Tuesday 5 November
In the space of a week we have come full circle from Falkirk to Grangemouth to Falkirk, where there is every appearance of a Labour carpet being lifted and fall-out dust, 1,000 emails and a report being swept briskly under it.
Earlier in the week, commentators were still concentrating on Grangemouth – Peter Jones in the Scotsman thought that the First Minister had done well; he grasped the concept of global competition and the need for Unite to capitulate – “What the SNP Government did do was to demonstrate an ability to zero in very quickly on the real modern world problems based on the globalised economy that caused the crisis and to work on those issues rather than to some antique and irrelevant class- and identity-based theory.”
Naturally, Alan Cochrane in the Telegraph was not so fulsome – “some of the guff that has been trotted out by his seriously devoted fans has been truly hilarious. It is one thing to worship Wee Eck; entirely another to attribute to him superhuman powers”. Cochrane concedes that Salmond’s main concern was to save jobs, but it was also, he maintains a concern that “the effects that “Grangemouth No More” would have on his plans for an independent Scotland. Far from wallowing in the riches that a North Sea oil and gas bonanza would bring – an always debatable issue – it would be a bonanza that would have to be imported from England if there was no refining capacity in Scotland”.
Saturday’s Telegraph carried a full page interview with Ineos owner Jim Ratcliffe explaining why union relations with management were better in Germany.
However, as the Herald’s editorial pointed out on Saturday “What a difference a week makes”.
First details emerged of Unite’s flying ‘leverage units’ outside the homes of Ineos’ managers in Dunfermline and Hampshire. The Daily Mail was outraged, reprinting the union’s justification for leverage from its website.
Then came the Sunday Times (£) report by David Leppard and Kate Mansey of the full extent of the mess surrounding Grangemouth; Len McLuskey’s demands in July that Stevie Deans be reinstated; the retractions of witness statements to the Labour inquiry that were actually written by the union.
And so back to Falkirk West, where, said Paul Hutcheon of the Sunday Herald, members were calling for Scottish leader Johann Lamont to attend a meeting to explain why their concerns were ignored when first raised, how Unite got hold of members’ details in the first place and why Labour HQ’s inaction nearly led to ‘a country wide economic catastrophe’. Andrew Whitaker in yesterday’s Scotsman reported that Stevie Deans has decided to stand down as Chairman of the Falkirk West constituency Labour Party.
Swirling around this were reports that Len McLuskey was ‘seduced’ by the First minister’s view of independence and would vote Yes if he lived north of the border.
With friends like this…
From one referendum…
Are we getting inured to Project Fear? Iain McWhirter in the Sunday Herald thinks we are. For all the reports issuing last week on the shortfall in oil revenue (the Institute for fiscal Studies), the unaffordable oil fund (the CPPR), the need for passports (Strathclyde University) and the increased threat of terrorism (the Home Secretary), he says, there was no media frenzy - “Earlier this year, these would have been big stories spawning thunderous editorials and rows in television studios. But this time, the Scottish Government barely bothered even to rebut them…perhaps indy-fatigue is setting in and people are no longer listening to the recycled warnings emanating from Westminster. Or minds are already made up and the argument is more or less over. Whatever, there seems to be a law of diminishing returns applying to the negative stories about the economics of independence.”
An unexpected twist in the Scotsman on Friday from our own correspondent, George Kerevan, apparently going off-message from the SNP’s party line on Europe. The European project is coming to a sticky end, he thinks, to be replaced by a looser association of states and he revival of national currencies – “Where does this leave Scotland? We can choose to be a region of (essentially) Little England. Or we can defend our own economic interests – which includes telling Berlin and Brussels where to get off… I suspect that Scotland could do well inside a looser European arrangement provided we kept our own currency. Co-operation with other like-minded countries will be easier in a non-federal Europe of the Nations. Otherwise we should consider emulating Norway and retaining our economic independence…it would be ridiculous now for Scotland to vote for independence only to accept austerity imposed by Berlin and Brussels.”
Yesterday, for those of you with a grip on workings of a future Scottish economy, the Scottish Government’s Fiscal Commission Working Group issued two more papers in its Financial Framework for an Independent Scotland. Principles for a Modern and Efficient Tax System and Fiscal Rules and Fiscal Commissions . According to the summary on the government’s website, the papers suggest that “with independence the Scottish Government should take the opportunity to reform the current outdated UK tax system including integrating tax and welfare systems, streamlining tax legislation and making it easier to pay taxes” and “the Scottish Government’s forecasts could be scrutinised by an independent fiscal commission and that with independence the SG should follow the best practice of countries around the world and adopt a set of fiscal rules or principles”.
Other reports this week on tax reform and independence came from the CPPR and The Institute for Fiscal Studies. Best and most readable summations with links to both, and yesterday’s papers, came from BBC Economic and Business editor Douglas Fraser.
Interesting piece, complete with bar charts, from Simon Johnson in yesterday’s Telegraph; Tory MPs from the south of England want Scotland to become independent because they believe it will give them a permanent majority. Former Scottish Secretary Lord Forsyth has called them ‘foolish’ for politicking. This flows from Sir John Major saying that the Conservatives would be better off without Scotland, but not the UK. Prof John Curtice has long pointed out that independence would make it difficult for Labour to win in England and Wales – but not impossible.
And finally, there’s no show without Punch – George Galloway has been warning that an independent Scotland could be dominated by the politics of ‘grudge and resentment’. Mr Galloway is apparently going to tour Scotland to deliver his message ahead of the referendum. He wants to ‘puncture’ the SNP’s case for independence, but also accuses Better Together of complacency. Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen- you have been warned…
… to another
We have remarked before that Wales seems to take the softly-softly approach to devolution, yet is fast creeping up on the inside when it comes to taking more powers for its Assembly. Friday’s Garden Lobby gave us a succinct summary of the UK government’s response to the Silk Commission – more borrowing powers, control of landfill tax and stamp duty land tax, and the prospect of some measure of income tax - if the Welsh vote for it in a referendum. Alan Trench in Devolution Matters provides expert constitutional knowledge and links to the relevant documentation. This, he says, gives Wales the same powers as the Scotland Act 2012 gives the Scottish government.
Severin Carroll in the Guardian on Saturday said English and Scottish devolutionists could both take heart – devolution is now entrenched in the constitutional agenda, where even the Conservatives are in support. Yet Labour’s Carwyn Jones, Welsh First Minister, still feels Wales loses out to Scotland when it comes to funding. Eddie Barnes in Scotland on Sunday reported on Jones’ call for the Barnett formula to be reviewed. This has a sting in the tail for unionists like Jones – as Barnes points out, one poll last week showed that if Scots feel they will lose out on funding from Westminster, they will be more inclined to vote Yes in September…
and (possibly) yet another...
Three articles this week on the party that we’re constantly told has no part in Scottish politics, yet refuses to go away. Alex Massie in Friday’s Scotsman say that the First Minister’s dismissal –“We can frankly do without Ukip who dislike everybody and know absolutely nothing about Scotland” – may need a rethink …”for a party dismissed as an irrelevance in Scotland, Ukip appears determined to hang around. We appear to be close to the tipping-point at which a collection of nobodies could soon become a party of somebodies”.
Part of Ukip’s appeal, says Massie, lies in its being “notably different from the other parties… though there is no need to exaggerate Ukip’s support, it is also the case that the party is faring better in Scotland than the unco guid guardians of the Scottish political and media consensus would have you believe could ever have been possible. It turns out there is a place, even if only a small one, for Ukip in Scottish politics after all.”
On the other hand, lack of discipline and organisation is a constant fact of UKIP life. Friday’s Herald reported on the split in the Scottish party – factions, EGMs and motions of no confidence are flying round like confetti. A UKIP spokesman said "There's an internal dispute and this is the opportunity to sort that so we can go forward as a united body going forward towards the European elections." So, just like a mainstream party after all…
The UKIP PR machine must have been in good form on Friday, because on the same day the Telegraph also carried an interview with leader Farage, of the kind that seeks to portray him as an ordinary bloke with a slightly distasteful charisma.
“An analogue solution for a digital age”
HS2 has been exercising much time and energy down south this week, as the government was given the go-ahead to start spending money and Labour can’t make up its mind whether to support its own project or not. Fraser Nelson in Friday’s Telegraph said the only two people left who believe in HS2 are the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, and even the Prime Minister has doubts. No-one wants it, but no-one will admit to that. “It’s far from clear”, says Nelson, “that the project will even help the North. Prof Henry Overman, who quit as an HS2 adviser when he realised that almost no one had a proper grip on the project, now warns that these huge trains will give southern businesses quicker access to northern markets. Therefore the direct benefits of the project, he says, “flow disproportionately to London and the South East” – precisely the opposite of its intentions.”
We have long since believed that the whole thing starts from the wrong end if it has any pretence to aid the economies of Scotland and the North of England. And lo, bang on cue, UK rail minister Baroness Kramer arrives from the coalition to tell us that we will be going to the ball – but not just yet. There’s a draft report due next July that will see if it’s a possibility that the high speed trains will make their way across the border or whether the existing west and east coast lines should be upgraded or, if we’re good, both. The Baroness was accompanied by Secretary Carmichael, who was none too impressed by SNP’s transport secretary Keith Brown’s temerity in questioning Westminster’s commitment. All this took place on Glasgow Central’s concourse, which set Alastair Dalton in the Scotsman wondering just what it is about the station that makes politicians do very silly things…
Keeping the lights on…
No surprise to read in yesterday’s Scotsman that we now trust the energy companies less than banks and car salesmen. More than half of us put our heating bills at the top of our list of worries.
Alf Young’s Saturday column in the paper asked if the energy companies should be re-nationalised and whose responsibility it will be to keep the lights on if things carry on as they are. We are, he says, spending more and more of our disposable income on the necessities of life and consequently less on leisure and pleasure – no wonder people are angry. The First Minister told Holyrood that OFGEM had shocked him with warnings about brown-and black-outs, but these have been widely touted for a long time, says Young; does the SNP, he asked, have any ideas for ensuring an adequate supply? “As the SSE executive who faced MPs this week explained, SSE typically sells all the energy it generates into the UK wholesale market and independently buys back what it needs to supply its own customers. That appears to be the typical approach. It suggests that none of the Six feels any obligation to develop new generating capacity unless the incentives to do so are sufficiently generous or the supply crunch Salmond has been talking about materialises. The strategic need to keep the lights on appears to someone else’s problem… who is going to take ownership of that?”
In yesterday’s Scotsman Lesley Riddoch called for ‘bold, practical leadership’ like that shown by one-time Secretary of State Tom Johnson - “Johnston was a practical man who believed small was beautiful and people working together for practical purposes were creating the very foundations of society…unlike modern Scottish Labour and the SNP, Johnston was a believer in truly local organisation and powerful municipal councils…this could have installed cooperative forms of finance and housing as mainstream and standard in Scotland”. Instead “ Cosla members are arguing over their share of central government cash, not creating municipal banks, credit unions or local energy companies – all policy areas where our wartime Scottish Secretary was a successful trailblazer.”
Meanwhile, plus ca change in the powerhouse – yesterday’s Daily Mail reported on the latest round of MP’s expenses – no surprise to find claims for energy bills in their second homes of £3,998.06 (Tory Alan Duncan), £4,571.74 (Labour’s Peter Hain) and £5,822.27 (Tory Nadhim Zahawi).
One Labour MP has, according to the Mail, suggested that they might like to wear thicker jumpers.
To match their skin, presumably. Never mind, we’re all in this together…
This week’s off message …
1.The border beckons…
Do estate agents really need encouragement? We’ve already had property supplements wondering what the very well-off will do if they wake up on September 19th and find themselves living in another country. Last week financial commentator Merryn Somerset Webb joined their ranks in the Spectator with her article ‘How to make money from the Scottish Referendum’.
Taxes will rise and there will be land reform whether we vote Aye on Nae, she says, so here’s what you do. Start looking to move to Berwick on Tweed, where you can still enjoy Scotland’s culture and business acumen, but avoid paying for it. On the other hand, there’ll be a whole army of new bureaucrats looking for “a nice Georgian townhouse within walking distance of Holyrood”. Or you might want to snap up a cheap flat on Dundee’s waterfront, next to the V&A. We can’t quite work out how much of this is tongue in cheek, or a serious view from the glass towers of the south-east.
2.Circle the wagons and fire outwards…
NIMBYs, on the other hand, don’t run, they stay put and shout loudly. Ben Scotchbrook in Thursday’s Politics.co.uk mounted a sturdy defence of those who seek to defend their territory – in his case those in the path of HS2 – “Take the greenbelt: a phenomenally good idea to protect great swathes of our countryside from urban sprawl. Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty too: there to safeguard the 'green and pleasant land' we all sing about at weddings. A man who stands up for a bit of Britain's precious greenery might be hailed as an idealistic environmentalist preserving our national heritage... right up to the point people discover he lives in the country, next to a field even. All change. He's now a gin-soaked, toffee-nosed, Nimby”.
3.Prepare to shed them now…
Both the Sunday Telegraph and the Sunday Times (£) told the story of 44yr old disabled Iranian Bijan Ebrahimi who was quietly trying to live his life with his cat and his hanging baskets on a Bristol housing estate.He was different from other people on the estate, and, as is often the way, he was therefore subjected to bullying and harassment. One day this went too far and the locals turned into a howling mob. What happened next has led to the suspension of three police officers and a murder trial. Mr Ebrahimi’s story – “act of savagery almost unthinkable in modern Britain” - will, and should, reduce you to tears.
Couldn’t happen here, could it…
And finally…
Where’ve you been?
This is for those of you who live sheltered lives or don’t get out much. The rest of us have seen it – mostly ad nauseam. Here, courtesy of Guido Fawkes in this instance, is the ubiquitous video of Ayrshire’s own Kirsty Wark on Thursday’s Halloween Newsnight. Opinion varies as to the propriety of Ms Wark’s brief diversion into show biz. Jane Devine in yesterday’s Scotsman was scathing, to say the least. Decide for yourself…
