59: Band Aid 2011

Posted on March 7, 2011 by davidsberry

In very late and buzzing after a great evening at the Jam House where Edinburgh Bands Together did a benefit concert to help rebuild St Columba’s Hospice. On stage was a who’s who of the capital’s music scene past and present—from new names to various incarnations of the Bay City Rollers. Though packed to the gunnels, the atmosphere was great—people sharing the scarce chairs and tables, strangers chatting to strangers, dancing breaking out all over the place.

It shouldn’t have worked. The variety of music was just too great—from a solo lounge piano player raking from Jerry Lee Lewis to Billy Joel and back to the dozen-strong Gospel Truth Choir who managed to fit Amazing Grace and 500 miles into the same set without breaking stride or a sweat. But work it did. Soulussions rocked through a crisp medley starting with a pulsing-bass I Feel Good and septugenarian Shorty Rogers ripped through a Chuck Berry set like the rest of the world was in slo-mo.

I really liked Davey Sloan fronting Blind Lemon because they reminded me of the Mavericks on a good day. But my top prize went to the best pairing in town just now when Rab Howat and Kenny Herbert laid on a ninety-decibel seminar on how harmony and rock just belong together, whether on the Beatles Getting Better or the Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again (which should be the official rock anthem of politics). Catch them when they next play Brannigans or the Caves—it’s worth it.

What (other than the Who) does all this have to do with politics? Damned if I know. Sometimes you just have to bodyswerve your obligations and have yourself a good time.

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60 Days to Go

Posted on March 6, 2011 by davidsberry

We must be getting serious. With two months to go, the first hustings happen next week with a senior school event at North Berwick High in the afternoon of Monday 7th  and an RSPB-sponsored Climate Cafe hustings in Haddington’s Town House at 7pm on Thursday. As far as I am aware, my other three known opponents have also agreed to attend so there will be an opportunity to witness how the four of us compare under public pressure.

Although there was a time when hustings attendance had shrunk to mostly party faithful, a growing cynicism about politics seems to have, paradoxically, generated more interest in hustings. Why this should be isn’t clear: my theory is that identification with any one party has eroded over the last decade, which in turn has spurred voters to find out more about what the other parties offer.

While other dates are under discussion, the only one fixed has been arranged by the churches in North Berwick when, again, all four known candidates have committed to be at the Abbey Church on the evening of Monday April 11th. The format of each is likely to be the same—five or so minutes speech from each candidates and then a Q&A session from the audience. Since there is little chance for any candidate to anticipate all questions or to pack the hall with their own adherents, it should put us all on our mettle.

Scottish Election 2007 Result in East Lothian

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61: Tomorrow-ness?

Posted on March 4, 2011 by davidsberry

Having been on a doorstep or three as part of my campaign, I have to say that the good people of East Lothian are nothing if not polite. The only hostility in an identifiable group that I have met comes from the workers at Torness. Even that diminishes the further from Dunbar you get. What hostility there is stems from a widespread conviction that the SNP will close the place down the first chance it gets. That’s not true.

Now, I confess to being no fan of nuclear power. It appears cheap and clean but no-one has a safe place to put its deadly waste and decommissioning is so long and expensive that ‘cheap’ may be a delusion. This is no knee-jerk position: I have a degree in physics, I put together Scottish Nuclear’s first interactive visitor centre and I was even mover of the motion that changed SNP policy to run nuclear stations to the end of their useful lives. And though there have been incidents at Torness (May 2002, Dec. 2005, Aug. 2006), all were dealt with and I have confidence in the staff—even if they do all now work for EDF.

If Hunterston and Torness were run to the end, with no replacements, I am convinced that no lights would go out. Firstly, Torness’s two AGRs  produce 1.3GW and are good to 2023 at least and, barring more fatigue cracks in the gas circulators (May 2002 incident), for a 12-year extension beyond that. Secondly, we already export 10-20% of the power generated in Scotland to both England and N. Ireland. Thirdly, East Lothian already generates almost half as much as Torness from the wind farms already installed on the Lammermuirs and, having been royally stuffed by Scottish Power, must thole a renewed gas-fired Cockenzie with at least a 25-year life beyond its expected 2014 closure.

Meantime, the Pelamis prototype off Stromness demonstrates wave power potential and the tricky engineering of submerged tidal turbines is being refined in the Pentland Firth. The skilled engineers and technicians at Torness should have no trouble finding work on any of these, or on the massive offshore windfarm proposed for 20km East of the May by Scottish & Southern. And I reckon they have 25 years to make the transition.

If any of them are reading this, feel free to make your comments and point out where you think I’m wrong. Failing which, when I show up on your doorstep, at least invite me in for a cuppa while you harangue me. Just think of the energy you’ll save with the door closed!

Visitor Introduction to East Lothian—Torness (with Barnes Ness & Bass Rock) from the A1

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62: Genteel Revolutionaries

Posted on March 4, 2011 by davidsberry

The rarified rooms of the Royal Society in George Street are a perfect setting for the David Hume lectures and a perfect antidote to the brawling good cheer of All Bar One across the road. This month, the lecture was on Scotland in Europe, featuring Sir John Grant (late of the diplomatic service and British Gas) as the main speaker.

His main thrust—probably to be expected in the context—was that only at the EU level would there be much world influence in the future. This was because the UK’s scale was too small to be decisive. Since Europe defined standards to which goods must be produced and these were stricter than elsewhere, they became de facto the world standards. The room being full of grey-haired establishment figures, I expected the sound of unionists turning in their graves to become deafening. But it was as cogent a dismantling of the Brian Wilson/Jim Murphy litany that Scotland must hold tight to nanny UK in order to survive as I have ever heard.

During the extensive Q&A session Dr Rory O’Donnell (Director of Eire’s National Economic & Social Council) fielded some sizzling questions on the Irish economy and its constraints on economic maneuver that using the Euro implied. While cheerfully blaming Ireland’s incestuous banks (“they were busy selling bits of Ireland to each other”) he was convinced that significant manufacturing and creative sectors would revitalise the badly hit finance and construction sectors and with the German powerhouse export economy (over EU220bn surplus last year) the Irish were in no danger of fiscal disaster.

The only constraint of caution was added by the German Consul, Wolfgang Moosberger, who felt that, after decades of carefully choosing what was best for Europe, Germany now had more than enough sense of itself to take off after its own interests, dragging the rest of Europe along with it.

Again, none of this was the orthodoxy of the Scottish press and I marveled that I could have discovered here revolutionary material to justify Scotland ploughing it own furrow, forging its own links within the EU and, as a small country, being more nimble and successful at it than our bigger, clumsier cousin south of the border. A radical thought.

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63: Stop Digging

Posted on March 3, 2011 by davidsberry

Out of my depth this week, having been asked to help out with Standard Grade History at the local High School. For my sins, I had been researching mining in our county and produced 30 minutes of “death-by-PowerPoint” of which I was quite proud, Starting with the monks of Newbattle around 1200AD and finishing with the demolition of the winding gear at Monktonhall a decade ago, I see this epic story as integral to cultural identity in the Western part of the county.

At the appointed hour, I am in the school hall and ready when eighty or so sixteen-year-olds of S4 pour in, lively as a barrel of monkeys. After they’ve been herded down to the front and brought to order, the ensuing silence is remarkable…

…and continues throughout the talk. There was no interruption, no misbehaviour. But nor was there anything out there resembling sentient life forms. It was as if all eighty just zoned out. It didn’t matter what I said about the dangers of medieval bottle mines or the perils of firedamp or the 207 men lost at Blantyre in 1877, I was not in contact. To be fair, even their parents are too young to remember pitheads at Tynemount, Limeylands, Fleets, Prestongrange or Preston Links. But I might as well have been talking Martian.

It is possible that I pitched my talk wrong but it was as good as I had in me. At the end, there was only one question: why had I researched this—did my family have mining connections? No, I said, I have a fishing background but I thought understanding others’ cultural history was cool. That seemed to stump them entirely. Rather than ask more questions, they chose punishment—sitting in silence until the end of the period.

For myself, I stopped digging the hole I was in, packed up the equipment and left quietly.

Limeylands Colliery near Ormiston, circa 1930

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64: Uplifting

Posted on March 2, 2011 by davidsberry

Tuesday’s 4-hour-long ELC Planning Committee meeting approved—among others—unusual temporary use for the old Ben Sayers factory in North Berwick. As applications go, this was as unconventional as any and the committee spent an hour considering it.

Even in a tourist town, there’s not much demand for a golf club factory these days. Any plans for redevelopment are years away, so a social enterprise called Uprising cut a deal with the owners and applied for an indoor activity hub for young people, with skate ramps, BMX, climbing wall, studios, soft play area, cafe and, generally, a place to hang.

The only houses nearby were horrified and united in raising a veritable flak of objections—most couched in safety terms but it was hard to hide the NIMBY. Those who bothered to find out discovered Uprising had already run in East Linton on a smaller scale. The locals there praised a popular magnet for young people with few other facilities.

Most unusual in planning, the letters of support swamped the letters of objection and at the meeting itself, Uprising made such a cogent case they secured unanimous approval. There is still a long journey of fundraising and fitting out to go and it is to be hoped that Heugh Road residents will be pleasantly surprised by their new neighbours. This will be a major facility for young people, an education of challenges and socialising unavailable to them at school that will be a draw from all over the county.

The result will not be the tomb-like silence of a derelict factory. But surely some noise from young people enjoying themselves is far better than having the metal-bashing din of a golf club die press ringing out across the road?

Former Ben Sayers Factory on Heugh Road, North Berwick

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65: Dodgy Defence

Posted on March 1, 2011 by davidsberry

I’m not one to avoid learning from my opponents. But in Labour’s case, their policies can be so hard to track. After Labour had tub-thumped how vital modern apprenticeships were in tackling youth unemployment, they voted against a budget that provided 25,000 of them. And, if this policy was so important, why did it merit no mention in either the MSP Annual Report or in personal letters he wrote to local voters last month?

Maybe it’s because party researchers have finally done some homework. Late last year, my opponent was banging on about how youth unemployment had grown,  even here in East Lothian. Given the recession and business contraction, is that surprising? But, among 18-24-year-olds, unemployment is running at 27.6% in Scotland and 31.0% in East Lothian, neither of which encourages the 1 in 3 of our young people who have no job.

Fair enough.

But…let’s wind back to before this recession, back to before there was either an SNP government in Edinburgh or an SNP administration in Haddington. In March 2007, after the ‘people’s party’ had been running everything for eight years, the numbers were 28.9% for Scotland and 33.8% in East Lothian. That’s worse than now. So the SNP is delivering more and better in troubled times than Labour ever managed during their years of fat?

No wonder Jack McConnell has a go at the Scottish Parliament or Jim Murphy derides small countries across Europe; it’s all part of a strategy: Forget the facts: if you just point and heckle loud enough, people might forget it was you that made this mess we’re all in in the first place.

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"It Wiznae Me! A Big Wunch of Bankers Did It and Ran Away"

Posted on February 28, 2011 by davidsberry | Leave a comment

66: Parliamo Politico IV

Posted on February 27, 2011 by davidsberry

Let’s Talk Pencil-Pusher: Lesson IV—Opinion Polling (Fourth of a series, translating bureaucrat-speak into what it means for folk in East Lothian)

The Sunday Herald is abuzz with another poll. “Labour is on course for a resounding victory in May’s Holyrood election as voters turn away from the Liberal Democrats and the SNP” it trumpeted. “Labour polled 41% on the constituency vote, up 8.8 percentage points on the 2007 election. The SNP got 32%, down 0.9 points, the Conservatives 15% (down 1.6), the LibDems 8% (down 8.2) and 4% plan to vote for other parties (up 1.9).”

Whoa…did they? Dig into the actual figures and you find voting intention figures in the original, unadjusted YouGov sample show an SNP lead of 13 points in the constituency vote – 41% for the SNP, compared to 28% for Labour, 18% for the Tories, and 6% the Lib Dems. On the list vote, the SNP are ahead by 8 points – 34% for the SNP, 26% for Labour, 19% for the Tories, and 6% for the Lib Dems. Huge difference; what happened?

Seems that YouGov always ‘normalises’ its results, based on a calibration that 16% of voters for Westminster must vote SNP, so their results are skewed to reflect that. Crazy? perhaps. Unbiased? The Green Party funded this one to coincide with their conference and it shows them forming a government with Labour…so maybe not.

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“The SNP under Alex Salmond has demonstrated that they can run a competent government and Alex Salmond makes a fine First Minister. I think Alex deserves a second term in office, and he is the best choice for Scotland during these difficult times.”

—Sir David Murray, multimillionaire owner of Rangers & avowed Unionist          (Scotland on Sunday, February 27th 2011)

Posted on February 27, 2011 by davidsberry | Leave a comment