Dave Anderson and Arthur Johnstone, and poet Tom Leonard will all perform concerts from Thursday 28 to Saturday 30 April at the STUC Centre. There will also be a night featuring film and a lecture on the UCS work-in, 40 years ago this year; stand-up comedy as an antidote to the Royal Wedding; and a Northern Soul night. The full programme is
available on http://may1st.org.uk

There are a number of reasons behind all this cultural activity. Firstly, we want to challenge the ConDem government’s attack on MayDay, by rejuvenating the International Workers’ Day celebration in Glasgow. Working with the Glasgow TUC and the STUC, far from scrapping the holiday, we aim to extend the celebrations and in following years build events in local communities as well, ensuring that they too can enjoy MayDay celebrations.

We also want to challenge the Tories’ economic policies. After the huge success of the 26 March Demo in London this will be another step in the campaign to defend public services from their cuts and say that There is a Better Way.

It is entirely appropriate that this is a broad cultural and artistic celebration. The arts are facing the same attacks as public services. In taking part in this, artists are linking with the main campaign.

We are particularly delighted that Len McCluskey, General Secretary of Unite, is to be the keynote speaker. Trade unions are facing direct attacks by this government. Far from all of us being ‘in this together’, it is clear that they plan to mount another attack on the rights of working people. The government plans to dismember the only major institution campaigning for working people and their families. Successful celebrations such as May Day send a signal that ordinary people see through their divide and rule tactics.

MayDay celebrations have been part of Glasgow’s calendar since the early 1900’s. In the past we welcomed such stars as Paul Robeson, and Daniel Ortega. Maybe it is a little early to aim for the 70,000 that joined the 1918 march, but we hope to work with community groups and others to raise the profile once more.

Tickets for the events can be obtained on line at http://www.eventbrite.com/org/863793523?s=3059565

Dancing with Big Eunice

2011-03-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

Alistair Findlay

Likely to be the cultural event of the year is one of the Morning Star’s increasingly valuable and important working class cultural events. On April 5 in Bathgate, Alistair Findlay, ex-footballer, social worker, UNISON member and poet is talking about ‘Poetry and the working class movement’. While the title has all the initial appeal of a university lecture, expect a lively presentation and discussion.

As a long term social worker and poet, Alistair has published a number of volumes dealing with the working lives of social workers and the people they work with. Dancing with Big Eunice, is his latest volume dealing with the world of poverty that many still inhabit. Anger, passion and satire fill the poems, and will no doubt be part of the presentation in the Acredale Centre in Bathgate.

The event starts at 7.00pm. Entry is free, but a collection will be taken to cover costs. Chaired by Jim Swan of the West Lothian TUC, this is one of the increasingly well-attended Morning Star Education Series - ‘Let our past inspire our future’.

Action on pensions would be part of the anti-cuts campaign

2011-03-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

It was only to be expected that the report of the Hutton review into pensions should mean the opportunity for big business supporters to have another go at the fair pensions provision in the public sector, but it is a pity that an otherwise balanced and well-informed columnist, Iain MacWhirter joins such unusual attackers (Sunday Herald - 13 March 2011). This is the latest in a series of his irregular attacks on the pensions of our nurses, police, classroom assistants, social carers et al, and seems to be on the point of becoming obsessive. He isn’t alone in these attacks, but they usually come from well-known free marketeers and private sector defenders, not independent (in the true meaning of the word) commentators.

He also seems to think that Trade Unions work ‘top down’ and that all any General Secretary has to do is snap their fingers and the membership walks out. Quite the reverse is usually true. Union members - particularly those in the public sector - put up with a lot before becoming angry enough to strike. But attacks on their the pension they agreed to, contribute to and depend on, is something that does irate them sufficiently. Any TU leader would be well advised to think carefully before suggesting a line similar to Iain’s.

Unfortunately, in the past, Iain’s attacks have not exactly been accompanied by any clear arguments or indeed factual justification - he has in the past been known to quote approvingly from that bastion of anti-public sector misinformation - the Tax Dodgers’ Alliance in support of his campaign. This time he uses more reputable sources, including the Institute of Fiscal Studies, although the figures he comes up with do seem similarly questionable. In particular the government figure of £7,800 for an average public sector pension seems very high, when we know that the average in one of the biggest schemes (Local Government) is only £4,000+. How is this average almost doubled? Certainly other public sector schemes are unlikely to vastly inflate the average, given that they are all based on salary, and that no public sector pay is that large. And the small number of very well-paid public sector staff (yes, there are a few, mainly in the Civil Service and NHS schemes) are unlikely to raise the overall average.

However, one way this figure might have been increased is if the pensions awarded to senior private sector bankers who have been bailed out by public sector investment are taken into account. I don’t know if this has occurred, but I have seen other figures from think tanks and others that now include these people as part of the ‘public sector’. This is significant in two ways. One, it distorts the real cost of public service provision by adding in the inflated bonuses and other private sector waste, thus assisting the arguments of the ConDems and others who point to these inflated figures as justification for ‘cutting the public sector’, although almost never the ‘new’ part of it. On the other hand it does provide a useful highlight for those who wish to see it, illuminating just what sort of salaries and pensions senior managers in the private sector receive. Whatever the reason, that figure needs further explanation.

Of course most people working in the private sector get far less than either figure, and Iain’s view appears to be ‘because we private sector staff have had our pensions robbed, then the public sector should as well’. Bitterness - however well justified - has never been a particularly good basis for public policy decisions, and is not so here. It is true that many decent, affordable, private sector pension schemes have been shut to new entrants/ removed completely/replaced by far cheaper (to the employer) schemes (delete where applicable), but that does not mean we should accept the demands of the same robbers who perpetrated these scandals to do the same to our public service workers.

The real ‘pensions apartheid’ is the difference between the level of pensions enjoyed by many private sector directors and senior managers and the levels that they are now forcing their workers to accept. One of the reasons for the private sector average being so low, is the closures and cutbacks that private sector directors and managers have forced their workers to accept. Decent pensions for our workforces in both the public and private sector should be a right, and employers should be forced to face up to their responsibility. Where they don’t we should support workers in the fight to achieve and maintain a decent pension - whether they are in the private or public sector. Indeed one of the strongest private sector dispute in recent years - at INEOS in Grangemouth - was on exactly this issue.

Should the attack on public sector pensions advocated by Lord Hutton lead to an industrial dispute (and the leader of the largest public service union has already called for the government to negotiate), public service workers should be supported in their campaigns, in exactly the same way as private sector workers fighting for a decent pension. Hopefully this co-ordinated attack (and let no-one doubt it is co-ordinated) will be met by a co-ordinated response across the public and private sector workforce, starting with a massive demonstration on March 26. The stories of ConDem scab preparations to undermine and defeat the workforce in the event of public service strikes remind all of us of a certain age of Thatcher and the miners. No-one is pretending that public service workers and their unions are miners, and any major dispute will have to be handled with great subtlety. But it WILL BE part of the overall struggle against the false economy being adopted by the governments in the UK. To suggest that low-paid public sector workers should simply sit back and accept these attacks will be damaging to the overall campaign and, far from threatening future joint action with the community over cuts, could help to make the links stronger.

FOI retreat could cause problems for anti-cuts campaigners

2011-03-10T03:09:00.000-08:00

The publication of the penultimate Annual Report by the Scottish Information Commissioner recently, has drawn attention (again) to the step backward taken by the Scottish Government in refusing to extend coverage of the Act to private contractors, arms-length Trusts, the GHA and other bodies which increasingly deliver our public services. As Kevin Dunion says, “The right to know is being eroded as public services are delivered by arms length bodies and, instead of leading the way on FOI, we are in danger of falling behind.

Despite the Government’s much vaunted claims of transparency and their initial enthusiasm for extension they appear to have retreated at the ‘first whiff of grapeshot’ from the private sector. It seems that, as it has already done on PFI, this government has proved itself to be long on rhetoric, but short on substance.

It is also an example of the Scottish Government’s deferrals to big business. Despite being an avowedly ‘centre-left’ party, making positive claims over a period of some years about their desire to increase the coverage of the Scottish FOI Act and responding positively to the clear advice from the Scottish Information Commissioner that this is needed, they have withdrawn their proposals (limited as they were) at the first indication that the private contractors would oppose them! Did they ever think they wouldn’t?

In addition they have dropped the proposals - also advocated by Mr Dunion - to extend the Act to cover the murky half-world of trusts and LLPs. As local councils in particular, look enviously at the trail-blazing by Glasgow City in hiving off its public services to arms-length bodies of different formats. Kevin has highlighted the increasing erosion of the right for us all to find out how our money is being spent by such bodies. But apparently this too, would be too much trouble.

And it is especially concerning as public bodies are increasingly squeezed financially. the upcoming period of cuts and increased outsourcing will inevitably lead to increased demands for information about such decisions. It is therefore simply wrong to allow increasing numbers of services to slip out of the FOI net, and it is also worrying (if understandable) that 41% of FOI officers surveyed identified increasing demands and decreasing resources as “the biggest FOI challenge they faced." In the face of the most severe attack on public services in living memory, it would be invidious if campaigners found problems in obtaining the information they needed.

Unfortunately, for the Scottish Government, at UK level the ConDem coalition is ploughing on strongly to increase coverage to a number of public and semi-public bodies - albeit they seem to stop short of private contractors or even Network Rail! It is deeply ironic that it is an SNP government that is presiding over a reduction in the standard of FOI coverage in Scotland below that of the rest of the country, after over five years of its pre-eminence on the UK stage!

A final warning is also appropriate. This will be Kevin Dunion’s final year as the Scottish Information Commissioner. I think that all involved in the FOI scene in Scotland recognise that the standing of the Act and the success of the legislation has significantly been down to the principles and activity of him and his office. It will be necessary to have someone with an equivalent commitment to the principles of FOI to follow him.

While I am about it, an attempt to assist in the use of FOI legislation is planned by the Campaign for Freedom of Information here in Scotland. They are running a one day course for requesters in Glasgow on the 4 June. More information and forms will shortly be available from the website http://www.cfoi.org.uk/scotland.html.

Comrade's classical connection

2011-02-25T16:02:00.000-08:00

Went to a classical concert tonight. as is our wont occasionally. Not one of the big events - no huge orchestra, no celebrated piece of music - but we were hugely affected by one of the pieces played. While the Prokofiev was enjoyable, the piece that made the night was a little-known Shostakovich work (well it was little-known by me!).

The SCO, conducted (inspired?) by Andrew Manze, played Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet in its Chamber Symphony no 1 form. (it was transcribed by one of his former pupils with Shostakovich’s approval). Written originally in 1960 after a visit to Dresden - still being reconstructed after the Allied firebombing it is a hugely affecting work.

From the opening emotional phrases, to the sombre double slow movements that close the work it is a piece that has a massive resonance. For a composer who lived through the horrors of the Leningrad siege, and reacted to it with the strength of the 7^th Symphony, this is, if anything, more affecting.

Quite clearly, the impact of the destruction of Dresden chimed deeply with Shostakovich, and this music - written in three days - brings together three major stands that epitomise his genius. Firstly, and most importantly, his humanity and capability to empathise with human suffering, whether being experienced by comrades or by ‘enemies’. Secondly, his ability to transcend the supposed restriction of the socialist commonweal of the Soviet Union (something that has been always clear to those prepared to listen). But thirdly, and mostly his ability to use music to move your emotions so that you understand both his reaction, and why that is important for you (and others). Surely, the definition of genius.

The use of the short Antonio Lotte piece (also composed in Dresden 200 years earlier) to introduce the Shostakovich was also inspired. Congratulations to both the SCO and to Andrew Manze, but most of all to Dmitri Shostakovich, for an exceptional night.

...and populist shall speak peace unto lobby group?

2011-02-06T04:52:00.000-08:00

Good to see a incisive article by Ian Bell in Saturday’s Herald on Dave Cameron’s pal, Jeremy Clarkson and his colleagues, and in particular the spat over insults to Mexicans and Mexico that provoked a particularly half-hearted apology from the BBC - not one from Top Gear, you'll notice.

As Ian says, the dinosaurs from Top Gear ain’t clever and they ain’t funny, but they are popular, and therein lies one of the main reason for the appallingly hypocritical and/or racist statement from the BBC that national stereotypes are legitimate targets for humour. This is one of the most worrying developments in the saga, and shows exactly what many have suspected - that the current BBC management are quite prepared to abandon the corporation’s long-held reputation for fairness and impartiality when the subjects of the accusation are powerful, or popular enough.

Leaving aside the debate about how ‘national stereotypes’ become stereotypes, the BBC’s mealy-mouthed reaction on behalf of Hammond, Clarkson et al is another nail in the coffin of Auntie’s reputation.

Following on the rejection of the Palestine Emergency Appeal broadcast by the Disasters Emergency Committee - at the behest, or in fear of, the powerful Zionist lobby; the craven sneak into 10 Downing Street by Mark Thompson to debate/agree/warn Dave of the way the BBC will report the ConDem cuts agenda, and the poorly judged and appallingly handled Question Time publicity stunt for the BNP (incidentally why is the shift to Glasgow the issue concerning the QT team? Given recent poor panels and inability to read the local issues, I would have thought that cancellation would be far more of a fear) it is now a matter of real concern that Thompson’s weak-kneed bending to every powerful lobby is compromising fair and proportionate decision-taking in one of the major news and information providers of the West.

In case you might think this is over-egging this particular pudding, consider this. Given the above history, do you think similar ‘national stereotyping’ of Israelis and of Israel would have been a similar ‘legitimate target for humour’? Would anything like that even have got into the broadcast programme? Whatever the outcome of a confrontation between the populist (Top Gear) and the political (Israel) lobbies over such an event, the suspicion will always now be of a broadcaster who takes decisions on the basis of such pressures, not one with the aim of impartiality, accuracy and responsibility.

The BBC does have a responsibility for its decisions, and no-one is suggesting that it is in the same category as Fox News and their exhortations to violent attacks on people Rupert doesn’t like, but at least Sky acted decisively when a programme presenter suggested that women linespeople didn’t know the rules!

Mark Thompson has presided over this denigration of the BBC, and should go now, while there is still a (slim) opportunity to rescue our public service broadcaster.

Aye Right!!

2011-01-24T12:12:00.000-08:00

I have just seen the new programme for the 2011 Aye Write! festival that is run every year by Glasgow's Libraries. It has been a welcome development and one that seemed to be going from strength to strength.

It is particularly gratifying to remember that it started as an initiative while Glasgow's Libraries were still run directly by the elected council (in 2006) - thus giving the lie to those who say that this kind of partnership is only possible when our services are hived off from our control.

Is it just me, however, or do this years offerings have a aura of 'haven't we seen this before?' about them? No one has a greater admiration for Polly Toynbee than me, but weren't she and Richard Walker plugging The Verdict at last year's Edinburgh Book Festival? Didn't I see Michael Frayn and Steve Bell there too?

It's also a pity that the series of debates on the future of the economy, public services etc - a good concept in itself, even if not linked to specific publications - don't include some people directly involved in the services and facilities under threat.

Is this diluted offering a product of the public service cuts beginning to bite? Or is it indicative of more serious problems at senior level in Glasgow Life (as we will never get used to calling it!).

Netrooting around London

2011-01-10T09:22:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, hundreds of 'activists' - of a variety of ages, shapes and political creeds - piled into the TUC in Bloomsbury to listen, talk and discuss - as well as tweet, blog and video - the role of 'new media' in building campaigns. Billed as Netroots UK the conference was backed by the TUC as well as a whole range of bloggers and progressive online campaigners - eg Clifford Singer (False Economy and The Other Taxpayers Alliance), Sunny Hundal of Liberal Conspiracy, Anna Nolan of the Robin Hood Tax Campaign and Chris Coltrane of UK Uncut among many others.

By the way - if you aren't yet a fan of UK Uncut, have a look at its website, which gives the lie to the theory that if people are on the web, they aren't campaigning in the streets!

I was there, and my pre-event anticipation was evenly balanced. On the one side hoping that this was going to be the beginning of a major drive to use on-line campaigning in the drive against the ConDemNation, and on the other, fearing that it would descend into either futile hand-wringing, or the sectarian infighting so common when the left get together. It was, of course, none of these. Although there were attempts by some to lead us down the road to the People's Front of Judea - the conference sensibly resisted that, and indeed the other option of turning into a 'lefty wankfest' predicted by one of the more cynical of my TU colleagues here in Scotland.

Helped by the aim being more about identifying how different media can assist in campaigns and what they are good for, the conference spent most time in workshops looking at particular campaigns and use of specific tools - the use of Twitter during student occupations to 'widen the room' and deliver information from within the occupations minute-by-minute impressed me greatly, as did the use of Google maps to spread the information on where the police were 'kettling' demonstrators during the tuition fees demos!

Twittering was going on apace during the sessions, and identified strengths and weaknesses. I had a conversation with a friend I hadn't known was at the event Indeed I never actually found him in the flesh!), but it was also used to comment on sessions as we experienced them and often overplayed the 'cynical hack' persona. Why is it the journos too often think that they should be the only ones whose view of issues is valuable?

It also struck me that there is really nothing new under the sun. The session on getting your message across to the wider media was so like a short media training course I expected Mary Maguire to appear! (we got Kevin Maguire instead). Likewise the need to plan your campaign, set your targets and be aware of your weaknesses. Nigel Stanley's (TUC) analysis of arguments we have so far failed to win, was much more useful than Sunder Katwala's (Fabian Soc) superficial '30% are for us, 30% are against us'.

Ultimately the day also avoided the error of trying to put all our campaigning eggs in the digital basket. On-line is an increasingly important challenge to the mainstream media and should be used more - especially by those of us who don't think that mainstream reports us fairly. But it is not a substitute for face-to-face contact (any more than print is). We need to use it. So why were there so few delegates there from the (UK) Trade Unions - especially their Comms teams?

CBI economics is busted flush

2010-12-29T08:41:00.000-08:00

Interesting to read the thoughts of CBIScotland (or at least its Chair - Iain McMillan) in the Herald today (29 December). No doubt this was taken from a ‘end-of-year message’ press release used by many organisations to get some press coverage at a thin time of the year.

You might think that, as the representative body of private sector organisations, including finance companies who bear the responsibility for the economic crisis and the attacks on public funding by the Tories, the CBI might be expressing some contrition for putting us all through this - but no. Mr McMillan has the effrontery to chastise the Scottish Government (and other political parties apparently) for not following the CBI’s preferred course out of the economic crisis!

Just for the record this includes - cutting public spending and so-called ‘red tape’, increased PFI, using more private firms to deliver public services, selling-off Scottish Water, and building more nuclear power plants. (He grudgingly welcomes the council tax freeze - despite the damage that this has already done to local services and indeed local businesses who depend on public work).

Thus the CBI show that they have learned nothing from their members’ failings in too lightly regulated markets. Cut red tape? We should be demanding that banks and other finance companies are penalised for the damage they have done to our economy. Increase privatisation? Far from exposing more services to private sector risk, we should accept that this risk will always lie with the public sector, and supply these services publicly - not via expensive and poor value private companies.

I hold no brief for the Scottish Government - indeed there are many areas where I could be even more critical than Mr McMillan - but his analysis of the economic situation would lead us even deeper into the mire of stagnation and even recession. Just watch what ConDem policies - slavishly following a big business line - deliver for us at UK level

But apparently defending public services and public funding is ‘populist’. According to oor Iain “...real leadership is about doing the right things for Scotland at the right time and explaining why they are necessary.” Given the track record of the UK business community in losing trillions of pounds and then screaming for a huge public handout, I think we can see why ‘the right things’ are unlikely to be done by the CBI, and why it has forfeited all credibility as a business leader.

And a memo to Iain Gray. Just because someone is having a go at the SNP - it is not always in your (or our) interests to agree with them. The old Maoist doctrine of ‘The enemy of my enemy, is my friend.” has led China’s leaders into some very strange alliances over the years. In the run up to an election, to be seen to side with the busted flush of big business will not gain support.

The Number One Social event of 2011

2010-12-27T07:48:00.000-08:00

At this time of year, people’s thoughts often turn to the potential of next year’s holidays, and an increasing number now plan Southern Africa trips.

While we often celebrate the success of the Anti Apartheid Movement (AAM) and the African National Congress (ANC) in ridding South Africa of the scourge of apartheid, anyone who has travelled there will tell you that there is still much that needs to be done.

Scotland’s former campaigners against apartheid know this more than most, and formed a successor organisation to AAM, Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA), to work for peace, democracy, reconstruction and development in Southern Africa, and works to increase knowledge and understanding in Scotland of that region, including the legacies of apartheid and its widespread destructive consequences.

ACTSA in Scotland runs an annual event around this time, marking the anniversary of the founding of the ANC in 1912. This is always a very social event and involves a buffet meal, a pay bar and a ceilidh - featuring the toe-tapping tunes of George Reid and his Ceilidh band! And all this for a Fiver!.

It all takes place at the STUC, on January 15th, 2011 and is usually a great night.

Those of you who know me will, by now, be waiting for the punch line, and in order not to disappoint I have acquired a number of tickets for the number one social event of 2011!

If you want to go please email me - chrisbartter@btinternet.com. See you there!

Cable gaffe does not mean Coalition in trouble - just the LibDems

2010-12-22T16:37:00.000-08:00

Vince Cable’s ‘gaffe’, and those of other LibDem ministers, has - as many commentators have speculated - shone a light onto some deep fissures in the ConDem coalition.

However, it is not between the LibDems and the Tories that this split has widened, but in fact between the social and the economic Liberals - between the ‘Orange bookers’ (including Mr Cable, himself) and the local populists. Now we see why those of us in Glasgow, have little or no memory of Mr Cable’s period as a Cooncillor. He just wasn’t that good!

His excessive outburst about Murdoch - does he really want to wage war? - means it is the liberal marketeers - in both the LibDems and the Tories - who are rubbing their hands. And it is why they can still support the old buffer. How else could they allow Mr Murdoch to increase his stranglehold on the UK media?

I can’t think of any politician - of the right or the left - that thinks (in public anyway) that News International gaining unfettered control of another major media organ is good news for us or for politics. But to the free marketeers, anything that stands in the way of millionaire businessmen spending their money the way they want, is bad economics. And, despite all the arguments to the contrary, they are predisposed to let Rupert have his way. That is, those who are not already predisposed to suck-up to him anyway. Vince has now allowed this to happen.

To all those who speculate about Vince’s resignation, or enforced reshuffling and any consequent split of the coalition, I would point out the overwhelming desire amongst key LibDems to cling onto power at all costs. Even at expense of the party itself, which is now far more at risk. Don’t overestimate the loyalty of Clegg, Laws, Alexander et al.

Any split will almost certainly not happen for a while if at all. The illusion of power is probably the hardest one to wake up to - particularly if your party hasn’t experienced it in living memory. But this latest affair has exposed the differences between the Orangeers - Nick Clegg, David Laws and Danny Alexander et al - and those party members who grew up during the period of the Liberal (in particular) campaigns on local democratic issues.

The Orange Bookers have far more in common with Cameron and Osborne than their election pronouncements would lead anyone to believe. The BBC in 2008 reported Clegg as ‘advocating a huge increase in private sector involvement in schools and the health service. "Marrying our proud traditions of economic and social liberalism, refusing to accept that one comes at the cost of the other - on that point, if not all others, the controversial Orange Book in 2004 was surely right."’

He argued for the creation of schools financed by just about anybody - parents, charities or voluntary and private organisations, suggested radical reform of the NHS, allowing patients to be treated free in the private sector and opposed tax increases.

So, don’t be surprised that if splits come, they are in the LibDems, rather than between the LibDems and the Tories. But this will not, of course, mean a split in the government. Nick & Co will be as at home (maybe more so) in the Tory Party than their current abode.

And don’t think that even this will happen soon. Vince has fed the story that the LibDems are a ‘radical wing’ in the coalition. It may be an illusion, but don’t bank on any LibDems waking up to it soon. Power is - after all - what all those shiny-faced newbie party workers came to work for the party for!

Zippin' up my boots, goin' back to Netroots!

2010-12-13T04:14:00.000-08:00

Recent violence arising from protests against the huge rise in English student tuition fees have served to slightly obscure the positive message that has come from these protests. The message - also commented on by some, not necessarily left-wing columnists - http://www.heraldscotland.com:80/comment/colette-douglas-home/political-awakening-of-a-new-generation-is-a-stirring-sight-1.1072816 is that students are becoming politically active again. This is a most welcome sight, and is paralleled by a reawakening in the Trade Union movement signalled by both increased activity of young members, and attempts by the leadership to reintroduce political awareness training, and to spread the use of new media and new styles of campaigning.

These developments are at early stages, of course, and could still fizzle out. Student politics still has the capability of dropping out of fashion as happened during the post-Thatcher years. And the fact that much of the resentment is down to a rapid disillusionment with Nick Clegg’s LibDems - who promised a radical change in British politics, and then delivered a pit prop for the Tory establishment - means that apathy might still win out. Remember the election lockouts at many uni area polling stations? But it looks more hopeful than for some time.

The violence will not help the politicisation of the majority of these young people. On one hand it sends the message, that a cause only gets reported when violence flares - but conversely we also see that reports then concentrate on violence and disruption; the personal connections of protestors and targets; anything in fact - apart from the actual issue that caused the protests in the first place!

But there is much imagination tucked away in the protests that have been undertaken by other young campaigners. the use of ‘flashmobbing’ for example, to target businesses who have been in the frontline of tax dodging, or other antisocial activity (see http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/) is derived from art and dance initiatives of ‘spontaneous’ public performance and shows a) the importance that arts can bring to this struggle and b) the need to involve people and the wider community in this campaign.

Trade unions also, where they still exist, have had too many years of marking time. Those of us who have been active for a while have noticed the absence of a generation or two of activists. In particular, the absence of political activity for at least a generation. We must take much of the blame for this - we didn’t train up our successors politically, concentrating too much on mechanism and process. But now there are strong signs that a new generation IS keen, willing and eager to take on the struggle.

And political training is beginning once more. But this time it is being linked, not just with public demonstrations and protest, but the use of social networking, the internet, video clips, blogs and other accoutrements of the digital age. UNISONScotland’s recent MOBILISE festival took a weekend to take both trade union and community-based activists through both the politics of the fight, and the variety of avenues available to promote our cause. This not only dealt with media training, economics, and political lobbying, but involved cartooning, comedy and songwriting - not likely to be the Christmas no 1 but check it out !! BTW the Christmas no 1 should be Captain Ska!

Another important event is scheduled for the New Year in London. Netroots UK, on the 8 January promises to be the next step in developing campaigning against the ConDemNation. Priced at £5, it must be the best value conference covering a number of key organisations (Obama digital campaigners, anti-cuts websites, thinktanks) on the left. Hopefully it will also spark much new activity, and campaign ideas. Both students and trade unionists need these.

And more than that, they need to remember that to be successful they need to connect with the community. Tossing fire extinguishers off roofs is unlikely to achieve that at this stage. See you in London.

CBI secrecy demands opening up access to information

2010-11-22T08:59:00.000-08:00

A little while ago I wrote in this blog about the need to extend the coverage of Freedom of Information at a time of increasing pressure on public services and the increased arguments for privatisation/outsourcing. I referred to my belief that the private sector would want to hide what they did with our cash as maybe the ravings of an old cynic.

I didn’t expect that my cynicism about private industry’s inherent prejudice against transparency to be exemplified so soon, so I want to thank David Lonsdale of the CBI (Data Chief locked in row over FOI - The Herald - Nov 8) for demonstrating so succinctly why it is essential that private firms delivering public services must be covered by Freedom of Information Law.

The CBI is a standard bearer in the fight for more and more privatisation - meaning our money is handed to Mr Lonsdale’s members to provide our services - but now they are demanding we shouldn’t be allowed to ask what they do with our cash! What are they trying to hide?

A better case for the need for extending the coverage has rarely been outlined.

Budget cuts - should we protect bonuses, or the vulnerable?

2010-11-08T07:31:00.000-08:00

Just last week a 90 year old lady fell in her kitchen in the morning - gashing her head in the process. She was found by her home carer behind her kitchen door. The home carer immediately phoned for an ambulance and then phoned the lady's daughter, who leapt into her car and drove to reach her mother (approx 20 minutes).

Before the home carer arrived, the lady had come to, and pressed the community alarm buzzer she carried round her neck. They had called back, and, receiving no answer, immediately contacted the nearest contact for that client. She also leapt in to a car and drove to the house. By the time she arrived, the paramedics were in place, applying emergency treatment and preparing her to be transported to the nearest A&E. She also contacted the lady's daughter - who was on her way.

She was safely taken down stairs (her house was on the first floor), into an ambulance and to hospital. Admitted to A&E within an hour or so of her first discovery, she had stitches inserted in the head wound, and a series of tests were started to ascertain if there were other medical reasons behind the fall. She was admitted to hospital later that day. Within a period of (say) 3 hours that elderly lady had received 4 interventions from public services - from the Home Carer, and the Community Alarm service to the Paramedics and the Doctors, Nurses and other professionals in the hospital.

Anyone care to estimate how much that kind of intervention would have cost, if it had to be paid for by the individual? Want to suggest that we should hand these over to the private sector, Mr Cameron? One thing's for sure, that lady would not have had the resource to pay for it. Or maybe, someone will suggest that we can't afford this level of care? You, Mr Clegg? Which service would you cut?

But of course, the commentators might say, we shouldn't cut these essential frontline services - it is the backroom paper-shufflers who we can't afford to sustain. Really? Perhaps the person who trained the home carer, so she knew what to do in an emergency? Or maybe the office staff who keep the contact details up to date in the Community Alarms? The telephonists at the 999 centre who know what questions to ask and where to send the ambulance? Or the medical secretaries, technicians, assistants, porters and cleaners who ensure that tests are carried out, results are delivered to the professionals, and that hospital patients are treated comfortably, with respect, and protected from disease when vulnerable?

It is clear to me, that the kind of policies being proposed by Gideon Osborne and his cronies would lead directly to that lady being put at risk. And I, for one, am not prepared to see that happen without a fight. And more than that, I am proud of a civilisation that decides that elderly ladies (and the rest of us) deserve that level of service. Those that would denigrate that service, and those who provide it, are not worthy to be called civilised.

This is especially so, as we can quite clearly afford it. Those who have most continue to increase their earnings and widen the gap between them and the low paid. It is way beyond time that they plough some of that back into providing a civilised level of public service. Other sources of money might include the banks - who let us not forget - had their own 'emergency service' from the rest of us not so long ago. Time to start paying that back, I think. The STUC's 'There is a Better Way' campaign gives more detail about the real economics of this country. http://www.thereisabetterway.org/

This may seem a trifle personal, and it is. The lady in question is the mother of my partner of 35 years. We are both deeply grateful for the service that has so far been available, and deeply fearful for what is likely to be left after Cameron, Clegg and the other Tories have had their way. We have a chance in next year's Scottish Parliament Elections to send a message to these politicians. Let’s take it.

Public services - now is the time we need access to information

2010-10-22T06:42:00.000-07:00

As we all begin to weigh up the catastrophic consequences of Gideon Osborne's cuts on our public services, it is likely, whether we are public service workers, trade unionists, community activists, campaigners or service users, that we will be seeking information on those services. All the expert opinion appears to be saying that requests under FOI are likely to increase in these circumstances.

It is therefore an appropriate time for the Scottish Government to seek to close some of the loopholes that allow bodies to slip through the net and refuse to disclose information. In particular when public services are provided by private contractors, housing associations, local council trusts, or other non-public bodies.

While technically such bodies could have always been covered by the simple decision of Ministers to designate them under Section 5 of the Act, this is in fact, the first time it has been attempted since the Act's passing in 2002.

Obviously, these 'outside bodies' make great public play about how much better they are in providing services than the old public sector, so you would think they might welcome the opportunity to promote that. After all, a commercial company that is sensitive to the needs of the public sector to be accountable for our money might have a better chance of winning contracts?

Call me an old cynic, but my previous experience with UNISON, was that commercial companies did their damndest to hide away from the light of information provision. Private contractors tried to prevent Lothian Health Board revealing details of the PFI contract for the ERI; North Ayrshire Leisure refused to respond to a request for information as they were not a public body; and Scottish Water's PFI contracts seem to be in some twilight zone!!

That is why if you feel it is important that outside bodies doing business with the public sector must be accountable for the way they spend our money - and according the Kevin Dunion, the Scottish Information Commissioner - 'at least two thirds of the Scottish population favour extending Scotland's FOI laws to cover bodies such as housing associations, leisure trusts, PPP/PFI projects and private prisons.' - then I suggest you might want to make your views known to the government by responding to their consultation. It is available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/07/20123725/0 - and responses are due by November 2.

The proposals aren't perfect - PFI contractors in the Water service aren't covered, nor are housing associations except for the GHA - but the principle that such bodies should be covered is worth getting behind. And no time is more appropriate than just now!

Homage to Edinburgh, Homage to Tati.

2010-10-14T04:51:00.000-07:00

It is unusual for me to enthuse about a film, but last night in a packed GFT, I sawThe Illusionist, the film which opened this year's Edinburgh Film Festival. It was a beautifully written, drawn and filmed piece of animé. A true homage by its creator - Sylvain Chomet - to his temporary home city of Edinburgh, and to the film's screenplay writer - Jacques Tati.

The screenplay was written for Tati's daughter and never filmed during his life. She presented it to Chomet, and he switched the action from Prague to Edinburgh and spent 5 years in the city producing it. It has been worth it. As an adopted weegie, I have never seen Edinburgh look so beautiful, or so realistic. Although set in the late 50's/early 60's, you can truly identify parts of the city - Salisbury Crags; Victoria Street and, of course, the Cameo cinema all feature, as does the West Coast of Scotland - with driving rain!

The film is also an homage to Tati himself, with the illusionist of the title being based on Tati's creation - M. Hulot. And what a superb piece of work he is! Not simply the Hulot of Vacances, or even the one of Playtime - confused by modern life - here Tatischeff (Tati's birth name) is a much more care worn prestidigitateur, but still keen not to disillusion his young ward.

As his fortunes decline - it is the early days of rock and roll, and no-one is watching old-style variety any more - hers increase, until the inevitable heart-tugging parting. But the film can be watched for a whole variety of reasons as well as the gorgeous production. The storyline is both funny and sad - watch the scene with the stew that she has prepared, and that he thinks contains his white rabbit. The rabbit, by the way, is probably one of the main supporting stars of the picture!

While the main characters are painfully realistic, many of the supporting cast are superbly surreal. Chomet enjoys himself with the inhabitants of the theatrical hotel, american tourists, and not least with the drunken highland laird, who first books Tatischeff for Scotland.

See this if you like Edinburgh; see this if you like Tati; see this if you like the 50's, but above all - see it!!

THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES - the public sector and the arts

2010-10-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

The following piece is an extract taken from a contribution I gave to a recent Morning Star Education Seminar on Government funding and working class culture. This was part of a series on cultural topics that continue into January. Future events on Burns; Tressell & the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and Orwell. The details can be found here - http://www.scottishcommunists.org.uk/campaigning/

The first seminar brought together, myself, Dave MacLennan (ex -Wildcat, and producer of A play, a pie and a pint at Oran Mor in Glasgow.) and Susan Galloway, a researcher from Glasgow University’s Centre for Cultural Policy Research. All of us focussed on the importance of public funding to the cultural sector and expressed their concern about the cuts planned by the ConDem government.

But we also debated alternative sources of funding, and the opportunities and drawbacks of each. I listed big business, trade unions and charitable trusts as options - all of which had major limitations. The volume of public funding means that it is no surprise that at both local and Scottish level this provides the lions share of cultural funding. The Scottish Arts Council (now Creative Scotland) had nearly £60m to distribute in grants to the arts in 2010 (although about £12m came from the National Lottery) - plus the Scottish Government funds some national companies direct. But Scottish local government - in the latest figure I can discover - spent £274m on the provision of culture in 2003-4 (figs from Cultural Commission report of 2005). Clearly this funding is crucial to the current ‘healthy’ arts scene in Scotland.

Elsewhere in my contribution I listed some of the problems that relying on one single source of funding can bring. From political censorship, to self-censorship; from over-dependence to being at the whim of fashion.

Having said all this - why is it important that the public sector continues to fund cultural and artistic work? Haven’t I outlined more than enough difficulties in doing so?

That may be so - but withdrawal of the funding that currently comes from the ‘state’ - however inadequate and restricted it is (and that £274m from local authorities is only 2.5% of their total expenditure ) would mean both a damage to culture in general - and working class/progressive culture in particular.

Leaving the field to big business, and/or individual ‘rich’ supporters will mean the high-profile, city centre, Scotland-wide projects and product may well continue to be backed, but radical, challenging, and above-all locally based community work, will suffer.

And it is clear that public sector funding is already being cut, and faces further extensive surgery.

For Culture Minister, Fiona Hyslop to point to the maintenance (this year) of funding for Creative Scotland compared to the cuts planned at the Arts Council in England is fair comment. But it ignores the real damage that is starting and will get dramatically worse as cuts come the way of local councils and other public services. Figures of 10, 12,even 20% cuts have been bandied about. How far will non-statutory grants to local groups - or anyone producing for those local groups survive in that climate? yet again it will be local community-based art that will suffer.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALLIANCES

Finally - are there any positives? I think ironically, there ARE opportunities, if arts organisations can be flexible and imaginative enough to grasp them. Ironically they arise out of the very cuts we worry about. There are already campaigns beginning in the fightback against these cuts. These campaigns will need to a) capture the support of local people and communities, and b) articulate the concerns of workers and service users. And there is strong evidence that TUs are aware of and wanting to make such alliances. Locally-based radical arts groups might be an ideal way of doing this.

If I was one working in West Dumbarton for example - I’d be approaching the joint union/community campaign already working there, to see what work could be done together - and might also want to talk to people in the STUC, UNISON, the EIS, the PCS about opportunities.

So there are faint glimmers in the darkness, but there are many more threats. This is why cultural groups, trade unions, community groups etc should be working together - to use all the working classes talents in fighting the cuts to come. Let’s use cultural work to build campaigns like the ~STUC’s There is a better way, and in the process reinvigorate working class culture and local arts work.

Are trade unions ready to lead the fightback?

2010-09-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

Before I went on holiday two weeks ago, I noticed a couple of developments in the fightback against the ConDem economic madness that seemed potential steps forward. They were the There is an alternative conference called by UNISONScotland on 4 September - and the launch of the STUC’s There is a better way campaign on the 10. Both these developments seem to me to be important because they are, firstly, part of a plan to coordinate the fightback, and secondly, show unions attempting to reach out to include service users and local communities in this campaign.

It is crucial that unions are the main centres around which this struggle will coalesce, as they (for all their weaknesses) probably are the only credible forces left in this country who can resource it. Political parties are seen to be either, too small or extreme and hence ineffective, or part of the establishment - and of course most mainstream ones are tainted with the fallout of the expenses scandal.

Community-based campaigns - while key to ensuring the campaign is as broad as it must be - are however for the most part single-issue (or at least sectional) in their interests, and - while they can include some big organisations - many are too small to resource major campaigns. Wider ‘Civic Society’ - local councils, and other public bodies, likely to be the main targets of the Cleggameron - are likely to be too focussed on their immediate financial problems to provide wider leadership, although attempts should be made to bring them into campaigns when possible.

Interestingly on either side of my break, two other sources also noticed this potential role of the TUs. The Sunday Post (known for its sympathy towards unions) ran a front page lead on how taxpayers are paying for trade unionists to have time off to do their work. This was based on FOI requests to public authorities - probably by the Tax Dodgers Alliance, which has been venting its fury on TUs for pointing out the biased and inaccurate nature of their claims about public spending. While the stats were in fact, nowhere near as sensational as the paper would have liked (I reckon two full time secondments to look after over 4,000 ambulance staff working 24/7, 365 days a year is not something anyone can seriously object to), this should be seen as the start of the kind of attacks on Trade Unions that we will increasingly see, coming from right wing commentators and campaigners. The Right has identified where the main arguments against the neo-liberal cuts agenda will be coming from.

Also, in last Sunday’s Herald, Iain MacWhirter also focussed on the ability of TUs to lead an opposition and build the kind of broad-based campaign, that has been their role in the past (Scotland United; Anti-Poll Tax etc). Although the piece was not very positive and lacked up-to-date details of the kind of TU campaigns highlighted above, it did at least point to the vital role that they can and should play in this vital campaign.

The signs are that this is beginning to happen. The STUC ‘Better Way’ website http://www.thereisabetterway.org/ has some very interesting information - check out their ‘Distinguished Deficit Deniers’ for example - and shows important successes in reaching out beyond the unions themselves. This has to happen to ensure that the campaign is not seen as ‘vested interest’. The Tax Dodgers and others will try and paint it this way. The next main event is the Demo in Edinburgh on the 23 October. Get all your organisations to build for this as the next step.

Reports of the Death of the Left have been greatly exaggerated

2010-08-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

The death of Jimmy Reid recently has prompted a number of press commentators - eg from Iain MacWhirter, Gerry Hassan and BBCScotland’s Ask Kay programme - that the death of Reid in some way signified the ‘death of the left’ in Scotland.

These comments largely indicate the wishful thinking of the commentators, rather than any serious suggestion that the left in Scotland has in some way ceased to command Scottish politics, and they are flawed in a variety of ways.

Firstly they make the common mistake of people in the media of individualising a collective. The left - as Reid would have agreed - is far more than one individual or even one political party. An argument could indeed be made that it isn’t even a coherent whole. Whatever influence it has on the body politic, comes as a result of support or not in a range of campaigns and political activities - including but not restricted to votes in elections.

Secondly, they make the mistake (as indeed do many on the left) of somehow magnifying an image of a ‘Red Scotland’ (or at least a ‘Red Clydeside’) that contains some exaggeration. While it is true that Scotland has a larger proportion of trade union members, and higher levels of support for public services than apply across the UK as a whole, the overall political view of our families and friends is not that hugely different - on a right/left split - than in many other parts of the UK, eg Wales, Liverpool, the North of England et al. Reid himself is an example of that, in 1974 - at the hight of his activity and powers - he failed to overcome sectarian smears in his own constituency and came third in the February Election that year.

It is probably truer to describe the activity of the left as coalescing around specific campaigns - and when this happens successfully, it draws in many people who do not think of themselves as on the left. The UCS work in, for example was supported by many Tory Party branches in Scotland.

However, there is a kind of truth in the doom-sayers and self-fulfilling prophesisers pronouncements. Ignoring the problems of galvanising that kind of ‘mass movement’, and the difficulty in building support for progressive causes won’t make the problems go away.

That is why it is heartening that - as we face the worst attacks on our services and our living standards ever - unions and campaigning groups are seeking to re-address the lack of political understanding amongst their activists and members. It is true that it could have done with an earlier start, but the UNISON pilot Unions and politics course, the success of unions and branches in connecting with community-based campaigns and a regular although not well publicised series of actions in the private sector - like the defence of decent pensions in the INEOS dispute - suggest that the death of the left has been greatly exaggerated.

And finally, the record of the STUC in leading from the front in many key political campaigns (Constitutional Convention anyone?) means their plans to build co-ordinated resistance to the ConDem attacks should be followed with some hope.

Feet of Clegg

2010-08-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

Lord Wallace of Tankerness, Jim Wallace to you and me (and I suspect, to him), last week, sounded a loud call to the Scottish Liberal Democrat troops - if that is not too collective a name for Liberal Democrats - to keep united and campaign strongly for the Scottish Elections coming up in nine months time. There was more than a hint of desperation about his call, and that isn’t surprising given the party’s reported opinion poll slump since Nick Clegg hitched their wagon to the Tory Cuts machine.

It is instructive to remember that a mere 3.5 months ago, those same opinion polls were showing Liberal Democrats in second (and even first) place, following Mr Clegg’s reported ‘surge’ after the TV debates. As some of us suspected, the 34 per cents etc. were always going to be somewhat wide of the mark, (but don’t be surprised if the media still report this ‘surge’ as if it did in fact happen), but the 14% average that we now see is poor even if you accept the top figure was inflated.

However a more pressing worry for the LibDems in Scotland is that the support of many of their party leaders for ‘market forces’ and cutting the public sector is now becoming apparent. The ‘economic Liberals’ were always there, but managed to shelter behind the more cuddly ‘social Liberal’ image. Now they are in charge, they are flinging themselves enthusiastically behind Messrs Cameron and Osborne in the ‘New Tory’ attempt to destroy our services. This will not play well in Scotland.

Another concern is that MSP candidates cannot rely on the General Election mantra ‘vote for us, or you’ll get the Tories’. Quite apart from the fact that everyone who fell for that now knows that their vote DID get them the Tories, the Scottish Parliament seats held by the SLD are mostly not threatened by Tories. Out of 11 FPTP seats, (another irony is that the SLD have done rather well from FPTP in Scotland) in only one, Fife NE, are the Tories second.

A third worry for Jim Wallace, Tavish Scott and other prominent (but very quiet) SLD leaders is their UK leader’s admission (in Nick Robinson’s BBC programme on the coalition negotiations) that he knew that huge, immediate cuts to services would be needed during the election campaign. The trouble is not that he changed his mind, but that he kept quiet about it and continued to campaign AGAINST Tory ‘immediate cuts’ economic policies, only to embrace them enthusiastically once a whiff of power beckoned. Isn’t that the sort of tactic of the old cynical party politician? his supporters will be inclined to ask. We thought we were voting for a new way in politics!

So, as Labour and the SNP battle it out to defend Scotland against the Tory cuts, where does this leave the Scottish Liberal Democrats? Attacking the cuts in Scotland while supporting them in Westminster will be a very difficult double bluff to pull off - even for such past masters of the tactic. It may well be that after 5 May 2011, Scottish Liberal Democrats (even the economic Liberals) may find out that their golden leader who has delivered them a hand on the wheel of power, has feet of Clegg.

Ghoul's Draw!

2010-07-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

In a previous employment, many moons ago, some of my colleagues of a ghoulish inclination set up an office 'Ghoul's Draw'. For those of you of normal human feelings, this was a sweepstake in which participants selected a celebrity and put a certain amount of cash into the pot. Whichever celebrity died first won the pot for the selecting member of staff.

Not particularly edifying, I know, but possibly slightly less boak-inducing than the sight of senior politicians from the UK and US falling over themselves to claim first dibs on the right to demand the death of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in Greenock Jail, and condemning the Scottish Government for employing the law to release a man to die at home.

Leaving aside the somewhat knotty problem of guilt or innocence, it makes me grue to listen to all this 'violent agreement' - especially knowing that it has little or nothing to do with politicians concerns for the feelings of Pan Am flight 103 - but is concerned with claiming party political advantage in forthcoming elections, and being able to blame BP, or Tony Blair, or Gordon Brown, or (especially) Kenny MacAskill - even if our US cousins will hardly have heard of him. Even our First Minister, on (UK) Newsnight was so keen to have a go at David Miliband's entry into the debate, that he invented a reference to him in their preceding report! (Perhaps he had been shown the corresponding Newsnicht report that did mention him). You were in the right, Alex - you didn't need that.

I recall, at the time of Mr MacAskill's decision, thinking that - while he had made some errors in how he acted - his basic decision was one I supported, and I was deeply disappointed in the attitudes of opposition parties (of all shades) who attempted to make political capital. I also thought - and still think that the decision reflected well on Scotland - and the hostility expressed by some (especially American) commentators, reflected poorly on them.

During the General Election campaign - and despite the assertion by at least one London commentator* that the poor showing of the SNP was down precisely, to this compassionate release decision - it certainly did NOT feature as any kind of a major issue here. I had the impression, that whatever individuals' views on release, there was acceptance that it was a difficult decision, arrived at after full investigation.

It seems clear - whatever veils David Cameron wishes to pull across Barack Obama's eyes - that the decision was legal, decent, and taken after proper advice, and without lobbying either directly or indirectly. Gordon Brown was publicly clear that it was a decision for the Scottish Government, and had he expressed a view (one way or the other) it would have been (rightly) seen as interference.

Its a pity that his successor is so keen to heap blame on that government, that he is willing to exploit the dead and dying to do so.

*David Runciman, in the London Review of Books - http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n10/david-runciman/is-this-the-end-of-the-uk

The return of the Baron!

2010-07-09T04:56:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched some of Question Time from Edinburgh - I am not a fan of this format, so only watched some of it. However it was intriguing to note - amongst the weel kent faces chosen to represent most parties - Shadow SofS for Int Development; Deputy First Minister; Sec of State for Scotland - who the Tories had representing them. The unelected and (for a considerable while) unheard of, Baron Forsyth of Drumlean - yes it was Michael Forsyth!!

A distinctly odd choice to represent a party that is discussing how it can rid itself of its ‘unelectable in Scotland’ tag, Forsyth was Thatcher’s Gauleiter in Scotland - her defender of the Poll Tax, and PFI. He was ennobled when they lost the 97 election and went into a sort of Conservative purdah - not active or commenting on politics during Hague, Howard or Duncan Smith’s leaderships. Yet here he is, commenting on behalf of the Tories again! What can it mean?

Do the Tories a) want to remind everyone in Scotland of the Thatcher years? b) Think an ‘elder statesman’ gives their position gravitas? or c) Think everyone in Scotland will have forgotten his history? Was he perhaps parachuted in over the heads of the Scottish party (and David Mundell)? And what of Forsyth himself? It was widely understood at the time of his defeat, that he had let it be known he would not be active politically again. His reappearance raises questions about that - did the Tories deliberately cut him adrift, and is he now back in favour?

In any case his revival can only hole the Tory myth about ‘a new party’, well below the water line. To accept the kind of political ‘new brutalism’ that Forsyth espouses, as the public line from your party means that the New Tories can only be a retread of the Thatcherites and don’t mind that being known, (and incidentally that Forsyth thinks so too!).

They, however, have very little left to lose in Scotland. The same cannot be said of their ConDem partners - represented last night by Michael Moore (no not the good one!). Quite frankly he looked the most uncomfortable, and the barracking that his repetition of the LibDem excuse for cuts (honest, it was worse than we thought) got, suggests that Tavish Scott and other Scottish LD MSPs are right to be looking nervously over their shoulders at 2011.

A brief mention of Ed Byrne is in order too. Why is it that the very sensible position, that public spending cuts are not only not essential, but in fact damaging at this time, was left to a comedian to make? The fact that he made the point very well, does not hide the paucity of the debate from mainstream politicians. ‘The main problem with the Labour government was that it was too like the Tories.’ Too right, Ed - too right.

'Courageous' Herald backing for IoD!

2010-07-07T06:55:00.000-07:00

Here is a letter I submitted to the Herald in response to their over-the-top promotion of the IoD/IER Pensions Commission report today. I suspect that (if published at all) it will be heavily edited to take out crits of their editorial decisions. So here it is in full.

That the Institute of Directors is claiming that public sector pensions are ‘unaffordable’, is hardly news - they have been attacking public service pensioners ever since they destroyed decent pensions for their own workforces, while hanging onto their own gold-plated pensions.

That they have combined with the right wing Institute for Economic Affairs to form a ‘commission’ in order to have another vehicle to propagate these attacks is - at best - a minor item of news.

That the misinformation this then produces is deemed worthy of a front page lead, an analysis piece and an editorial suggests serious editorial misjudgement.

Many adjectives could be used to describe the report from this ‘commission’ - ‘one-sided’, ‘hypocritical’, ‘biased’ might all be considered. ‘Independent’ however, is so far from reality as to make one question who has produced the description.

That The Herald - previously a paper that prided itself on its fairness - has been a willingly accomplice in all this, makes me deeply worried for the future of news reporting.

At a time when concern amongst all pensioners is high, this kind of misreporting is hugely unfair to the many public sector workers and pensioners (with pensions averaging less than £5k per annum) who rely on your paper for balanced information.

It doesn’t seem that the sudden leap of previous editor-in-chief, Donald Martin to the Sunday Post, has not changed the overall ‘anti-public-sector’ line of The Herald. I am not clear whether new e-i-c, Jonathan Russell has yet arrived from the Record/Sunday Mail, but it appears that Tim Blott does not want too much change.

Given the traditionally high level of Herald readership amongst white-collar public sector staff, a decision to have triple-pronged attacks on their much valued pensions in their paper could be seen as ‘courageous’ - in the Sir Humphrey sense of the word!!

Disappointing and ill-informed attack

2010-07-02T07:34:00.000-07:00

It is extremely disappointing to have a well-respected columnist such as Iain MacWhirter descend to the depths previously occupied by business-funded campaigns such as the Tax Dodgers Alliance, Reform, and the CBI, and attacking public sector workers.

In calling for public sector pay freezes, pension and job cuts in his recent column in the Herald (Weds 1 July 2010 - http://www.heraldscotland.com:80/comment/iain-macwhirter/there-are-far-better-targets-for-cuts-than-front-line-services-1.1038541), he lines himself directly behind the business (and ConDem) view of the economy that he has previously sought to distance himself from.

It is even more disappointing as more research would have at least challenged the myths that he is now repeating.

Myth 1) We have to cut public spending to balance the books.

The affordability of our public services as we come out of recession is a matter of political choice, not some economic inevitability. Effective progressive taxation of those in our society who can afford it, and of the businesses that largely caused the recession with their inexcusable gambling would take clear steps towards balancing the books - while ensuring that the payment for the recession was borne by those who caused or benefited from the crisis, not those who are already suffering because of it.

In addition the potential contribution to a reduction of the deficit, of a resumption of economic growth - of which there were some signs - is ignored by the Cleggameron (and by Iain). Maybe this is because their emergency attack on public spending is the most obvious way to ensure that private sector growth is stifled at birth, and that we re-enter the recession we are seeking to pull away from.

Myth 2) ‘Front-line’ services can somehow be saved by cutting ‘administration’.

The ‘back-room’ is essential to ensuring the ‘front-line’ can actually deliver. How many police officers will have to be withdrawn from ‘front-line’ policing to do the jobs of essential police support staff who have been sacrificed on the altar of fiscal responsibility? Why does Iain wish social workers to be in offices filling in forms previously done by redundant administrators rather than out dealing with families who need support?

Oh - while Iain didn’t mention it, can we also knock on the head ‘savings from shared services’? In fact any financial advantages that may accrue from such developments don’t come along for five or six years after they are started - and in the beginning they usually require increased spending as new systems, structures and buildings are bought, tried and implemented.

Iain has obviously not bothered, either, to research the level of administration in our NHS before repeating the attacks of the CBI et al. It is a little publicised fact that the NHS actually does rather well in international comparisons that involve measuring administration costs. Recently the Commonwealth Fund ranked the UK NHS no 1 for efficiency and 2 overall (the US health system came 7th).

Myth 3) Public sector pay and pensions are ‘gold-plated’ and unaffordable.

While not defending the pay levels of some senior executives and clinicians - and in particular not the alien ‘bonus culture’ introduced into the public sector by Cleggameron’s antecedent - Margaret Thatcher (and shamefully maintained by new Labour), two points should have been clear:

a) these levels and bonuses have largely been justified by politicians in order that they can ‘compete’ for senior staff with the private sector. It remains true that the level of pay for jobs of equivalent responsibility are still much higher in the private sector. And of course the bonus culture in our finance sector is alive and well, despite its past failures.

b) to judge public sector pay from the level of that of the best paid Chief Exec’s salary is to look through the wrong end of the microscope. Most public sector staff are not highly paid or pensioned. Even Cleggameron suggests a pay freeze should not affect the lowest paid, and the need for a ‘living wage’ campaign in (and outwith) our public services tells its own story. Most public sector workers get a pension of under £5,000 a year - hardly gold-plated. And the horror stories about the ‘black holes’ in such pension schemes are almost always based on the bizarre scenario that everyone will retire at once - something that even the ConDem plans for the public sector do not envisage.

Of course responsible public servants want to ensure that money is not wasted in delivering the essential services they do - that is why Local Government in Scotland reported £258 m of savings in 2008-9 and has reinvested them in the services we need.

Also it is true that particular areas of spending will be judged ‘wasteful’ or not, depending on one’s political viewpoint, and it might be profitable to start a debate on some of these. Can I start by throwing into the mix; scrapping Trident replacement, ID cards and abolishing PFI/PPP and the Scottish Futures Trust? Lets give the new government at least one cheer for one of those.

‘Nothing should be ruled out’ indeed, but it is a pity that Iain does rule out using public spending to support those suffering because of irresponsible financial speculation, and driving growth back into the economy. It is apparently inevitable that we remain in the failed economy of speculation where those who depend on public services, and those who deliver them have to suffer further so that bankers can maintain their bonuses.