Whae’s Like Us (An’ They’re A’ Deid)?

Posted on August 19, 2013 by davidsberry

Lesley Riddoch—never one to mince words—has a powerful piece in today’s Hootsmon in which she pithily observes ‘Public money is trapped in professional silos‘ and that ‘Good public health is a product of good social and democratic health‘. All very true and, coming on top of Eddie Barnes’ piece in the sister Scotland on Sunday the previous day deprecating that the ‘cost of sickness benefits in Scotland is one-third higher than in the rest of the UK‘, is as blunt an accusation that Scotland can’t look after its own as we have ever seen.

And while both articles are worth the read and pose serious questions, neither get far down the road of answers. “Glasgow Manchester and LIverpool share similar ‘deprivation profiles’, but premature deaths in Glasgow are 30 per cent higher”; “Scotland’s higher claimant rate for ESA, IB and SDA is due to the fact that its working-age population is older and less healthy than the GB population”; “Scotland spends £1.5 billion on emergency admissions of old people—the majority of whom have no serious clinical problem”.

Compared to 100 years ago, we have health and social provision the Edwardians could only dream of. We have over 161,000 working for the NHS, 51,000 teachers and 5,200 social workers, as well as 46,400 civil servants and around 200,000 in the rest of local government. On top of that, 183,000 work in related charities (and this does not include volunteers). With all this well intentioned firepower we should all be rich and healthy. But, whereas our Edwardian great-grandparents enjoyed the richest per capita GDP in the world in 1910, we have slipped some. The statistics become especially stark when you compare our Life Expectancy with Healthy Life Expectancy.

HealthStatsWhereas people were actually having a decade shaved off their life if their health was taken in account, the newer method of measure shaves closer to 20 years off and recently started getting worse. Put crudely: what’s the point of longer life if you can’t enjoy it? It may be simpler for the law and statisticians to think of people as dead or alive. But the whole point of life is to enjoy it; nobody from the government, through the media, on down to your local GP seems to be thinking in such terms.

Now, before this lapses into the classic, self-deprecating “we wiz aye shite” dirge, there is also much to celebrate. The problem is that the  cause now for celebration is geographically uneven, existing in just those areas that were not to the fore in creating those riches a hundred years ago and leaving West Central Scotland and Dundee behind.

That is the pivotal clue to the answer: the areas of Scotland exhibiting the worst symptoms were once world-beaters. After WW1, Britain behaved as if nothing had happened commercially and the heavy industry on which Scotland’s riches relied kept building riveted ships, steam engines and road rollers that would have made the Victorians proud. The desperate years of WW2 allowed this delusion to last until the fifties when it all came crashing down.

By this time, the Labour party had transformed from a party of idealism to one rooted in class warfare and thirled to the unions. And while their Stalinesque state interventions that gave us Linwood, Ravenscraig, Kinlochleven, Cockenzie and the like may have been well intentioned, all were backward-looking; all are now dust. Though Labour did see the errors of its statist ways and by embracing Blairism, achieved somewhat more 1997-2007 than the present Condems give them credit for, nonetheless, Alastair Campbell’s defence of this period in his blog still has to admit:

“Where (Professor Bogdanor) is critical of Labour is in relation to skills, especially at the bottom end of the social and economic scale, and not doing enough to cut regional inequalities”

Whether you agree that social intervention on behalf of the ‘vulnerable’ is a priority or not, the bottom line of Scotland’s 1970 failed attempt at state-directed affluence-for -all under Wilson and the intervening 40 years of ever-increasing benefits, social intervention and initiatives in deprived areas under sundry Labour councils has resulted in all of them remaining deprived areas. After disbursing public billions into deprived areas from Ferguslie Park to Mastrick not one area has transformed itself from a Dumbiedykes to Davidson’s Mains. Easterhouse or Wester Hailes, they each remain hope-and-ambition-killing sink estates that shame our pretence at affluence.

Every professional involved in such places now bemoans government cuts and argues for more resources. But—jointly and severally—they have failed. Simply throwing more money at these problems after 40+ years of doing just that is insane—and the definition of insanity is repeating an action in the belief that the outcome will change. In the last five years, Scotland has received over £600m in European ERDF and ESF monies, all of which went into ‘priority’ projects in ‘priority’ areas. The closest anyone has come to success was when ECC bulldozed Craigmillar flat and started from scratch.

The thousands of well intentioned people involved in this ‘sector’ will disagree with this but this is not about their personal or professional integrity. Ever since we invented a social work ‘sector’ there have been ever-increasing numbers earning a living from it. But whatever success there has been with individual cases, it is swamped by the societal context and riddled with failure. But putting people on methadone to stop them taking heroin is not just a backward step; it is the system defining a more convenient ‘solution’ because it is so manifestly incapable of addressing the problem.

The social basket case areas that keep our quarter-million workers in jobs were largely created by similarly well-intentioned people building those estates in the first place. Though much is made of housing quality, it’s not housing people need; it’s homes. People on £1m statement home estates suffer from isolation and social dislocation just as much as those in leaky GHA slums. Suicides are not unknown in either. Feeling valued as a contributing part of society is vital for anyone’s good quality of life. This is why people on Barra or Westray are bemused why people would want to live as most of us do—on a spectrum between manic middle class trying to keep up the payments and the chancer who skims the Giro money at the bookies and the pub before he takes what’s left home.

Look at the people of Barra or Westray—or Peebles or Cupar or Girvan. They don’t have an obesity epidemic any more than they deprive themselves of healthy living two decades before they actually die. Even the bampots there are valued for their unpredictability and taken home if they get in trouble. None of those communities—or thousands like them across Scotland—were laid out by planners, studied by sociologists, strung out on drug programmes or blessed by gobs of Eurodosh distributed by strangers. From organising beach cleans to doing their own hanging baskets to taking old Mrs McGlumpher down for her hospital check-up, they own their community and do what they can to improve it.

As long as anyone believes that their future lies with some pen-pushing jobsworth in a cluttered office in some faceless multistorey, they will lose that which is vital: a sense that their fate lies in their own hands. Every time we build another 500-house estate where everyone is around the same income, where there is minimal social interaction,  the seeds have been sown for another Castlemilk of the 2050s.

But if planning were to mix in small social and retail centres with parks and varied recreation and ensure that the shop assistant and the shop owner and her investment banker all lived in the same area, you’re starting to build a Barra or Westray, even if it’s just outside Cumbernauld. This is already achieved in big cities like Munich or San Francisco whose ‘neighbourhoods’ each exhibit distinctive characteristics and engender ownership of that community by those who live there. Kew or Canterbury work on that principle in England. Social problems exist but people ‘own’ their future, failing which family and community intervention means that the NHS (let alone social work) seldom need get involved.

Just because planning a balanced society is difficult is no excuse for hosing public money into each departmental silo that then sits tight with what it thinks it knows. Scots have come a long way in the last 20 years but large parts of the country languish because of the dead hand of patriarchal seventies thinking that institutionalises dependency and treats  quirky differentials among communities as inconvenience. But several major obstacles must first be overcome:

  • Political leaders need to risk what Sir Humphrey would call ‘brave decisions’. This applies as much to parliament as councils. Real community planning would be a start. (people will know because they will notice change and lose some indifference)
  • Radical reduction in the feel-good fudge that spills out of both parliament and councils as papers geared to give the illusion that good stuff is happening (people will then understand what politicians do and suffer their self-serving nomenklatura less)
  • Planning will be community-based and reflect the priorities of the public. If this sounds like a return to burgh councils, well, if it walks like a duck…
  • Social workers will stop doing the headless chicken, accept that their main (only?) priority is to put themselves out of a job and receive rewards for doing so.
  • NHS workers will receive the ability to exert penalties from those who: waste NHS time, resources or expertise; expect medical damage from their own irresponsible behaviour to be patched up; fail to pass an ‘MoT’ health check for avoidable illness.
  • Charities officials will have their salaries pegged to those of NHS nurses (or firemen, or police—pick one). Charity shops with any paid officials or selling any new goods will pay full local retail rates.
  • Euro-funds will be distributed in proportion to the degree to which communities have been able to give their residents fulfilling lives and the best improvement in quality of life.

OK, so some of the above are neither practical nor is it clear how they could be made so. But, unless Scotland—independent or not—stops the present delusion that money is going to be anything but tight for the next decade and the only way we’re going to improve the lot of our citizens is to think radical and burn a few shibboleths, we will find ourselves engaged in unproductive squabbling over a diminishing pot while our people die from our own short-sighted stupidity.

Posted in Community | Tagged | Leave a comment

First is Anything But

Posted on August 14, 2013 by davidsberry

For the avoidance of doubt—and to avoid them too much cost in their libel lawyers as they scratch around for actionable evidence, First is a crap company. It doesn’t matter which fragment of the empire you’re talking about—from FirstBus Edinburgh, through ScotRail to Great Western, every division is run on the same, rather transparent principle: we’re in this for short-term profit—all else can go hang. Forget any long-term, thoughtful investments in the future. They run any old rickety vehicle, charge top dollar for the privilege and get out of Dodge once they lose whatever franchise this approach has poisoned. The bus divisions are particularly bad at this but even ScotRail, run by decent people trying to do a decent job, have their hands tied so the difference is not obvious.

And its not just by First Group that Steve Montgomery and his team are straitjacketed. The Office of the Rail Regulator is run by a time-serving bunch of old-school incompetents. Richard Price, another Sir Humphrey product of DEFRA and HM Treasury, pulled in over £100k, as did four colleagues. Another half-dozen averaged £80k, with John Larkinson getting a £600k ‘bonus’ for less than a year’s stint as “Director, Railway Planning and Performance”. Oh, and did I mention the Board getting £300k for attending its monthly meeting?

But that’s small beer in the £30m ‘income’ largely from licence fees (£13m) paid by train companies to operate and a cool £17m in “Safety Levy”, paid by? You guessed it: the train companies. Or to be more precise: you. 2p of every one of the 1.23 bn rail journeys we made last year went to ORR. And for this, we got what, exactly? Not much. Train leasing had been identified by the ORR as an area of concern:

“Our review of (train leasing) markets has identified features that appear to us to prevent, restrict or distort competition.”

So, er, what happened? Well, they referred the ROSCOs cabal behaviour to the Competition Commission. That was in 2007. What has happened in the six years since to prevent “train operating companies paying higher prices and/or receiving a poorer quality of service than if competition was more effective” as ORR thundered at the time? Well, um, nothing. (See Rosco Used in Train Robbery for details of their greed)

And this is the steely-eyed regulator supposed to be forging ScotRail into a sleek, efficient public-serving company? So, on top of myopic High-Heid-Yins at Group and an ORR that is seems unconcerned at private snouts deep in the public trough, provided room remains for their own, ScotRail also has to contend with the all-party pork barrel lobby at the Scottish Parliament, because those are the ones dealing out its franchise.

It does not take a degree in Transport Strategy to wonder where priorities for rail development in Scotland come from. While capital investment in improving the network in almost any form can be seen as welcome, how do we justify that work to date were our highest priorities? Waverley looks good—but £58m for four ‘new’ platforms (still one less than the 21 it used to have) is a deal? Or £57.6m to have a 13m line from Stirling serve one station at Alloa (pop. 19,000)? Or ten years of fiddling about with the 30 mile Borders railway when its costs have quadrupled to £350m today?

Even the Airdrie/Bathgate line is hard to justify—£300m for 15 miles as a fourth link between Edinburgh and Glasgow 15 minutes slower than the existing diesel alternative. All of these projects smell of local politicians cutting deals to get their own local rail link built, with little concept of what Scotland needs as a whole. But what would that actually mean? Let’s leave aside the vital cross-border requirements and the involved arguments over HS2 and consider just internal Scottish requirements.

The most glaring omission is a complete absence of anything like a real express service within Scotland. This is most obvious on Edinburgh-Glasgow but continues as a need for such services from both to Aberdeen. The much-curtailed EGIP project may address the first and provide faster links on a busy route. But it does nothing to address the second, which offers huge potential by slicing an hour off the present 3-hour journey. This, in turn, makes Dundee and Inverness more accessible and would have knock-on positive effects on present services that are no more than glorified local sprinters. Alternatives like doubling parts of the Highland Line should be seen for the pork barrel by Northern MSPs that they are.

At present, ScotRail operates nothing that anyone would regard as an express train. Even new class 170s are hopeless when compared to East Coast or Cross Country stock, either of which would be an appropriate solution to carry such passengers. This is where First ScotRail fail their long-distance customers: they should be beating the Transport Minster’s door down to get a faster Perth-Lawrencekirk line built and Class 222s to take advantage of it (See Brechin’s Revenge on Beeching for details). A proper, frequent express service on this key Aberdeen triangle would revolutionise rail in Scotland in a way that no local Alloa/Airdrie/Gala/Cumbernauld pork barrel project ever could.

Since 96 trains—1/3rd of ScotRail’s fleet (unloved class 156/158 diesel past-their-sell-by-date clunkers)—are due for replacement in 2018-2020, is this not an opportunity for ScotRail, in cahoots with the Scottish Government, to declare rail independence? By cutting out the middle man and forming our own train leasing company (‘Caledonian Railway’ has a ring to it) Scotland could grab our slice of the big fat £1.2bn cake that Porterbrook, Angel and HSBC glibly divide among themselves annually, ScotRail would save a third of its £86m annual train leasing costs. Put another way, we could effectively add another £30m investment in Scotland’s rail future at a stroke.

If independence is won next September, this move should be a no-brainer. But should a desperate Union hoodwink Scots into keeping this bankrupt UK afloat, some gutsy moves by Ministers would still be able to turn our rail into more than the present collection of rickety branch services. This would allow First—through ScotRail—to earn its moniker for the first time.

Posted in Transport | Tagged | 1 Comment

Welcome to Britain: Now Go Home

Posted on August 12, 2013 by davidsberry

It is perhaps to be expected that such social Luddites as join UKIP exhibit a knee-jerk to the ‘furriners’ who reputedly begin at Calais and the backwoodsman phalanx that dominates the Tory party regularly paint themselves into xenophobic corners over Johnny Foreigner. But when the Labour party—that supposed redoubt of international socialism—starts laying about foreign workers with comparable venom, it is time to wonder if the normally civilised and tolerant English have lost the plot altogether.

Leave aside the current Eurospat in which Cameron & Co. make us all look like a bunch of petulant schoolkids who want their bus money back because they didn’t play in Saturday’s away game. Shadow immigration minister Chris Bryant has teed up a speech (leaked to the press) in which he berates Tesco and Next for favouring Eastern European workers over British. He said:

“Look at Next Plc, who last year brought 500 Polish workers to work in their South Elmsall warehouse for their summer sale and another 300 this summer. They were recruited in Poland and charged £50 to find them accommodation.”

The spat with Tesco also has to do with distribution centres (this time in Kent) but the detail is not particularly relevant. At a time when jobs and efficiencies are pivotal in securing whatever recovery can be achieved, interfering with commerce at this level of detail not only limbs politicians as meddlers who rate profile above effectiveness and show little clue of the rather brutal dynamics that drive commerce, from which we all have benefitted over the last half-century of growth and personal affluence.

We should first be quite clear how abysmal the UK’s performance has been since the fiscal crisis hit six years ago. Whereas in Scandinavian countries (who had not let their banks play silly buggers with other people’s money) there was barely a dip and Germany was more profoundly affected but, as a major exporter of world-class engineering, they are back in serious growth, the Brits still languish amongst the PIGS—the fiscal basket cases whose riches had more in common with the emperor’s clothes than substantive investments. Their growth is either negative or marginal.

Like the USA, Britain fell into the trap of thinking that profits from financial instruments, such as were being traded by the trillion in 2007, were worth what was printed on the paper. But mortgages on houses in now-bankrupt Detroit, held by people without jobs or means to pay for them, was compounded folly on a global scale that came home to roost and has been eating our lunch ever since.

If the continued financial doldrums were not close enough to rigor mortis (growth under 1% is illusory growth, especially when the BRICs are still powering on with 6-8%) Britain seems to think it can indulge in all sorts of protectionist projects, as if the good times of the nineties and noughties were still with us. It is as if the beggar-my-neighbour lessons of the strike-prone, inflation-infested seventies had never been. Teachers insist on raises knowing that shrinking budgets will then mean fewer teachers and worse education. Everyone complains that benefits are being cut and—whether by bedroom tax or some equal horror—people will get poorer. But, though we may be unused to this, it’s reality. Get used to it because it has a ways to run yet.

For a major spokesperson like Labour’s Bryant to berate firms for following what firms were created to do—make a profit out of running a business—is the kind of luxury that both Wilson and Callaghan indulged in during those dark days. They were socialists; socialists taxed the rich and so the 90% tax rate was born. Never mind that most really rich people avoided it through shell or offshore companies and residences, they were standing up for the horny-handed workers that had elected them.

The problem these days is that the jobs over which we are now squabbling are no longer the Detroit- or Dagenham-style skilled factory jobs making cars and good wages but service jobs shifting boxes and broccoli in distribution centres for minimum wage. If the official position from major parties lies between fending off entrepreneurial individuals who have moved here to work for a better life from having the jobs they can find and trying to prevent them from arriving in the first place, then the UK is bankrupt in many ways besides the more obvious financial.

Forget the Irish and the Highlanders of the Victorian era who flooded to industrial Scotland—and everyone got richer. Think of the Italians of the twenties, the Asians of the sixties and seventies. Was our society and business not enriched by their contributions? When Jamaicans and other West Indians landed by the boatload in England in the fifties, did they not take jobs others disdained—and everyone got richer as a result?

What’s wrong with English politicians of all parties that they want to pull up drawbridges and keep out the world in case it is too competitive for us? Adam Smith would be appalled; the founders of the East India Company or the Hudson’s Bay company or Jardine Matheson or HSBC would be appalled. Even John Maclean, who believed in the dignity of hard work and concomitant decent wages, might be appalled.

Is this what the country that dares to still call itself “Great” Britain, that just one century ago bestrode the world like a colossus because of its dominant place in international trade, has come to? America became great through welcoming the world’s “huddled masses yearning to be free“. If the UK can’t tolerate a few Poles willing to work hard to achieve the good life, why would we Scots want to be any part of such a tawdry failure?

Posted in Commerce, Community | Tagged | Leave a comment

Replanting the Floo’ers

Posted on August 10, 2013 by davidsberry

This week, on the 500th anniversary of Flodden—perhaps the most decisive and certainly the bloodiest defeat inflicted on us Scots by our southern cousins—the Coldstream Common Riding took a crowd of people and horses to the very field just over the Border where the event took place. Despite its antiquity, Flodden resurfaces in Scots culture much as the ‘we wiz aye rubbish’ recurs among the footsoldiers of the Tartan Army to explain away yet another glorious defeat.

The Hootsmon covered the event, relating that Dr Tony Pollard, of Glasgow University, had concluded the defeat was a result of the Scots infantry being incompetent with long 18ft pikes with which the King James IV had equipped them. While lack of training may have been a factor, it is crudely simplistic to explain it all away on that basis.

First of all, the Scots of the early 16th century were not particularly warlike. While England had engrossed itself in the its first Civil War (more colourfully described as the ‘War of the Roses’) for most of the previous century, the Scots had developed their economy and were busily trading their wool, hides, timber, etc with both the Low Countries and the Hanseatic Ports. Given that roads were non-existent and ships could carry over 100 tons of goods in relative safety, East Coast ports from Aberdeen to Berwick prospered and resultant riches flowed across much of the country.

Once the Tudors sat firmly on the English throne, their pre-occupation with glory through empire in France reasserted itself, bolstered by the energy and ambitions of one of their most dynamic kings, Henry VIII. In between discarding wives and reinventing religions, Henry ran afoul of the League of Cambrai. When war broke out between them, this put James IV of Scotland (called the Renaissance King for  developments made during his reign) in an invidious position as an ally by Treaty with both England and France.

Henry rather decided things for him by reasserting the claim—long dormant since the days of Bruce and Longshanks—of English feudal superiority over Scotland and James resolved to contest this militarily while Henry was away in France besieging Thérouanne. In the previous twenty years, James had not had his troubles to seek; this was a time when he contested the unbridled power of the Lord of the Isles and had managed to bring some form of credible rule to the unruly Celtic fringes of his kingdom.

But subduing the Lewis MacLeods, Mull Macleans and other proud clans, he relied on ships and artillery—which the Gaels could not counter—and the growing shrewd legal powers of the Campbells, who were learning to fight more effectively with quill and parchment than their clansmen ever did with broadsword. In fact, there was almost no ground combat and so the Scots came to 1513 with little or nothing by way of an army.

In theory, all the great houses kept armed retainers and could be called upon to raise regiments in times of war. But there had been no real war beyond clan skirmishes and border rieving for almost two centuries. Although peasants were liable for military training, little took place so the number of trained soldiers available to James was trivial, as long as his traditional source of hairy-arsed berserkers were largely sulking in the Highlands because of recent rough handling of their proud chiefs.

James mustered an army of over 40,000 but few of these were professionals (true of most armies of the time) but, more importantly, were given little training. Sensibly, James confined himself to capturing Border castles and providing a distraction from France. Henry had, however, anticipated even this; he drew his army in France exclusively from England’s southern counties. The Earl of Surrey had been left in the North: in response to the Scottish invasion, he mustered troops from across the northern and midland counties and by early September his army of 26,000 assembled at Alnwick.

When the two forces met at Flodden, James had chosen powerful positions on hilltops and Surrey was unable to persuade James to relinquish it at first. In a clever maneuver, he swung East, crossed the River Till and advanced on the Scottish rear. James reacted fast enough to this, pivoting from facing down Flodden Edge (South) to down Branxton Hill (North) in good order to again face Surrey.

Dr Pollard may be right in that few of the Scots soldiers had seen these 18ft pikes before but they should not have been ignorant of them. Since before Bannockburn, Scots lowlanders had fought in schiltrons. These were blocks of spearmen who operated much as the Greeks had fought—as a phalanx of spears. Not all Scots pikes were as long as 18ft but the principle of holding together and advancing as a hedgehog of points was fundamental. Each schiltron held thousands of men and was tactically a good defense against infantry or cavalry as several rows of spears protruded in front of the first rank. Only well directed fire from archers or artillery could reach in to decimate their ranks and break them up.

At Flodden, the Scots deployed two such schiltrons on the left under Lord Home (and led by the Lords Crawford and Errol) two more in the centre (Lowlanders under King James himself) plus a right wing of two Highland composite regiments under the Earls of Lennox and Argyll. Arrayed on a hilltop they outranged both English archers and artillery below: the position was effectively impregnable. The Scots had an array of artillery with them but were particularly ineffectual in their use.

Feeling that the English right under Howard looked vulnerable (they were Lancastrians not too happy to be there and Dacre’s English Borderers had yet to appear to reinforce them), Crawford’s schiltron marched down the hill “in good order”, was reinforced by Errol’s and appeared close to success when Dacre appeared and his tough men soon created stalemate. Unaware of the event turning against Home the King, impatient to be in on the victory, led the centre schiltrons down, again in good order. But they ran into a ridge and a boggy area and so lost momentum before encountering the Earl of Surrey’s English centre. The English were also equipped with pikes and outmatched the Scots use of them—which may be where Pollard’s take comes from.

Decisive was the action of the English left under Stanley which included a particularly well trained regiment of archers. The longbow was no longer the secret weapon of Agincourt or Crecy but it still packed a punch. It allowed Stanley’s men to climb the hill under its steady fire to meet Lennox and Crawford’s Highlanders on more than even terms. The Scots battle disintegrated from its right wing. Despite the Scots infantry having insufficient training in use of the long pike and spear, it was the schiltrons of their left wing that had the most success and, had James been less impatient the in the centre, would have repulsed Surrey’s men had they simply stood their ground.

By staying on top of the hill, they would have been in a position to support the right and avoid the disintegration that flowed from there. For the period, a 18-foot spear or pike was still a formidable weapon if in the right hands and used en masse. That the Scots infantry were poorly drilled in its secrets lay more with James and his commanders than the poor troops whose grandfathers had long forgotten the teamwork skills that normally made a Scots schiltron a formidable fighting machine.

Rather than blaming the weapon, a proper analysis of Flodden would blame impetuous decisions that James made before he became the last British king to die in battle—along with twelve earls, fifteen lords, many clan chiefs and an archbishop, plus 10,000 ordinary Scots. This is around 1/3rd of Scots engaged and several times more than the 4,000 English dead—more than enough to affect virtually every family in Scotland and send a panic through the nation that didn’t properly die until the crowns were united almost 200 years later.

It seems the real explanation for the defeat lies in the peaceful, invasion-free century that preceded Flodden and ‘warlike’ Scots lost the easy familiarity with daily warfare that had once been so much a part of life. It also lies in the indifferent leadership from the bulk of Scots nobility and equally poor professionalism of their gunners. It is quite likely that the traditional schiltrons lost some cohesion as they descended the hill and the 18ft poles of their weapons may have contributed to that. But a major element of leadership in any military consists of playing the strengths and avoiding the weaknesses of the forces under command.

For all he had achieved in peace, James IV was simply not up to the job in war. He and 10,000 of his subjects paid the ultimate price.

Posted in Community | Leave a comment

Fog in Education; Continent Cut Off

Posted on August 7, 2013 by davidsberry

Tuesday was a big day for 151,000 expectant Scottish pupils who received their exam results—and very well they did too. Praise is due to their efforts, plus those of their teachers (and hopefully, most of their parents) to bring in a record set of results as these young people start gathering the qualifications that will launch them on their many, varied careers. Some of the achievements deserve noting:

  • The pass rate for Advanced Highers increased by two points to 82.1%.
  • For Highers, the rate increased by 0.5 points to 77.4%.
  • Intermediate levels one and two increased to 77.8% and 81.8% respectively.

All the way up too the Scottish Government, the praise for all this rolled in. Angela Constance, Minister for Youth Employment and the MSP for Almond Valley was obviously chuffed to bits:

“I am delighted that so many have come out with strong grades, leaving them well positioned for whatever they choose to do next. The exam pass rates are building on a solid record of achievement, meaning that today is a time for celebration.

“Record pass rates in a set of rigorously assessed exams confirm Scotland’s strong record in attainment and I wish the class of 2013 the very best of luck in their next steps, be it another year in school, or moving on to college, university, training or employment.”

But good news and fine achievement though all this is, some alarm bells ought to be ringing among the more thoughtful pedagogues in Scotland—if not Mike Russell’s—just how focussed these results are on “their next steps”, especially when compared with our continental neighbours, with whom we could be in even more bare-knuckled competition, should the 2014 referendum choose ‘Yes’.

Firstly, of the 64 subjects offered for examination, only nine were foreign languages. Take out the handful doing Greek (8) and Latin (238), you are left with the  bulk doing European languages —French (4,236), German (1,050), Spanish (1,645) and Italian (238)—and a risible number doing languages likely to dominate the non-English-speaking huge majority of the world this century:

  • Urdu (109) —or 0.072% of all pupils
  • Chinese (66) —or 0.043% of all pupils
  • Russian (36) —or 0.023% of all pupils
  • Portuguese (0) —(’nuff said)

In other words, Scotland has just graduated a generation of our brightest kids with barely  one in one thousand able to speak ANY language of the BRIC countries. Were we an inward-looking country, more concerned with our own culture, this dereliction might seem more understandable, even as it was inexcusable. But, for all the stushie about Gaelic learning, dual road signs, kilts, heritage and the entire BBC Alba channel dedicated to the language, a mere 236 passes in Gaelic—either native or learner—were achieved. That’s a risible 0.15% and means Gaelic continues in decline as far more speakers than that died last year.

But to more substantive subjects. While there is every reason to study and lead successful careers in vocational subjects, they tend not to be the subjects leading to business and technical innovation that, in turn, furnishes economic growth and wealth for all. The 20,633 in Mathematics, 14,088 in Biology, 10,001 in Chemistry and 8,788 in Physics look like solid numbers—until you realise that this represents only 13.66%, 9.32%, 6.62% and 5.81% respectively. The next Stephen Hawking may be in there but the probability is low, purely because of the low numbers. Even more alarming, the proportion taking these subjects continues to fall.

This is not to say those now qualified in History (10,337), Modern Studies (8,027), Physical Education (6,883), Art & Design (6,493), Religious Moral & Philosophical Studies (4,136) Psychology (3,370) or Drama (2,638) will not to go on to fulfilling lives in financial comfort. But—Richard Branson and Michelle Mone notwithstanding—they are unlikely to win contracts for the Wood Group or discover the next superconductor.

But, rather than those thousands listed in the last paragraph all wanting to be the next Tom Devine or Chris Hoy or Gerard Butler, there is a terrible suspicion that many take such subjects—rather than science-based—because they are easier (quite apart from being cool). And the great pressure on pupils, teachers, examiners and government alike is to get more passes. The subject and its relevance to the future have become secondary considerations.

And the sad thing is that the mutually supporting conspiracy listed can get away with ignoring what goes on elsewhere. Between a residual hubris that the Scots have the best education system in the world and our tendency to compare things with the English (who have, incidentally been waking up to smell the 21st century coffee), we verge on being pig ignorant of the educational strides being made elsewhere, still less appreciating what that means for our own approach.

This blog has already pointed out the educational achievements in Singapore and Scandinavia but it is manufacturing giants like Germany that we need to consider if we are to compete globally in quality manufacturing. Rather than allow pupils to specialise after a couple of years of high school (and thereby get the chance to pick some ‘soft options’), the Germans insist on a suite of subjects.

After primary education, three basic options are available to German pupils. They may, after counseling by the elementary school teacher and upon the request of the parents, be placed in a Realschule, a Gymnasium, or a Hauptschule, the last representing a continuation of elementary education.

Those pupils attending the Hauptschule proceed with their study of language, arithmetic, geography, history, science, music, art, and physical education. After completion of a four- or five-year program of studies at the Hauptschule, the pupil typically enters apprenticeship training. This is not considered undesirable as skilled workers earn high salaries.

In Germany the term “secondary school” refers to institutions offering courses leading to the “Certificate of Maturity” (Reifezeugnis), a qualification for entrance to an institution of higher education. Realschule offers pupils further general education, some pre-vocational courses, and English-language study. At the age of 16, students conclude their program of studies and transfer to a vocational school or enter apprenticeship training.

If academically qualified, a pupil may also transfer to the Gymnasium. The Gymnasium, the third alternative for German youth, offers rigorous academic preparation for higher education. Like the lycée in France, the Gymnasium is designed for those students who have shown the most academic promise; and its curriculum, emphasizing languages, mathematics, natural sciences, and social sciences, requires a high degree of diligence throughout all of the nine grades. Unsuccessful students in the Gymnasium may be transferred to the Hauptschule. At the age of 16, moreover, pupils may terminate their academic studies and enter a vocational school.

This is not to argue that Scotland should immediately adopt the German system. But their acknowledgement of the difference of vocational training and its importance, that university education is both different from it and inappropriate for more than a relatively small percentage of students and the carrying of a broad set of subjects to the end of secondary school actually echoes Scottish education in its earlier days.

When did we adopt the English principle of mass university attendance when it would appear to serve both our young and our prosperity less well than what the dominies once dinned into everyone not so long ago?

Posted in Education | Tagged | Leave a comment

Let Me Tell You How It Will Be

Posted on August 5, 2013 by davidsberry

Those who’ve been around long enough might recognise the title as the first line of “Taxman” in which Lennon/McCartney dipped their pens in vitriol and had a right go at HM Revenue & Customs the thick end of fifty years ago. The more clear-sighted of those arguing for independence have no truck with the similarly girning approach favoured by unionists, who would have us believe that the UK offers s sensible approach to taxation and our best bet for a prosperous future for all Scots.

Let us, in the interests of objectivity and reasoned debate, assume that this is not absolute, 24-carat bullshit and that the intervening half-century of opportunities to improve the tax system has not been frittered away by said unionists and look at some of the options afforded an independent country like Scotland. Were we Scots to take control of our own resources we could then adjust our own tax system to suit ordinary Scots and not the braces-snapping masters-of-the-universe who inhabit London’s financial centres. Such brash loadsamoney gents brought you both eye-popping fiscal idiocy of 2007/8 and the eternal 7-figure bonus—yet prosper, no matter how execrable the job they do.

Some options open to the first Finance Minister of an independent Scotland (my thanks for most of these ideas to the thoughtful and measured James Aitken).

  1. Value Added Tax. Currently still at a pip-squeaking 20%, this was raised from 17.5% by Alastair Darling in one of his first panic moves. Although food and children’s clothes still evade VAT and energy is only taxed at 5%, it is still a huge fiscal burden—as is VAT itself on the SMB forced to play taxman for the Chancellor. But if this were dropped to a low or zero rate for key areas desperate for relief and that would improve both employment and the economy—prime example is on home repairs and renovations (around 20% of Scotland’s currently stalled £10bn construction industry) that would be a shot in the arm to the SMBs who provide it—the revenue loss could be offset by hugely increased turnover in a matter of months, if not weeks.
  2. Charities. While there is no doubt that charities do superb work across the country and the selfless involvement of many volunteers save the state from having to spend huge amounts of public money, there are a number of cases where we are all being taken a len’ o’. Prime among these are private schools which duplicate the public system and contribute more to ossifying social mobility and preserving inequality than all the 700+ Lords (both hereditary and fabricated) put together. Almost 5% of all pupils in Scotland contribute £300m to 100 schools who avoid all tax. Similar unfairness is on display on every High Street where charity shops compete with ‘real’ businesses at discounted rates, yet support a complex management structure (including purchasing of new materials to sell) that pulls down some very nice wages while other shops go under: more than 50 charity Chief Executives pull down over £100,000 a year each.
  3. Financial Markets. Although Edinburgh remains an important financial centre, it does not boast an important stock exchange. Nonetheless, there is an opportunity to build of financial skills by restructuring our separate Companies House, Stamp Office and Registers of Scotland and combining this with a financial transaction tax (currently under consideration within the EU) to both facilitate ordinary trades and to put a brake on profitable artificial shuffling of funds done by the few in the know.
  4. Petrol Tax. This has been used as an infinitely elastic source of funds by successive UK governments under the devious guise of a ‘green’ tax. The distances involved in much of Scotland has meant it has been proportionally unfair for those living in the more remote parts where competition among petrol suppliers is non-existent. Replacing it with a real ‘road tax’ that charged for congestion and busy times but was much lighter for off-peak or little-used road travel would decongest town centres, boost public transport and be entitled to real green credentials all in one fell swoop.
  5. Local Taxation. After the Poll Tax debacle we have struggled along with the pig’s breakfast of council tax that is badly regressive and not fit for purpose. Each government has shied away from making another ‘poll tax’ mistake. The idea of a Local Income Tax has merit but still doesn’t address the anomaly of large property and/or holdings so rampant in Scotland. A combination of a basic charge for services with graded taxes on income AND property held would be fairer, especially if second homes attracted additional taxes and surcharges for non-Scots residents were punitive. The resulting span would be far wider than the narrow ‘bands’ give just now. (A suggestion how this might have an intermediate stage of a fairer council tax was outlined here last September in Ma Faither’s Howff.) This has the secondary benefit of supplying closer to 40% of a council’s funding under its own control, allowing local decisions to be less affected by centrally held purse strings.
  6. Tax Avoidance/Evasion. Perhaps the gnarliest of the problems facing a Scots Treasury would be the extent to which it is bound to England (through using the £?) and its quaint tolerance of tax sleights-of-hand available to current UK companies via Jersey/Isle of Man/Cayman/etc-based subsidiaries. Maybe the best way to beat them is to join them. What if, in order to persuade them not to pursue their own independence, the new Scotland set up Orkney and Shetland as new energy-based financial centres with their own investment incentives and corporation taxes?
  7. Energy Advantage Subsidy. Just as the Chinese government has provided major incentives to a range of solar cell companies for a long-term solution to its horrific carbon footprint and endless demand for energy, what if the Scots government used a chunk of the oil tax revenue to incentivise European neighbours to buy Scots-generated green energy, to participate in a North Sea distribution grid to assist in its distribution and to install Scots-built wind, wave and tide farms in countries too far away from the North Sea to benefit from the first two. By becoming the powerhouse of Europe, we would secure a better future than rich countries of the Gulf—unlike oil or gas, wind/wave/tide never run out.

Let’s see what Taxman Mr Swin-ney can make of it—when he gets a chance

Posted in Commerce, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Why I Live Where I Do

Posted on August 4, 2013 by davidsberry

Such a question would need little explaining, had you shared with me the trips we made out to the islands on Friday. I have been doing guiding on various boats for a number of summers now, this season for the Seabird Centre again. There are also trips available on the more traditional Sula II. It’s not full time, as I don’t want to take anyone else’s livelihood away so ask to be called in mainly as a relief. But, such is my enthusiasm that I am often embarrassed by tips and, since I don’t do it every day, every trip always gifts me something new to see and feels like I’m stealing a holiday.

Though not everyone’s cup of tea, I prefer crewing one of the RIBs than the more staid & stable Seafari Explorer. The RIBs will do 30 knots, although we didn’t get near that as the wind was strong out of the Southwest and spray would have drenched the passengers. We hadn’t even started the 1pm trip before skipper Brian was called to stand by the Seafari Explorer that was assisting a yacht in trouble.

Seafari Explorer Atanding by Disabled Yacht

Seafari Explorer Standing by Disabled Yacht (The Lamb & Fidra in the Background)

Not long delayed  because the Explorer’s powerful twin engines was more than capable of towing the small 20-footer (although bringing her alongside the South Pier would prove tricky in the gusty wind), our trip round Craigleith was rewarded by numbers of puffins bobbing in flotillas and lining the skyline like would-be extras from Zulu all along the sheltered North side. 

Puffin Beside the Invasive Bass Mallow in Bloom

Puffin Beside an Invasive Bass Mallow in Bloom

Because of a bitter early Spring, puffins had arived late this year and so were a little behind schedule in leaving. The ‘puffin wreck’ of thousands of them all up the East Coast does not seem to have greatly affected numbers on Craigleith, which remain low at around 4,000 after losses due to Bass Mallow blocking their nesting burrows. Apart from a number of clumps at the western end (largely inhabited by gulls), this seems to have been mostly eradicated. 

Numbers for other auks like guillemots and razorbills seemed healthy this year but now that nesting has ended for them, it’s hard to judge as they are all dispersed to sea. Despite plunging stats from elsewhere (including Dunbar Harbour) the dainty Kittiwakes appear to be prospering here as good numbers still inhabit the cliffs (as well as clinging on in odd corners among the gannets on Bass Rock). Even the local group of harbour seals seem healthy and are often spotted bobbing in the lee or hauled out at low tide.

Two Young Harbour Seals Hauled Out at Craigleith

Two Young Harbour Seals Hauled Out at Craigleith

It often strikes visitors who come out on the boats just how teeming with life Craigleith is. Even with the auks soon gone, there are cormorants and shags in their glossy plumage, the occasional fulmar and (though not this season) a peregrine. This also surprises them on passage down to Bass Rock, where the density of skeins of gannets flying low over the water builds as distance shortens until the passengers realise that the white on top isn’t guano but gannets—almost 150,000 of them.

Nearby, there is usually a whirling vortex of several hundred offshore as they practice their fishing technique (few surface fish survive this close to their rock) and even more hanging in a thick cloud above the cliff-top on the windward side, getting buffed and honing their gliding skills to perfection. As the cliffs continue underwater, it is easy to approach the Bass in a boat to within almost touching distance. But so close up you lose the sense of how many blanket the top.

Sula II Approching the East Caves at Bass Rock

Sula II Approching the East Caves at Bass Rock

The rock itself is fascinating; the phonolythic trachyte that was flowing in the neck of a Carboniferous volcano as it solidified. In the intervening quarter billion years that is all that’s left of the original mountain, with the rest of the cone eroded away. On the south side is the only spot not vertical from the water; it offers two places to land. So this is where both the Lauders castle was built in the 13th century and the NLB lighthouse in 1902. It is also the last place left of any space on the mile-circumference island that is not entirely thick with gannet nests.

Straight out of Hitchcock: The Steep Southern Slope of Bass Rock

Straight out of Hitchcock: The Steep Southern Slope of Bass Rock

Few first-time (& not many more several-time) visitors are not awestruck by the whole experience—so much wild nature so close to civilisation and accessible so easily from Scotland’s capital. For myself, I’ve clocked hundreds of such trips down the years and  have yet to lose the excitement of it, because the weather, the tides, the sea state and especially the ever-changing inhabitants make each visit memorable for different reasons.

It has been so for hundreds of years. St Baldred used it as an inspiring retreat; James IV coveted it and, after a visit around 1500, Hector Boce, first Principal of Aberdeen University wrote:

“Ane wounderful crag, risand within the sea, with so narrow and strait hals that na schip nor boit bot allanerlie at ane part of it. This crag is callet the Bas; unwinnabil by ingine of man. In it are coves, als profitable for defence of men as [if] thay were biggit be crafty industry. Every thing that is in that crag is ful of admiration and wounder.”

Posted in Environment | Tagged | 2 Comments

The Unsinkable Alison Hunter

Posted on August 2, 2013 by davidsberry

While politics may be all about people, to the ordinary mortal just trying to get on with life, politics’ more rarified reaches can seem an evil concoction of rampant ego, unjustified ambition and the morals of snake oil salesmen. Many of us share the disappointment that the Scottish Parliament still echoes to the plodding salvoes of party-political bigotry and unenlightened point-scoring.

Perhaps this is an inevitable development around the sources of power, where survival and the retention of influence rank high on the priority list. But there is another, largely hidden part of politics populated by regular folk, where people stand on doorsteps or in high streets or against pub or cafe counters and talk to each other. And, however gradually or seemingly trivially, when small things get done, they matter to people.

This is the unglamourous end of politics—the bit they never show on telly, the bit that reporters ignore because it is too mundane. But it’s also the bit that matters to people. Wave a £167bn annual budget deficit in Joe Punter’s face and he will shrug at its sheer abstraction. Tell him we’ve found the money to get his gran some day care or a safer road crossing for his kid’s route to school or a house for his teenage daughter and things get closer to home.

Politicians typically do busy themselves in this less glamourous end but usually because they have little choice; hard work and diligence will get them known to the point that get elected to things and weel-kent so that they need not pay such dues any more. But there are exceptions—rare people for whom the limelight itself is a distraction from getting on both with people and towards your own cherished goal.

In two decades of activity in the SNP, I have been privileged  to meet such people. To be fair, not every one of them was SNP. But the dark days of relative obscurity that followed 1979 forged such a hardy breed on nationalists that a conviction and selfless dedication to what they believed in carried them through long years languishing out of favour and precious little chance to even make any progress—let alone achieve success.

On July 23rd, we lost the best example of exactly that tireless selflessness that it has been my privilege to meet. In my day, I have known several seminal nationalists now sadly passed on: Billy Wolfe and I set up a branch together; Allan Macartney was a driving force in creating the local Saltire Centre in Athelstaneford; Neil MacCormick was a fount of sage advice as an MEP when I spent time in Brussels. But, fine though they were, none were simultaneously both influential and yet so little known outside the SNP as Alison Hunter who died that day.

Never falling into the trap of some spads in becoming the story herself, it was Alison, as Director of Organisation, actually made the SNP capable of meeting the far harsher challenge of success, as compared to languishing in oblivion. Though I can’t claim to have really known her personally, the unparalleled standing she had among the backbone of the party makes me wish to make my contribution to her memory, however imperfect.

Her ubiquitous positive influence was on show at her funeral in the packed Govan Old Kirk yesterday (Aug 1st). Everyone—from leadership to leafleter—had their fond memory and their own story to tell about Alison. My own was, after having first met her at the old SNPHQ on North Charlotte Street to buy leaflets, badges and other campaign paraphernalia for our new branch, I presented canvass results for a half-dozen streets, half-expecting praise for my initiative. Alison looked at the three sheets, fixed me with her classic teacher stare over her glasses and said: “Well…It’s a start”.

Very private about her family, Many of us wondered how she held that part of her life together. At a time when there were only three SNP Councillors in Glasgow, her Tantallon Road home became the de facto distribution hub (and thereby social centre) for West Central Scotland. Yet, swinging by the Edinburgh HQ to pick up this or that after business hours, as often as not you’d find Alison presiding at her desk with the same authoritative presence she displayed in the field. Though fit enough from all the ground she covered, she was potent rather than petite and used her unarguable presence adroitly. Of the two kinds of leaders: those who tell you they’re in charge and those who just obviously are, Alison simply exemplified the latter, with an approachable, matronly style. such as made ‘Bella’ Goldie popular.

Not for her the schmoozing of funders such as Business for Scotland: her finest hours were in the committee rooms of the various by-elections of which she took charge, she was always first there to set them up and the last to leave. My own first taste of her team-building abilities were during the Monklands and Perth Westminster by-elections but especially the sprawling North-East Euro by-election, all in the mid-nineties and two out of which were won. Green new enthusiasts were found squads to work with; leaflets bundled with maps and job sheets appeared whenever a squad returned and had warmed up with coffee; canvassers found themselves pre-briefed and de-briefed so that current issues and positions kept anyone chapping doors as effective as possible.

So many were the techniques she used that the whole passed into folklore. But Alison was modest in claiming authorship. The lesson on campaigning in tower blocks (start at the top and work your way down; it’s easier to run downstairs if you get a hostile response) she cheerfully credited to her predecessor. She would sternly lecture on how leaflets should be pushed all the way through letter boxes and, if other parties’ should be found hanging out, they were not to be removed. This was swiftly followed by a glance of innocence up at the ceiling, then “But, should they somehow fall out, that would be litter, which it would be our duty to remove” and left at that.

A roll-call of by-elections—Ayr; Hamilton South; Falkirk; Anniesland; Glasgow East all showed her at her doughty best, providing answers to every logistical and organisational problems that campaigning throws up, all under the unforgiving glare of public spotlight. Though she could often be found closing up one of the party’s favourite howffs at conference, she would maintain it was to ensure everyone else got to bed without incident.

Nicola Sturgeon’s superb eulogy of barely contained emotion provided a classic example of Alison’s competence/imperturbability. Showing up soon after 6am for polling day for the Anniesland by-election in 2000, Alison finds the locks to the rooms (in a shopping mall on Great Western Road) had been superglued by an opponent. As she contemplates this predicament, a bauchle wanders by and opines  “ye’ll need tae jemmy them open“. Alison fixes him with her best steely glare and answer dryly: “Well, I had worked that out for myself“. Whereupon the bauchle looks both ways and then produces a crowbar from under his coat to help her break in. Alison, veteran of Glasgow fauna and happy for her problem to be solved, never even blinked that anyone might be wandering around Anniesland with a crowbar at 6:30am in the first place.

AlisonH

While many fine people have contributed to the twenty years of advance in the SNP cause, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who, like a regimental sergeant-major forever stiffening the troops’ resolve, contributed more but was less well known by the public than Alison. She embodied the sheer conviction, guts and selflessness that turned today’s Scottish Government and the imminent independence referendum from dreams to realities. And, if the size of the group of Glasgow Labour councillors who attended were anything to go by, it is not just the nationalists who will feel the loss.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Jebel al Toliano

Posted on July 30, 2013 by davidsberry

TolianoFinal

(in a parallel universe not far away…)

Bzzz…zzzt…Ssshwweek…service of the BBC; here is the news. The confrontation on the Goodwin Sands over Sandwich Cricket Club’s insistence on playing its traditional ‘Low-Tide Annual’ cricket match there has caused another incident with Spain. When the vessel heading out to retrieve the two teams and spectators on Thursday 25th July was intercepted by a Spanish patrol boat operating out of Puerto Carnero, only intervention by HM Coastguard helicopters saved them from being swept away on the encroaching tide.

The Home Secretary has sent a strongly worded note to the Spanish Ambassador and process is being entered in the International Court in The Hague accusing Spain of irresponsible behaviour by a sovereign state in endangering the lives of citizens of a fellow EU member going about their lawful business.

Always claimed as a part of Kent and therefore British territory, the Goodwin Sands, which shift position with the strong currents of the English Channel, have been in dispute for the last four hundred years, since the Armada, blown North after their naval defeat at Calais, landed their 17,000 soldiers on the Isle of Thanet, which they occupied and claimed for Spain. Unable to be reinforced with a further 16,000 troops from the Spanish Netherlands under the Duke of Parma, they were unable to enlarge their bridgehead and a stalemate ensued over the next 15 years, with English and Spanish forces facing each other across the Wansum Channel. Peace only came with Elizabeth’s death and the accession of James I & VI.

Having lost Calais 30 years earlier and with strong Spanish forces now entrenched on both sides of the Channel, the English never felt in a position to retake Thanet, which the Spanish renamed as Toliano and maintained as a fortress by regularly dredging the Wansum Channel so that ships could pass right round.

As the years progressed, the Spanish governors of Toliano (unlike those across the Channel) ran an administration of religious toleration. In this, they were aided by the closeness of the CofE to Catholicism. This allowed them to avoid the unrest that swept the Netherlands out of Spanish control by 1648. The then-isolated province provided a well-placed entrepôt for a third-rate Spain to participate in the booming trade enjoyed by ports in the Thames and Low Countries, much to Spain’s advantage and which continues today with the high-speed cross-channel ferry fleet operating out of Puerto Carnero to both France and Belgium.

In justifying the incident, Agencia EFE, S.A. in Madrid issued the following statement:

“The Government of Spain deplores provocative intrusions of English malcontents onto sovereign Spanish soil of its overseas province of Toliano, subversively timed for the Feast of Santiago Apostel holiday. With a history stretching back before there even was a United Kingdom, the people of Toliano see themselves as Spanish and inheritors of the historic greatness of Spanish culture, to which they have made their own contributions, such as Paella Puerta Maria (Margate-style fish stew—Ed.), Gadd’s Escalera beer and the Sound Island Festival.

“Our people are fully aware of the potential for renewable energy generation in the form of wind, wave and tidal that the 50 sq km of Goodwin offers and regard any intrusion, whether under guise of sport or not, to be provocation and attempted undermining of the rights and inheritances of Spanish citizens everywhere.

“Despite English harassment, such as random closing of the border at Wansum Channel and ignoring our legal rights, Los Tolianos will continue to resist any talk of return to English rule. To hold historic grudges for hundreds of years is surely a throwback to faded English imperial glory now long past.

¡Vivan el pueblo Toliano!”

Ssshwweek…Bzzz…zzzt…

Posted in Politics | Leave a comment

Chancellor or Chancer?

Posted on July 29, 2013 by davidsberry

Those looking for vilification of Osbo  can stop reading now. Though the poor schmuck has so far made a pigs ear of the best job he’ll ever have, it is a former holder of the post that is the subject. Alastair Darling is no dumbo. Often articulate, verging on the urbane, he cultivates the air of a professor of jurisprudence, perhaps so his practiced gravitas is received with the same earnestness as his delivery. Had he put similar effort into humour, he memory as the man who led our Bank Rescue Brigade charge into fiscal hell might be more fond. Instead, he was voted Britain’s most boring politician two years in a row

He has turned in respectable performances in tough jobs—for example his tenure as Minster of Transport (2004-8). Leave aside a (shared?) distaste for the Tory policy that created our rail network—it was Transport Secretary Cecil Parkinson who first formally committed the Thatcher government to privatise it but Brian Mawhinney only achieved it in 1994. Ropey franchises and the collapse of Railtrack after the Potters Bar tragedy saw the whole system come under critical public scrutiny. Given a brief to “take the department out of the headlines”, this is exactly what Alastair Darling managed, pushing though Transport Bills and creating Network Rail out of Railtrack’s ashes.

Less creditable has been Alastair’s lecture this month at Glasgow as Leader of the Better Together Campaign. I say that with every attempt to be non-partisan about it. Now published as a paper, in it, he starts with laudable intentions to put “the positive case” for the Union.

“It is that (positive) side of the debate I want to concentrate on. So I will not speak today about the weaknesses of the nationalist argument.”

But he can’t help himself; within a page of adhering to this, he lapses into:

“there is an alternative nationalist narrative to this– a romantic fable of how a small nation was first absorbed by its larger neighbour, and struggled to regain its identity. But just as nationalist sentiment ignores the reality of how we as Scots belong to the UK, so this childish tale ignores the reality”.

Rather a betrayal of intentions and not particularly edifying. But let’s make allowances for passion subverting (yes, even in Alastair’s case) objective judgement and ask: how well do his more tangible arguments and examples hold up?

On page 6 he launches into The Economic Case for the Union, kicking off with a table that shows Scotland’s exports—roughly £68bn, of which £46bn were with the rest of the UK. “It’s hard to imagine a world in which Scots cannot move with complete freedom to take up jobs elsewhere in the UK“he opines. Hmm, has he never heard of the EU’s free movement of labour, goods and services? Also, he implies that our 67% of exports going to England, remaining part of the same country is the sole sensible choice.

Then how then does he explain Canada? Of their $427bn in exports, $337bn (or 79%) go to their much larger neighbour. Is Alastair arguing that independent Canada is being foolish and the sooner their provinces become the 51st through 63rd states of the USA, the better? God bless Canerica, land of the free(ze)?

A main thesis is “For our young people, being part of something bigger means bigger opportunities.” Damn straight. But how can he claim that opportunity lies with the Union when the present UK Government—under fire from its own xenophobes—is making the UK the brat of the EU and may even withdraw from it? If we Scots want to be part of something bigger, why not the outward looking multicultural EU when England throws repeated hissy fits about immigrants and always argues London’s (vs Scotland’s) case?

On page 5 Alastair inserts a second chart. Apparently Scots exports to the EU stagnated in the last decade, while that to RoW/rUK grew. Trouble is, the Global Connections Survey 2011 he cites doesn’t back up his chart. Indeed, delving into the data, exports to the EU (Table 3) grew from £8.9bn to £11.0bn (or 24%) in the 4-year period to 2011, while exports to rUK grew from £41.5bn to £45.5bn (only 10%). Both contradict Alastair’s chart and his thesis about the relative importance of rUK exports.

In the same period, whisky exports jumped from £2.3bn to £4.0bn (or 74%)—with booming markets across the fast-growing BRICs. He may not have intended the irony but Alastair’s xenophobic UK could take a lesson or two in thinking big from the Scots and their global reach, rather than the other way round.

Then on pp 8-9 come the weirdest stuff of all—three charts showing Scotland to be richer than all but London and the Southeast and an assertion that the integration of Scotland into the larger UK economy laid the foundations for that. In 1776, that was undoubtedly true. But today? It takes a particularly blinkered type on unionist to ignore the close co-operation that is the norm (both here and in Europe) and expect malicious interference.

An Example of an EU International Barrier such as Scots Must Thole with Independence

An Example of the “Difficulty” of an EU International Barrier, such as Scots Must Thole with Independence

On pp 10-11, we turn to Financial Services, rightly highlighted as a key sector of the economy. We’ll gloss over the faulty job that Alastair and his Irn Broon predecessor did as Chancellors in policing the FSA and the out-of-control banks they were supposedly regulating. Alastair becomes quite stern and dominie-like when discussing alternatives to the present Union setup: “Borders matter, not only for highly regulated business  like financial services. An international border is more than just a line on a map“, he lectures.

Agreed entirely. But isn’t it just such borders that allow the Isle of Man or Jersey to run rings round HM Treasury and have outrageous per capita incomes from financial services? Has anyone asked the Jerseymen or Manx why they all oppose seizing Alastair’s ‘advantages’ and becoming fully part of the UK?

These examples are too close within in the Union you say? OK, let’s try the Cayman Islands where millionaires and offshore banking both do very nicely, using a mutually convenient link to the UK. On the other hand, none of Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Macau or Singapore have any particular relation with either the UK or the EU. But they all offer financial services and all rank near the top of the world’s richest nations on the planet. How can they possibly do that if Alastair’s right?

Changing gear to universities, Alastair has a valid point that Scottish uni’s attract 15% of Research Council grant funding, which means that £450m would be at risk, although we do already contribute 60% of that ourselves. But he then goes on to list achievements, including an international reputation bringing 30,000 students from 180 countries to Scotland and satisfaction ratings higher than England’s. Why would the Union be the only way to support, let alone improve on, such glowing statistics?

On macroeconomic issues, he argues:

“Economic union allows us to specialise  in the things we are best at and to take full advantage of the benefits of an integrated UK economy.”

Tell that to highly skilled workers at Rosyth losing major Royal Navy sub repair contracts to Devonport in the 1990’s (for pure political reasons). We already have different legal systems that undermine his argument for simplicity and—unless either country were to get stubbornly obstructive—could probably be better harmonised as independent states as both might take any such obstacle seriously for once.

And any panic about the pound is assuaged by simply using it. Many countries and the entire global oil industry (on which 14 countries with twice the US population depend) use the $ US and are therefore as dependent on the currency’s fortunes as the US itself. If using the £ sterling works for the affluent Jerseymen or Manx, why not Scots? On the other hand, 15% of the Scots economy (i.e. oil) is already denominated in $ US, so moving on to our own or another’s currency would be neither rocket science nor any real barrier.

Taken as a whole, this paper is disappointing—not because I instinctively disagree with his premise (that Scotland would be better off remaining in the UK) but because he makes a poor fist of marshaling positive arguments to back up his beliefs. Alastair and I agree this is a vital discussion. I have no doubt of his sincerity. But I had relished such a senior and experienced figure propounding substantive points to which I would need—assuming I could assemble them— hefty rebuttals. It cannot be just the faithful talking only to the faithful or one side denigrating the other as anti-Christ unbelievers. This oeuvre fails such tests.

As a man who made the trains run on time (even if the banks did get away with murder on his watch), Mr Darling easily has the stature to articulate the case for the Union and to expect the other side to treat it as a major contribution to the debate. In this, his paper fails, falling foul of a partisan interpretation of facts, ill-disciplined charts that fail to carry any point and a rather rickety use of statistics. It is more the musings of a chancer than a Chancellor.

 

Posted in Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment