Wee Blue Book: Principles and Politics

Posted on September 13, 2014 by davidsberry

In the run-up to the referendum, the media din and dubious behaviour of politicians and even seasoned journalists who should know better have made it harder for those still to make up their minds where to garner relevant data. As a committed Yes supporter I do not pretend to achieve total objectivity. But the Wee Blue Book, published by Wings Over Scotland comes as close as I have seen to a rational analysis. Look for installments of the booklet here in the run-up to Thursday. The first section is Principles and Politics.

ScotsToryThis is perhaps the simplest aspect of the debate to deal with. Scotland rarely – less than half the time, in fact – gets the governments it votes for. Scots have voted for Labour at every Westminster election since 1955, but by the time of the 2015 election will have had Conservative governments they didn’t want for 38 of the last 68 years.

Whether you support Labour, the Conservatives, the SNP, the Liberal Democrats or anyone else, that’s not democracy. With all due respect to Wales and Northern Ireland, 85% of the population of the UK lives in England, and that means that in practice England always decides what government everyone else gets.

Most of the time (roughly six years in every 10, for the entire modern political era dating back to WW2) that’s been a government Scotland has rejected. We believe Scotland is a country, and therefore should get the governments it votes for every time – not just when it happens to coincide with what a much larger neighbouring country wants.

UKGovtsThat doesn’t mean it should be ruled by the SNP. If you don’t like the SNP or Alex Salmond, you don’t have to vote for them in an independent Scotland – Labour and the Lib Dems were in charge for the first eight years of the Scottish Parliament and could be again. But so could brand-new parties that don’t even exist yet – it’s only a few years since nobody thought the SNP would ever win an election.

Independence isn’t about policies or parties. Those are questions which will be decided at elections, not the referendum. All you have to decide on the 18th of September is who should choose the future governments of Scotland: the people of Scotland, or the people of England?

Q: “But won’t we be abandoning the people of the rest of the UK to permanent Conservative rule?”

A: No. Scottish votes almost never make any difference to the outcome of UK elections, and when they do it’s a very small and short-lived one. Scottish independence will NOT condemn the rest of the UK to permanent Conservative governments – almost every Labour government since WW2 would still have had a comfortable majority without any Scottish votes.

(For example, in 1997 Labour would still have had a huge majority of 139 seats if all Scottish votes had been removed. Even in 2005 it would have had a comfortable majority of 43 seats without Scottish votes, rather than the 66-seat majority it actually got.)

Q: “But lots of people didn’t vote for the current government. People in Liverpool or Manchester didn’t vote for the Tories either, but they still got them as a government.”

A: The unit of measurement for democracy in governmental elections is nations, not cities. No government ever gets 100% of the vote, and indeed it’s decades since any UK government even managed 50%. Some individuals or regions will always get a government they didn’t vote for. But the referendum hinges on whether you think Scotland is a country or just a region of one. It can’t be both.

 

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Dateline: September 18th, 2019

Posted on September 11, 2014 by davidsberry

Looking back over five hectic years since the referendum, it’s surprising how little our lives have changed. Post gets collected from the same red boxes, the Beeb is where it always was on the dial and pensions get paid like clockwork. It’s at the macro/global level that most has changed. Interest rates did rise at first from uncertainty but Scots paying their £128bn share of the UK debt faster. This, together with capable financial stewardship and sharing the pound as a petrocurrency has us back on Aaa (same as the USA and Denmark).

Relations with England improved as soon as an unrepentant Cameron marginally won the 2015 election. England voted to leave the EU just after the Scots concluded negotiations to stay and cross-border business boomed. Threatening to chase their trawlers out of home waters was what persuaded the Spanish to withdraw their threatened veto. Scotland lobbied for 2017’s CFP review and an agreement with Iceland, which has eliminated discards, reviving both pelagic and demersal fisheries.

Despite committing to the Euro and Schengen, the Scots negotiated the logical opt-out from the latter to be consistent with England and Eire. Trains, cars and lorries still roll unimpeded through Berwick as they have always done. Closer links with Scandonavia have developed new ferry and air links (in part due to the removal of air passenger duty) and even membership of the Nordic Council. And, free of English immigration strictures, Scottish tourism and food and drink industries have both surged on the backs of new workers settling here.

While it took 15 years for Scotland to grow by 250,000, that has been repeated in five, giving a population of 5.5m This has added some £12bn to the economy and boosted government revenue by £2bn because the great majority of immigrants were of working age. Despite oil prices falling initially due to extensive fracking production in the States, the 2017 Whittier earthquake halted further development and prices have recovered to top $100 again.

The greatest problems emerged partitioning the British state. Leaving England heavy military hardware (aircraft carriers, heavy tanks, nuclear weapons, etc.) was easier but disentangling UK-loyal personnel had to rely on individual choice. Sharing HMRC, DVLA and embassies on a temporary basis needs a long-term solution as does HMNB Clyde once England decides if it can afford Trident.

Since deployed to post Assad/ISIS Syria, the Black Watch has used unorthodox ‘soft-cap’ engagement, combining kickabouts with no-nonsense policing. Scotland’s new membership of OPEC has given ‘back channels’ to the Arab world but Jocks from Lochee connect with Aleppo’s poor faster than Brits carrying baggage of Empire ever could.

Perhaps the greatest compliment to us so far has been the English Parliament introducing legislation based on our 2015 One Society Act (hammered out with Labour to support a minority SNP government) that is already done reversing the growth of inequalities suffered in the final years of Union.

(Printed as my Op Ed column this week in East Lothian Courier)

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An Open Letter From Jim Sillars To Scotland’s Pensioners

Posted on September 10, 2014 by davidsberry

One of the tackier aspects of the Independence campaign has been the need for letters like Jim’s to counter some shameless disinformation being shovelled by the NOs.

michaelgreenwell's avatar

AN OPEN LETTER FROM JIM SILLARS TO SCOTLAND’S PENSIONERS

imageI am 76 years of age. My State Pension is safe with independence, and so is yours. Who says so?

The UK Department for Work and Pensions in a statement made in January 2013:

“If Scotland does become independent this will have no effect on your State Pension, you will continue to receive it just as you do at present”

The Department explained that as we have paid our National Insurance Contributions, we have a legal entitlement to the State Pension.

The No campaign knew about that statement, yet through insinuation have made you think your pension was not safe; a despicable tactic to sow fear among the elderly when there are no grounds for fear.

There is, of course, more to the referendum than our pensions – there are our children and grandchildren. I want mine and yours to have…

View original post 300 more words

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Dismal Scientist

Posted on September 9, 2014 by davidsberry

Yesterday a good friend in California (one of the whip-smart feminists to whom I referred recently) forwarded two Op Ed pieces from the prestigious New York Times. Apparently it is not only the London press corps who have woken up to the magnitude of events unfolding here in Sconnie Botland. In one Why Scotland Should Stick With Britain guest writer Gordon Brown explains why the four ‘countries’ of the UK are just dandy the way they are; “Scottish patriotism did not demand expression in a separate state”, as he puts it. Though worth rebuttal, it did not cry out for deconstruction because it was, to be fair, a pretty articulate take on his long-held unionist views.

No, what screamed out for counterargument was a piece from the prestigious Nobel prizewinning Princeton Prof. Paul Krugman; Scots, What the Heck?  To assist readers, it is reproduced below in full (or at least until the NYT lawyer SWAT team come through my skylight), followed by an e-mail I fired back at my friend (with cc to Kaufman before my sense of outrage subsided). It is one thing to opine on another’s future. However, the weightier your qualifications to do so, the more imperative it is that you do it right.

“Next week Scotland will hold a referendum on whether to leave the United Kingdom. And polling suggests that support for independence has surged over the past few months, largely because pro-independence campaigners have managed to reduce the “fear factor” — that is, concern about the economic risks of going it alone. At this point the outcome looks like a tossup.

“Well, I have a message for the Scots: Be afraid, be very afraid. The risks of going it alone are huge. You may think that Scotland can become another Canada, but it’s all too likely that it would end up becoming Spain without the sunshine.

“Comparing Scotland with Canada seems, at first, pretty reasonable. After all, Canada, like Scotland, is a relatively small economy that does most of its trade with a much larger neighbor. Also like Scotland, it is politically to the left of that giant neighbor. And what the Canadian example shows is that this can work. Canada is prosperous, economically stable and has successfully pursued policies well to the left of those south of the border: single-payer health insurance, more generous aid to the poor, higher overall taxation.

“Does Canada pay any price for independence? Probably. Labor productivity is only about three-quarters as high as it is in the United States, and some of the gap may reflect the small size of the Canadian market (yes, we have a free-trade agreement, but a lot of evidence shows that borders discourage trade all the same). Still, you can argue that Canada is doing O.K.

“But Canada has its own currency, which means that its government can’t run out of money, that it can bail out its own banks if necessary, and more. An independent Scotland wouldn’t. And that makes a huge difference.

“Could Scotland have its own currency? Maybe, although Scotland’s economy is even more tightly integrated with that of the rest of Britain than Canada’s is with the United States, so that trying to maintain a separate currency would be hard. It’s a moot point, however: The Scottish independence movement has been very clear that it intends to keep the pound as the national currency. And the combination of political independence with a shared currency is a recipe for disaster. Which is where the cautionary tale of Spain comes in.

“If Spain and the other countries that gave up their own currencies to adopt the euro were part of a true federal system, with shared institutions of government, the recent economic history of Spain would have looked a lot like that of Florida. Both economies experienced a huge housing boom between 2000 and 2007. Both saw that boom turn into a spectacular bust. Both suffered a sharp downturn as a result of that bust. In both places the slump meant a plunge in tax receipts and a surge in spending on unemployment benefits and other forms of aid.

“Then, however, the paths diverged. In Florida’s case, most of the fiscal burden of the slump fell not on the local government but on Washington, which continued to pay for the state’s Social Security and Medicare benefits, as well as for much of the increased aid to the unemployed. There were large losses on housing loans, and many Florida banks failed, but many of the losses fell on federal lending agencies, while bank depositors were protected by federal insurance. You get the picture. In effect, Florida received large-scale aid in its time of distress.

“Spain, by contrast, bore all the costs of the housing bust on its own. The result was a fiscal crisis, made much worse by fears of a banking crisis that the Spanish government would be unable to manage, because it might literally run out of cash. Spanish borrowing costs soared, and the government was forced into brutal austerity measures. The result was a horrific depression — including youth unemployment above 50 percent — from which Spain has barely begun to recover.

“In short, everything that has happened in Europe since 2009 or so has demonstrated that sharing a currency without sharing a government is very dangerous. In economics jargon, fiscal and banking integration are essential elements of an optimum currency area. And an independent Scotland using Britain’s pound would be in even worse shape than euro countries, which at least have some say in how the European Central Bank is run.

“I find it mind-boggling that Scotland would consider going down this path after all that has happened in the last few years. If Scottish voters really believe that it’s safe to become a country without a currency, they have been badly misled.”

S:

this is typical of the kind of Op Ed pieces that pour from mighty organs like the NYT—written by intelligent, educated people who actually don’t know what they are talking about. None of this is about you but bear with me while I fulminate.

It is fair comment to take the jaundiced view of a critical friend in such weighty matters and, yes, look at places like Canada, Florida and Spain as possible models to predict what might happen to Scotland; it is poor journalism not to back up assertions with economic realities, including numbers,—and he is qualified and trained to do so.

The Canada/US model works as an example only from the view of relative sizes: 318.7m ‘Murcans to 35.4m Canucks is about 9:1 while the UK (less Scots) 58.8m vs the Scots 5.3m runs out at 10:1. NAFTA means you share $735bn in trade each year. That’s 62% of all Canadian exports, with the next two (China and Japan) dwarfed at 5.2% and 3.6% respectively. In other words, economically, you’re joined at the hip.

Scotland exports £58.3bn to rUK and £35.6 to elsewhere in the world. That’s a healthier division and we’re not even a proper country—yet. £6.9bn of the latter is engineering product (mostly oil & gas), £4.1bn is chemicals and £3.9bn is whisky, all of which have global penetration. 14.4% go to the USA, 11.1% to Netherlands, 8.1% to France and 5.7% to Germany. Growth markets like China we have barely started on. Name one Canadian product beyond maple syrup. If the US sneezes, Canada gets pneumonia; we Scots look far more diversified so his comparison collapses as you dig into it.

Where we agree is his bit about Florida is valid—but only for a ‘state’ (as you call them) that is not a proper country; the Feds had no choice, like in the S&L debacle I lived through in the 1980’s. Don’t start me on bank bailouts or this will get really tedious.

Then he compares us to Spain? That’s like comparing Massachusetts to Bolivia. Three decades ago, Spain was a third-world fascist dictatorship. EU investment (and turning a blind eye to its piratical fishing fleet practices) has dragged it into the Western World. Its banking system is just one step away from the mafia-driven Italian variant. Thanks to their banking hubris (comparable to the UK’s when Gordon Brown hobbled the UK equivalent of SEC/FINRA and everyone played ‘emperor’s clothes’) their economy went to hell in a handcart in 2008 and they have since had 27% unemployment (Scotland’s is right around yours at 6.4%). No wonder the Catalans want out themselves. Name one Spanish product beyond sherry/wine.

The man is a professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton, for heaven’s sake; he was even given a Nobel prize. He should KNOW better—but he writes like the closest he’s ever got to Scotland is watching Scotty fondle dilithium crystals on TV. When we Scots are within an ace of achieving a sensible independence of a country that boasts a longer history than yours (and in whose cause we pride ourselves no-one has yet died), I really don’t appreciate such people running off at the mouth about issues so vital to others about which they apparently haven’t even had the damn courtesy to do their homework.

If you’re ever in NY, tell him. 🙂

D

“For, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we submit to English rule. In truth, it is not for glory, nor for riches, nor for honours that we fight, but for freedom alone, which no honest man gives up but with his life.”
—Declaration of Arbroath, 1320

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Shirreff Parks his Tanks on our Lawn

Posted on September 4, 2014 by davidsberry

The world of global diplomacy—and with it, the context of our independence debate—has become increasingly surreal. Despite being unable to breathe without running into WWI commemorations, the lessons the Great War taught seem no longer relevant to our complex modern life.; this is myopic.

Just because hundreds of miles and even more days of trench warfare stalemate will not recur does not mean that present-day politicians are any more gifted with global brink-personship than Sir Edward Grey and his well meaning Liberal colleagues who were dragged into war by a web of treaties explicitly set up to avoid the catastrophe that did in fact overtake the 20th century.

The equivalent web today is called NATO. This even longer-standing military alliance  united Western democracies with enough resolve to see off Reagan’s “Evil Empire”. But just because the Soviet Union has gone should be no invitation to exploit Russia’s discomfort by sweeping fragments of Russia’s former empire under their nuclear umbrella. In the colourful geopolitics-speak used around Brussels’ Boulevard Leopold III (NATO HQ), such in-your-face tactics is known as “parking our tanks on their lawn”.

Admission of the ex-Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe to NATO was a mild example of this; adding the three Baltic States (a part of the Soviet Union for 60 years and under 15 minutes by Eurofighter from St Petersburg) verged on the provocative. To then consider Ukraine’s membership (their re-application went in last week) is a challenge that ordinary Russians—even without Putin doing his strongman act—would resent and resist.

Ukraine was Russian heartland before Scotland was part of Britain, ever since Peter the Great chased Sweden’s Charles XII out after Poltava in 1709. Imagine how London would react if a newly independent Scotland were to bind itself in a military alliance with Russia. Having been brutally invaded and half-conquered several times before the Nazis, the Russian folk memory is touchy about belligerent forces on their Western border.

A more sensible alternative to poking the Russian bear would be to agree Ukraine’s full neutrality and allow it to be a trading and diplomatic bridge between NATOland and Russia that could benefit all three parties. NATO may have as many ships, tanks planes and men as the Russians, but it is military insanity to project enough of them 1,000km East of their present bases and fight a still-formidable Russian machine on its home turf that is nuclear-tipped and a lot less stable than when Joe Steel ruled it.

Which brings us to Scotland and its putative effect on/membership of NATO. For if Ukraine is a domino too far to the East, then things are looking decidedly dodgy in the West. With many global commitments recent US strategy has been for the European end of NATO to take more care of itself. Whatever Westminster governments may pretend, Trident’s keys are still firmly in Pentagon pockets and so can be discounted for ‘local’ use.

Which brings us to the UK’s conventional weapons and a sad tail of decline. Being £1.5tn in hock, the MoD is cutting British Army from 104,000 troops to just 82,000. To get the scale by which we can no longer play with the big boys, the US Marine Corps alone is three times bigger, with more aircraft than the RAF, including the 72 Harriers we sold them.

Far from being capable of projecting military power into Ukraine, even as a part of NATO, UK forces have proved incapable of intervention in Syria, despite a ‘sovereign base‘ 100km away outside Limassol. Such missions as were flown in Libya were expensive pinpricks by one aircraft at a time and it was just three years ago when an entire Russian carrier group entered the Moray Firth undetected because we had scrapped all our maritime patrol Nimrods. The frigate scrambled from Portsmouth (HMS York) was the only RN ‘blue water’ unit in home waters at the time.

This last weekend Scotland on Sunday carried a letter from General Sir Richard Shirreff, recently stepped down as NATO’s Deputy Supreme Commander Europe. In it, he described the Scottish Government’s plans for defence as “amateurish, dangerous, unrealistic and lacking clear strategic purpose”. He also warned that the claim that an independent Scotland could join a nuclear defence alliance (i.e. NATO) while removing nuclear weapons from the Clyde could hinder membership.

Now, I don’t want to quibble with his obvious qualifications to have an opinion on the matter (although his claim to be from Co’path in East Lothian shows his grip on geography to be weak) but the above analysis of a NATO posture for which he must bear some responsibility means that we really do need to revisit what NATO is for. It is certainly not so that the West can go empire building on the ruins of the Soviet Union.

What NATO does need is a competent team on its North flank, in the event of any hostile intent amplifying the Kuznetsov incident into a war scenario by the Russian Northern Fleet. As explained, the UK is no longer capable of keeping up its end: the Standing NATO Response Force Maritime Group 1 has seldom contained any RN units and, as a result, Norway, Denmark and Canada have shouldered additional burdens to cover that.

So, when Gen Shirreff opines: “nothing I have seen or heard persuades me Scotland’s safety or security would be enhanced one iota if it became a separate country“, he does himself no service, despite his undoubted authority. Just to cover points raised above, a Scottish Defence Force would deploy the following key elements (currently missing from  UK deployment) that would tie in with our Norwegian/Canadian/Danish allies:

  • Two FFs deployed in Scottish or adjacent waters
  • A flight of four LRMP aircraft, based in Moray (CN-235s?)
  • A squadron of fast patrol boats (Hamina-class?) based to protect maritime oil rigs
  • A special forces battalion trained (among other things) in oil rig protection & assault

The absence of any need for global deployment, nuclear weapons and battle tanks will render Scottish forces more fit for purpose in maritime defence. Despite what Gen. Shirreff says, a regional defence with maritime emphasis is a clear and sensible strategy for which SDF proposals are highly suitable—in sharp contrast to the mission overstretch from which UK forces have suffered since commitment to Afghanistan and which subsequent severe cuts will carry into the foreseeable future. In this context, replacing Trident at all and populating the two aircraft carriers with flawed/overpriced F-35s simply compound that overstretch.

Rather then believe Gen Shirreff to be that naive, it makes more sense to see his outburst (whether orchestrated or not) as part of the relentless parade of naysayers that have been the backbone of the NO campaign. He does not state why NATO would not want a member with balanced forces like Denmark, rather than the UK’s current incomplete circus, any more than Barrosa explained why the EU would not want a solvent petrocurrency that already complied with all EU laws.

It echoes the ‘chicken little’ scaremongering we’ve had from Irn Broon, Osbo and Darling—that an independent Scotland could never have kept HBOS and RBS afloat by itself. What they conveniently ignore is that subsidiaries Halifax and NatWest are massive English institutions for which any English government would have intervened to keep them (and  rUK) solvent, no matter where they were headquartered. On this and on using the £UK, it’s not those seeking independence who seek to drive such wedges between nations. Since Winnie coined the phrase in 1967 we’re still saying: “Stop the World, Scotland wants to get on!”

So, if any reader in Co’path should run into Gen Shirreff rediscovering his Berwickshire roots now he has more time on his hands, ask him politely to get his tanks off our lawn.

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This Is No Small Country

Posted on September 3, 2014 by davidsberry

One of delights in returning home to Scotland twenty years ago was to discover a renaissance in its arts flourishing across the board. Having left in 1971 when the Cringe seemed the most fashionable garb among those with artistic ambition, perhaps the most refreshing among many positive aspects of my return, the Scottish Poetry Library (still hidden then down Tweeddale Court) spoke volumes for the new attitude—global in outlook; rooted in the local culture.

Among the more memorable creatives I met while rummaging amidst my cultural roots  there was an inventive voice from the North Isles who greatly impressed me. Whether writing in Shetland or Scots dialect or in ordinary English, Christine de Luca impressed me with her ability to forge simple, direct words into poetry that cleaved through Gordian knots of mumbling thought. To find her now acknowledged as a full-fledged makkar and new “Poet Laureate for Edinburgh” is no surprise…but a sheer delight nonetheless.

As with her other work, her first poem in her new role (published in today’s Hootsmon) is deceptively simple. But—like Scotland—it reaches far beyond our borders and even the watershed decision in two weeks towards a measured, balanced perspective to follow of which her country-men and -women will be justifiably proud.

The Morning After:

Scotland, 19th September 2014

Let none wake despondent: one way or another we have talked plainly, tested ourselves, weighed up the sum of our knowing, ta’en tent o scholars, checked the balance sheet of risk and fearlessness, of wisdom and of folly.

Was it about the powers we gain or how we use them? We aim for more equality; and for tomorrow to be more peaceful than today; for fairness, opportunity, the common weal; a hand stretched out in ready hospitality.

It’s those unseen things that bind us, not flag or battle-weary turf or tartan. There are dragons to slay whatever happens: poverty, false pride, snobbery, sectarian schisms still hovering. But there’s nothing broken that’s not repairable.

We’re a citizenry of bonnie fighters, a gathered folk; a culture that imparts, inspires, demands a rare devotion, no back-tracking; that each should work and play our several parts to bring about the best in Scotland, an open heart.

© Christine de Luca, 2014

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Why YES is the Answer V: The Sisterhood

Posted on August 31, 2014 by davidsberry

Having spent two decades in California where feminism is alive, well and a major political force, let me disclaim right from the outset any delusion that I am qualified to speak for women. Several bright, articulate female friends taught me well. But, as an active and longstanding participant in this debate on Independence, I nonetheless feel entitled to express my views—in this case on the pivotal role I believe women are about to play in these last few weeks of the debate.

To date—as with most political issues of national import—men have dominated the debate. Do I betray my gender when I assert they have made something of a pig’s ear of it from both sides? Fifty years ago, women scarcely registered on Britain’s political radar; pioneers like Barbara Castle and Margaret Thatcher achieved what they did largely by playing to the unwritten male rules of the time: aggressive postures; military vocabulary; unsociable hours; old-boy back-room networking.

We have come a long way since women made the tea but analysis of the speeches given or questions posed by Johann Lamont or Ruth Davidson are hardly distinguishable from Milliband or Cameron after 15 years of a Parliament that was supposed to introduce a politics different from that of tradition-encrusted Westminster. And before conclusions are jumped to, this is no wistful plea for touchy-feely or any other supposedly ‘feminine’ approach. Any readers puzzled by this are referred to the writings of Texas-based Molly Ivins who regularly takes on the good ol’ boys of the Texas legislature with wit, humanity and pragmatism in a potent formula women can achieve.

So far, there has been a dearth of such pungent bullshit-antidote here. Nicola Sturgeon comes closest but is too wrapped in party message to realise the bias-transcending lucidity of a woman who knows her stuff and is not going to let ego, career or chest-butting ambition (foibles endemic among males) deflect or dilute her message. And—despite being on the record as a convinced YES—I confess the debate (and thereby the decision) would be much enhanced by such articulate right jabs from the heart from either side.

Churchill was a great orator but let his unbridled love for the British Empire confuse his politics; Blair was a virtuoso in media manipulation but his acolytes have brought politics into disrepute by breeding widespread cynicism in the voting public. Thatcher betrayed her “where there is discord may we bring harmony” speech from the word ‘go’ by using power in a typically unbridled male manner: “Might is Right” is a watchword few intelligent women ever use or even acknowledge as valid.

Gro Harlem Brundtland was three-time Prime Minister of Norway. Not only was she partly the architect of Norway’s current prosperity but also of its peaceable and popular profile in the world, despite membership of NATO and UN deployments to hot-spots like Lebanon and Sudan. More than that, the UN’s Brundtland Commission developed the  concept of sustainable development in the course of extensive public hearings  distinguished by their inclusiveness. The commission, which published its report, Our Common Future, in April 1987, provided the momentum for the 1992 Earth Summit.

In the current independence debate, poll after poll has shown men largely have their minds made up one way or another; women now provide a significant proportion of the ‘don’t knows’. Much of the debate has centered around the absence of key ‘facts’—will we get to use the pound? —how will we defend ourselves? —how could we comply with EU and/or NATO requirements? These are always presented in typically male confrontational fashion—an “answer now or you’re a ten-stone weakling” kind of approach.

Despite women supposedly having a reputation for deciding things by ‘intuition’, the vast bulk who aren’t in politics are neither happy with such playground behaviour nor swayed by glib conclusions thereby implied. The stand-up comedian image of women as flighty, indecisive, vain and uninformed went out with the Carry On films. As they have flooded the workplace, captained RN ships and dealt with household budgets that now may include mortgage rates, investments, their pragmatism, empathy and ability to interpret and anticipate life’s vagarities have developed steadily: flouncy ’50s Doris Day has found the unruffled competence of the IMF’s Christine Lagarde.

These modern Scotswomen are being fed a diet of doctored disinformation by both sides. No serious businesswoman would run negotiations the way Better Together implies Scots will suffer penalties if they leave ‘home’. Women do feel that huge emotional tug as their own children leave home—but swallow their own needs and salve the hurt with pride as their children achieve on their own. No woman balancing a family budget would accept the bland but unsubstantiated assurances Yes disseminates about pensions, social support, debt repayment and future oil revenues. Budgets survive unknowns through rational anticipation and shrewd evaluation of probabilities. Ask any woman.

Modern Scotswomen need honesty and transparency; neither side is making much of a fist of giving them that. More than men worried over pension pots or border tariffs, women are used to assimilating factors across dissimilar axes and weaving best estimates into acceptable conclusions. More than men focused on today’s results, women feel the longer run of life into the future, using imagination and—yes—intuition to derive best estimates for the future that are between fact and fiction but more probable than improbable.

Mothers especially know in their hearts that this is not about them. Like the Highlanders who took white-sailed ship for America, this is about their grandchildren’s grandchildren and whether, in the centenary celebrations of 2116, they would be welcomed as brave visionaries who seized the way to a better life. Or are they like the Clydeside’s shipbuilding unions of the 1950’s, circling wagons to defend a life they know for fear of something new?

It is not that women are feart—the way many men seem feart at losing their pension or their power. It is because big decisions for themselves or their family need to be picked over, talked over, mulled over by heart and head and women are right not to be rushed into any conclusion. Being judged by your grandchildren’s grandchildren is no matter to be taken lightly.

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Our Maritime Neighbours

Posted on August 29, 2014 by davidsberry

Apart from fishermen, yachties and the odd boat trip, few of us spend much time beyond our shoreline, let alone wonder what’s beneath. The superb food and drink we are becoming famous for includes excellent shellfish and a seasonal abundance of mackerel and cod yet to be exploited. But only since the Scottish Seabird Centre arrived have we developed understanding for sea mammal friends living out there—seals on the islands and visits from cetaceans: porpoises, dolphins and whales.

Once, our Forth waters were thick with industrial effluents that poured into the Carron. Sea mammals are choosy about their environment and left. But after a decade of exemplary water quality, the seal population is growing again. As they live and feed around the islands and seldom close inshore, they were hard to track and census but marine biologists, BBC documentary teams and our own SSC cameras are giving us a much clearer picture.

Visits by whales are also growing. If not in deeper water, sightings indicate animals in distress—as in the deceased smallish (14m) sperm whale washed up at Portobello early this month. A pod of 14 such whales was snapped from a microlight off Fidra last April. But most sightings are of smaller species: minke (smallest) humpback or fin (largest) whales. In 2003 a 12m humpback spent a month cruising around the Forth before disappearing. A pod of black-and-white mottled killer whales (actually large dolphins as they have teeth) appear occasionally, hunting local seals.

But our most common visitors are bottlenose dolphins identified as from the large Moray Firth pod. They are intelligent creatures who use sound to converse with each other and to echo-locate their prey. Pods act as a pack, herding fish together, some blowing curtains of bubbles as barriers while others strike. But they are often playful, bow-riding large ships, breaching right out of the water, playing games with clumps of seaweed and even bullying their porpoise cousins by flipping them into the air.

In 2013, at least eight were sighted together as close as 300m off Platcock Rocks; some hardy sailors sighted 3-4 there again on New Year’s Day. This season there has been another pod seen several times not far off the Leithies. Look for the triangular pointed fin sticking up from a curved back up to 4m long, usually accompanied by a few friends and all moving in unison. For more information, try http://www.dolphincareuk.org or http://www.seabird.org/wildlife/marine-wildlife/12/27

Retired Local Deputy Head Extends his Practical Education

Retired Local Deputy Head Extends his Practical Education

Posted in Environment | Tagged | 1 Comment

Naysayers Anonymous

Posted on August 21, 2014 by davidsberry

Since the inception of this Independence Referendum campaign there have been cringe-worthy contributions from either side. But the good will shown by Salmond and Cameron at Aberdeen dissipated almost immediately on the NO side. Against a YES campaign that laid out far more detail than any government ever has prior to a general election, NO supporters have delivered only a dreary barrage of simplistic questions repeated in the teeth of answers given.

But worst of all—and most damaging to encouraging those entitled to vote to engage in this crucial debate—has been a catalogue of unsubstantiated and largely untrue assertions that may qualify as the most stultifying misleading campaign posture Scotland has ever had to suffer. To quote, only in part, a representative cross-section:

  • “Yes vote is a threat to freedom”
  • “Independent Scotland’s economy would crash if it tried to use sterling”
  • “Go-it-alone Scotland ‘defenceless’: Nation will be left without weapons”
  • “Mortgages up £1600 if Yes”
  • “Scottish yes vote could lead to currency limbo, say MPs”
  • “Postal costs in Scotland could rise after independence, say MPs”
  • “Scotland and the UK will separate geographically, as well as politically”
  • “Yes could be catalyst for sterling crisis”
  • “Yes will send shares crashing”
  • “Labour claim 1m may lose jobs after independence”
  • “Darling: Independence could cost Scotland £8bn”
  • “700,000 to Leave if Union is Broken”
  • “Yes vote would lead to economic crisis worse than the crash”
  • “UK split to set back cure for cancer”
  • “Gordon Brown raises organ-transplant fears ahead of referendum”
  • “Alex Salmond Is A ‘Prototype Dictator’ And ‘Master Of The Borg’”
  • “Juncker Ends Salmond’s European Dream”
  • “Scotland’s tourism industry is threatened by independence”
  • “Split ‘may cost Scots £400m for welfare IT’
  • “Yes vote pension cost warning“
  • “Vulnerable people could lose benefits in an independent Scotland“
  • “Bank bailout doubt if Scots vote to quit UK“
  • “Independent Scotland Could Suffer Iceland-Style Financial Collapse“
  • “Consumers would snub separate Scotland’s brands“
  • “Scottish independence ‘would harm world’s poorest’”
  • “Go-alone Scotland faces ‘threats from space’”
  • “Scottish Independence ‘Will Lead to Soaring Energy Bills’”
  • “Scotland faces £143bn debt after independence”
  • “Fears for fishing in breakaway Scotland”
  • “Thousands of defence jobs will be at risk if Scotland votes Yes”
  • “Scottish independence will cause civil war in Africa”
  • “Scottish independence ‘would be cataclysmic for the world”

None of the above come from hot-headed local leaflets: all were carried by public media—who don’t emerge from all this smelling too sweet themselves.

This blog had always been clear, consistent and, I hope, rational in its support for independence. In holding to that, it has not responded to the wilder fringes of unionist abuse in kind. Nonetheless, it is difficult to maintain objectivity in the face of such unprincipled and unsubstantiated scaremongering. No wonder it is dubbed “Project Fear”: no matter how senior their spokespersons, double standards prevail: e.g. a mindless repetition of “What IS the currency Plan B” while denying any need to detail the “Devo Max” to which all unionist parties are supposedly agreed.

Much flaky tat comes from the Westminster nomenklatura—those with much to lose if their UK gravy train were derailed—which is a disservice to those uncommitted genuinely trying to get valid questions answered. Even blogs like this accept that reasoned arguments for the union exist. But this deluge of theatrical exaggeration, verging on abuse insults the intelligence of all voters, not just YES supporters. Which means, in turn, the positive arguments for the union—whose existence no enlightened YES supporter has ever denied—are being drowned out.

So an undecided quarter of all voters, bombarded by lurid non-information, are tuning out this crucial debate on the most important decision they will ever make because of nauseating cacophony assaulting them at every turn. If both sides don’t tone it down and avoid dissuading our many switherers from voting at all, then Sep 18th will drift into a tie, conclude nothing and the whole circus will roll on indefinitely.

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Why Yes is the Answer IV: to Pension Questions

Posted on August 19, 2014 by davidsberry

Many of those still undecided how they will vote next month have an answer provided to them by their hearts but have yet to sway their heads on pragmatic concerns how life will turn out either way, based on credible figures. Prime among those concerns—especially for those over fifty—are pensions.

The UK does not have a particularly good record on providing pensions. Thatcher broke the link that raised state pensions with inflation then punted private pensions that were missold by the billion. This approach was continued under Blair and indeed worsened when Irn Broon raided private pensions and compounded during the 2008 fiscal crisis when many private pension pots lost half their value.

This left UK taxpayers with a third-world-standard state pension of around £5,500 in 2013. Although this is to be raised to £7,500 by 2016, this is offset by a rise in pension age to 67. In contrast, Finland provides £14,100 per annum. Norway provides some 75% of average earnings from the state pension alone—around £10,650, with occupational pensions topping this up further.

Private expenditure on old-age benefits is the highest in Australia, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands and Switzerland, where it exceeds 3.5% of GDP. How is it Alastair’s ‘Arc of Insolvency’ member Iceland can still afford better pensions than the ‘rich’ UK? The UK trails rather badly so if you’re looking for a pension to secure your comfortable retirement, you’d better have a private one or receive it from outside the UK. Even with the UK promising a standard pension for all and effectively increasing to by 2016, it still compares poorly, as shown in Table 1 from Which:

Table 1—Comparisons of Pensions in some Western Countries

Table 1—Comparison of State Pensions

Even taking private pensions into account, UK lags in terms of share of GDP dedicated to pensions. All four Scandinavian countries, along with Germany, France and Italy exceed the OECD average of just under 10%; UK lags below 9%, behind even the USA.

So there really is not a lot to lose regarding state pensions for Scots, were they to become independent. That said, many people are concerned so here’s a checklist of ten major misgivings—and the corresponding answers:

  1. Will I still get my state pension? Yes. The Scottish Government have guaranteed to continue to pay every state pension after independence including all the rights you have built up to enhanced pensions such as through Serps
  2. Will my state pension be as much as it is now? Yes, in fact it will be better. The Scottish Government have guaranteed a “triple lock” on state pensions after independence – something Westminster have only put in place until next year’s General Election. This triple lock means the state pension after a Yes vote will rise in line with prices and earnings, or by 2.5 per cent, whichever is highest.
  3. What about this new single tier pension being offered by Westminster? Will we get that after independence? Yes. The Scottish Government will pay a single tier pension of £160 a week from 2016 – that’s £1.10 a week higher than currently being promised by Westminster.
  4. But I am on Savings Credit, will I still get that? Yes, the Scottish Government will pay savings credit at £18 a week, benefiting 9000 low income pensioners. Westminster plans to abolish Savings Credit after April 2016. So voting No will hurt the poorest.
  5. Will the state pension age be the same? It could be lower. The UK government will raise it to 66 by 2020 and then move it to 67 later. The Scottish Government think that is unfair because Scots do not live as long, so would get less pension if we stay with Westminster. After independence, a Scottish Government will ask pensions experts to look at keeping the retirement age below 67.
  6. But how can an independent Scotland afford better pensions? Pensions are more affordable in Scotland because we pay more tax per head than in the rest of the UK. Expenditure on pensions and benefits known as “social protection” have been lower in Scotland in each of the past five years. For example, social protection in 2012/13 was 15.5 per cent of Scotland’s national wealth, compared to 16 per cent for UK.
  7. I have an occupational pension, what happens to that? Occupational and personal pension rights will stay the same after independence – you have accrued these benefits and are legally entitled to them.
  8. What happens to my NHS/civil service/council pension? The Scottish Government will meet all public sector pension obligations and all schemes will be fully protected. The Scottish Public Pensions Agency are already administering a lot of public sector pensions here and will take on new responsibilities after independence and that may create new jobs – a bonus.
  9. Where can I get more information? There’s lots more about pensions in Scotland’s Future, the White Paper on what independence will look like. Call 08453 072014 to get your own copy or read it online at scotreferendum.com
  10. But isn’t it safer to stay as we are? A No vote will not mean things stay as they are. It means retiring at 67 – or even older, a loss of Savings Credit for the poorest pensioners and a smaller single-tier pension. Remember, the UK Government’s track record with pensions is poor. It’s a good argument to transfer responsibility for pensions to a parliament with a better track record of looking after them.
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