No Future in the Past

Posted on July 15, 2013 by davidsberry

This weekend has seen a couple of unionists stick their head above the parapet with more style and conviction than seems to have been the case heretofore. In today’s Hootsmon, Brian Monteith makes the fair point that asking valid questions cannot be simply dismissed as scaremongering. He argues:

“Unionists should explain to the peoples of all nations within the United Kingdom that there are positive benefits from us living and working together and how there remains great potential for us going into an ever more challenging world supporting each other.”

Abso-bloody-lutely! But what Brian et al seem to sidestep is the question as to why this can only be achieved locked into the same state and why really important decisions need be taken 400 miles away by another country. Sensible and mature countries such as the Scandinavian group achieved their present enviable status, prosperity and reputation by doing just as Brian suggests but eschewing any political union, even after a millennium of tearing lumps off one another in the cause of imperial ambition.

He might also take a stab at explaining why the basket case of the Irish element of Britain should be the part that stayed in the union (as if current petrol-bomb riots were not reminder enough), in contrast to the blossoming and supportive relations that the UK enjoys with independent Eire.

Earlier on in the weekend, Alf Young had caught my attention in his opinion piece in Saturday’s edition of the same paper by citing a local hero of mine—John Major of Gleghornie, a noted Scots thinker of the 16th century who made it all the way to a top job at the Vatican at a time when there was no higher calling nor qualification as an internationalist. Alf poses a number of issues, beginning with:

“Mair asked what another St Andrews professor, Roger Mason, has called – pace Tam Dalyell – the East Lothian question. What, Mair wondered, was the practical value of independence for southern Scotland in particular in the early 16th century if the result was ongoing sporadic warfare, poverty and lawlessness? In 1521, in his Maioris Britanniae Historia (History of Greater Britain), Mair set out his answer.

“Kidd describes Mair’s answer thus: “An Anglo-Scottish union would achieve the same political benefits for Scotland as independence, as well as a range of social and economicgoods, which embattled independence on a small island shared with a much greater power had conspicuously not delivered.”

Apart from the rather slick pun that ‘Maioris Britanniae Historia’ can also be translated as ‘Major’s History of Britain’, Alf fails to outline the rather important context in which it was written. Seen thus, the oeuvre becomes more a shrewd diplomatic proposal to deflect resurgent English aggression after a peaceful and prosperous 15th century in both countries. Henry VIII opened old wounds by claiming to be overlord of Scotland, which led first to Flodden, then to his Rough Wooing. Major’s far-sighted but pragmatic proposal to avert this must be seen in this light.

Fast-forwarding 200 years to the Union of 1707, Alf disparages the negative mien in which independistas habitually describe it.

“For all the talk of rogues and traitors, there is another narrative. One about how Scotland flourished, in so many ways, from its 1707 political union with its southern neighbour. Our two big banks, one formed 12 years before, the other two decades after that union, certainly prospered over the next three centuries, until they crashed and burned, thanks to their own commercial excesses, in the banking debacle of 2008.

“Scots embraced the free trade area created by union and the access afforded to a burgeoning British empire. Glasgow became a great industrial powerhouse. Edinburgh, what the novelist Tobias Smollett called a “hotbed of genius”, the core of enlightenment thinking. As Alistair Darling reminded us, in his Glasgow University lecture on Thursday, one of the greatest luminaries in that world, Adam Smith, wrote in 1760 to his publisher suggesting that the union was a measure from which infinite good has been derived in this country.”

Accurate though this description may be, it again rather omits the context, as if the turbulent century of regal union that led to 1707 was not the unmitigated disaster for  once-proud and supposedly equal Scots that the carpetbagging of their monarchy for richer climes turned out to be.

What Alf fails to mention is a brutal choking-off of any Scots entrepreneurial spirit prior to 1707, as Scots ships were forbidden to trade with English colonies. This culminated in the shameful hostility of the English colonies—especially Jamaica (with full support from London)—towards the Scots’ 1698 attempt at a visionary, if foolhardy, investment of a quarter of the nation’s capital in Darien, from which little of value was recovered.

As if such a parcel were not rogues enough, in the resulting national bankruptcy of almost all the 600,000 Scots of the day, an influential few—Queensbury and Seafield to the fore—made good their losses by selling out their influence in a doomed Scottish Parliament. Negotiations had far more to do with ensuring Hanoverian succession to both thrones and the exclusion of any Papists from such office than either the welfare of Scotland or the rights of its people. Parcel indeed.

Henry VIII launched England on 400 years of stroppy, bombastic imperial aggression that those nations who share these British Isles have since accommodated as best they can. Scotland adopted the “if-you-can’t-beat-‘em-join-‘em” approach. Both Brian and Alf have broken fresh ground (for unionists) by citing examples in our history that they see strengthening their case—rather than scaremongering. Fair comment. And for this breaking of rather over-ripe moulds, they are to be congratulated.

But what we Scots really need are cogent arguments for the future—how spending billions on Son-of-Trident or HSR2 or the next Afghan War (we’ve had four) would benefit Scotland. And, since England’s resources are now demonstrably insufficient to match such continued overweening ambition, they might also construct a plausible argument why 2014 is not a sensible time to revisit Scotland’s 1707 Hobson’s Choice.

Posted in Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Notes from the Imperial Capital

Posted on July 13, 2013 by davidsberry

The month’s hiatus in posting is not explained by a week’s trip to London to meet up with some very good friends from the States—but there was little chance to ruminate in the hectic that passes for life dahn inna smoke. (The hiatus was  from having temporarily run out of things to say: it’s hard to enjoy  summer and feel like a good girn at the same time). Given the place was splitting at the seams with tourists, I must say that the old girl is looking good.

Never having spent a week living in Soho before, I don’t have the chance to compare apples with apples but I found the place to be jumping. Whereas in the sixties, it was seedy and even by the eighties it had a run-down feel, this time between Soho Square and Covent Garden there was a cosmopolitan, a selection of shops and eateries, a fashionably  youthful va-et-vient that puts anywhere comparable I’ve seen—Greenwich Village, the Sixiéme’s Cherche-Midi or San Francisco’s Marina—on notice about being THE place to live. It seemed an anachronism to find two-century-old Rule’s still there on Maiden Lane.

And, rather than me-too malls of sameness that drain even historic town centres of their soul (Winchester was such a disappointment on July 5th, despite that launching its city festival) Soho has found the wit and diversity of a genuine lively city centre. And, unlike the weekend mausoleum that is The City, despite its shitload of shekels, this is a 24/7 operation that bowls on through the weekend. From Pain Quotidien on Wardour down to Polpo on Maiden Lane, everything was quirky, busy and good. Dim Sum at the Golden Dragon on Gerrard St was awarded top marks by my fussy, oriental chef American buddy.

Everything else seems to have ratcheted its game up a notch. From the fast cat ferries that now ply the river to the slickness of the Churchill War Rooms displays and even the relative ease that Congestion Charging has made of driving about (not to mention the slick east/west passage of Upper/Lower Thames Street) London may not have solved its traffic problems. But much pedestrianisation, Barclay Bikes, hundreds of rickshaws and a clear secondary priority for cars in many areas means what was once traffic-snarled hectic has become more lively and even livable.

Though Islington remains a yuppie epicentre; though both Harrods and Fortnum & Mason still rule their ordained roosts; though the King’s Road is as pricey & fashionable as ever, the part that took my heart was the rather funky corner called Borough where, aside from the cosmopolitanism from students at the Kings College campus, yer actual Cockney locals seem to have a thriving and stable community. And—if the waiter at Terry’s breakfast place on Great Suffolk St and the Rastafarian mechanic at Carpoint car hire on Borough Road are anything to go by—their mordant humour is thriving too.

Though I did get out of the city and, having evaded the worst that the M2/M25/M3 could throw at me, I do throughly recommend The George Hotel’s seafood plate in Odiham (followed by plum-sized cherries from the stall across the road), the sheer joy of driving the Sussex weald along the A 272, the quirky charm of Canterbury and all that it has preserved over a millennium (c.f. lost-the-plot Winchester mentioned above), the ebullient joy of London will be what I remember best from this week.

That and the terribly isolated look that Westminster now has with its anti-ram barriers in place and Portcullis House looking for all the world like a prison from the future. Which, in many ways, it is.

Posted in Community | Tagged | Leave a comment

A bridge named after a woman? Yes!

Posted on June 7, 2013 by davidsberry

Forget the gender: this has been Margaret’s Crossing for the last eight centuries and such acknowledgement is long overdue.

burdzeyeview's avatarA Burdz Eye View

There are only 18 hours of voting left in the public consultation to “name the bridge”.

To show its inclusive credentials – or at least, so it doesn’t have to shoulder the blame for giving it a daft name, which is good politics – the Scottish Government through Transport Scotland decided to ask the public what the new forth crossing should be called.

Let’s not rehash the arguments over whether it should be being built at all.  Like many, I had my doubts and if I’d had the choice, might have opted for a ferry or even a tunnel.  But a bridge is what we are getting.  So let’s use it to make a statement.

In recent weeks, there has been much documenting, particularly as part of the great campaign to have Mary Barbour honoured publicly in her home city of Glasgow, of the lack of public acknowledgement…

View original post 704 more words

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Phew! Water Scorcha!

Posted on May 27, 2013 by davidsberry

After waiting for weeks for some weather we could fool ourselves was summer, East Lothian finally had two days of splendid stuff delivered with perfect timing over the Whitsun bank holiday weekend. In North Berwick, it was clear blue skies, trainloads of visitors, barely a breeze so the azure water was covered in boats and Luca’s ice-cream man was rescued from overwork by scraping empty every tub he had with him. The only people looking dejected were five Finnish ladies who had budgeted only a hour to visit us and had to climb back on the train to make their flight back to Helsinki.

From Falko’s Konditorei to the sun-soaked patio of Tyninghame Old Post Office, there were no tables to be had, the Community Centre was a zoo with a packed car boot sale mixed with a most elegant wedding at Our Lady Star of the Sea right across the road and the trip boats were running extra trips into the evening to cope with demand. Great stuff—and long overdue.

Which makes SEPA’s timing of water quality announcements all the more apposite. Coming, as they do, at the opening of our bathing season (which down our way embraces; surfing, scuba, kite-sailing canoeing, yachting, dory racing, wake-boarding seasons and lots of people getting wet besides swimmers and paddlers),  the timing could hardly be better and, best of all, the details make terrific reading.

Official European Water Quality Ratings for East Lothian Beaches 2013

Official European Water Quality Ratings for East Lothian Beaches 2013

The Forth Coast shows Seton Sands to have passed but not reached the top rating, while Gullane Bents did not collect enough data to be rated. On the North Sea coast, Dunbar and Skateraw passed but not enough to get top grade. But here on the coast of the North Neuk, our entire stretch—from Yellowcraig to Seacliff—received top rating, which is all the more encouraging as the middle two are right in town: North Berwick Bay and Milsey Bay. But don’t just believe the bureaucrats at SEPA; come and sample for yourself.

Quarrel Sands—One of Our Pristine Secluded Beaches

Quarrel Sands—One of Our Pristine Secluded Beaches

Posted in Environment | Tagged | Leave a comment

Grrrr! Feck!

Posted on May 26, 2013 by davidsberry

Of all the endeavours of government, the one that affects everyone and that for much of their lives—whether for themselves or for their children—is education. We may spend more money on health but a significant number of us never go near the health service, while many others use it as a breakdown service for bodily functions. But though health spending in the UK tops out at over £120bn each year and is beaten both by pensions and by welfare, education is not far behind in fourth place and around £118bn.

Education spending in Scotland this year will be just shy of £8bn or about £1,500 for every man, woman & child in Scotland. And, in case you think that’s not enough money, that sum has doubled since the Scottish Parliament was established. And, in that time, there have been a number of laudable initiatives, including inclusion, the McCrone settlement on teachers’ pay and GIRFEC—Getting It Right for Every Child.

The problem is, though, that despite getting all this attention and money, and despite slowly improving exam results, all is not well in Scottish Education. In fact, we have a number of mutually contradictory facts being slung about, partly by vested interests like government and opposition spokespeople and teaching unions and partly by business who staff up on the fruits of education’s labours. Teaching unions extol our quality; business complains of innumerate school leavers with atrocious communication skills. Most telling are the more neutral observers, such as PISA (Programme on International Student Assessment). They placed  UK pupils in 16th place in Science, 25th place in Reading and 28th place in Mathematics: soundly beaten by, among others, Hong Kong and Liechtenstein. And that’s before we even start on the UK’s miserable record of ability in foreign languages.

Now, had we ignored and underinvested in Education, we might thole such humiliation as our own neglectful fault. But in both Scotland and England, it has been the focus of fierce debate, not least because it is such a growing focus of public money in these times of economic stress. Not too much can be read into comparisons between Scotland and England as both have been fiercely proud of their independence and of the differing methods used north and south of the Border. But, putting it another way, they have both arrived at a the same miserable place by very different means.

Last Thursday, BBC Scotland’s Newnicht after a decade of schools development in England, latched onto the recently completed “London Challenge” as if this were some ‘magic bullet’ that Scots could fire to improve on their ongoing woes in school education. Flattered as I was to be asked on the programme, I was dismayed by the narrowness with which the twenty-minute debate was conducted. Much though I admire Gordon Brewer, it brought the sum of human knowledge little further and took me until now to calm down enough to write about it.

There seems no doubt that the London Challenge has been a success, especially in the more underperforming schools in the Imperial Capital. And , if there was a factor that made a difference in this ‘dahn saff’‘ it was teachers feeling empowerment and therefore engagement that made the difference. But what was unclear from the Newsnicht discussion was how this had been achieved. The difficulty, as I see it, is the old problem of blind men fondling an elephant and giving widely divergent reports.

So, smarty pants, what would YOU do to boost real achievement? My ‘Dozen of the Best’:

  1. Stop Treating Children Like Hothouse Flowers. While parents have every right to feel protective of their kids, they overdo it, freighting them to school by Chelsea Tractor any time it looks like rain. We should adopt Norwegian robust kindergartens where they are bundled up and out into the snow to play at age 3. They learn social skills, explore nature and develop robust immune systems.
  2. Start Treating Children Like People Early On. Many believe the most influentially formative years stop at age 7. Kindergarten and Infant classes should be small, stimulating and well supported for any child showing difficulty with learning & socialising. Infant teachers have a challenge to be so much more than just day care.
  3. Introduce a Foreign Language Early On. Doesn’t much matter which, as long as there is a sound basis on which to continue (e.g. town twinning; many Poles in town), although dauntingly difficult langauges like Mandarin make this more difficult. Real interactions with natives, news clips, media, etc essential to make it real/relevant.
  4. Get Back to Basics. One of the reasons British kids do poorly is their literacy and numeracy skills are shaky. Primary schools is where skills in spelling, punctuation, grammar and mental arithmetic should be grounded and built on. Like riding a bike, they are vital skills, useful the rest of your life, let alone in securing a job.
  5. Get Out of That Academic Rut. For decades, parents, teachers & governments have been colluding about exam results as if they were the only measure to value. While qualifications are important, take a leaf out of the German book where vocational, creative and sporting skills are all valued as much and a functional balance among all is regarded as the way to prepare young people for life.
  6. Everyone Isn’t a Winner. While care must be exercised dealing with fragile young egos, downplaying competitiveness (e.g. prizes) is delusional: not only does the world they will enter not work like that. But, if point 5 is properly addressed, there will be few who do not earn prizes in at least one area they are good at.
  7. Engage the Teachers as a Calling. There are plenty of good, dedicated teachers out there who engage with their charges, take on extra work, stay after hours. But you’d never know it from their unions. Of the ten reasons EIS gives to join, only one is about education; when you check their website for ‘policy’ most are political postures. We need the Finnish model where teachers are valued, autonomous, seen as royalty in society and consequently a hugely positive and productive factor in teaching Finnish kids (in PISA rankings: 2 in Sciences, 3 in Reading and 5 in Maths—see above).
  8. Cut the Cluster Some Slack. Rather than have local authorities steer details within each school, each cluster (secondary school, plus the primaries that feed it) should be managed both financially and academically as a single unit and given great latitude as to what they teach and how. Not just academic but vocational skills have differing use and importance all across the country.
  9. Get the Community Involved. We should have no delusions about the superiority of our education, having been overtaken by the English in terms of innovative thinking. Academies and Free schools may have been stealth measures for parent selection that don’t apply here but Scotland needs to learn from the London Challenge. By engaging the community, the extensive positive energy from parents and others can weave the school cluster into everyday life. Fundraising and interaction improves, support at home rises and even social problems minimise.
  10. Become a Part of the Real World. (and not just a Highers Factory). Take a lesson from the US where schools are involved in such pragmatic things as learning to drive or how to deal with their complicated voting system. There should be no need for local authorities to be running Adult Ed classes because schools should be doing this both as a part of being in the community and as a way of fundraising.
  11. Keep the Politicians At Bay. Not only are Education Committees rife with people with no qualifications but the bureaucracy at national level are forever foisting their latest fad in pedagogy on reluctant schools. As an example at the last Portfolio Questions at Holyrood (May 22nd) of the 22 questions almost all were local pork barrel issues or political grandstanding. Scrap any national curriculum: let schools have the initiative for once, which leads to the final and most crucial step:
  12. Shoot the Inspectors. With 12 years on an Education Committee and over 100 Inspection Reports under my belt, they were mini-monuments to conformity and clammy bloodsuckers on initiative. The Finns, among others, have done this. They maintain some rudimentary central awareness of what is going on across the country. But freed of the unconscionable volumes of time involved in inspection, imbued with a sense of self-worth and inspired to send their charges out towards the future as well equipped for life as they can, teachers there earn the respect and gratitude they once earned here—and could have again.

So, Mike Russell, are you growling/swearing or up for this? Are our front-line teachers, or for that matter the parents, ready to roll up their sleeves? Most importantly, are EIS, SSTA and the whole rest of the teaching unions who have been dictating an overly expensive education setup ready for something this radical? Or would they rather be remembered as an oatmeal-tie-and-baggy-cord-jacket reincarnation of the lost-in-last-century-thinking miners?

Posted in Education | Tagged | Leave a comment

Reassurance for the Feart

Posted on May 22, 2013 by davidsberry

While about one third of  Scots are clear they want independence and a similar number are clear they want to stick to nurse for fear of something worse, the final third has an open mind; they are looking for some kind of reassurance which option would make their lives and those of their children better. It’s not just about money but that is an understandably important factor. If you feel you belong in that third, read on.

This week, the Scottish government produced a paper putting the economic case for independence. Titled Scotland’s Economy: the case for independence, it says: “By international standards Scotland is a wealthy and productive country. There is no doubt that Scotland has the potential to be a successful independent nation.” The paper concluded that Scotland had “more than enough resources” if it had the powers of independence.

Launching the paper, First Minister Alex Salmond said: “Despite our strong economic foundations and excellent global reputation Scotland, with Westminster in control of our economy, is not reaching our potential as a nation and this report clearly lays out the ways in which UK government economic policies have not worked in Scotland’s best interests.”

Here, are the key points of the Scottish government paper:

Scotland can afford to be an independent country

The Scottish economy performs strongly on key indicators but there is room for improvement, the Scottish government says. In 2011, Scotland was positioned as the third highest region in the UK – behind London and the south east of England. Adding a geographical share of Scotland’s North Sea output increases Scottish GDP per head from 99% to about 118% of the UK average.

Scotland’s share of the UK national debt is lower as a percentage of GDP than the UK’s. UK public sector net debt at the end of 2011-12 stood at £1.1 trillion (72% of GDP). Scotland’s per capita share would have been equivalent to £92bn (62% of GDP). Scottish exports (excluding oil and gas) to destinations outside the UK in 2011 totalled £23.9bn. In the same year, a further £45.5bn of goods and services were traded with the rest of the UK.

Key strengths include the food and drink sector (18%), reflecting high demand overseas for Scottish whisky.

Scotland has enormous potential

In oil and gas, Scotland is estimated to have the largest reserves of oil in the EU, accounting for 60% of the EU total. There are estimated to be up to 24 billion barrels of oil to be extracted from the North Sea. In 2011, oil and gas production contributed £26bn to Scottish GDP.

Analysis by Prof Alex Kemp of Aberdeen University estimates Scotland’s share of UK offshore oil production at 96% and offshore gas production at 52% in 2011. This resulted in Scotland accounting for an estimated 78% of total UK hydrocarbon production in 2011.

In renewables Scotland has 25% of Europe’s offshore wind and tidal resource and 10% of Europe’s wave resource. At this time, there are more wave and tidal power devices being tested in the waters off Scotland than in any other country in the world. It already generates more than one-third of our electricity needs from renewables, including hydro power.

Turnover in our food and drink reached £5.38bn in 2011. and Scotland is now the world’s third largest salmon producer. In fact, Scotland lands 60% of the UK’s fish and has more than one quarter of the UK’s beef herd. When it comes to whisky it is reported that 40 bottles of the spirit are shipped overseas each second.

Scotland is internationally recognised as the most important UK financial services centre outside London and the south east. The tourism industry in Scotland employs almost 200,000 people. Our creative industry sector has a turnover of £4.8bn. Scottish art, film, fashion, music and literature are well recognised, as are Scotland’s design, IT and computer gaming industries.

Scotland has a strong digital and ICT sector, employing 47,000 people. In 2012 the life sciences sector provided employment for about 32,500 people in 650 companies and organisations. The related area of medical technology and pharmaceutical services has also shown growth.

Status Quo not working

The Scottish government says: “The one-size fits all policies implemented by the Westminster-based UK government are not generating the growth or delivering the social cohesion that Scotland should be enjoying.” Work carried out by the Scottish government’s Fiscal Commission Working Group concluded: “It is widely accepted that, in terms of economic growth, Scotland has underperformed relative to both the UK and other small EU countries.”

The Scottish government says the current constitution arrangements do not allow economic policies to be tailored to the challenges faced in Scotland. This puts Scotland at a disadvantage and is also evident in the divergence in performance of the economies of other regions within the UK in relation to London and the south East.

It argues that the UK is the fourth most unequal country in the developed world. As well as limiting the potential and prosperity of individuals, such inequality is bad for our economic health. Inequality is estimated to be slightly lower in Scotland, but is still too high, the report says.

How independence will strengthen economy

The paper says: “Our ambition is for an economy that is diverse and grows sustainably, with high value jobs that pay decent wages, leading to greater equality of income and wealth and a higher degree of social cohesion.” It adds: “This paper is not intended to be a policy manifesto, but it does set out the evidence that small economies perform well and that independence, within a continuing currency union, would give future Scottish governments the powers to address the imbalances and inequalities that inhibit economic growth.”

The Scottish government believes that it is in the interests of Scotland, and the rest of the UK, for an independent Scotland to share the pound within a monetary union after independence. It admits a currency union would provide some constraints on deficit levels and debt levels.

But it does not believe a currency union would “seriously inhibit the policy freedom and flexibility of an independent Scottish government”. It says it would instead ensure and promote overall financial discipline.

The lack of policy levers has constrained the ability of Scotland to perform as well as it could have over the past few decades, says the Scottish government. The paper provides a list of fiscal levers that could be used to boost growth, address inequality and stabilise the economy. These include:

  • Oil and Gas Taxation
  • Excise Duty
  • Value Added Tax (VAT)
  • Air Passenger Duty
  • Capital Borrowing
  • Welfare and Social Security
  • Corporation Tax (base and rate)
  • Public Sector Pay/Pensions
  • Capital Gains Tax
  • Rural and Environmental Taxation

Anyone who watched the first programme of Nick Crane’s Town series on BBC2 on May 21st will have been struck how Oban—once a remote and rather second-rate transit point for ferries to the Hebrides—has reinvented itself as a quality food, watersports and outdoor vacation destination. Instead of following any Central Belt model, it has invented its own and it works. Anyone going there now who knew Oban in the eighties marvels at the transformation. Scale that up to a national level and you have Scotland with all its potential.

Posted in Commerce, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Diseconomies of Scale

Posted on May 21, 2013 by davidsberry

It is no surprise to seasoned nationalists that the Hootsmon is gradually ratcheting up the intensity of its doom and gloom forecasts as to how Scotland will land in the poorhouse if it has the gall to actually try to be independent of England. This week alone, Malcolm Rifkind was banging on about Scotland having ‘only’ 5,000 front-line combat troops available, the in-house hacks were puffing up the prospect of both HBOS and RBS having to leave the country and even well respected commentator Peter Jones was sucking his teeth over the prospect of pensions in an indy Scotland.

Now, having been defence secretary, Big Malky knows a thing or two about armed forces. What he didn’t say is that ‘only’ 5,000 troops make up eight battalions, or four times what the UK currently has uncommitted in its present global overstretch. That’s also almost twice the active infantry currently in the Scottish Division of the British Army. The problem with the unionist view is they see us as a mini-UK, throwing our weight around à la Falklands, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc; Scotland, while wanting to do its bit for UN peacekeeping, would have no such ambitions—and would spend half on defence per capita than we do now in the UK (roughly a £2bn annual savings).

Less easy to dismiss are the doom-and-gloom arguments of fiscal catastrophe, especially when people believe it will affect them personally. The scare of major employers like RBS heading South is real, especially as Alastair Darling glued HBOS onto Lloyds in a panic in 2007, with little thought of long-term consequences. Lloyds will certainly remain headquartered in London. But, unless there are sound fiscal reasons, why would they shift their HBOS management elsewhere?

The answer—as with so much in banking—is money. Or, more specifically profitability. Banks have major operations in Jersey and Isle of Man; it saves them money. They have myriad subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands; it saves them even more money. On the Continent you can drive through Liechtenstein in minutes but it is a major banking centre. Need I go on? Scotland only has to pitch its corporation tax a notch below the City of London and all sorts of banking operations would show up in Edinburgh. That, plus the headquarters would stay put for similar reasons—especially if we stayed in the EU while a xenophobe UKIP-led England retreated to sulk in the wilderness.

But Mr Jones’ points about pensions are less easy to dismiss. Indeed, though they should be taken entirely seriously, the first key point is that your pension is under threat whether Scotland stays linked to England or not. Such was the transformation of pension fund fortunes over the last 6-7 years that few would have forecast anything but sunny future before the financial crisis hit. And—here beginneth the First Lesson—that crisis did hit…and scuppered pension values right across the UK. Not much protection being part of this larger UK union, was there?

Then there’s the issue of affluence. If Scotland alone had a lower GDP and its citizens heading for retirement were entitled to funds based on a higher GDP, then payouts would be less affordable pro rata and the Scots Treasury would be harder pressed to ensure all got paid what they were due to them. This is the point being made over the Pension Protection Fund—some 25,000 of its 360,000 members being Scots—how can a small country carry such guarantees spread over far fewer companies?

That’s the Second Lesson. Scots actually make stuff and have fewer unemployed and more exports per capita than the UK. Also its ratio of PPF members is 0.5% vs England’s 0.67%, which makes our burden one quarter less with more prosperity to pay for it. Much more alarming is the public sector pension commitment which has ballooned over the last couple of decades as successive governments and council have bowed to public sector workers’ demands.

In two decades, public spending on pensions has gone from zero (i.e. self-funding) to £118bn. That means that Scotland will have to find £10bn each year just to make up the shortfall in funding of its public sector workers. In or out of the Union, the problem will be just as big—except that Scots could choose to confront this elephant in the room once independent. Labour would never touch this with a bargepole (they largely created it under Irn Broon’s supposed ‘prudence’) and the Tories have simply shied away. But a determined Scottish government with a more robust economy to back it could do some renegotiation that at least prevented this from mushrooming further, such are the diseconomies of scale.

But the most thorny point raised about pensions is the EU law that requires any pension fund that crosses member boundaries to be fully funded. The Scottish Government argues that this cost can be spread over a transition period of several years. I tend to agree with it, that this and other cross-Border problems can be dealt with, and it would not be in the UK government’s interest to be petulant about it.

What no unionist seems to acknowledge is that ‘only’ 5m Scots would have a booming oil business that, relatively speaking would be ten times the present size, relative to the economy. That, the preponderance of export business, such as the £4bn in whisky, and the world-leading niche expertise in green energy and oilfield technology makes you wonder why shrewd investors are not betting on our advantage in diseconomy of scale already. With 2% of our population and 0.14% of our land area, how does Jersey survive?

There is no question a looming pension gap exists or that both England & Scotland must address it jointly or severally. But Scotland’s economy is better suited to finding its own solution than locked into the UK with its backward-looking governments and failed financial regulation systems.

An interesting prospect presents itself now that the Tories are running scared from their own backwoodsmen over Europe: what if Scottish independence and English withdrawal from the EU coincided? Then, not only would Scotland become the sterling bridgehead into the EU, but the pension funds crossing the border would no longer need to be self-funded as only one participant was an EU member.

Despite Farage’s obnoxiously small-minded politics, I’m sending him a tenner immediately; Scotland has bigger ambitions.

Posted in Commerce, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Must Justice Always Be Blind?

Posted on May 20, 2013 by davidsberry

“The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.”     —Aristotle

Tuesday May 21st sees a meeting of Holyrood’s Justice Committee that has serious implications for how the Scottish Courts Service administers justice. As part of the Scottish Government’s exercise in belt-tightening in these troubled times, the SCS has proposed closing 10 of the 49 sheriff courts around the country, with a heavy preponderance in South-East Scotland that would close Haddington, with all court business transferred to Edinburgh.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said the reforms were “justified” and claimed a £3m initial saving, with further annual savings of £1.3m. Duns and Peebles, along with three others, would also close, with business going within 20 miles. These five are justified in the SCS proposals by a “low volume of business”. On the other hand, Haddington, along with four others, is chosen because of “a close proximity to another”.  These are:

  1. Haddington transferred to Edinburgh (19 miles)
  2. Arbroath transferred to Forfar (15 miles)
  3. Cupar transferred to Dundee (14 miles)
  4. Dingwall transferred to Inverness (14 miles)
  5. Stonehaven transferred to Aberdeen (15 miles)

Drawing on the largest population and being shifted the greatest distance, there is an argument that Haddington should not be included in that tally. But far more cogent an argument is that real justice—the kind that is more likely to work than the more primitive and draconian form forced on cities by their greater social problems—will be lost.

Not only does East Lothian exhibit a very difference profile of crimes and criminals than does Edinburgh, they have been putting creative efforts into developing a better justice system through supporting community police officers, specialised police teams and their own squads of community wardens and ASBO officers that help cover  ‘nuisance’ crimes that are often overlooked in cities. As a result, crime statistics have been dropping faster in East Lothian than in Edinburgh and resident surveys show much smaller fear of crime.

Closing Haddington Sheriff court and mixing the magistrates there in with those in Edinburgh will result in Edinburgh-style justice. That may be appropriate in city conditions. But banging the boys up in Saughton, as opposed to placing them under close surveillance in a community that knows them and lets them get away with little, is not way to steer anyone—especially youth—away from a life of crime.

As an elected representative in the area, I am appalled that we might be about to unravel a decade of good work tacking crime statistics and especially nuisance crime, for which the police seldom had the resources to take seriously. In Haddington, it doesn’t even make economic sense as the court building is in desperate need of renovation and the burden with fall on the local council and what the SPS claims to save will simply move to elsewhere on the public purse.

The last chance to reverse this idiocy is by the Justice Committee meeting on the 21st. I have therefore written to its chair, asking for a more sensible approach to be taken and for the Justice Minister not to be blind enough to throw a healthy baby out with his cost-saving bath-water.

“Christine Grahame MSP, Convener, Justice Committee.

“The Scottish Court Service put out a consultation about the provision of courts around the country. As an elected member of East Lothian Council with 14 years of service and chair of my Community and Police Partnership, I object to any decision to close Haddington Sheriff Court because it does not meet the requirements of local justice.

“Local justice, as provided at Haddington, cannot be replicated in Edinburgh any more than policing appropriate for Edinburgh can be applied here. Not only are crime and criminal profiles very different but our more flexible, hands-on approach to minor infractions, using community officers, community wardens and our ASBO team has, over the last decade, been developed with support from both sheriffs and JPs who understand our need for subtlety and understanding.

“When Leader of this council, I was at pains to ensure development of a strong and effective team to steer those committing misdemeanours—especially the youth element—into more reasonable behaviour. Knowing how much police time such activities takes, we funded additional local police teams, plus our own warden squad to work with them and argued for long appointments for our community constables.

“All this was underpinned by a sheriff court that, knowing what we were trying to achieve, acted sensitively in similar spirit. Our mode of working is yet, unknown in Edinburgh and their courts have no experience of the subtleties involved. Our sharply falling crime statistics in East Lothian will be jeopardised by the loss of the sheriff court element of our effective local justice and undermine much good work done.”

Yours

David Berry, Councillor, North Berwick Coastal

Posted in Community | Tagged | 2 Comments

A Funny Thing Happened…

Posted on May 16, 2013 by davidsberry

…on my way to the internet. Having an eclectic wander, as I often do, in a (frequently fruitless) search for new ideas—especially from the many sides of the independence debate, I came across the following (no, not the Zen article but the ad in the lower right corner). And blinked, rubbed my eyes and still wondered if I was seeing things:

LabourAd

 

Disagree as I do with Labour over a number of things, I had held them to be a party of principle, from the dogmatic and partisan Jackie Baillie through the genuinely gifted Alexander siblings to the affably loyal, yet open-minded like Duncan Hothersall.

This ad may not be a first. But to anyone who has listened to Labour bang on about the preciousness of the NHS while dismissing anyone else’s claim to be as good a guardian for its future, this must rather reek of hypocrisy. It certainly sits ill with Gordon Brown’s speech to their part Conference in which he re-iterates their commitment:

“And now, as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the NHS, let me—on behalf of all of us here and all the people of the country—thank all the NHS staff: the cooks and cleaners; the paramedics and porters; the doctors and midwives and nurses.
You have served our country and served a great ideal: the principle that, in a fair society, health-care should not be a commodity to be bought by some but a right to be enjoyed by all. 

“Labour is the party of the NHS—we created it, we saved it, we value it and we always will support it.”

What is someone struggling to believe in them to think? It just doesn’t sit right, does it?

Posted in Politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Best-Laid Plans O’ Mice & Mair Mice

Posted on May 15, 2013 by davidsberry

In the magnificently ornate Surgeon’s Hall in Edinburgh, MacKay Hannah convened 50-odd professionals (oh, all right, anoraks) to discuss wur gubbermint’s out-for discussion National Planning Policy 3. The theme was the a drive towards achieving “economic growth and recovery in a low-carbon, sustainable Scotland”. Laudable stuff but after presentations from no less a personage than Derek Mackay MSP, Minister for Local Government and Planning and a dozen other presenters, I was little the wiser.

The problem seemed to be a combination of the scale of the topic under discussion and the narrow fields of view adopted by most presenters in order to make some element of it digestible. Thus while Dorothy McDonald of Glasgow and Clyde Valley Strategic Development Planning Authority spoke for half an hour on “Effective Housing Land Supply”, she managed to avoid mentioning the single most restrictive factor on such land supply for the past four years: the relative scarcity of capital and the paranoid husbanding of what little there is for their own purposes by the banks.

With the glaring exception of myself, everyone there seemed very comfortable and secure with the level of debate, so there is a case to be made that I have attained that irritable old git stage and am never satisfied with anything. Yet I could not help an impression that everyone in the planning business connects with their own narrow element of the process and clings on to it for dear life—a combination of the tale of blind men touching various parts of an elephant and the one about the Emperor’s New Clothes.

The Minister set the tone by rattling through what should have been a half-hour speech in half of that. He covered £10bn planned investment in 33 programmes and 54 investments; he covered fee levels; he outlined planning reform; he looked forward to carbon capture; national marine plans would follow this summer; our generating grid would be enhanced and international interconnectors built; vehicles would be converted to run green with recharge points on every corner; HS rail would come to Scotland and link Glasgow with Edinburgh. He did not hang about: it was Superman on speed…but without the cape.

Far be it from me to belittle ambition—regular readers of this blog will have ploughed through much optimistic speculation here over the past two years—but this was no realistic synopsis of what good planning could achieve for Scotland over the next decade; it was wish list as political statement and, as such, badly out of place in a public forum for knowledgeable attendees. You could tell Derek hadn’t written it: he barely looked up during the whole speed reading exercise.

Yet this set the tone for the other dozen speakers. Dave Gorman from SEPA launched into an Al Gore-(t)-esque diatribe of facts demonstrating the certainty of global warming and the urgency of green measures. He was particularly critical of the 300-year old building in whose glory we sat, disparaging it as a ‘stupid’ building that could not detect its occupants and therefore regulate heating and save energy.

If we’re bringing up the subject of environmental stupidity, home heating in Scotland produced 3m tonnes of carbon last year while cars were responsible for 15m tonnes. Perhaps he was unaware that, of the 22 SEPA offices across Scotland, only Perth and Thurso are within 5 minutes walk of a station and so over 95% of their employees and visitors make just as unhelpful a contribution to global warming as anyone else.

Given that so much of development (and therefore planning) is driven by money, particularly house developer money, I had hopes for Professor Duncan McLennan of the University of St Andrews. An economist-turned-planner who had spent time in charge of infrastructure projects in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, I had hopes he would bring the fiscal dimension into play. Even if he didn’t blame Mammon for driving quite desperate attitudes from the government to provide housing and turbines en masse, I had hoped he would introduce the need for weaving market forces into the fabric of planning so that local plans and financier ambition were not at loggerheads.

But not a bit of it. Paying what seemed rather wry dues to ‘Stalinist’ planning in Scotland (he was Donny Dewar’s special advisor in Infrastructure & Planning), he is convinced that planning can no longer be a concrete and space extension of social programmes but he called for a ‘multiscalar system’ even as he derided the ability of heavy investment in infrastructure to necessarily have a positive on growth. By the end of his slot, I was getting baffled by any relevance of economics in planning (and vice versa), even though their close connection is, to me, axiomatic.

The rest of the speakers were a mixed lot, from Government Chief Planner John McNairney who recited ambiguous platitudes in a manner that gave Nytol a run for its money, through Orkney & CoSLA’s Cllr. Stephen Hagen who made a decent plea for the consideration of small and remote communities by allowing them to take their own decisions as they best understand their circumstances. His assertion that Postcode Lotteries are not necessarily bad certainly struck home with me.

Best of the rest for me was Sinead Lynch of TPS Planning on Town Centre Strategies who deftly outlined the continuing problem, despite good intentions since 1986 to protect town centre vitality: since 2000 we still lost 44,000 shops and High Streets dropped below 50% of all retail space while out-of-town increased 30% in the same period. While she presented Livingston’s Almondvale as the most successful town centre, ah hae ma doots that building what is indistinguishable from out-of-town actually qualifies.

Most depressing was not the catalogue of unsuccessful retail areas that were both new and old town centres: Cumbernauld vied with Paisley; Glenrothes with Dunfermline for the most hopelessly catatonic; but the myriad of bodies set up to study/dissect/analyse and otherwise climb on the economic pathology gravy train of picking over the corpse of Scotland’s High Street. And while she cited NPF3’s “emphasis on the cities as drivers; we need a different approach to town centre revitalisation”, nowhere in the paras 42, 54, 57 or 67 she referred to does it provide a scooby HOW this is to be achieved.

Pardon me if you’ve heard this before but: “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Scots Planning law is currently hostage to housing developers who array QCs to frighten your average council. Council planning/legal officials, in turn, seek a quiet life leading to a fat pension and roll over at the threat of QC-tipped appeals at refusals. And a Head of Service explained (in writing) to me that there was no point in allocating land for business purposes as developers would always make more money from houses.

The current Local Plan for my council has no economic backbone, no coherent business promotion, nothing on infrastructure strategy, no settlement statements as to why towns exist (or reasons to continue doing so) and nothing resembling a travel strategy that could merit green credentials. It is merely a carving up of land forms into parts house developers may pillage and those they may not. Our one-time county Planning Hero Frank Tyndall must be spinning in his grave at his timorous inheritors.

And this is the real betrayal of NPF3, continued into this SPP3 ‘consultation’. It is the ambition of developers filtered through the jobsworth sticky fingers of centralising Victoria Quay bureacrats and topped with headline-oriented catch phrases from government ministers. If we want a vibrant Scottish economy, this is not the recipe. Derek may have sense and ambition but it’s obvious from this document and his speech that his Sir Humphreys and their minions have neither. A REAL planning framework would provide:

  • A requirement for each City Region and council to have an economic plan driving any spatial plans
  • Learning, for once, from others. Put people in cars and you erode community (Dalgety Bay or Penicuik mimic America’s failed tract homes). Make it easy to bus/train/walk and you will build community. Look what the Dutch have done; study why Munich is so much more of a success than its supposed twin Edinburgh
  • The flexibility to allow councils to group investment as they see fit and not blindly segregate business from retail from housing because it’s easier that way
  • Commitment from government to change major infrastructure decisions from headline-grabbing pork barrel to complement City Region priorities (Who said the Forth Crossing or the A9 were higher priorities than connecting the economic engine of Aberdeen with the miserable economy of Glasgow?)
  • Realisation that out-of-town and High Street retail are NOT interchangeable. Sometimes (like Stirling) they can coexist but look to Peebles or Pitlochry for the kind of retail that thrives irrespective or what’s out of town
  • Ensure professional and other jobs are provided premises close to High Streets so that towns retain disposable income to be spent there, which will also require…
  • Reclassification of both business and retail so that fertile combinations are encouraged (printers near lawyers; art shops near design studios) and an almost willfully blind attitude among planners (commerce is commerce) ceases: metal bashers belong in out of town industrial estates; retail outlets don’t.
  • Transport where the ludicrous lack of co-ordination among train and bus operators ends asap. Ticket must be for end-to-end journeys and not care which vehicle you use to get there (Europe has had this for the last 40 years)

None of this is yet evident in either government or council thinking. And until it does, this we-need-house or we-need-jobs myopia will be the 21st century equivalent of stupid 1960s we-know-best investment decisions that gave us Linwood, Ravenscraig, Wester Hailes, Craigmillar, Castlemilk and the Red Road flats we just demolished.

Forgive us, Frank, for we know not what we do.

Posted in Community, Environment | Tagged | 2 Comments