CBI economics is busted flush

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

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

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!

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

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?

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

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!

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!

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!

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

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.