tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74666433344229873222012-01-18T12:42:25.132ZCalum Cashley SNPCalum Cashley - SNP Candidate for the Lothians ListAnseohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09107667224537870586noreply@blogger.comBlogger8241100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-59197871032493648972012-01-18T00:05:00.000Z2012-01-18T00:05:30.403ZJim Wallace - is he serious?I've been reading and rereading Jim Wallace's comments about his opinion on the legality of Scotland's referendum.<br /><br />Mr. Wallace has been a politician and a lawyer. He is a QC - I have no idea whether that's a Parliamentary silk he wears - and he is a senior legal advisor to the UK Government on Scottish legal affairs.<br /><br />Given, though, that he is the law officer who would refer the case to the Privy Council (the Supreme Court these days, don't you know) and he has been pontificating pubically (surely a bad thing for a senior law officer or a Government advisor to do) about the independence referendum possibly being ultra vires, surely we are entitled to know whether he would refer this Scottish legislation to the Supreme Court in London?<br /><br />He's carefully avoided talking about it, as has Michael Moore, but surely it's in the interests of Scottish democracy for him to let us know whether he will or not?<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5919787103249364897?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-46230408453582524722012-01-14T13:12:00.000Z2012-01-14T13:12:38.671ZTypical! They always want to trump you!You say nothing for a wee while and you get some peace, you make a tiny wee observation and ...<br /><br />Yesterday I pointed out that Labour was whinging about not being consulted about the independence referendum (in spite of the fact that everyone will be consulted) when its members were at liberty to take part in the National Conversation from its start date some four years ago or so. Within minutes I was being given lawyerly advice that I hadn't gone back far enough.<br /><br />"That's nothing," quoth m'learned friend, "they're all demanding a referendum as soon as possible but if they'd supported Salmond's amendment to the referendum legislation in 1997 we would have had an independence referendum on September 11th 1997 - but they didn't."<br /><br />"Not even George Foulkes?"<br /><br />"Not even oor wee George."<br /><br />Lawyers! Take my advice - don't listen to them!<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4623040845358252472?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-25874453826210830792012-01-13T19:45:00.000Z2012-01-13T19:45:36.525ZHow soon they forgetmMost interested was I to hear Johann Lamont demand that Labour & co be involved in the arrangements for the independence referendum. She apparently now wants to be part of the National Conversation.<br /><br />Such a pity, then, that she and her colleagues passed up the opportunity four years or so ago when the Scottish Government invited all of Scotland to get involved in the National Conversation.<br /><br />Labour didn't get involved, of course. In high dudgeon (just north of Low Dudgeon) they marched off, under the unerring leadership of Wendy Alexander, to make common cause with the Tories and the Lib Dems - not for the last time - in the Calman Commission.<br /><br />Oh yes, they have a tantrum now and then but they passed up the chance to contribute. Ach weel, maybe they ken noo.<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-2587445382621083079?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-67340622834902240522011-06-02T17:13:00.000+01:002011-06-02T17:13:14.799+01:00Supreme HaversAn interesting development in the Supreme Court debacle as Jim Wallace comes barging in, unarmed, to a battle of wits. <a href="http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Kenny-MacAskill--stands-accused.6778234.jp?articlepage=1">The good Lord Wallace</a> is quoted as saying<br /><blockquote>"The Supreme Court has made clear as recently as last week in the Fraser ruling that the High Court in Scotland remains the court of last resort on criminal matters. <br /><br />"I sometimes wonder if those who are the most vociferous have read these rulings."</blockquote><a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2011/05/fraser-case.html">I have</a>. Unlike Lord Wallace, I didn't take that assertion at face value, I looked at the disposal of the case where the good Lords in the UK Supreme Court ordered Scotland's Supreme Courts to quash the verdict of the High Court, ignoring their own claim that they would respect the right of the High Court of Justiciary to remain the ultimate court of criminal justice in Scots Law.<br /><br />To be fair to the good Lords in the UK Supreme Court, I thought I'd go back and <a href="http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/">have a look to see when the House of Lords last ordered a Scottish criminal conviction quashed</a>. I've searched the records back to and including 1989 and there hasn't been a single case where the House of Lords overturned a Scottish criminal conviction as the UK Supreme Court has in the Fraser case and I'm betting that it has never happened.<br /><br />The UK Supreme Court was supposed to take on only cases which would have been heard in the House of Lords (section 40(3) of the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/4/contents">Constitutional Reform Act 2005</a>) and, importantly, that excludes criminal cases for historical reasons which go right back to <a href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/01/19154813/5">the Treaty and Acts of Union</a>.<br /><br />If you want more evidence of the paucity of the case for the UK Supreme Court, I offer you the comments of <a href="http://news.scotsman.com/topstories/Kenny-MacAskill--stands-accused.6778234.jp?articlepage=2">Professor Peter Duff of Aberdeen University, touted as a criminal justice expert</a> - "The judgments of the Supreme Court concerning Scotland are always given by Lords Hope and Rodger as the Scottish judges. The English judges simply fall into line." If that is so then why do they sit on the bench at all? If they are no more than ballast is that not indicative of them being very expensive window dressing for a court which sits as two elderly and very learned men now divorced from the Scots law which they served so nobly and so well for so long? (Lord Hope is approaching his 74th year and Lord Rodger his 68th). And if, as the Professor alleges, the other Justices (yes, Tony Blair took the US style all the way) are merely passengers on Scottish cases, why did Lord Brown write a minority judgement on the Fraser case - a judgement on the operation of a legal system in which he is not trained and has not practised?<br /><br />Or take that eminent human rights lawyer, <a href="http://news.scotsman.com/legalissues/Alex-Salmond-demands-new-laws.6777680.jp">John Scott, who said</a> "I think there's a sense of perspective being lost. Only a very tiny number of cases ever go to the Supreme Court. It doesn't have jurisdiction over the vast majority of criminal cases." This from a man whose successful career has depended upon arguing the general case into the individual point and extrapolating from a single point to create a generality. He should know full well the importance of "a very tiny number of cases" - it's his stock in trade.<br /><br />There's one more thing. Those shouldering high the UK Supreme Court argue that it isn't acting as an appeal court,<a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/crime-courts/macaskill-threat-to-end-supreme-court-funding-1.1104601"> here's Lord Hope's take on the situation</a>: “We are simply here to do what a court of appeal always has to do, which is to review a decision if there is reason to do so.”<br /><br />It's time it went.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-6734062283490224052?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-45768102756193319092011-05-30T15:36:00.000+01:002011-05-30T15:36:35.795+01:00Who speaks for business in Scotland?It has occurred to me (I'm obviously a bit slow) that there's an interesting point to be made about business in Scotland. I've already made clear that I believe that <a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2011/05/business-of-business.html">the FSB has more business clout in Scotland than CBI Scotland or the Scottish Retail Consortium</a> (not that you'd know it from the way lazy journalism treats these two self-appointed, self-interested and vacuous bodies as the font of all knowledge on Scottish business), that reform Scotland probably speaks more for business in Scotland than CBI Scotland, and that the Scottish Retail Consortium is a fictional body, having not actual base in Scotland nor any uniquely Scottish members.<br /><br />What is, perhaps, even more striking, however, is that there are more Scottish businesspeople who pledged their support for the SNP in the recent election than there are members of CBI Scotland. I think we should always remember who businesspeople in Scotland really turn to - the FSB, Reform Scotland and the SNP!<br /><br />Here are some of the ones who pledged for the SNP during that election:<br /><br />Harvey Aberdein<br />Aberdein Considine<br /><br />Sandy Adam<br />Springfield Properties<br /><br />Colin Adams<br />Hardies Bar<br /><br />Lynn Adams<br />The George Bar<br /><br />Mohammad Adrees<br />Hilltown Convenience Store<br /><br />Mohammad Afzal<br />Bismallah Halal Food Store<br /><br />Jameal Ahmed<br />Monktonhall Newsagency<br /><br />Mohammed Ahmed<br />Bangla Spice<br /><br />Tariq Ahmed<br />Chilli Cottage<br /><br />Parvez Ali<br />Flowerscene<br /><br />Shahid Ali<br />Urban Togz<br /><br />Kenny Anderson<br />Anderson Construction<br /><br />Mohammed Ashraf<br />Station Garage<br /><br />Umer Ashraf<br />iCafe<br /><br />Naveed Baksh<br />ilovefruit.co.uk<br /><br />Rohail and Pauline Bari<br />Cafe Kisimul<br /><br />Alistair Barron<br />Barron Wright<br /><br />Ricky Bawa<br />Lighting Warehouse<br /><br />Audrey Baxter<br /><br />Ruari Beaton<br />Am Bothan Bunkhouse<br /><br />John Bell<br />LSK Supplies<br /><br />Glen Bennett<br />EAE Ltd<br /><br />Crawford Beveridge CBE<br />Autodesk<br /><br />Shaoib Bhatti<br />Lanark Post Office<br /><br />Danny Bonnar<br />Bonnar Sand & Gravel Co Ltd<br /><br />Roy Brett<br />Ondine Restaurant<br /><br />David Brotchie<br />Saltire Print<br /><br />Peter Broughan<br />Rob Roy Films<br /><br />Bill Brown<br />W.D. Brown & Sons<br /><br />Les & Gill Burkey<br />Daisychain<br /><br />Saad Butt<br />Delicious Too<br /><br />Chris Cairns<br />Plumbwide<br /><br />John Cameron<br />Balbuthie Farm,<br />Past President National Farmers Union of Scotland<br /><br />Louise Cameron<br />Phase 3 UK Ltd<br /><br />Shauna Cameron<br />Shauna Cameron Architect<br /><br />Willie Cameron<br />Loch Ness Marketing<br />Colin Campbell & Jason Harvie<br />The Pelican<br /><br />Fraser Campbell<br />COBBS<br /><br />Iain Campbell<br />Dungannon Petroleum Ltd<br /><br />Joseph Cannon<br />Flava Coffee Company<br /><br />June Carroll<br />boohoobaby.co.uk<br /><br />Mary Case<br />Blackhall Framing Gallery<br /><br />Ninian Cassidy & Hamish Mackay<br />Scotia Cars<br /><br />Andrew Charles<br />J. Charles Fish Merchants<br /><br />Ian Chisnall<br />Printing Services (Scotland) Ltd<br /><br />Linda Christie<br />Cameron Guest House<br /><br />Laurie Clark<br />Anglo Scottish Concrete Holdings<br /><br />Hugh Clarkson<br />ARC Printing Ltd<br /><br />Neil Corrall<br />E.A.R.L. on the Green<br /><br />Michael Corby<br />Mackenzie Frain Ltd<br /><br />Bob Costello<br />Sidlaw Executive Travel (Scotland) Ltd<br /><br />Lindsay Cross<br />Kilts by Lindsay<br /><br />Steve Cumming<br />Tayfield Investments Ltd<br /><br />John De Rosa<br />Cafe Tino<br /><br />Peter de Vink<br />Edinburgh Financial & General Holdings<br /><br />Bill Dewar<br />Home Spring Ltd<br /><br />Thomas Dover<br />The Garden Maintenance Company<br /><br />Tom Duffin<br />X-sail.com<br /><br />Jeff Duncan<br />Pointblank Media<br /><br />Brian Durkin<br />Braid Wines & Altar Supplies<br /><br />Jennifer Easton<br />JAED<br /><br />Barrie & Dane Elder<br />Bridgeview Station Café and Restaurant<br /><br />Andrew Fairlie<br />Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles<br /><br />Sir Tom Farmer<br /><br />Mark Ferguson<br />D-Tech Graphic Design & Print Ltd<br /><br />Athole Murray Fleming<br />Athole Design Publishing Ltd<br /><br />Dave Forbes<br />Forbes Newsagents<br /><br />Neil Forsyth<br />The Heatherbell Inn<br /><br />Hebbie Fowlie<br />Bert Fowlie Butchers<br /><br />Amanda Frazer<br />Larick House B&B<br /><br />Billy Gallacher<br />GPM Estate Agents<br /><br />Blair Geddes<br />hip-furniture.co.uk<br /><br />Joseph Giacopazzi<br />Giacopazzi & Company Ltd<br /><br />Martin Gilbert<br /><br />Francis Gilhooley<br />Leadburn Manor Fly Fishing Centre<br /><br />Ian Gillingham<br />Exordia Software Ltd<br /><br />Kevan Gordon<br />Fix My Mac<br /><br />George Grant<br />Grahams Road AutoShop<br /><br />Kevin Greig<br />go360<br /><br />Abdul Hamid<br />Auto Gas Convertors<br /><br />Michael Hance<br />Classic Camper Vans Scotland<br /><br />Neil Harrison<br />Automatic Protection Ltd<br /><br />Gordon Henderson<br />Foxlane Garden Centre<br /><br />Stuart Hendrie<br />Torwood Landscapes<br /><br />Julie Herd<br />Julie’s<br /><br />Bobby & Stewart Hill<br />Hydracrat<br /><br />Sam Hinks<br />HinksBrandwise<br /><br />Steven Hobson<br />Hobson’s Choice, Shoe Repairs, Key Cutting & Engraving<br /><br />Sarah-Jane Hunter<br />SJ Fitness Ltd<br /><br />John Hunter-Paterson ACII<br />John Hunter-Paterson Chartered Insurance Brokers<br /><br />Derrick Hutchison<br />Derrick Hutchison & Sons, Painters and Decorators<br /><br />Shezad Ishtiaq<br />Mirch Masala Grill<br /><br />Shabbir Jafri<br />Primesite<br /><br />Andrew Johnstone<br />J Terotech Ltd<br /><br />John Keddie<br />Bogside Farm<br /><br />Paul Keegan<br />Total Logistics Concepts Ltd<br /><br />Patrick Kenny<br />The Mayflower<br /><br />Norman Kerr<br />A and N Kerr Barvas Glebe Farm<br /><br />Paul Kerr<br />P.K. Heating & Plumbing<br /><br />Kevin Key<br />Enjoy-a-ball Coaching Ltd<br /><br />Abdul Khaliq<br />Express Knitwear<br /><br />Ozaer Khan<br />Halal Continental Food Store<br /><br />James Kilday<br />Yankee at Home Ltd<br /><br />Simon Kindlen<br />Kindlen<br /><br />Ross Kirk<br />VK Timber<br /><br />Aman Singh Kohli<br />Kohli Travel<br /><br />John Laidlaw<br />The Blue Grotto<br /><br />Steven Lawrence<br />TCD Architects<br /><br />Andi Lothian Snr<br />Insights Learning and Development Training Ltd<br /><br />Douglas Mabon<br />D M Roofing and Roughcasting<br /><br />Dan Macdonald<br />Macdonald Estates Plc<br /><br />Donald MacDonald CBE<br />Past President, Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce<br /><br />Donnie and Dena<br />MacDonald Rodel Hotel<br /><br />Ewan and Shaun MacDonald<br />Conon Brae Farm<br /><br />Claire Macdonald<br />Kinloch Lodge<br /><br />Maggie Macdonald<br />Style Conscience<br /><br />Marie Macklin<br />Klin Group<br /><br />Johanna MacLellan<br />The Caledonian Hotel, Fort Augustus<br /><br />David MacLeod<br />Rybka<br /><br />Asif Majid<br />Rite Property<br /><br />Alex J. Martin<br />Alex J. Martin Builders<br /><br />Sir George Mathewson<br /><br />David Maxwell<br />Steel Engineering<br /><br />Graham McCabe<br />Automotive Bodyshop<br /><br />Tony McCaffrey<br />The Sloping Garden Company<br /><br />Jim McColl<br />Clyde Blowers<br /><br />Mark McCormack<br />The Tartan Shop<br /><br />Richard McCulloch<br />Dem-Master Demolition Limited & Total Recycling<br /><br />Alex McDonald<br />AMD Computer Services<br /><br />Tom McGregor<br />McGregor McMahon & Associates<br /><br />Jamie McGrellis<br />Bespoke Bikes<br /><br />Gordon McLennan<br />The IT Set<br /><br />Des McMullen<br />Holmlea Roofing Services<br /><br />Ken McNab<br />The Travel Company Edinburgh<br /><br />Grant McNeil<br />Green Mantle Pub<br /><br />Andrew Meek<br />A.G. Crafts and Fabrics<br /><br />David Miller<br />Miller Hair and Beauty<br /><br />Marie Moffat<br />The Eildon Centre & Rebel Rouser Disco<br /><br />Reid Moffat<br />E&R Moffat<br /><br />Steven Moffat<br />Shhh-oohs.co.uk<br /><br />Charles Morgan<br />House of Beauly<br /><br />Rod Munro<br />Munro Newsagents Ltd<br /><br />Andrew Murray<br />My Lawyers<br /><br />Andrew Murray & Jane Brown<br />T/A Allan & Black Coach Hirers<br /><br />Tracy Murray<br />Cove Boutique<br /><br />John D. Murrie<br />East Highfield<br /><br />James Nicholson<br />Tasty Bites<br /><br />Sebastian Nonis<br />Forfas Road Service Station<br /><br />Jim Norris<br />Solar Energy Systems<br /><br />Sandy Orr<br />MacDonald Orr<br /><br />Jack Paterson<br />Saltire Graphics<br /><br />Don Patton<br />Manorhead Ltd<br /><br />Andy Pearson<br />Tweed Homes Ltd<br /><br />Andrew Perry<br />Flyer Scotland<br /><br />Eric Rae<br />E. Rae & Son Electricals<br /><br />Linda Rae<br />The Flower Shop<br /><br />Abdul Raheem<br />VIP Functions<br /><br />Aurelia Reymond-Laruinaz<br />Secret-Scotland.com<br /><br />Norman Richardson<br />Norjan Ltd<br /><br />John Robertson<br />Burntisland Fabrications Ltd<br /><br />Hermann Rodrigues<br />Suruchi Restaurants<br /><br />Vivienne Rollo<br />Kishorn Seafood Bar<br /><br />Ian Ruddick<br />Pedian Services<br />Bill Samuel<br /><br />Ian Scarr-Hall<br />GSH Properties Plc<br /><br />Ashfaq Shah<br />Shah Accountants<br /><br />Mark Shaw<br />Hazledene<br /><br />Yasin Sher<br />Tech-Two<br /><br />Bill & Johnetta Simpson<br />The Biggar Flower Shop<br /><br />Faith Simpson<br />Faith Simpson Chartered Certified Accountants<br /><br />Stewart Sinclair<br />Rainbow ink co<br /><br />Nicky Singh<br />City Dry Cleaners<br /><br />Hamish Smith<br />Hamish D Smith Jewellers<br /><br />Jay Smith<br />Employment Enterprise<br /><br />Thomas Smith<br />Stepper Technology Ltd<br /><br />Brian Souter<br />Stagecoach<br /><br />Stewart Spence<br />Marcliffe Hotel & Spa<br /><br />Alisdair Stephen<br />Hebridean Contemporary Homes<br /><br />Neil Stephen<br />Dualchas Building Design<br /><br />Hamish Steventon<br />Chocolate Emporium<br /><br />George Stewart<br />Cross Keys<br /><br />John & Iain Stirling<br />Stirling&Stirling<br /><br />Andrew Symington<br />Edradour Distillery<br /><br />Willie Tait<br />Klondyke Fishing Co<br /><br />Andy Taylor<br />Norland Lettings<br /><br />Anne Thomson<br />Ella Drinks<br /><br />Billy Tosh<br />The Bakehouse Scotland Ltd<br />Alison Twaddle<br />Woodhill Pharmacy<br />Mahmood Ullah<br />Lets B Wise<br /><br />David Urquhart<br />Urquhart Travel<br />Ricardo Varani<br />Varani’s Forum Cafe<br /><br />Antonio Vastano<br />High Range<br /><br />Abdul Wahid<br />Kashmir Foodstore<br /><br />Ron Warbrick<br />The Frame Shop & Gallery<br />Vincent Waters<br />AllClean Scotland Ltd<br /><br />Jim & Lorriane Waugh<br />Party Daze Ltd<br /><br />Angus Whitton<br />Whitton Asset Management<br /><br />Jim Williamson<br />Williamsons Design Florist Ltd<br /><br />Dr Willie Wilson<br />Thistle Pharmacy<br /><br />Len Woods<br />Ardtornish Consultants Ltd<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4576810275619331909?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-64578023273449085572011-05-30T13:46:00.000+01:002011-05-30T13:46:55.488+01:00Fraser revisitedI met last night with a lawer-type who is a friend of mine and speired aboot the Fraser case. He drew himself up in his most lawyerly manner (he's good at that) and gave me a lesson in constitutional law, told me that Lords Hope and Roger were probably the two best minds in Scots law just now and then opined that perhaps the UK Supreme Court, if it was to fulfil the functions that it's supposed to fulfil rather than be another appeal court, should be an advisory court like the European courts. Good point, I think. I bow to his knowledge. I still think it should be abolished but if the blight is to remin upon us, at least it should be defined properly!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-6457802327344908557?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-87742835366144892052011-05-28T16:03:00.000+01:002011-05-28T16:03:52.576+01:00The business of businessDown to business or down on business? We have a newly re-elected SNP Scottish Government, the first to win a majority of the seats in Parliament since devolution in 1999 including a majority of constituencies, a party which took 876,421 Additional Member votes compared to the combined Labour/Conservative/LibDem total of 872,998, a party that topped the Additional Member vote in every single region in the country, and that won a majority of the constituencies in seven regions out of eight (one away from a majority in South of Scotland but still more constituencies there than any other party). It seems to be a party that has a bit of a mandate but has chosen, quite rightly in my opinion, to set out on a second term of government with a degree of humility.<br /><br />The plans for that second term are being laid out in front of people now and build on the record of the first term, a record that includes help for small businesses - the enterprises which will be the drivers of Scotland's future prosperity - and improvements to the business environment in Scotland. That government, according to<a href="http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/SNP-is-warned-off-new.6775775.jp"> the Scotsman newspaper</a>, has been "warned off" imposing a carrier bag tax by CBI Scotland and the Scottish Retail Consortium even before the legislative programme has been announced. Not that the SNP Government has ever advocated a carrier bag tax, it's being warned about implementing a policy it hasn't espoused - not because CBI Scotland and the Scottish Retail Consortium actually believe that the bag tax is likely to be brought forward by the Government but because they want to pick a fight early in order to lay the ground for a battle on the large retailer levy which, hopefully, John Swinney will bring back.<br /><br />The thing is, though, CBI Scotland and the Scottish Retail Consortium don't speak for Scottish business. I've written before about how <a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2011/01/cbi-scotland-who-does-it-speak-for.html">CBI Scotland</a> actually has very few members (62 Scottish companies compared to the 20,000+ members of the FSB in Scotland) and lacks the muscle of <a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2011/01/whos-not-in-cbi.html">some serious Scottish businesses</a>. I've been told since then that <a href="http://www.reformscotland.com/">Reform Scotland</a>, a think-tank, has more members than CBI Scotland. The <a href="http://www.brc.org.uk/src_home.asp">Scottish Retail Consortium</a> is even worse, though, it doesn't really exist. It's a branding of the<a href="http://www.brc.org.uk/brc_membership_types.asp?id=1"> British Retail Consortium</a> and is run out of London, it doesn't have Scottish members and doesn't list a Scottish membership. Its Scottish corporate address is a PO box in Gullane (bottom of its home page) but its<a href="http://www.brc.org.uk/src_news_detail.asp?id=1886"> press releases have a contact phone number in London</a>. So the Scottish Retail Consortium is a front for the British Retail Consortium whose members are ... yes, that's right, the big supermarkets and the big High Street chains. These are the two organisations who think that their unelected voices should carry more weight than the elected voices of Scotland's politicians, parliament and government - and the Scotsman carried their comments without making clear just how small their voices are. The people of Scotland elected their MSPs, their Parliament, their Government, I look forward to that Government delivering.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-8774283536614489205?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-6550099447107724892011-05-27T19:20:00.000+01:002011-05-27T19:20:12.980+01:00The Fraser CaseI’m not a legal expert, I’ll leave that to<a href="http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.com/"> m’learned friend</a> who waxes lyrical upon matters pertaining to the law and its asses. That doesn’t stop me from pontificating on bits that take my fancy, though, and the Fraser case is one which has attracted the focus of my gimlet eye (my other eye’s OK).<br /><br /><a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/decided-cases/docs/UKSC_2009_0192_Judgment.pdf">I read the judgement with interest</a>, a wee “hmm” here and a wee “oh?” there, and I come to the conclusion that the UK Supreme Court has erred in law. Oh yes, little old me thinks it’s a duff judgement. <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov.uk/about/role-of-the-supreme-court.html">The UK Supreme Court has no role in Scottish criminal law but it’s the ultimate UK court of appeal in civil cases</a> and the Fraser case was brought to it as a devolution issue under paragraph 13 of Schedule 6 to the Scotland Act 1998 as amended. The plaintiff pursued the case on the basis that his Convention Rights had been infringed – the rights arising from Article 6 specifically. Having read the judgement, though, I’m of the opinion that the Supreme Court decided this case not on the basis of Article 6 but as a court of criminal appeal.<br /><br />The judgement (or judgment as our legal friends seem to like) was written by Lord Hope who is one of the two Scottish judges in the UK Supreme Court, the other being Lord Roger, both with impressive Scots law CVs. They didn’t hear the case alone, though, Lords Kerr and Dyson also sat on the bench and agreed with the conclusions of Lord Hope while Lord Brown also sat and disagreed with, but fell short of dissenting from, the disposal of the case. Lord Brown has an interesting career history in English law, as has Lord Dyson, and Lord Kerr served his time in Northern Ireland. They’ve all been appeal court judges and I believe that their personal histories influenced them in this case far more than the points of law which they should have been considering.<br /><br />Article 6 of the ECHR, enshrined in the Human Rights Act 1998, reads thusly:<br /><blockquote>Article 6<br />1. In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interest of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.<br />2. Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.<br />3. Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:<br />(a) to be informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him;<br />(b) to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence;<br />(c) to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require;<br />(d) to examine or have examined witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him;<br />(e) to have the free assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court.</blockquote><br />The challenge was not on the basis of any of the specific rights mentioned in paragraphs 2 or 3 but on the general right in paragraph 1 – the right to a fair trial – a right which, I believe, most people will agree should be an intrinsic part of our legal system. The basis upon which the learned judges concluded that Mr Fraser’s right to a fair trial was not upheld was Lord Hope’s disagreement with the opinion expressed by the Lord Justice Clerk at the original appeal.<br /><br />In spite of claiming in paragraph 30 that he was about to concentrate on whether the tests applied by the Appeal Court were the right ones, in the following paragraphs Lord Hope went off on a diddle around whether the tests were satisfied. Interestingly, he appeared to use previous judgements in the UK Supreme Court by himself and by one of his fellow bench-sitters in this case as the locus classici. I suppose that it is only to be expected when the circle is so small but it remains an interesting aside (for me) that this moot referred back to itself.<br /><br />Where the Lord Justice Clerk had considered that the new evidence presented to him was not of sufficient importance to have influenced the jury at the trial had it been led (indeed, the LJC suggested that it may not have been led even if the defence had been aware of it), Lord Hope held that it was of sufficient import, saying “it is impossible to reconcile the approach which the Appeal Court took to the threshold question that section 106 raises with the test for cases of non-disclosure in McInnes, para 19” (Hope’s own previous opinion). Hope wasn’t finding fault with the process of the trial, he was finding fault with the outcome of the appeal.<br /><br />Having previously ruled in McInnes that evidence withheld from the defence had to be evidence which should have been disclosed and also have enough weight to have affected the course of the trial for it to be a breach of the defendant’s Convention Rights, Hope relied on his ruling in that case to say in this case that the import of the evidence wasn’t important; “It was information that ought to have been given to the defence, and the failure to do this was a breach of the appellant’s article 6 right.” (paragraph 33).<br /><br />This, and a finding that the course of the trial would have been different had the evidence been disclosed led Hope to conclude that his McInnes threshold test had been met. He then goes on to consider the consequences and, in spite of noting that the LJC had considered that the weight of the other evidence would have been sufficient to convict, he opined that the disclosure may have resulted in a different course for the trial and that “There is a real possibility that this would have been sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt about the Crown’s case”. Again, Hope’s issue isn’t with the conduct of the trial – whether it was fair or not – but with the outcome.<br /><br />Hope never addresses the actual case before him in this judgement, he does not examine whether Article 6 has been breached; he sits, instead, as a judge in a criminal appeal in clear breach of the role of the UK Supreme Court.<br /><br />Hope in paragraph 29 and Brown in paragraph 47 indicate that it is for the High Court of Justiciary to decide what tests to apply in appeals where there is no devolution issue – and both then go on to ignore the devolution issue and discuss the details of the LJC’s judgement. In both cases, I believe, they erred in law by ruling on the outcome of the case rather than whether it was a fair trial. Given that the other three judges concurred with Lord Hope’s judgement, they too must be seen to have erred in law.<br /><br />Scotland’s laws are being changed by the UK Supreme Court, by judges without Scottish legal training, with little or no experience of Scots law and whose judgements appear to be self-fulfilling. The UK Supreme Court was supposed to take over the House of Lords legal functions and, in relation to Scotland, to rule on only civil cases. It has taken it upon itself to sit as a criminal court in relation to Scotland in breach of that role and has, I believe, acted ultra vires – its strength should not extend to Scots criminal law. I would hope that there was sufficient courage in Scotland’s Supreme Courts to refuse to follow the direction in this case to quash the conviction and to refuse it on the grounds that the UK Supreme Court acted outwith its jurisdiction. I would hope for that but without any real promise.<br /><br />It’s time to remove all of Scots law from the grasping hands of the UK Supreme Court. It has failed.<br /><br />Murmuring a judge you say?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-655009944710772489?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-12986815310282478162011-05-16T09:41:00.000+01:002011-05-16T09:41:39.114+01:00Scotland's PresidentIn days of yore the person who kept order in the Scots Parliament was known as the President, these days it's the more prosaic title Presiding Officer and much tickled have I been by the fuss and flutter from Labour over the democratic election of a new Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament. Intrigued am I by the shortness of the collective Labour memory that conveniently forgets that it was the party which refused to provide a Presiding Officer in 2007 – a refusal which resulted in Hercules being dragged up to the chair and forced into it. I think he’s done a fine job over the past four years but you could sense that he was laying down what was a heavy burden when he passed over to Tricia Marwick and the grace with which he did so speaks volumes about him.<br /><br /><br />In electing Tricia, though, Parliament has done more than just elect the first female PO, it also elected the first PO who didn’t attend a private school – David Steel went to the Prince of Wales School in Nairobi and to George Watson’s in Edinburgh; George Reid went to Dollar Academy; Alex Fergusson went to Eton. Tricia, the daughter of a mining family in Cowdenbeath, went to the local council-run school. She’s also the first Presiding Officer to have gone straight from school to work, eschewing tertiary education; and I think that she’s probably the first to have had working-class parents.<br /><br />She knows she’s got a task on her hands which no-one has faced before – each of the Presiding Officers has faced different challenges. David Steel had to steer the institution through its set-up phase; George Reid had the building project and turning the institution into an internationally recognised body; Alex Fergusson had the first minority government and the arrival of George Foulkes; Tricia Marwick has the independence referendum, a host of newbie MSPs, the changing of the guard in the opposition parties and the tensions of a Parliament with a single-party majority for the first time. You might think she’s got an easier time than the others but I’m thinking it might not be as easy as it sounds.<br /><br />It was good to learn that she had support from members of each of the main parties for her election and that people know that she’ll be fair and even-handed and fears no-one, I look forward to seeing how she fares. In the meantime, did you hear what one PO said to the other PO?<br /><br />The Presiding Officer: In the second round of voting in the election of the Presiding Officer, the number of votes cast for each candidate was as follows: Hugh Henry 55, Tricia Marwick 73. Accordingly, as Tricia Marwick received more votes than the total number of votes that the other candidate received, and as more than 25 per cent of members voted, Tricia Marwick is elected as the Scottish Parliament’s Presiding Officer. [Applause.]<br /><br />I thank all the candidates in the election of the Presiding Officer, as we come to yet another first in the series of firsts that have come to the fore in the past week. Scotland’s electorate seem to take great delight in delivering a Parliament with significantly different challenges at each and every election.<br /><br />First, in 1999, the electorate delivered our first coalition Government. In 2003, they delivered what became known as the rainbow Parliament, with originally six and, ultimately, seven parties and groupings recognised on the Parliamentary Bureau. In 2007, they delivered our first minority Government and now, in 2011, they have delivered yet another first—a single party has gained an outright majority for the first time.<br /><br />The Parliament itself seems to have taken the road of firsts to heart by electing a female member as the Presiding Officer for the first time. Furthermore, it has elected a member from the likely party of Government for the first time. In itself, that will present fresh challenges.<br /><br />Having worked with Tricia Marwick on the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body over the past four years, I can testify to her ability to put the Parliament’s interests before the interests of any party in it. I know that I join all members in wishing her, her husband Frank, and her family our very best wishes as she takes on this vitally important role.<br /><br />I would not dream of offering my successor any advice—except perhaps this: if, Tricia, you find after a few months that you are not quite as well known to the public as you would like to be, get yourself involved in a live television draw for a football cup semi-final and make a complete hash of it. I guarantee that you will be a household name after that. [Laughter.] <br /><br />More seriously, the role of Presiding Officer carries with it a cloak of great privilege and even greater responsibility. It is one that I have worn to the best of my ability, but I am now delighted to pass it on to my elected successor. I have great pleasure in inviting the Presiding Officer to come forward and take the chair for the fourth session of our Scottish Parliament. [Applause.]<br /><br />The Presiding Officer (Tricia Marwick): First, I thank all my parliamentary colleagues from all parties for their support today. I also thank my predecessor, Alex Fergusson, for his work in the past four years. His was a most difficult period, with the potential to have to use the casting vote every day. I hope to be spared that difficulty. He was a class act and a difficult one to follow; I will do my very, very best.<br /><br />There are some special people who deserve my thanks, because it is only with their support and love that I can do this job: my husband Frankie, my children Louise and Steven, and my lovely grandchildren Róisín and Odhrán. I love you all.<br /><br />As Presiding Officer, I will be fair to all members. I will always act in the interests of the Scottish Parliament. Now we have work to do. Thank you. [Applause.]<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-1298681531028247816?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-61834039798917227892011-05-11T18:09:00.000+01:002011-05-11T18:09:17.359+01:00The empty bellsI’ve been a bit busy recently; a lot of walking, a lot of chatting, carrying heavy loads and worrying – especially the worrying. These things happen, you get caught up in some bizarre plan to win a majority at Holyrood, you know, the thing that’s impossible because the system was set up in a way that made it impossible in the same way that devolution will kill nationalism stone dead.<br />The SNP ran a fantastic campaign with excellent candidates and tremendous energy – in stark contrast to our opponents – and our campaign was well- managed and never looked like jumping the rails, it was always heading in the right direction. We faced a barrage of Labour mailshots, telephone calls and ‘high profile’ visits and we held them off. It felt, sometimes, like Thermopylae – except our cause was never defence of what we had but the advancement of the nation.<br />We did well, really well, and I find myself left with but one regret: While we were watching seat after seat across the country fall to Scotland’s Party and eight of the nine seats in the Lothians come home to the SNP Shirley-Anne Somerville was losing out because we’d done so fantastically well and yet not quite well enough. She narrowly missed unseating Malcolm Chisholm in Edinburgh Northern and Leith and we were just a little too far out on the additional member vote to have her elected from the list. Shirley-Anne was a fantastic MSP, she’s intelligent, talented, witty, hard-working and able and she’ll be a loss to Parliament. I was impressed by the grace with which Malcolm Chisholm praised her during his victory speech, saying that he hoped she would get returned as an additional member although he didn’t hold out much hope as a result of our excellent constituency performance and he was proven correct. Shirley-Anne is, quite clearly, an excellent politician and I hope she comes back in the future. I wish her all the best and look forward to seeing her return to the political fray when she’s ready.<br />Meanwhile, the recriminations in other parties have started, including the resignations of the leaders of the three opposition groups. Labour’s Iain Gray has promised to conduct a review of his party’s organisation and election campaign while his MSPs have variously described the campaign as inept, complacent, misdirected and sloppy, and we’ve now learned that the review is actually the creation of Milliband and that he’s determined that Labour’s MPs will be running their campaigns in the future but they’ve all missed the point. It wasn’t the dash into a sandwich shop that lost Labour this election, nor was it the quality of the election material distributed (they need new designers – some who known something about design would be handy), it wasn’t that there wasn’t a message nor that they just couldn’t engage with the electorate. Labour’s problem is that they have nothing to say anymore because they don’t believe in anything any more. Labour sold its soul some time ago and it spent so long in the pursuit of power that its members have forgotten why they sought it in the first place. There is no sense from Labour that it seeks power to do good, to bring justice or prosperity or equality to the country, the sense is that it seeks power to be in office. There was no rhyme nor reason to their campaign because there was no principle underpinning it. There was no purpose to their campaign because they themselves have no purpose, no belief. It wasn’t that their ‘carry a knife, go to jail’ campaign was guff and based on poor founds (it was), it was that it had no substance it looked exactly like what it was – a naked bid for a knee-jerk vote. Labour’s attacks on the SNP and on independence failed to hit any target because there is no backbone to the Labour party as much as because the attacks were bizarre and ill-targeted.<br />Their campaign fell flat on its nose because there is no purpose to their party. The same applied to the Lib Dem campaign. Strange warnings of doom echoed around Tavish Towers during the campaign – “cutting the number of police forces would cut the number of police officers” was particularly daft – and, like Labour’s campaign, not believed because there was no substance left to their party. The Conservatives likewise failed to rumble because they had nothing to offer. A few soundbites and good gags aren’t enough. The Greens, well, Patrick took them off away from their core beliefs and into the swamp more commonly associated with the SSP and the like – a decision that I’m sure cost them votes across the country.<br />The lesson for all politicians is that you have to stand by your core values – and first you have to know what they are. I truly have no idea why anybody would wade into politics without having a belief that drove them in there, this can’t be a pleasant game to be in if you’re just here for the scenery, but it appears that many people have made that conscious decision. My pompous homily comes to an end here with the observation that the election campaign of a political party without a core purpose is like a bell without a clapper – though the crown be sound and the waist be firm it can swing endlessly and will not chime.<br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-6183403979891722789?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-72241029139640676942011-04-27T00:23:00.000+01:002011-04-27T00:23:23.624+01:00Keep the Balls in the airOne of the great, towering intellects of the last Labour Government (UK by the way), Edward Michael Balls, a former pupil of <a href="http://www.nottinghamhigh.co.uk/senior-school/admissions/fees/?locale=en">Nottingham High School</a> and former member of the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/pandora/revealed-how-ed-balls-was-a-tory-under-thatcher-406675.html">Oxford University Conservative Association</a> has graced the Scottish election with his estimable presence and delivered to us the fruits of his great and deep thoughts (or perhaps he would rather have it as casting pearls before swine).<br /><br />He informed us with great magnanimity that <a href="http://news.stv.tv/election-2011/245120-labour-recession-would-have-been-catastrophe-for-independent-scotland/">Labour's recession would have been disastrous for an independent Scotland</a>. Does he think it was good for a Scotland bound to the UK?<br /><br />Then, of course, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/briantaylor/2011/04/seminal_moment.html">he suggested that a second term in Government for the SNP</a> would be "complete disaster". Seems to me that that's a bit of a flamin cheek considering the record of the UK Government that he was part of for so long.<br /><br />Still, I'm delighted he took the time to visit. Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7224102913964067694?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-48231488651471091672011-04-24T15:05:00.000+01:002011-04-24T15:05:41.705+01:00Labour reshuffle?Twitter was alive last night with strong rumours about a Labour reshuffle at Iain Gray's relaunch tomorrow, the story being that Andy Kerr was about to be dropped from Labour's front bench as a result of a series of poor performances. The rumours were so strong that Labour was forced to issue a denial to<a href="http://twitter.com/#!/AMacleodTimes"> Angus Macleod</a> of the Times. Strikes me that it's possible that Iain Gray bottled it when it came to the crunch or that Kerr is indeed going and Angus spoke to a member of Labour staff who hadn't been informed about the plan.<br /><br />I had thought that a relaunch 10 days out from polling was a strange measure smacking of desperation but when the relaunch starts to go wrong on top of the entire campaign going wrong, Labour must really be in trouble. In the aftermath of the 2007 election a friend of mine remarked that he thought Labour would look back on the leadership of Jack McConnell as their halcyon days. I thought he was daft at the time but it's starting to look like he's a bit of a clairvoyant.<br /><br />Mind you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4823148865147109167?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-55138610663832113912011-04-05T02:37:00.000+01:002011-04-05T02:37:54.058+01:00Labour's supermarket tax proposal?<div style="font: 12.0px Baskerville; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can't resist a bit of reading from time to time and so I've eventually drifted to </span></span><a href="http://www.scottishlabour.org.uk/uploads/0d8611cd-8e0f-e0a4-1da3-29ce3605f336.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Labour's "Manifesto for Growth"</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Even with Labour's recent record on economic matters I thought it would be interesting. It's not all that interesting (actually pretty boring) but there is one wee thing; this paragraph:</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Baskerville; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We will work to ensure that Scotland is competitive and will do so through the taxation system, by investing in our transport and communication infrastructure and in skills, so our young people are job-ready and meet the needs of business.</span><span style="font: 12.0px Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></blockquote><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Elsewhere in the document there are commitments to continue the SNP's Small Business Bonus, to not raise the "tartan tax" and to maintain parity with the English poundage on non-domestic rates (which would actually be a slight rise in business rates, but I'm sure that they didn't mean that or they wouldn't have said 'maintain', they're just unaware of the financial landscape) and Gray recently gave in and accepted that the SNP's Council Tax freeze is the right thing to do.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So here's the question - from which part of the taxation system does Labour intend to find the resources to fund this investment? They've ruled out most of it and it appears to me that there is one avenue left open by this document. Remember the Tesco Tax? The large retailer levy was condemned by Labour when John Swinney proposed it, but so was the Council Tax freeze, free prescriptions, and anything else proposed by the SNP and Labour has performed one volte-face after another.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yup, I think Labour's proposing a Tesco tax. Whodathunkit?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5513861066383211391?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-37696462891884304072011-03-01T08:30:00.001Z2011-03-01T08:30:00.654ZMore polled against than pollingAfter writing a post yesterday about the Yougov poll and the strange reluctance of the Greens to reveal the answers to all of the questions, I took a wander through cyberland and found that <a href="http://joanmcalpine.typepad.com/joan_mcalpine/the-problem-with-that-yougov-poll.html">Joan McAlpine had already done a substantial piece on the poll</a> and I could have saved myself a bit of effort! More interesting, still, however, was a message that winged its way to me from a good friend of mine who pointed out that there may be more flaws in the Yougov methodology. The points she made are as follows:<br /><br />The Courier (covering Dundee, Angus, Perthshire and Fife which have high SNP support) is only listed (if at all) under "Other Paper" which would also apply to the Press and Journal which doesn't have a separate listing but is popular in a big chunk of the country. In fact, the Courier has a bigger circulation than the Herald and the Scotsman combined and I think I may be right in saying that the P&J is similarly endowed.<br /><br />Additionally, the Record has very poor penetration in the North East of Scotland (and perhaps in other areas, too) so there is a question mark or two over whether the weighting for this paper should be applied evenly across the country.<br /><br />Interesting, is it not? That's interesting as well as the answers that the Greens are hiding.<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-3769646289188430407?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-36916073520139797362011-02-28T22:06:00.000Z2011-02-28T22:06:09.497ZThat Yougov poll and the missing questionYou'll have seen<a href="http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Life-ScottishGreens-Vote-280211.pdf"> the recent Yougov poll</a> and you might even have thought about how the weighting affected it. Like me, you may have been wondering how the raw data converted to the weighted data, how this population of party identifiers:<br />Labour 291<br />Conservative 222<br />Liberal Democrat 67<br />Scottish National Party 289<br />Others 67<br />None / Don't know 322<br /><br />was adjusted to become this population in the weighted data:<br />Labour 478<br /><br />Conservative 163<br />Liberal Democrat 126<br />Scottish National Party 201<br />Others 25<br />None / Don't know 266<br /><br />Very crudely, that means that each person who identifies as SNP who was polled counted as 0.7 of a person and every person who identifies with Labour was counted as 1.6 (Con - 0.7, LD - 1.9). Just as interesting is the newspaper weighting, though, this: <br />Express / Mail 196 <br />Sun / Star 100 <br />Mirror / Record 94 <br />Guardian / Independent / Herald 219 <br />FT / Times / Telegraph / Scotsman 188 <br />Other Paper 146 <br />No Paper 315 <br /> <br />became this: <br />Express / Mail 151 <br /><br />Sun / Star 201<br />Mirror / Record 251<br />Guardian / Independent / Herald 76<br />FT / Times / Telegraph / Scotsman 75<br />Other Paper 252<br />No Paper 252<br /><br />A Daily Record reader counts as two and three quarter people in this poll and a Sun reader as double while a Herald reader is trimmed to just one third of a person and a Scotsman reader to two-fifths of a person. It becomes, perhaps, even more interesting when you <a href="http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2011/02/18/has-yougov-failed-to-keep-up-with-the-mirrors-decline/">read this piece by Mike Smithson</a> where he points out that Yougov is using old circulation figures for its newspaper weighting (the Record's readership is now under 307,000) and the dangers inherent in that were <a href="http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2011/02/03/nick-sparrows-february-pb-polling-column/">already laid out by Nick Sparrow</a>.<br /><br />It's fascinating, of course, to speculate on how wrong the poll is, but that's not what most intrigues me. What most intrigues me is that this poll was commissioned by the Greens and it had another question in it which hasn't been published. The other question was how the people polled felt about the Greens' idea of increasing tax in Scotland to offset the effects of the Westminster cuts. It's up to the client what questions are published and when - I can't help but wonder what on earth could have been in the answer to that question that persuaded the Greens that it should be kept secret.<br /><br />Answers on a postcard to ...<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-3691607352013979736?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-51140813622290361542011-02-19T19:45:00.000Z2011-02-19T19:45:25.418ZThe barbarians at the gateHugh Henry MSP, who has ascended to the giddy heights of doyen of the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament, lodged a motion on Thursday and it would appear that<a href="http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/business/motions/Default.aspx?motionid=20823"> he is setting himself up </a>as arbiter of all things cultural:<br /><blockquote><strong><a href="http://www.blogger.com/Default.aspx?motionid=20823">S3M-07964 Hugh Henry (Paisley South) (Scottish Labour): Creative Scotland Expenditure</a></strong>— That the Parliament is concerned about recently published details of Creative Scotland expenditure; considers that, in a time of austerity, Creative Scotland should consider grant applications more carefully before making awards; expresses concern at and cannot understand the justification for £58,000 of taxpayers’ money being used to fund a dance programme based on the works of Alfred Hitchcock, or paying for travel to Tonga to study Polynesian dance, and believes that ministers need to urgently investigate Creative Scotland’s spending and take action to show that taxpayers’ money is being used responsibly.</blockquote>This great, towering figure of Labour's intelligentsia would appear to be starting his own war against poshlost devoid of armaments. He will be planning, perhaps, an exhibition of Entartete Kunst, ignoring the quite clear connection between the progress of society and progress in the Arts, a progress that cannot be governed or directed by politicians without strangling the progress. Artists of all kinds must be free (and should be encouraged) to prod politicians and governments with pointed art - Arthur Miller received funding from the US National Endowment for the Arts to write Death of a Salesman and four years later he was puncturing the McCarthy witch-hunts with The Crucible - The National Theatre of Scotland used public money to produce Black Watch, a play that was extremely critical of UK military involvement overseas - and public money is opening up<a href="http://www.creativescotland.com/news/mums-birthday-goes-to-hollywood-131210"> opportunities for people from all kinds of places to make a mark</a>. <br /><br /><div class="bodytext">Politicians can't run art through our ideological prisms (although you'll have some difficulty in keeping politicians from claiming credit for successes) without destroying the essence that makes art capable of moving the spirit, of changing humanity, of touching the vitality of people. That's why public bodies funding the arts have operated at arms length from Government - although it is interesting that <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2010/oct/21/spending-review-arts-funding">Hugh Henry appears to agree with the approach of the Conservative / Lib Dem coalition</a> which is imposing massive cuts and strange conditions on Arts Council England. It seems that UK Ministers, like Hugh Henry, think that "a time of austerity" is a time to cut cultural funding and have forgotten (if they ever knew) that the genesis of the Arts Councils - and therefore Creative Scotland - was the bleak austerity of December 1939 when the intent was “to show publicly and unmistakably that the Government cares about the cultural life of the country. This country is supposed to be fighting for civilisation” which led to the creation of the fore-runner of the Arts Councils in 1940 - and this in the midst of a World War. <a href="http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/In-an-era-of-austerity-reasons-to-fund-the-arts/21121">Robert Hewison puts it excellently</a>:</div><div class="bodytext"> </div><blockquote><div class="bodytext">The decision taken in 1940 that led to long-term funding of the arts was not taken on economic grounds, or for reasons of health, social inclusion or the prevention of crime. But it was a rational decision, based on a rational argument: that we are supposed to be fighting for civilisation. </div></blockquote><div class="bodytext">I am, of course, giving Mr Henry the benefit of massive doubt and assuming that he is merely labouring mightily with the concept of funding art without directing it. He may be being wilfully ignorant or, worse, intent upon finding some spuriously populist cause celebre with no regard to the consequences of his actions. </div><div class="bodytext"><br /></div><div class="bodytext">We fund art and do so politically blind because art is damaged when it is narrowed by politics and Hugh Henry's version of Socialist Realism would run the risk of damaging cultural advancement, of restricting and choking Scottish art, his ambition for Cultural Revolution is misplaced. We may not like everything that is funded by Creative Scotland but no-one ever argued that everyone will like all of the art we see around us - I find Shakespeare's plays quite dull (a couple of his sonnets are ok, though), can't abide the work of <a href="http://www.alasdairgray.co.uk/">Alasdair Gray</a> (a heresy in these parts), and can't for the life of me understand what's so good about those Titians we're so collectively proud of; but I've delighted in some of the National Theatre's productions, I savour the works of Banks and of Bellany among others, and I like to spend the odd hour or two from time to time soaking up a gallery.</div><div class="bodytext"><br /></div><div class="bodytext">I may not be the person to decide where arts funding should go, but I'm prepared to bet that speculative prospecting in areas seldom trodden (say a dance programme based on the works of Alfred Hitchcock or paying for travel to Tonga to study Polynesian dance) is likely to produce nuggets of gold more often than walking the same old dusty streets. Mr Henry seems to have a problem with modern dance as a performance art and I suggest that he takes some time to go and take some in, <a href="http://www.dundeereptheatre.co.uk/p31.html">we've got dancers to be proud of in Scotland</a>.</div><div class="bodytext"><br /></div><div class="bodytext">We may not be fighting a World War at the moment, but the campaign for our civilisation continues. The barbarians are always at the gate and we should always be driving past them to improve ourselves.</div><div class="bodytext"></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5114081362229036154?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-80033502991817724972011-02-17T18:01:00.000Z2011-02-17T18:01:51.875ZAcademics - a blessing and a curseThere are some disadvantages to having academics as friends - one of them is that they quite happily give you a good finger-wagging over the least wee thing. Here's a message I received from a friend of mine who obviously likes statistics even more than I do. I've taken her name off the bottom in case she hassles me again and I can't reproduce the graph properly, I can't make it clear (I'm sure I'll get pelters for that, too), I guess I just failed my exam!<br /><br />C<br /><br /><blockquote>Calum, <br />I do not like the 2nd paragraph of your blog (well, what you are saying is fine but it is horribly covered in percentages). What you need is a nice pretty graph, like the one I have attached for you.<br /><br /><br />Also, if you don’t already have it (but you probably do and apologies if so), the basic formula for calculating a 95% confidence interval for any proportion in Excel is:<br />Lower 95% CI limit: =B2-(1.96*(SQRT(B2*(1-B2)/C1)))<br />Upper 95% CI limit: =B2+(1.96*(SQRT(B2*(1-B2)/C1)))<br />where (for example) ‘B2’ is the cell you’ve put the proportion of interest (e.g. Alex Salmond’s approval rating) and ‘C1’ is the cell you’ve put the sample size in (e.g. 1019).<br /><br />When comparing proportions (for example Salmond’s approval vs Gray’s approval) if the confidence intervals overlap, they lie within the margin of error and there is no statistical difference between them. If they do not overlap then Salmond’s approval is likely to be significantly higher or lower (statistically) than Gray’s.<br /><br />What you should see from the Mori data is that Salmond’s approval rating is significantly higher than that of all the other party leaders (and Tavish Scott’s is significantly lower), that there is no statistical difference in dissatisfaction towards any of the party leaders, and that significantly more people have an opinion on Alex Salmond than any of the other party leaders (and significantly fewer people have an opinion on Tavish Scott than either Salmond or Gray, but not Goldie).<br /><br />NB: Should you like this formula and want to use it but in future for whatever reason you need a wider margin of error, you could take a 99% confidence interval by substituting the 1.96 figure for 2.58.<br /><br /><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Don’t say I’m not good to you.</div></blockquote><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h9-9oBO0IG4/TV1iWYrxm1I/AAAAAAAABls/AOOOAQPem8Q/s1600/party+leaders+graph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" j6="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h9-9oBO0IG4/TV1iWYrxm1I/AAAAAAAABls/AOOOAQPem8Q/s320/party+leaders+graph.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-8003350299181772497?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-82719127532257918912011-02-16T18:23:00.000Z2011-02-16T18:23:32.176ZPolling along in the blue ...Mario Lanza couldn't have sung it any better. There's <a href="http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.com/2011/02/fortune-is-pucker-faced-old-beldam.html">plenty</a> of <a href="http://joanmcalpine.typepad.com/joan_mcalpine/2011/02/sensational-poll-has-snp-surging-ahead-of-labour.html">comment</a> out <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/briantaylor/2011/02/trendspotting.html">there</a> on <a href="http://email.candidatecontact.com/t/r/l/ykvhrt/ohuuiurkk/i">the</a> latest <a href="http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Scotland/scotland-ipsos-mori-spom-tables-february-2011.pdf">poll</a> for May's <span id="goog_1832489737"></span><span id="goog_1832489738"></span><a href="http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Battle-on-for-Holyrood-as.6718985.jp">election</a> that <a href="http://breakingnews.heraldscotland.com/breaking-news/?mode=article&site=hs&id=N0770811297851834315A">shows </a>the SNP ahead of Labour and it's all well worth reading with the indications being that the SNP lead, if maintained into the election, could result in an SNP Government second term. It's still too close to call, of course, but there are encouraging signs. The gender gap in SNP support is closing - it's not closed yet by any manner of means but it is closing - and the issues that people think are important are chiming with what we (the SNP) have been saying and continue to say. Let's take a look at a couple of points, though, starting with one which the Peat Worrier touched on; the party leader approval ratings.<br /><br />Salmond's rating is +16%, Gray's rating is -1%, Goldie's rating is +2%, and Scott's rating is -8%. That will put a wee grin on the coupon of the First Minister but there's something else in there just as interesting - only 14% of respondents didn't have an opinion on Salmond's performance while 33% didn't know about Gray, 38% about Goldie and 40% about Scott. Does that matter? Well, my experience has been that everyone has an opinion on politicians they know about so I'll assume that 86% of the population sample know who the First Minister is (there's probably a few who do know who he is but haven't made up their minds yet), and reducing numbers know who the others are. That's a massive assumption on my part, though, and may be wrong; but if I'm right you have the interesting point that more than half of the sample (51%) approve of Salmond and only a few don't know (14%), whereas 67% don't know about Gray or disapprove of him, 68% don't know or disapprove for Goldie, and 74% don't know or disapprove of Scott. Is it important? It may be - especially when electors are having a look at the runners and riders for Government and making a decision about which party is well led and which senior party members would make good Ministers in addition to choosing their local representative. Makes it interesting, I think especially when you turn it round - Salmond has a 51% approval rating against a 35% disapproval, meaning that his approval numbers beat the approval numbers of all the other leaders, but his disapproval ratings beat their approval ratings as well as their approval ratings - still that in the bowl and mix it!<br /><br />And so to tax - it and death, we are told are the only two certainties. The tax question showed a clear lead for all income tax to be set and collected in Scotland with the second choice being all income tax set and collected by the Whitehall Government. The least popular answer was the Calman Commission proposal with a figure which only just beats one in four, so I guess that's a short answer on that bizarre scheme:<br />I would prefer all income tax to be set and collected by the UK government as it is at present 32%<br />I would prefer some income tax to be set and collected by the UK government and some by the Scottish government 27%<br />I would prefer all income tax to be set and collected by the Scottish government 37%<br />Don’t know 4%<br /><br />Here's another thing, though; the opinion poll is a massive bump for the SNP since the <a href="http://www.tns-bmrb.co.uk/assets-uploaded/documents/voting-intentions-poll-17th-january-2011_1295261712.pdf">TNS poll</a> published in the Herald in January, but the trends shown by Ipsos are also interesting, let's start with SNP v Labour. Three recent polls, Aug 2010, Nov 2010, Feb 2011, and starting with the constituency vote:<br />SNP 34%, 31%, 37%<br />Labour 37%, 41%, 36%<br />that went from within the margin of error to quite far outside it and then snapped right back into it - neck and neck (although the SNP is now ahead by a thin margin). The Conservatives and Lid Dems, meanwhile stayed within the margin of error but swapped places at the extremes of it which some might suggest is the Conservatives benefiting from their coalition at the expense of their coalition partners:<br />Con 11%, 13%, 13%<br />LD 13%, 11%, 10%<br /><br />Look at the Additional Member vote, though, and a very clear pattern emerges:<br />SNP 29%, 32%, 35%<br />Lab 38%, 36%, 33%<br />When the electors are looking at the parties their approval is on the move from Labour to the SNP - it's a 5.5% swing over six months and the trendlines in those two supports is definite. For the other two parties there isn't much news to report:<br />Con 12%, 12%, 13%<br />LD 12%, 9%, 10%<br />and the Greens are up from 5% to 6% - still not at the races.<br /><br />What does it all mean? Well, as Brian Taylor says in his piece, each opinion poll is only a snapshot, it's trends that are important, and it would seem that the trends are tending to favour the brave. In the words of a former Leader of the Labour Party Group in the Scottish Parliament, bring it on!<br /><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YHnPLwuqYys" title="YouTube video player" width="640"></iframe><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-8271912753225791891?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-91533233995371661612011-01-26T17:48:00.000Z2011-01-26T17:48:13.024ZBaker - not fit to hold office<a href="http://news.stv.tv/scotland/north/223320-alleged-sex-attacker-walks-free-under-cadder-ruling/">An Aberdeenshire pensioner alleged she was sexually assaulted and named her alleged attacker</a>. The police and the Procurator Fiscal did their jobs and the suspect was being brought to trial. Following the Cadder ruling, however, the Crown Office concluded that there was now insufficient evidence to proceed and has closed the case. <a href="http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.com/2010/10/that-cadder-v-hm-advocate-judgment-in.html">The Cadder ruling is better explained by a solicitor type</a> but it necessitated a fundamental change in police procedures and it changed the rules on what evidence is allowable in a case. It also led to a piece of legislation going <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11631637">through Parliament as emergnecy legislation</a>.<br /><br />None of this, I take it, matters a damn to Barbara Riddel who was attacked except that it means that the man she identified as her attacker cannot be brought to justice. I have sympathy for her, she has suffered in a way that I cannot begin to understand - an invasion of her person. Her case came, though, at a juncture where the police procedure in the case was cut across by the ruling. The Cadder ruling was, very simplistically, based on the European Convention on Human rights and said that a suspect's human rights were infringed if he (or she) was interviewed by police without a solicitor being present - or at least a prosecution could not rest upon evidence thus gained.<br /><br />The to and fro of the rights and wrongs of the Cadder case and all cases like those of the assault against Ms Riddel might be batted back and forth for a long time but it was the comments of Labour's Shadow Justice person Richard Baker MSP in the story. He said:<br /><br />"This started with not having a bent banana and all that stupid kind of thing, but now they have got onto the laws of Britain they shouldn't be allowed to change them whatsoever."<br /><br />For any politician to compare the distress and human emotion involved in a case of sexual assault to trade rules is shocking to begin with. Conflating human rights with trade rules is also fairly bad, but the scale of the incompetence in his one UKIP-like statement is quite shocking. <br /><br />To begin with, he should understand that<a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/46/part/I/crossheading/legislation"> section 29 of the Scotland Act</a> means that any legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament has to be compliant with the Convention Rights - the Scotland Act was drafted by a Minister of his own party.<br /><br />Convention Rights in the Scotland Act has the same meaning as in <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/crossheading/introduction">the Human Rights Act 1998</a> - brought in by a Government of his own party to enshrine the ECHR in UK law (quite rightly, in my opinion).<br /><br /><a href="http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/en/Treaties/Html/005.htm">The ECHR</a> was not a child of the European Union, it came from <a href="http://www.coe.int/">the Council of Europe</a> - a different organisation.<br /><br /><a href="http://ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/press/euromyths/myth05_en.htm">The EU never banned bent bananas</a>.<br /><br />The worst of it all is his lack of concern for the woman involved combined with his lack of understanding of the way that the law is changing and his ignorant, knee-jerk, xenophobic narrow vision. He's simply not fit to hold office.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-9153323399537166161?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-59155197218918398732011-01-14T18:38:00.001Z2011-01-14T18:38:55.372ZThe 'Tesco Tax'Much hullaballoo, flim-flam and fuss has been occasioned by John Swinney's reasonable proposal to ask businesses with a rateable value in excess of £35,000 to pay a little more in their rates. It has been dubbed the Tesco Tax by some so I'll adopt that heuristic just for the sake of sweetness and light. Some would have you believe that this policy will<a href="http://news.scotsman.com/politics/8000-new-jobs-39at-risk39.6688710.jp"> bring economic devastation to Scotland</a>, that retailers will leave in droves, that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11781963">the chill winds of fair taxation</a> having blown round the skirts of frightened supermarkets will echo forevermore through abandoned shopping centres and <a href="http://business.scotsman.com/news/BQ-throws-its-weight-behind.6690057.jp">out-of-town mammon factories</a>, even that it is (careful now) <a href="http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/editor-s-picks/stores-say-tax-attack-will-kill-style-mile-1.1080006">anti-Glasgow</a>; the greatest sin of all.<br /><br />We're told that supermarkets, shopping centres and large retailers in general will up sticks and leave (no-one seems willing to mention the businesses which will be affected which are not in retail, but hey-ho). This position is, of course, quite frankly daft; retailers will open where their customers are - it's kind of how they operate, there's no point in having a shop where no-one shops and large retailers are always looking for untapped markets to slide into. But <a href="http://www.lesleyriddoch.com/2010/11/-every-little-helps-to-keep-high-street-alive.html">others have written about that </a>and you should read their wise words - I particularly savoured the bit in Lesley Riddoch's piece that noted "Scotland has more supermarket floor space per head of the population than anywhere in Britain and probably Europe" - for my part I think I'll look at the proposal which has caused so much supermarket angst.<br /><br />It's a proposal to add 0.7% onto the poundage rate of larger businesses. "Why 0.7%?" you might ask - and that would lead us to a very interesting point. The SNP Scottish Government has committed to keeping the poundage rate in Scotland at or below the rate in England for the lifetime of this Parliament; <a href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/local-government/17999/11199/brief-guide">the non-domestic rate poundage in Scotland is 40.7p in the pound</a> (40.7% of your rateable value is your rates bill), the <a href="http://www.voa.gov.uk/business_rates/rating-multipliers.htm">poundage rate in England is 40.7p for small businesses and 41.4p for standard businesses </a>so the small rise in Scotland for very large businesses will bring the rate into line with the standard rate charged in England. Our medium-sized businesses will continue to be better off and our small businesses (with the small business bonus) will continue to be much better off. Why, exactly, would this equalisation of the rates for large businesses north and south of the Rio Tweed result in a desperate caravan of refugee supermarkets trudging wearily south?<br /><br />If you think that proves the case, I've got a little more icing for the cake. London charges higher rates. London charges an extra 0.4p on each rate - 41.8p on the standard rate and 41.1p on the small business rate (you'll find the figures at the bottom of the VOA multipliers page) small businesses in London pay higher rates than large businesses in Scotland.<br /><br />I think it begs a question - if London charges more in rates on most businesses than Scotland does and substantially more on small businesses and the rest of England also charges more but still less than London then why, using the logic of those predicting doom for Scotland under John Swinney's proposal, is business not flocking out of London into the rest of England and flooding from England into Scotland? The truth is, of course, that non-domestic rates, the poundage and the actual cost per trading unit, are only some of the considerations that businesses make in determining where to set up - many, many others apply. Indeed, non-domestic rates are a very small consideration for very large retailers. They will squeal about any increase in taxation, any additional regulation, any requirement put upon them to act like a responsible part of society (although they will not hesitate to call on the services which they are so reluctant to contribute to - roads to ease deliveries and customer access, police to protect their properties, street lighting to make their premises more appealing to customers, cleansing and so on) but they will stay in situ so long as it is commercially advantageous for them to do so. Large retailers are not overly burdened by a great weight imposed by non-domestic rates, they truly are not.<br /><br />Small businesses face rates which are a far larger percentage of their turnover, a far greater burden for them to carry, and that's why the <a href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Business-Industry/support/sbbs">SNP Scottish Government introduced the Small Business Bonus</a>. To be absolutely fair to those in Whitehall, there is some<a href="http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-04998.pdf"> rates relief for small businesses in England</a> but it is, if I may utilise the vernacular, piss-poor.<br /><br />Far from the proposal to ask large businesses to pay an extra seven tenths of a penny more in rates being one which will see economic destruction in Scotland, the idea is almost akin to progressive taxation. Those large retailers and other businesses with business premises with rateable values over £35,000 will pay a little extra (just taking them up to what they would have been paying had they been in England) to help fund the services they use while small businesses get a little help to survive and thrive - helping to grow the economy. Add in the fact that the SNP Scottish Government has frozen Council Tax year on year, making sure that people have some money left in their pockets to spend in the large retailers as well as other places, and you might have thought that the retailers would be keen to welcome the actions of the Scottish Government - good for people, good for business and good for jobs.<br /><br />It's almost like there's an election coming, isn't it?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5915519721891839873?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-76781837918095490692011-01-06T16:20:00.000Z2011-01-06T16:20:11.355ZWho's not in the CBI?Since I've already questioned the validity of CBI Scotland in commenting on Scottish business affairs, I thought that it might be worthwhile having a look at Scottish companies which aren't members of the CBI to see whether I was perhaps being unfair, to see whether it was, perhaps, la creme de la creme of Scottish businesses that CBI Scotland represented, the bluest of blue chip companies. There is no definitive register of Scottish companies that I can find; I can't get hold of <a href="http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=195">the IDBR</a> and <a href="http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/5eb182b7329854f42d24de971aec7da8/wcframe?name=accessCompanyInfo">Companies House doesn't let you search </a>on company location so I may have missed some businesses but these are a few that I found that I think we can say are fairly successful Scottish companies who are not members of CBI Scotland:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.arnoldclark.com/">Arnold Clark</a> - Glasgow (I think) motor vehicle dealer with substantial business.<br /><a href="http://www.aggreko.com/about_aggreko.aspx">Aggreko </a>- Headquartered in Glasgow, operates around the world.<br /><a href="http://www.axis-shield.com/index.cfm?action=profile">Axis-Shield</a> - Dundee company operates internationally.<br /><a href="http://www.ascoworld.com/Default.aspx?tabid=36">ASCo</a> - Aberdeen, global operations.<br /><a href="http://www.bpipoly.com/default.aspx">British Polythene Industries</a> - Greenock, operates internationally.<br /><a href="http://www.cjlang.co.uk/corporate/default.htm">CJ Lang</a> - Dundee, operates fairly large shopping operation.<br /><a href="http://www.dpandl.co.uk/dpl_mainintro.html?shipping_contacts.html=dpl_contacts.html">DP&L</a> - Dundee, shipping mainly, now includes travel and property businesses.<br /><a href="http://www.agbarr.co.uk/ces_general.nsf/wpg/welcome_page%21opendocument">AG Barr</a> - the makers of Irn Bru!<br /><a href="http://www.dcthomson.co.uk/">DC Thomson</a> - the printers of the Beano.<br /><a href="http://www.baxters.com/">Baxters </a>- the soup people.<br /><a href="http://www.johnstonpress.co.uk/jpplc/">Johnston Press</a> - Newspaper types.<br /><a href="http://www.tunnock.co.uk/french/index.htm">Tunnocks </a>- even in French it looks like a tasty company.<br /><a href="http://www.johnmenziesplc.com/home.aspx">John Menzies</a> - biggest paperboy in town.<br /><a href="http://www.keyline.co.uk/?pageId=33&hierarchy=&category=">Keyline </a>- Glasgow based builder's merchants.<br /><a href="http://www.macfarlanegroup.net/portal/alias__Rainbow/lang__en-US/tabID__3327/DesktopDefault.aspx.html">MacFarlane Group</a> - Glasgow again, operates internationally.<br /><a href="http://www.miller.co.uk/default.aspx">Miller Group</a> - Edinburgh housebuilder, biggest in UK. <br /><a href="http://www.morrisonconstruction.co.uk/about-us">Morrison Construction</a> - like Bob the Builder but much, much bigger.<br /><a href="http://www.motherwellbridge.com/index/index">Motherwell Bridge</a> - you'll never guess where this company is based but it operates all over the world.<br /><a href="http://www.wiseman-dairies.co.uk/">Wiseman Dairies</a> - provides almost one third of all the milk consumed in the UK - from East Kilbride!<br /><a href="http://www.scottish-southern.co.uk/SSEInternet/default.aspx">SSE</a> - energetic bunch<br /><a href="http://www.sit.co.uk/">Scottish Investment Trust</a> - investment managers with a decent size of portfolio.<br /><a href="http://www.stagecoachgroup.com/">Stagecoach </a>- transport all over the world.<br /><a href="http://www.kcadeutag.com/about-us/abbot-group.html">Abbot Group</a> - Aberdeen based, works around the world.<br /><a href="http://www.tennents.com/">Tennents </a>- terrible adverts but still a substantial company. <br /><a href="http://www.aberdeen-asset.com/">Aberdeen Asset Management</a> - Aberdeen company (surprising, eh?) with £178.7 billion of assets under management and advice; that's quite a bit.<br /><a href="http://www.pelamiswave.com/aboutus/about-us">Pelamis </a>- wave tamers.<br /><a href="http://www.alexander-dennis.com/">Alexander Dennis</a> - international bus builders.<br /><a href="http://www.linn.co.uk/home">Linn </a>- fantastic sounds<br /><a href="http://www.schuh.co.uk/">Schuh </a>- Livingstone company, rather successful in the footwear area.<br /><a href="http://www.simclar.com/">Simclar Group</a> - around the world from Dunfermline.<br /><a href="http://www.vision-call.co.uk/">Visioncall </a>- seeing clearly from Cambuslang.<br /><br />This isn't an exhaustive list, obviously, nor even a great chunk of Scotland's businesses. The point I'm hoping to demonstrate is that CBI Scotland doesn't represent Scottish businesses, not even a substantial proportion of Scottish businesses. Some might try to argue that the best of Scotland's businesses are members of CBI Scotland but I'll contend that these companies listed here are every bit as good as the companies listed yesterday - and there are thousands more. Being a member of CBI Scotland neither marks them as leaders nor as anything else, merely members of a club - a club which is not representative of Scottish business and whose spokesman doesn't seek to represent their views, just to get himself a headline or two.<br /><br />As I said yesterday, the contrast with the FSB is marked. That organisation gets fewer headlines because it does not view getting the headline as a good in itself, it does good work and gets benefits for its members by making informed comment and by lobbying all parts of the active Scottish political world. The quality of a boat isn't determined by the turbulence of its wake - and often the turbulence indicates a problem. If I were running one of those companies that contributes thousands of pounds to CBI Scotland I might be wondering at the moment what, exactly, I get for my money. How does it advantage member companies for Mr McMillan to indulge his own ego and pursue a narrow political agenda?<br /><br />Perhaps they get good political advice? I might look into that.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7678183791809549069?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-36736027055923561182011-01-05T17:30:00.000Z2011-01-05T17:30:20.126ZCBI Scotland - who does it speak for?I was intrigued by the latest bombast and nonsense from Iain McMillan of CBI Scotland in his New Year message when he criticised the Scottish Government's pursuit of a policy that was in the manifesto on which it got elected - independence. <a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2009/12/disappointed-by-cbi-scotland.html">Mr McMillan's anti-SNP politics have been played out in public in the past</a> and his membership of the Calman Commission and Labour's literacy commission have called his impartiality into question but I thought it might be worthwhile taking the time to look past the blinkers that he wears and look at who it is that he actually represents; of which tribe is this man a tribune?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/982/0106012.xls">Scotland has 296,780 business enterprises</a> - up 1,400 in a year and up 17,290 since the SNP came to power; a performance during a recession that exceeded the performance of the previous three years when times were good - of which 1,500 have more than 500 employees and a further 3,655 have between 50 and 249 employees - 4,155 substantial Scottish businesses - 2,265 of the medium sized enterprises are headquartered in Scotland and 430 of the large ones; that's 2,695 substantial businesses not only operating in Scotland but headquartered here (an increase in percentages from previous years) - and then there are all the small Scottish-owned enterprises to add - another 146,065. You would think that CBI Scotland, whose Director gets so much media attention, would have a fairly big percentage as members.<br /><br />CBI Scotland doesn't publish its membership online, more's the pity, but <a href="http://www.cbidirectory.co.uk/search/alphabetical.php">the CBI has a business directory which you can browse at your leisure</a>, and I did just that. You don't have to be a member of the CBI to get listed so not every business listed will be a member but I reckon that the number of businesses which would pay for the listing without being members would be fairly small so I went right through the entire directory and noted which ones had Scottish addresses and found that CBI Scotland's membership is, at most, 90. That's not a typo, it's 90 - nine zero.<br /><br />Of that 90, though, 3 are universities, 1 is the commercial arm of a university, 9 are quangoes or publically owned companies (TIE and SECC are the companies), 8 are trade bodies, 1 is a BID district, 6 are branches or subsidiaries of other companies, and only 62 are Scottish companies. 62 out of the 148,760 Scottish companies - 0.04%. I'll try to be fair and acknowledge that it's unlikely that many small enterprises would think of joining the CBI (although there is some evidence that this is not strictly true) and I'll just take the larger and medium sized enterprises - 62 out of 2,695 or 2.3% - hardly speaking for the vast swathes of Scottish business opinion. Additionally, I know that directors and owners of some of these companies are SNP supporters or have already expressed their appreciation of the work that has been done by the SNP Scottish Government.<br /><br />The Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland, by contrast, has more than 20,000 members and we hardly hear from them although they appear to put out more comment than CBI Scotland. Could it be because FSB Scotland contributes positively and meaningfully to public debate in Scotland, quietly winning support and benefits for its members and that doesn't make for good stories while the rather more florid utterances from the CBI do?<br /><br />For everyone's delight and delectation and for the purposes of sharing information, here is the full list:<br /><br /><strong>Universities</strong><br />Robert Gordon University<br />Glasgow Caledonian University<br />College of Arts and Social Sciences (part of Dundee University)<br />GU Holdings Ltd (commercial arm of Glasgow University)<br /><br /><strong>Quangoes and similar</strong><br />VisitScotland<br />Skills Development Scotland<br />SQA<br />Scottish Enterprise<br />Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership<br />Investors in People Scotland<br />Business Stream (part of Scottish Water)<br />SECC (91% owned by Glasow Council)<br />TIE (Edinburgh's favourite tramline layer)<br /><br /><strong>Trade Bodies</strong><br />Food Trade Association Management<br />Graphic Enterprise Scotland<br />Homes for Scotland<br />Publishing Scotland<br />Scottish Building Federation<br />SELECT<br />The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland<br />The Scotch Whisky Association<br /><br /><strong>BID district</strong><br />Essential Edinburgh<br /><br /><strong>Branches or Subsidiaries</strong><br />AG Holdings<br />Conoco Phillips<br />Heineken<br />ISS Facility Services Ltd<br />UPM-Kymmene<br />Weber Shandwick<br /><br /><strong>Companies </strong>(split into business sectors)<br /><strong>Banks and financial inc insurance and investment</strong><br />AEGON UK<br />Airdrie Savings Bank<br />Alliance Trust<br />Clydesdale Bank<br />Royal Bank of Scotland Group<br />Standard Life<br /><strong>Engineering</strong><br />Weir Group<br />Imes Group Holdings<br />Jacobs<br />Balmoral Group Holdings<br />Hydrasun Ltd<br /><strong>PR & Consultants, etc</strong><br />BiP Solutions<br />Chance Associates<br />Core Solutions Group<br />Eglinton<br />Glen Abbot Ltd<br />Indigo<br />James Barr<br />Kynesis<br />Laura Gordon Associates<br />Liddell Thomson<br />Millstream Associates<br />Munro Consulting<br />SI Associates<br />Gupta Partnership<br /><strong>Energy, Oil and Marine</strong><br />Aquamarine Power<br />Cairn Energy<br />Flexitricity<br />Lithgows<br />Scottish Power<br />Wood Group Management Services<br /><strong>Lawyers</strong><br />Ledingham Chalmers<br />Maclay, Murray & Spens<br />MacRoberts<br />McGrigors<br />Morton Fraser<br />Shepherd and Wedderburn<br /><strong>Property</strong><br />Elphinstone Holdings<br />Lochay Investments<br />Townhead Properties<br /><strong>Construction & Supplies</strong><br />WF Watt (Contracts)<br />Miller Group<br />Stewart Milne Group<br />McAlpine & Co<br />Mactaggart & Mickel<br /><strong>The rest</strong><br />Devro (food wrappers)<br />FirstGroup<br />Havelock Europa (furniture)<br />Henry Winning & Co (string & twine)<br />ICS (education)<br />John G Russell (transport)<br />Kube Networds (telecom)<br />M Computer Technologies<br />Memex Technologies (electronic shop equipment)<br />Morris Leslie Group (various)<br />Scottish Leather Group<br />STV Group<br />Coverdale Organisation (training)<br />Edrington Group (distillers)<br />Skene Group (hotels)<br />Tomatin Distillery<br />Tullis Russell Group (paper)<br /><br />So there you have it - the membership of CBI Scotland.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-3673602705592356118?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-39509655654911866262010-12-28T20:41:00.000Z2010-12-28T20:41:28.745ZPainting an election pictureI thought that the die for the coming election had been all but set, with the debate ranged wide and narrow about SNP competence in Government versus Labour's distinct unfitness for office; about SNP progressive politics putting Scotland first versus Labour's greet that they're "no in poo'er enny mair"; Labour's lack of any kind of policy platform from which to launch their vision of a Scotland better than it is versus the SNP's eagerness to continue the job that's started, barrel Scotland along the road of progressive and far-sighted politics that are designed to make this a more socially just and inclusive Scotland and which will allow for greater equality and a far greater range of social mobility. I thought it was set, but both Iain Gray and Danny Alexander have set out to prove me wrong.<br /><br />Iain Gray, if I may resort to the vernacular, spat the dummy in a weekend interview, failing to see that personal invective is neither an eloquent nor an adequate response to the charge that he simply is not capable of taking power and running Scotland well. He appears to fail to understand that the charge is not that he will not take an interesting photocall (the politician who doesn't take such photocalls either disdains the electorate or does not understand public politics), but that the charge is that he is not and will not be in a position of leadership even within his own party and that this indicates a failure of leadership, a tragic and fatal flaw in his political career - he will not need to echo Sherman, he is playing Coriolanus within his own party and will fall at the hands of his new allies having abandoned his old allies in that nest of vipers. The appropriate response to his immature outburst, I thought, was dignified silence but I think that the<a href="http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.com/2010/12/gray-who-stole-christmas.html"> Worrier of the Lallands Peat</a> may have bested me with an appropriate festive ditty.<br /><br />It is Danny Alexander, though, <a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/81bn-cuts-are-sensible-and-unavoidable-says-alexander-1.1076775">whose attitude is most rank and malodorous</a>. While there is a political debate on whether the cuts being imposed by the current Tory/Lib Government are, as he argues, "common-sense" and "unavoidable" (and that debate is raging at present) or even whether the cuts imposed by the previous Labour Government of roughly two-thirds the size of these were "common-sense" and "unavoidable", surely there is no-one who could possibly imagine that they are "progressive" as that word is used in politics nor that they can in any way be described as "civilised"? To read Mr Alexander's quotes in this article, as he glibly attributes the pains of poverty to losing control of macrofiscal policy and skites blithely by the effects of the spending cuts on people's jobs and public services with the reassurance that he "was aware" of them, is to realise that he lacks any degree of empathy with the people facing this from the wrong end of his barrel. It's not clear whether he knows what progressive politics consists of nor whether he has any idea, it's the fact he doesn't care; he is, to borrow an old turn of phrase, 'stepping over the homeless on the way to the opera'. I don't think people mind the cuts as much as they despise the attitude with which they are being handed down, they don't object to the economic policies so much as they object to the social policies and the social engineering behind those economic policies. They still object to the cuts but they don't mind them as much as they object to the expectoration that comes with them and the suspicion that micturition will follow it.<br /><br />I saw an interview with John Bird, the founder of the Big Issue magazine, this morning on BBC Breakfast where he was talking about radical reform of the welfare state. He was saying that the welfare state is of no use if it doesn't make benefit recipients stronger and more able to fend for themselves, that its aim appears to be as much and perhaps more about keeping the poor down than about alleviating poverty. It was an interesting and thought-provoking item but one visualisation he used struck me as particularly apt when thinking about the policies of the current UK Government and the one which immediately preceded it. I'm paraphrasing but fairly accurately - "if the safety net is made of concrete you're finished when you hit it".<br /><br />We may live in interesting times but I hope we avoid times of barbarous government. We face an election next year where the Lib Dems are the axemen of the current Tory UK Government whose policies are anything but progressive or civilised and who are only a different hue of the previous Labour Government whose shadows still hang in the air. In Scotland Labour feigns anger for whatever was in the morning paper or was overheard on the morning bus; turning to rattle the cages of sections of the electorate it believes belongs to it with faux-left rhetoric while it is happy to skip hand-in-hand with the two coalition partners when modesty suits in order to attempt to inflict party political defeats on the SNP Scottish Government. In their unholy trinity it seems we can all too often hear them cry havoc and let slip their dogs of war. I thought the land was laid for the coming election but Labour and the Lib Dems seem intent on divesting themselves of as many opportunities as possible, it may be that this election will come down to the pitched battle and the ideological clash between those in Government in Edinburgh and those in Government in London - and all for the command of the future direction of politics in Scotland. These barricades will be hard to defend, the structure of the Parliamentary and Governmental power under devolution does not contain the strength to protect Scotland, but it will be the style and manner of our victory and the size of our winning margin that determines for us as the SNP, and for us as the people of Scotland, which direction we must take next.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-3950965565491186626?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-61148934085186822162010-12-20T19:40:00.000Z2010-12-20T19:40:24.115ZTuition feesA thought, a thought ...<br /><br />If you consider Further and Higher Education to be public services then why is that some people think that students, almost uniquely, should pay an additional tax for receiving that service? If you have the need to call for the assistance of a constable you would not expect to find upon receipt of your next payslip that you were paying more tax. If you have the misfortune to require hospital attention you would be surprised to be landed with a bill as you were sent home to recuperate (leaving aside, for the moment, those PFI monsters which charge for access to a television, for parking, and for anything else they can get away with - thus 'almost uniquely). Walking home of an evening using the pavement and the streetlights does not incur an additional charge. Having snow cleared from your path by serving soldiers brought from barracks for the purpose does not leave you with a burden of debt to repay. Using our public libraries will not bankrupt you. Sending children to school does not incur result in a higher rate of tax for decades after they leave.<br /><br />Why should students be singled out? They have higher earnings over their lifetimes? They'll pay more tax in a progressive system (actually, they'd pay more tax in a flat rate system as well, but I prefer the idea of progressive taxation, it seems fairer). Others don't get the benefit of that education? Yes we do - in the form of doctors, engineers of all kinds, teachers, plumbers, electricians, nurses, town planners (give them a wee break), geologists (they find things that we need, you know), philosophers, and even lawyers - although universities do also produce economists, there's a fly in every ointment.<br /><br />Of course, there's always the argument that Further and Higher Education don't constitute public services but in that case why do we give them any public money at all? Tuition fees have no place in public education and we should pay for Further and Higher Education out of general taxation because they're part of our civilisation and tax is the price we pay for civilisation. You need a tax system which is fair and raises enough money of course - you wouldn't want to try to run a country on a block grant - and you'd need to be prepared to invest for years before you saw the benefits, but that's OK, the sooner you start the sooner you benefit.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-6114893408518682216?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-2828924071639135182010-11-01T00:19:00.000Z2010-11-01T00:19:43.426ZLabour, Labour on the wall...Remember in the <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1655283.ece">2007 Scottish Parliament General Election </a>Labour broadcast a message that insisted that an SNP victory in that campaign would result in a tax rise of £5,000 for every family in Scotland. It wasn't a costed claim, no details were ever offered, it was just a figure pulled out of the air, and Scottish-controlled taxes have actually gone down in real terms with a council tax freeze (as well as measures which save the poor money like the reduction in prescription charges). It was ironic that the claim was being made at the same time as Labour was proposing changes to the Council Tax banding which would see some houses' bills go through the roof without benefiting any other households.<br /><br />We appear to have round two of the madness now with Labour proposing Council Tax rises and coming up with an uncosted wishlist of their own which, it<a href="http://www.snp.org/node/17449"> turns out after the SNP costed it</a>, would result in a tax rise of about £3,000 for each Scottish household. It can't just be me who wonders why, when Scotland's public purse is facing massive cuts, Labour thinks it appropriate to give every 18-year old a year's free subscription to the newspaper of their choice (unless it's an attempt to get favourable headlines) or to extend free travel to include trains as well as buses or why Labour thinks that Scotland needs yet another commissioner. Nor can I see why students should be entitled to a guaranteed £7,000 income while studying nor why Labour thinks that young people who want to volunteer need an organisation to support them.<br /><br />The clock, it would seem, continues to tick but Labour is falling further and further away from reality.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-282892407163913518?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-30653014843771974562010-10-30T18:46:00.000+01:002010-10-30T18:46:30.832+01:00Who said we should?The<a href="http://www.parliamentarystandards.org.uk/"> Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority</a>, set up to, among other things, make the expenses system of MPs more transparent, costs £7million per year to run compared to the old fees office which cost a mere £2million a year. One of the things it demands of MPs, though, is timeous delivery of details of their expenses claims. A friend of mine submitted a freedom of information request asking for details of the expenses scheme for IPSA staff, the actual expenses paid to IPSA staff, and a reason why senior staff business costs have not been published on the IPSA website as promised.<br /><br />You would imagine that IPSA would want to reply promptly, wouldn't you? The answer was due on the 15th of October - my friend is still waiting. Getting a little irate, he's lodged a complaint <a href="http://www.ico.gov.uk/">with the ICO</a> (good luck with that, I've been waiting two years for a judgement from them). Neither organisation, apparently, practices what it preaches, and neither lives up to the standards they expect of others.<br /><br />For the avoidance of doubt, my friend who made the request and the complaint is not a politician, is not employed by a politician, isn't employed by any political party and, in fact, is not employed in politics at all, he's just a chap who gets cheesed off at waste in the public sector. More power to him and others like him, I say.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-3065301484377197456?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-87646818148338315042010-10-24T17:36:00.001+01:002010-10-24T17:36:00.363+01:00It's piqued my curiosityI was having a wee look at the opinion poll done by<a href="http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-ScotsmanVI.21.10.10.pdf"> Yougov for the Scotsman</a> and noticed something that made me look again. Remember the constituency polling figures were SNP 34%, Lab 40% Con 14%, LD 8%, but the unweighted figures were SNP 506, Lab 403, Con 138, LD 78 (no unweighted figures given for the Greens) - that would give the SNP 45% of the distribution among the four largest parties, Labour just under 36%, Conservatives just over 12% and the LibDems 7%.<br /><br />I appreciate why the weighting is done and how it should increase the accuracy of the poll but I question whether Yougov might have gone a little far. The change made by the weighting saw the SNP have 113 votes removed while the three other parties all saw increases (the LibDem vote wasn't increased by enough to make a difference to the percentage they got but it was increased). If memory serves, Yougov has been a little off in its Scottish weighting before. It's just a wee question I've got hanging about there, but maybe Scotland's Party is actually ahead just now. Of course, even if the poll with its strange weighting is accurate, we're still ahead of where we were <span class="UIStory_Message">in November of 2006 when the SNP was at 32% in the constituency vote and 28% in the regional vote compared to the current 34% and 31%.</span><br /><br /><span class="UIStory_Message">Och, what an interesting wee time we have ahead of us!</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-8764681814833831504?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-82253266453815967292010-10-14T00:03:00.001+01:002010-10-14T00:03:31.613+01:00The Madness of MoneyPolitics became lost at the end of 1976. That’s when the Labour Government of the day finally realised that it had lost control of public spending, messed up the economy and sent the UK into chaos (something they’d been arguing about for a year by that time); it’s when Denis Healey, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, went to the IMF to ask for a loan to keep the state afloat until the revenues from the North Sea started rolling in. It’s also when the UK found out that the IMF doesn’t give loans without collateral and that the mortgage terms were not exactly easy. Enter Dr Johannes Witteveen, born in Zeist, former Finance Minister of the Netherlands and economics professor in Rotterdam turned Managing Director of the IMF, who made himself comfy at the Cabinet table, got a wee cup of tea and a couple of chocolate digestives and set about curing Labour’s mess.<br /><br />The IMF administered a medicine that tasted bitter – sour enough to poison the well from which the Labour Government and the trade unions had been drinking, vicious enough to last into the Winter of Discontent, the fall of the Labour Government and the rise of Margaret Thatcher. Healey had promised the Labour party conference of 76 that there would be no new spending cuts just as his Prime Minister had been telling the BBC that only Labour could dig the UK out of the financial mess that Labour had got it into and Labour conference was voting to nationalise the major banks and a big skelp of the insurance industry. It seems that some things, indeed, never change. The measures brought by Dr Witteveen changed the course of the UK monetary policy abruptly and, it might be said, viciously but they did more – they also changed the nature of political debate in the UK; no longer were the big debates about different ideologies and different policies, the debates became about the money needed to fund policies rather than about the policies themselves – a phenomenon nicely described a while back by Ian Bell of the Herald as “budgets driving policies instead of policies driving budgets”.<br /><br />The refrain of ‘how much does it cost?’ often drowns out any intelligent policy debate which may be going on and it’s been constant for all of my active political life, sometimes focussed, acute and at the forefront, often obtuse, monotonous and draining – the muzak of politics in the UK, and just as enervating.<br /><br />It’s why the debate on Scottish independence has descended into a fiscal rammy. It’s why the debate over nuclear weapons often finds itself in the grey cul-de-sac of arguments over what the money could be better spent on rather than why we have the things in the first place. It’s why George Osborne can cut Child Benefit and not get roasted. It’s why we find even the sensible and dedicated politicians in the SNP getting caught up in it, promising that any Barnett consequentials resulting from the UK’s spending review will be spent on health but not why. It’s why the future of Higher Education has been reduced, in political discourse, to arguments about funding. It’s why the to and fro over private prisons is about money more than effectiveness. It’s why so much has been privatised, tendered out, outsourced, and driven away from the public realm. The debates are no longer about what should be done, they’re all about where to spend money.<br /><br />Now we have the monster of all fiscal panics for politicians frightened of policy debates to hide behind, cowering from the responsibility of engaging in an exchange of ideas, shirking the duty of examining the options presented and, instead, arguing about which pot to put the pennies in – and which pot to empty. That robs us of the political discourse that should inform our decisions and it squeezes the civic discourse which should guide us forward; it’s the equivalent of putting your hands over your eyes and thinking that if you don’t look then the scary thing won’t be there. The truth is, though, that the curtains are still moving and when our eyes are finally opened we might be staring at a landscape that we don’t recognise, didn’t choose and don’t want – and there’s always the danger, remote as it may be, that while our attention is diverted someone with their hands on the controls of government pulls us away and away and away from where we would rather go, celebrating each little victory with the joy of la petite mort and leaving us moving ever so slowly towards une grande mort.<br /><br />It was Curran who said; "It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt", so let’s take his advice and remain vigilant, let’s start taking back some of that discourse, let’s reclaim our right to politics and political debate never free from economic and fiscal considerations but not dominated by them either. Let’s have a look first at a couple of areas which have been blanketed and smothered by the fiscal argument in recent times and see if there is a political debate beneath them.<br /><br />Why is it that university students and graduates, uniquely (I think) among users of our public services were required, and the argument appears to be getting made now that they should in future be required, to spend years repaying the cost of the public service they receive – over and above the taxation on their incomes? We don’t face a bill for calling the police, we don’t get slapped with a cost when using social services, we don’t face tuition fees in schools and we don’t have to pay to see a doctor, why are university graduates singled out? The usual argument floated is that they gain lifelong benefits from the education and they earn more over their working lives (the government estimate of additional earnings has shrunk somewhat and now stands at around £100,000 – you’d probably get a better return over your working life from putting your tuition fee in the bank). The usual riposte to that claim is that society benefits as well and income tax from those additional earnings goes to help fund state operations. It’s a ping-pong, so let’s try a different approach.<br /><br />If you gain lifelong benefits and additional earnings from a university education, don’t you gain the same from life-saving medical treatment? In this instance life itself is a benefit and any money earned is, of course, more than would have been earned without the life-saving treatment – why is the patient not presented with a bill? What about the lifelong benefits and additional earnings of going to school – why are they not charged separately? What about the benefits and additional earnings that come from maintaining good health by having clean streets and a decent rubbish collection service? Of course, there was an attempt made at one point to introduce an individualised charge which would recognise the benefits of life under Scotland’s local authority system, it didn’t go down too well as I remember.<br /><br />More pointedly, perhaps, why is there no talk of a graduate tax for college students who also get lifelong benefits and additional earnings, or an apprentice tax for apprentices, or one for those trained on the job at public expense? Why are university graduates singled out? They shouldn’t be.<br /><br />Universities are autonomous bodies, not strictly part of the public sector but largely funded through the state. If we agree that government should fund universities to teach our people then we are agreeing that universities should be regarded as part of the public sector and there is no reason why one of our people being taught in one area of the public sector should have different terms and conditions to another. If we believe that all of us should be treated equally by the state then the arguments for tuition fees, graduate taxes, graduate payments and the like all fall away. Unless, of course, we decide that others who receive public services should pay for them individually.<br /><br />There is the growing “woe is me” with universities arguing that they can’t keep up with the funding that English universities get through central funding and fees and that this will worsen when the expected changes are made south of the border in response to the Browne report. Anton Muscatelli has even suggested that Glasgow University might go pop on his watch because it runs out of money unless it can charge large tuition fees (I wonder how it managed to survive all of the 559 years it has been around) and Andrew Cubie of the infamous Graduate Endowment has suggested a Graduate Tax is the only way to match England’s march to wealth. You would think, if you listen to well-paid professional academics, that Scotland’s universities have been ill-served by everyone who has come near – the truth is slightly different.<br /><br />Vince Cable and David Willets cut £449 million of funding from the English universities in June – to add to the cuts that Mandelson had already made, and that’s not all. In 1998/99, the year that tuition fees were introduced in England, the teaching grant for England’s universities was £4.68 billion. For this academic year teaching grant and government-funded fees amount to £5.1 billion - that’s a real-terms cut of £1.1 billion – 17% of what the English teaching grant would have been if it had just kept pace with inflation. Universities UK in evidence to the Browne Report estimated that fees will bring in £1.5 billion this year to universities and colleges. Tuition fees haven’t added to the income of English universities, they’ve reduced government funding and instead dipped into the pockets of the students.<br /><br />In Scotland the teaching grant for 1998/99 was £435 million and research and strategic change grants took the total up to £574 million. Grants for infrastructure were embedded into these grants at that time and they have continued to be done that way. This year’s General Fund allocation included £666 million for teaching and £241 million for research as part of the overall £988 million grant – a real terms increase of £243 million, representing a 42% real terms increase in government funding. We should also remember that some Higher Education is delivered in Further Education institutions which have a separate funding stream so the actual spend on Higher Education in Scotland is higher than this.<br /><br />There are 131 Higher Education Institutions in England and 19 in Scotland (20 if you count the Open University); English universities receive just under £39 million each on average from central government while Scottish universities receive £52 million each on average. Scottish universities get better central government funding than English universities and even adding tuition fees on to the income of the English universities they still lag behind their Scottish counterparts by a couple of million pounds each. I suspect that the poverty pleas from our universities do not quite match the reality and they give no indication of the contribution to our society made by our universities. Universities who still worry do, of course, always have the option of following the example set by the University of Buckingham. Founded about 30 years ago, it is completely independent of government, takes no government money and is not directed in any way by government. If you want to go there you pay the fees – approaching £18,000 for the degree done over two years, four terms a year. It isn’t clear whether any Scottish university might be keen to work this way.<br /><br />What is clear, though, is that Scotland doesn’t have a university funding gap and doesn’t need tuition fees, graduate taxes or any of the rest of the vaguely daft ideas that are floating around. What we do need is a debate about the value added by universities and by study – the economic value to the individual is bandied around endlessly (and the figures change endlessly), we hear no shortage of that because it suits the purposes of those who want to change the way in which their studies are funded – but we do not hear much about the value added to society by the doctors and engineers and teachers and physicists and geologists who are trained, little about whether an educated society is a happier society, and almost nothing about the benefits to the host city or town of having a university.<br /><br />There is no proper debate, either about whether we should have more than half of our young people going to university, about where that target came from and what its purpose is, it was a target that seemed to appear without much discussion and with little explanation of its purpose or intent. Reference was made to the Scandinavian countries who have higher HE participation rates than us but no case was made about why it was desirable for us to aspire to higher rates. We have seen a proliferation of degree courses, some of which have been roundly mocked and some of which you could argue should not be degree courses; and we have seen increases in the number of universities. I find myself wondering whether the post 92 universities actually offer more than they did in their previous incarnations; they hand out degrees now but are those degrees more valuable than the qualifications they handed out before? Are their students better educated or better trained than they were before? These debates simply aren’t being had – no long-term view about how we improve Higher Education can be knocked back and forth without the Scrooges muttering dire warnings, lisping portents of doom and ignoring Marley’s warning.<br /><br />We can’t accept that as being good enough, we can’t simply allow policy to be driven by budgets, we must get back to discussing what should be done, what needs to be done, and how we need things to change for the better then we can discuss how we find the resources to do those things. Not only is the cart before the horse just now, the horse is still behind a bolted stable door.<br /><br />While we’re talking about universities and colleges, let’s take a minute to think about the students. They end up paying dearly for their education with a student loan debt that is, to all intents and purposes, a small mortgage secured on their future. The arguments rehearsed earlier about tuition fees and graduate contributions apply here as much as they do there – why is this group of people being singled out to have to pay for the public service they receive? There are additional points to consider as well, though, points which perhaps indicate how much of a disservice student loans do our country.<br /><br />Their repayments limit the disposable income that graduates have, thereby creating a drag on the economy – if that disposable income was spent by those young professionals (by and large graduates fit that description) while they have a bit of space in their lives it would help to drive our economy forward. Instead it is simply recycled as an additional tax.<br /><br />The burden of the repayments also means that graduates are less able to move on with their lives, it’s harder to get into the housing market, it’s more of a decision to have children, and so on – slowing down many of the drivers of national growth that we need.<br /><br />Debt has been shown to be a disincentive to study for those from a non-traditional university background and student loans represent the biggest debt that a student will accumulate in Scotland during their study – student loans reduce social mobility.<br /><br />Finally, though, the one dichotomy which might be found to be the hardest to reconcile is the strangeness of the contrast with those who are unemployed. When one of our citizens is unemployed and seeking work we, quite rightly, support them with benefits to a degree. It simply isn’t the life of ease that some suggest over and over again but it is a contribution from the state to the wellbeing of that person and their family which is, usually, a grant of money. Why is there not a readiness to offer that same contribution to students? Why is it that we have a state prepared to give money in a grant form to those who are workless but that same state refuses to offer similar assistance to other, similar people who happen to be studying in order to improve themselves and, in the process, are making themselves more work-ready? If we can fund a jobseeker for a while why should we not fund a student for a while? We don’t ask the jobseeker to repay their benefits when they get into work, relying instead on the taxes they pay to fill that gap – why should the same principles not apply to students? Why should these two groups of people be differentiated in the eyes of the state?<br /><br />In the maelstrom of speculation about cuts that we’re experiencing just now there are stories and rumours aplenty but little hard evidence of anything at all. In the midst of it, though, we’ve continued to avert our eyes from that most important of things – political and policy debate, discussion about how we move our country forward. We’re captured by those who want a fiscal fight and imprisoned by those who ask the price rather than the value. We should retake our politics, retake our public discourse, reclaim our right to test our opinions against those of others. We do ourselves down by always counting pennies and never dreaming dreams, we’ll do better when we dare to dream again and dare to test ourselves against our fellow human beings. Scotland will do better when we dare to reach out and grasp the thistle of ideas instead of always checking for the pocketbook.<br /><br />As MacDiarmid would have it:<br /><blockquote>O Scotland is<br />THE barren fig<br />Up, carles, up,<br />And round it jig!<br />A miracle’s<br />Oor only chance.<br />Up. Carles, up<br />And let us dance!</blockquote><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-8225326645381596729?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-22517648272736538982010-10-04T22:48:00.000+01:002010-10-04T22:49:01.272+01:00An economic futureSo, the GERS ping-pong and <a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/scotching-the-myth-1.868309">similar spats </a>are fiscal arguments rather than economic debates, and GERS, in particular, is a sterile fiscal argument that ignores much of how nations operate, ignores, indeed, how the UK operates. If you want a different look at deficits and what they mean I can think of no better recommendation than watching my old friend from school, <a href="http://watsoninstitute.org/news_detail.cfm?id=1388">Professor Mark Blyth – he’s an economist but he’s not bad really</a>. So what would constitute a fair economic future for Scotland? How would we measure economic optimism and pessimism, how do we judge the actual economic debate? How do we lay down the parameters of economic viability for an independent Scotland?<br /><br />Well, we’re talking not about whether we’d be fabulously wealthy or miserably poor, not about the current performance or the recent performance, nor even about whether we have the right or the wrong politicians. An economy ready to face the world as a tool of an independent country must have a wide base, a good variety of inputs and outputs; it must range across the whole country – it is likely to have different strengths in different parts of the country, and different aspects will be at different strengths in different parts of the country; it should have flexibility – the ability to change as needed; and there should be strength in depth in the major fields of the economy. To some extent, the space to grow in each of these categories can replace the need to have the capacity but throughout all of them there must be an element of resilience, without which the economy would be too fragile to be useful. The rate of business creation and attrition must play some part in the decisions on growth and resilience, and there will be other measures which can be added in as we come to them.<br /><br />There are other ways of measuring innate economic strength, one of which, Natural Capital Accounting, was used by <a href="http://www.scottishaffairs.org/backiss/pdfs/sa15/sa15_Slesser_King_and_Crane.pdf">Slesser, King and Crane in the mid 1990s on a study of the possible future economy of an independent Scotland </a>where the conclusion was that independence would be good for Scotland’s economy and would help the sustainability of Scotland in the longer term. Malcolm Slesser was an SNP member and stood for the party in parliamentary elections and he was also a respected academic. That<a href="http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/13/38/36165332.pdf"> isn’t the only alternative way </a>of measuring an economy there are others, but let’s stick with the few measures mentioned earlier. The debate about measuring the economy will, no doubt, carry on for some time yet and I’ll content myself in the meantime with fashioning my own argument which will, no doubt, evolve over time.<br /><br />The first point of inquiry, then, is does the Scottish economy engage its population? <a href="http://www.statistics.gov.uk/elmr/10_10/2.asp">Labour market statistics in the process of being published </a>(covering May to July 2010) as I write this show an economic activity rate of 77.5% for those of working age (slightly higher in men, slightly lower in women). The 22.5% inactive will include students, homemakers (a word I detest but can think of no other at present), those in ill-health and those who act as a carer for a relative or otherwise unable to work, but it represents 764,000 who are economically inactive. There are about 200,000 Scottish domiciled students in our universities and about 80,000 full time students in our colleges (roughly one tenth of Scotland’s working age population is enrolled in our colleges in one way or another) and there’s about 77,000 pupils still at school after reaching 16. I can’t, at the moment, find figures for the number of carers, people incapacitated through ill-health, or homemakers so can’t quantify them so they stay in the figures for now, leaving about 400,000 working-age Scots economically inactive although only 239,000 are declared as unemployed.<br /><br />That seems a bit of flab in the economy and cause for a little concern. It’s not a new phenomenon, either, data going back to 2002 show that 74% was the norm for a while and a range between there and 77% held sway until the end of 2006. Economic activity rates went over 78% for a while but fell back and are actually recovering now and even excluding students and stay-on pupils, we still have around 12% of our working-age population economically inactive. That is always going to be an unused resource, if not an actual drain on our economy, and should be addressed, and that’s before you add in the citizens of this nation who are over 65. It’s interesting that it has been almost static for so long – the difference between the 74% and the current 77.5% representing around 119,000 people – quite a chunk but only just over a fifth of what it was and a quarter of the gap that still exists. It’s interesting, also, in that it suggests that the recession has not had a massively deleterious effect on our economic activity; that the Scottish economy has actually held up – in these terms – relatively strongly. There is the question of whether the economic activity is high value, and whether the overall value of economic activity in Scotland has been affected but, in terms of whether people are actually engaged in the economy, it is quite a good news story.<br /><br />Additionally, it suggests that there is a workforce available for growth in the economy (disregarding, for the moment, whether that workforce has the skills that the growing sectors of the economy will need or whether it is distributed well in the geographical areas in which growth is likely to happen) and that employment growth is not just possible but desirable.<br /><br />The next question would seem to be where those people are employed, both in sector terms and geographically – how wide a base does our economy have?<br /><br />Excluding central and local government, <a href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Business/Corporate">there are 291,380 enterprises in Scotland </a>(up by 12,000 since 2007 and up by 55,000 since 2000 - 2009 figures, 2010 figures are due soon) of which two thirds are sole traders and nearly 92,000 are small businesses employing fewer than 50 people each. There are 2,315 businesses in Scotland which employ more than 250 people each and 3,640 which employ between 50 and 249 people each. That’s a good spread and suggests a degree of resilience with the spread of employment allowing a few bumps and bruises to be managed. I’m impressed with the number of Scots who have their own businesses, too – giving a lie, I think, to the oft-repeated comment that we’ve lost our entrepreneurial spirit. 193,550 sole traders and 91,875 small businesses suggest a couple of hundred thousand self-employed people in Scotland - actual figures might be skewed by individuals owning more than one business, for example, or by partnership owning. These are all, however, businesses which reported turnover so no shelf companies are in those numbers.<br /><br />The sector spread is quite wide based, no over-reliance on any one sector, the smallest sector in terms of numbers being “financial intermediation” with about 3,250 companies, followed by “mining and quarrying, utilities” with around 3,350.<br /><br />Likewise, the numbers employed in these enterprises are well spread, the smallest sector being the motor trade with 45,350 employees, manufacturing having 224,170 employees, agriculture 60,570, and so on – a wide, comfortable and accommodating spread. There’s not enough information in the Corporate Sector statistics to get to in-depth information about oversupply or gaps in provision so I’ll leave that aside just now and perhaps return to it later.<br /><br />The number of private sector businesses increased by 3.3% between March 2008 and March 2009 and it was small firms that accounted for almost all of that rise while those private sector enterprises created more employment over that year – a 2.2% increase. It suggests a strong economy that can keep growing in the face of the economic difficulties which were becoming more than apparent over that year – and a self-confidence in Scots that allowed people to stride out on their own.<br /><br />Most of our business sector is home grown too – only 3.1% of businesses operating in Scotland are owned outwith the country (and that doesn’t take account of those shareholders who own shares in these companies and live in Scotland. The difficulty I find is that these external companies (including those owned elsewhere in the UK) account for more than a third of Scotland’s private sector employment – 35.3% - and 52.4% of turnover of private sector enterprises in Scotland (23.7% for businesses owned in the rest of the UK, 28.7% for businesses owned elsewhere in the world). Granted, they tend to be the bigger businesses (supermarkets spring to mind, for example) and that some of them might have started as Scottish businesses (Kwik-Fit, for example, now owned by a French company), but it appears a bit of a weakness that so much of the business transacted here is in companies owned elsewhere. Cross-border ownership is fine (Scots companies do it too) and their very presence here indicates a strength in our economy but the profits made from the business transacted go elsewhere and I cannot escape the feeling that we should be looking to grow indigenous companies to balance it a little more in Scotland’s favour.<br /><br />That, of course, once more ignores the shareholders who live in Scotland but have shares in companies furth of Scotland. It also excludes financial intermediation enterprises (banks, credit institutions, leasing, insurance, pensions, securities, fund management, stuff related to these sectors and so on) because the turnover data of these institutions is not presented in a way which can be absorbed into the figures, so that may nudge things a little more in Scotland’s direction.<br /><br />RBS announced £1.6bn in operating profits earlier this year (while it considers legal action against Goldman Sachs, apparently), Scotland’s other banks should follow – including the wee Airdrie Savings Bank – but Scotland’s other financial operators are also to be counted. We have hedge funds and investment managers including a new one launched in Glasgow (Crinan Capital) last month but also some longer established ones like Aberdeen Asset Management, Martin Currie, and Dundee’s own <a href="http://www.alliancetrust.co.uk/">Alliance Trust</a> – there’s about £650 billion investment under Scotland’s managers, £726 billion in pension funds management, and £685 billion in asset servicing.<br /><br />We also have fairly serious players in the financial sector and it amounts to getting on for a couple of thousand companies (including the new ones coming recently) employing about 100,000 people. <a href="http://www.sfe.org.uk/about-industry/">Scottish Financial Enterprise </a>estimated that the GVA of Scotland’s financial sector amounted to some £7billion in 2008. <a href="http://www.investmentuk.org/assets/files/press/2010/20100726-imaams.pdf">The Investment Management Association </a>reckons that 13% of all of the UK’s funds are managed in Scotland.<br /><br />I haven’t used GVA figures much here – there are arguments both ways on their use and some of the figures would help bolster my case; <a href="http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/gva1209.pdf">ONS figures</a>, for example, suggest that Scotland has 8.4% of the UK population but 8.5% of the economically active population and 8.2% of GVA. GVA should be taken with a touch of caution at this level, though, as pointed out by ONS. Because of the methods of gathering information the confidence interval increases and ONS uses a rolling mean to smooth the effects. An interesting point about GVA made by ONS, though, is that it is measured where the wages are paid rather than where you live – as would be the ideal – meaning that London is overblown as a result of commuting, giving the wonderful irony that, according to the Office of National Statistics’ measurement of Gross Value Added, Scotland’s MPs contribute to the economic well-being of London and not of Scotland.<br /><br />So how big is Scotland’s economy? Well,<a href="http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/gva1209.pdf"> ONS gives our GVA per head </a>(excluding oil) as being 97.9% of the UK’s (GVA, as noted, is skewed by much being reported in London when the work is done elsewhere) and has the North East of Scotland as the third wealthiest region in the UK (statistics due for update in December). Turnover of private Scottish enterprises (excluding the financial sector and North Sea Oil – so a fairly large chunk) was £249.5 billion in 2009 – up from £216.7bn in 2007 and £164.6bn in 2000.<br /><br />The public sector is, to an extent, carried on the back of the private sector. There are arguments about whether Government spending crowds out private investment and therefore restricts economic performance and it is doubtful whether any theory will ever play out enough to balance itself up. It’s clear, however, that public sector employment in Scotland is nowhere near the levels sometimes claimed. The public sector employed 590,850 people in March 2009 and there were 24,980 employed in public corporations or nationalised bodies out of 2,586,370 – a little under 24%. Surprisingly, NHS and Social Work staff amount to 244,070; just under 40% of the total public sector employees, 9.4% of all working people in Scotland, or one in every 20 of our population. That’s a figure that I hope to have a look at in closer detail when I get some time.<br />I posited that an economy that was healthy enough to support an independent Scotland would have to have a wide base, flexibility, strength in depth, the space to grow, and resilience. I’ve sketched the beginning of the debate here – not completed the case by any manner of means – and I think we’re heading in the right direction, more can be found on <a href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/scotPerforms/indicators">Scotland Performs</a>. Scotland’s economy isn’t homogenous, it has enough variety to allow it to absorb some impacts and recover, and it has resilience as we’ve seen. It has ingenuity and invention as well and it has intelligent operators who will protect their businesses (like the fishing fleet which has developed better fishing techniques to allow stocks to recover). Scotland’s people are engaged with the economy but there is still room to grow, there are opportunities and Scots are taking them. Scotland’s economy, it seems to me, isn’t a land-mass of industry so much as an archipelago of endeavour and the spaces between the islands might be as important as the islands themselves – there’s room for manoeuvre and there’s room for growth. There are weaknesses, certainly, as I’m sure there are in every economy, but there are great strengths as well. We may have far fewer of the employers of yesteryear who each employed thousands of workers but we have many, many more that are small enterprises, the dreams of individual people and the drive to make a living by their own hand. The size of the turnover of the Scottish economy is more than I expected it to be when I first started looking, and the fact that our GVA per head is approaching the UK average in spite of the skewing of London gives me great confidence in our ability to perform and to perform well economically. We punch above our weight in financial services and we punch above our weight in education, we have a robust and resilient economy.<br /><br />Taken as a whole, I think it demonstrates that Scotland has an economy which can see us into independence and serve us well there. It won’t stay the same, it will change, but it should stay strong unless government makes a mess of it. It won’t improve markedly on day one of independence but a Scottish Government dedicated to improving Scotland (and the previous Executives, to some extent) has shown that it can be improved, even under the restricted circumstances of devolution and a government of whatever hue that gets its hands on the levers of economic management with Scotland’s best interests at heart will be a government that can set Scotland on a course for sustained economic improvement. It won’t be fast but it can be done.<br /><br />We may carry deficits some years – as the UK does, and most other nations do – but we can carry surpluses some years, too. We may institute an oil and renewables fund to take long-term advantage of our natural resources. We may do a lot of things, but I think it’s clear that we actually do have the scope, the economic strength, the resilience, and the wit to be able to do these things for our own benefits. It’s not a fiscal argument, it’s about the economy, sensible, and we should have the courage to acknowledge that we’re as good as anyone else.<br /><br /><a href="http://newsnetscotland.com/economy/632-would-an-independent-scotland-have-a-viable-economy">Alex Porter argued </a>that the proper answer to the question “will an independent Scotland have a viable economy?” was “Who cares? What choice do we have?” I have a great temptation to agree with him, to agree that the UK is bust and broken and beyond repair, but I’ve also got a wee message of hope.<br /><br />Not only will an independent Scotland have a viable economy, we’ve got it already, it’s functioning not too badly, it may be misfiring here and there from time to time but a wee tune-up and a decent driver and it can quite easily be purring its way along the highways and byways of the global economy, steering to catch Scotland’s best interests as it sees them. Spread good cheer, we’ve got a good economy.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-2251764827273653898?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-78040659977121070182010-09-18T20:41:00.000+01:002010-09-18T20:41:48.723+01:00The economic case - the case against GERSOK, let’s take a wee glance under the skirts of the economic case before we put it back in its bath chair with a wee tartan rug over its knees and send it out for a sleep in the sunshine out in the garden.<br /><br />It has to start, really, with<a href="http://scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/06/22160331/0"> that old warhorse GERS</a>. Not the Ibrox team, I wouldn’t want to intrude, but the report known as Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland. I think Ian Lang must still be chuckling about his cunning plan, conceived in 1992 while he was Scottish Secretary. Not only did the numbers, maladjusted as they were before the recent review, create confusion, it fed the conceit that Scotland might not be paying its way in the world. It was a political exercise in undermining, as he wrote to his Prime Minister and Chancellor;<br /><blockquote><p>"The booklet I have had prepared and printed, setting out the details of the Government’s expenditure and revenue in Scotland, I judge that it is just what is needed at present in our campaign to maintain our initiative and undermine the other parties."</p></blockquote>His greatest triumph, though, might be said to be that nationalist politicians ended up being sucked into the maelstrom of argument over what is, essentially, a partial cashflow statement. GERS is the spindoctor that has become the story, it’s a statistical report that has become a unionist shibboleth and a nationalist tripwire, and it means nothing.<br /><br />The political points of GERS had to be addressed and its insufficiencies pointed out, the disingenuity of basing a political economics argument on a tally sheet which contains estimates and best-fits challenged, but we’ve ended with the daft position where we’re arguing about which years Scotland was in surplus and by how much rather than on how we make Scotland a better country. For surplus to have been the position in as many years as it has is nigh on miraculous, it is not the normal position for a country to have. If I may quote Professor Gavin McCrone in his 1974 paper on Scotland’s oil:<br /><blockquote>“In the first place it is not necessary to balance the budget. To finance loans and various items of capital investment, particularly those which yield a return by borrowing is quite reasonable; other items too may be covered by borrowing from time to time particularly if an expansionary budget is necessary to generate a higher level of economic activity in the economy. For these various reasons the United Kingdom budget normally involves a net borrowing requirement and whilst this will normally be fairly small this is not always so; in the present year, for example, the borrowing requirement reached the record figure of £4,000m.” </blockquote>Governments borrow, nations run deficits. The UK Treasury’s website has a few fascinating items on it including <a href="http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/55%281%29.pdf">the history of the national debt</a>. <br /><blockquote><strong>The origins of public debt</strong><br />6. Historically when the state had budgetary deficits, particularly those arising from wars, it funded them from taxation.<br />The financing needed for the War of the League of Augsburg led to the creation of the Bank of England in 1694 and the first types of state public financing debt in England.<br />7. The early 1700s saw the emergence of banking and financial markets. The ability to raise money by creating debt through the issue of bills and bonds heralded the beginning of the National Debt. This rose from £12m in 1700 to £850m by the end of the Napoléonic Wars in 1815. The two world wars of the twentieth century caused debt levels to rise, from £650m in 1914 to £7.4bn by 1919 and from £7.1bn in 1939 to £24.7bn in 1946.<br />8. The period of relatively high inflation in the 1970s and 1980s saw debt rise from £33.1bn in 1970 to £197.4bn in 1988. Debt measures are usually presented as a percentage of GDP since comparisons over time need to allow for effects such as inflation. Dividing by GDP is the conventional way of doing this.</blockquote>As an aside, one of the interesting things about this, for me, is the fact that the UK national debt started accruing a few years before the UK came into being and it would appear that there is a bit of historical revisionism going on about the events that surrounded 1707. We are often told that the Darien scheme had brought Scotland’s finances to their knees and we were saved by integration with a larger and richer neighbour. It appears, however, that England had just become the first nation ever to get into debt. Interesting but little more than that in discussing Scotland’s future.<br /><br />What is far more pertinent to the case against GERS is the attitude of the UK Government to managing the debt. The Public Sector Net Debt is £816.2 billion and there is some publically stated intention on the part of the current Conservative Chancellor to reduce that but <a href="http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/junebudget_annexb.pdf">supporting documentation for the June 2010 budget </a>points to a slightly different set of priorities:<br /><blockquote>The Government aims to finance its net cash requirement plus maturing debt and any financing required for additional net foreign currency reserves through the issuance of debt.</blockquote>In other words, the Government intends to borrow to cover its cash requirements this year and next year and the year after – and to borrow in order to pay off the bonds that are maturing; borrowing money to cover the costs of the money already borrowed. I haven’t looked to see when the UK last ran a surplus but I would imagine that it would take some looking. A little perspective is a wonderful thing – the UK still services the debt from the Napoleonic wars rather than paying it off, reasoning that servicing it is cheaper and therefore better value for the public purse. Not only do governments borrow money, they keep on going, relying on inflation to take the long-term costs down and make it affordable.<br /><br />This may not be a bad thing – sovereign bonds are purchased by organisations like pension funds because the reliability and the guaranteed, if low, return serve their purposes well. Krugman and others have argued that we should actually be borrowing more in order to stimulate the economy and soothe the nerves of fund managers – <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn26.pdf">the theory goes</a><br /><blockquote>High levels of borrowing increase demand and are therefore generally held to stimulate economic activity; low levels of borrowing (or, on occasion, actual repayment of debt) decrease demand, and so are generally thought to depress economic activity.</blockquote>Whether Scotland has the economic ability to thrive after independence has very little to do with the figures that are in the GERS report and an awful lot more to do with what Scotland can do to earn a crust in the world. There is a political ping-pong that goes back and forth with equally sterile arguments on each side – Scotland’s ability to pay her own way is questioned followed by an accusation of mismanagement of our economy from London, there’s a union dividend or we pay all the bills. I don’t subscribe to the idea that malevolent politicians sitting beside the Thames design policies to harm Scotland. I do, however, reason that their calculations have to be about what’s best for the overall UK economy and that is skewed incredibly towards London and the South-East of England, even to the detriment of large areas of England. Scotland suffers as an unintended consequence of decisions made in the best interests of the UK economy.<br /><br />Even if we had the figures to hand – the actual corporate and personal taxation take from Scotland, the actual spend in Scotland, the oil revenues, the backlog of capital works, the share of duties and so on – it would mean little in terms of the independence debate. A change of policy on the part of an independent government would move the numbers and a range of policy alterations will create a new landscape. Additionally, forces will come to bear which change those figures over which governments have little control, as we have seen recently. The real question to answer is ‘How can we make our country more robust to withstand the buffeting of bad weather, flexible enough to accommodate different strands of enterprise, and agile enough to take advantage of opportunities?’ The independence question in there is ‘can we do it?’ That’s what we should be looking at in the economic debate, how do we make this country resilient in the face of challenges, forward-looking in opportunity harvesting and capable of sustaining and improving her people’s standard of living?<br /><br />It’s only partially a numbers exercise, the current figures only hint at what tomorrow may bring – it’s more an exercise in imaging a new landscape and about how to deliver it. That journey should take us away from the barren lands of GERS and into the more fertile lands of positive human interaction. The numbers may be fascinating and deliver us a cracking good argument from time to time but we’d best take a look at what we could win should we dare to try. That’s a field to poke my nose into next.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7804065997712107018?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-9213054891111075742010-09-06T20:49:00.002+01:002010-09-06T23:10:39.262+01:00A Case for IndependenceI want to state a case for independence to start it here and develop it over time. I tire of the economic argument, of the statistical ping-pong, of the sterile subsidy/surplus, poverty/plenty, barren/bountiful debate. It shrinks the debate on Scotland’s future to little more than a car boot sale haggling session; it belittles our politics and narrows our politicians. A country is more than a balance sheet, a nation more than a cash account, a people more than a bank statement. There are wealthy nations and there are poor nations and each of them goes about its business and its international interactions seeking its best advantage. Most of them run annual deficits and carry large debts. Seldom does any nation decide that its wealth or its poverty requires it to be subsumed by another and seldom does any nation decide that its wealth or its poverty requires it to secede from such a union; nations are more than the sum of their sovereign funds, you cannot place the value of a community in a set of accounts any more than you can weigh identity or measure the dimensions of belonging. The ‘economics’ debate brings to mind Bierce’s definition of a cynic as someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.<br />We know that Scotland is a wealthy country, one of the richest, and we know that we’ll have a moral obligation to hold out the hand of friendship and assistance to nations which need it, wherever they are – it’s an obligation and an opportunity we should welcome. Our wealth is not in and of itself an argument for independence, though, any more than its absence would be a case for the continuation of the UK. Our common future deserves more careful consideration than that and should be rooted in a deeper understanding of what it means to be a Scot. Or, to quote Walter Scott:<br /><blockquote>Breathes there the man with soul so dead<br />Who never to himself hath said,<br />This is my own, my native land!<br />Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,<br />As home his footsteps he hath turned<br />From wandering on a foreign strand!<br />If such there breathe, go, mark him well;<br />For him no minstrel raptures swell;<br />High though his titles, proud his name,<br />Boundless his wealth as wish can claim<br />Despite those titles, power, and pelf,<br />The wretch, concentred all in self,<br />Living, shall forfeit fair renown,<br />And, doubly dying, shall go down<br />To the vile dust from whence he sprung,<br />Unwept, unhonour’d , and unsung.</blockquote>It is that unquenchable affection for a people, a land, a place, a belonging that marks a people’s link to their country, perhaps even more so in stateless nations like Scotland. It is the drive that comes from that which leads many to the nationalist cause and it is the yearning to belong to that land and the people of the land that drives civic nationalism; an inclusive and welcoming thinking. It does not easily lend itself to outlining a case fro independence, however, and Scotland needs that case to be laid out.<br /><br />Muhammad Ali Jinnah, first president of Pakistan and its chief architect, laid out a case for nationhood. He appears to have used the same formulation of words on several different occasions and used them to, amongst other things, explain why Pakistan should be created. It’s a clear and cogent phraseology:<br /><blockquote>We are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions, in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of international law we are a nation.</blockquote>It’s approaching 70 years since Jinnah laid out this vision of the distinctiveness of his nation but the clarity of his argument means that it applies just as much to Scotland today; we have our own distinct and distinctive culture, evolving and ever-changing it is true, and welcoming of additions from new members of our society to create what William McIlvanney happily described as “our mongrel nation”; a distinctive civilisation – an understanding of civic society which differs in scope and direction from our English neighbours and, to a great extent, from our other European neighbours, falling closer to Scandinavian mores but still distinctly Scottish; our own languages, Gaelic, Lallans, Doric, and Scots English spring easily to mind; our literature and art have proud traditions which resonate Scottishness but stand easily and well as part of the international movements; our architecture has a history rooted in Scotland and touching European styles; our names are distinct although our nomenclature might not be quite so clear-cut an issue; our sense of values and proportions seem markedly different from those of our neighbours; our laws and legal systems are our own; our customs and calendar are marked by uniquely Scottish events (I imagine that this isn’t what Jinnah meant by calendar but it still stands); our history and traditions are steeped in the mythology of Scotland. In short, we easily fit Jinnah’s definition of a nation. But it seems not enough.<br /><br />Ernest Renan, 19th century French theorist, had another take on nationhood, one which I can cleave to readily:<br /><blockquote>A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form. Man, Gentlemen, does not improvise. The nation, like the individual, is the culmination of a long past of endeavours, sacrifice, and devotion. Of all cults, that of the ancestors is the most legitimate, for the ancestors have made us what we are.<br />…<br />A nation is therefore a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future. It presupposes a past; it is summarized, however, in the present by a tangible fact, namely, consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life. A nation's existence is, if you will pardon the metaphor, a daily plebiscite, just as an individual's existence is a perpetual affirmation of life. That, I know full well, is less metaphysical than divine right and less brutal than so called historical right.</blockquote>That accepted continuum argument would seem to hold water well; the social capital, the bonds that hold Scotland as a nation, only exists with the consent of the people. The folk memories and the common aspiration of the people of Scotland are what makes Scotland, the zeitgeist of modern Scotland holds Scotland of the past and Scotland of the future in its hands. The commonality of those who belong to Scotland now is what Scotland is and their joint aspiration will be what determines her future. Where you came from doesn’t matter half as much as where you want to go.<br /><br />It’s been said by some that a working class Scot has more in common with the working classes in other nations than with other Scots who aren’t ‘working class’ and that there’s a ‘Social Union’ of shared values and mutual cultural interests which binds all on these islands together and which will survive Scots independence. There is little, if anything, to support either of these affectations, they appear as confections created to bolster political positions. I have cousins who are English, born on the Albion side of the border and have lived there ever since, proud of where they come from and proud, too, of their nation. They’re my family and always will be – even during World Cups – but I have more in common with those who have chosen Scotland for their home.<br /><br />I think it was Oliver Brown who said that there are two types of Scot, those lucky enough to be born here and those intelligent enough to move here, and that seems to fit what can be seen in the towns and cities of Scotland day and daily. Those who have chosen to make this country their home sit easily in the values that Scotland shares, the investment they make in this nation shows the commitment they have whether they have just stepped across the border from England or flown in from Poland or Pakistan or India or Africa or, indeed, anywhere else in the world. Their values chime with those we recognise most happily in ourselves and that we, in our commonality, appear to share; perhaps not universally but in clear majority terms. They have a shared existence, a shared belief, a desire to share in the ‘large-scale solidarity’ that is Scotland and their lives are led to the same rhythm as ours. I find a greater affinity with someone who has chosen to come here than with those who have always had their allegiance tagged to another nation.<br /><br />What, then, of those who set forth from Scotland and settle elsewhere? They appear to be of at least two types – those whose romantic hearts have remained behind and those whose eyes are set on other lands and ne’er backerties do they cast. There is ample evidence that Scots have held fast to their home nation even when living on the other side of the globe (read Kenny MacAskill’s book Wherever the Saltire Flies for detail) and there is an equal amount of evidence that there were Scots who never thought a second time about shaking the dust of Scotland from their shoes (although we still like to claim them as our own when it suits us). Those who never look back seem to be on a par with those who have never looked here, their links with Scotland are broken, it has become just another country to them, quite possibly as foreign a country as the past can make it. Scots who have moved abroad but carry a piece of Scotland with them have never truly left but their connection is simply not as strong as the connection between Scotland and someone born elsewhere who has chosen to live here – they are Scots just as much as any of us are Scots, it doesn’t matter whether you can trace your Scottish roots back to an ancestor who sat in McAlpin’s court or your Scottish roots began at the airport last week if you’ve made the commitment to live in Scotland you’re a Scot if you choose to be one.<br /><br />I don’t pretend that Scotland is free from racism nor would I contend that xenophobic sentiment is a minor issue here. I dislike the smugness on this issue that Scots, including myself, so often display as if we were better people than those elsewhere but we have a civic and collective attitude which encourages assimilation into our nation – some of the most passionate Scots I have met have been the children and grandchildren of immigrants, building a belonging here while still holding a candle for their ancestral homeland. Internationalism burns clearly where people can feel a part of a new nation as well as retaining their own histories. I would like to think that we can aspire to the same level of acceptance of others that Ataturk displayed while speaking to the mothers of ANZAC soldiers who died at Gallipoli:<br /><blockquote>Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives...<br />You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.<br />Therefore, rest in peace.<br />There is no difference between the Johnnies<br />And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side,<br />Here in this country of ours.<br />You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries...<br />Wipe away your tears.<br />Your sons are now lying in our bosom<br />And are in peace.<br />After having lost their lives on this land, they have<br />Become our sons as well.</blockquote>His constant refrain was that nations are people in the land and that the strength of nations depends upon the strength of its people; in a speech in Ankara in 1920 he said:<br /><blockquote>Today, nations recognize only one sovereignty: sovereignty of the people. Looking at the details of an administration we would see that all begins in a village, a community, in other words with persons. People can be led by anyone in the wrong or right direction if they are not educated. For his/her salvation every person must take his/her future in his/her own hands. An institution built from bottom to top, from the foundation to the roof will certainly be strong.</blockquote>Ghandi expressed similar sentiments:<br /><blockquote>We have long been accustomed to think that power comes only through legislative assemblies. I have regarded this belief as a grave error brought about by inertia or hypnotism. A superficial study of the British history has made us think that all power percolates to the people from parliaments. The truth is that power resides in the people and it is entrusted for the time being to those whom they may choose as their representatives. The parliaments have no power or even existence independently of the people.</blockquote>The continuing theme is that it is the people who are important, not the institutions, that the cohesiveness of a people indicates both nationhood and the strength of the nation. There is no social union crossing national boundaries that can be as strong as the union of people within those boundaries. I think the concept of the social union was first touted in Jim Sillars’ book The Case for Optimism where he noted the parallel concerns of FBU members in London and Glasgow. I would speculate that firefighters’ professional concerns, though, retain a similarity across the globe as has been so often demonstrated with the efforts firefighters here will put in to ensure that their colleagues in other countries have equipment which will help ensure their safety and let them do their jobs effectively, while their cultural and social concerns diverge markedly – it isn’t a social union that motivates them, it’s a professional bond and similar bonds can be seen in many other professions.<br /><br />Is this a case for independence? Not of itself; there is no restriction on what the people of a nation can do with their sovereignty – it’s theirs to do with as they will, even to cede control of it to others – and the case for independence is still to be made. It rises from the contention that the interests of Scotland differ from those of the UK, that our pooled sovereignty is not serving our people in the best possible manner – and that is the case we have to argue.<br /><br />I have heard the case made that “an independent Scotland would not have gone to war in Iraq” and I wonder whether that is thought to be a compelling argument. Leaving aside the fact that we have no way of knowing what an independent Scotland might have done nor how it would have developed and where its best interests would have lain at the time, how is this any more a compelling argument than arguing that an independent Scotland would have a different speed limit or a different benefits system? It hinges on the fall of one decision in one direction or the other and is no more an argument for independence than the assertion that vegetarians and meat eaters disagree is an argument for any such couple to divorce. The dissonance between Scotland and the UK must be greater than this for the case to be made for independence and I’d like to take a stab at establishing the basics of that case first and developing it in greater detail later.<br /><br />There are shining contrasts between the civic discourse of Scotland and the civic discourse of the UK – interestingly often seen most starkly in those UK politicians who come from here, perhaps a proximity thing, perhaps because they try too hard – and there are equally large contrasts between the reported opinions of Scots and similar opinion polls across the UK, mirrored, it would seem, by the vox populi of ‘letters to the editor’, broadcast phone-ins, those dreadful ‘stop you on the street corner and ask your opinion of asylum seekers’ spots, and all the other trendy and with-it techniques of garnering audience participation to justify broadcasting.<br /><br />It all suggests that Scotland is a nation with a different social conscience from that of the UK, we are a more collectivist people – an attitude more Scandinavian where our sense of decency reaches out for us and we see a society in balance, a society which holds to yachad, which embraces togetherness, collectivity and togetherness.<br /><br />We see the political discourse of Scotland being a welcoming of asylum seekers and holding close of refugees – a discourse which is echoed by the neighbourly welcoming those in need through community action groups. Even if there are tensions at times and even violence, the over-arching is a welcome, a social commentary from the roots of Scotland which disparages the actions of the UKBA and rails against the inhumanity of decisions made in the tribunals. The political discourse in the UK, meanwhile is that of the fortress, of quotas and caps and fast rejection, the contest seems to be who can hang toughest, who can play the card closest to the wire, and who can match the vitriol of the least reasonable newspapers. The civic chatter is muted at best, and the words from the pens and keyboards of the concerned populace appears to be concerned with preserving property and lifestyles rather than offering friendship and humanity.<br /><br />Where the UK argues for the retention of a nuclear weapons facility in order to play with the big boys on the world stage, Scotland revolts against the inhumanity of them. Where the UK political slant is that we need to be a nuclear power in order to retain our permanent member position in the UN Security Council, Scotland’s political viewpoint is, generally, more geared towards working productively with a larger number of other nations for the greater good, and taking our turn at doing the work in the Security Council when it comes round – more a cooperation in world affairs than the desire to rule them that seems to be the UK position – a position which Dean Acheson perhaps measured accurately. Internationalism rather than imperialism, perhaps?<br /><br />Scotland favours offering opportunities for self-advancement and entrepreneurship rather than the glorification of wealth; the encouragement of employment opportunities and the helping hand back into work rather than the provision of advice about mounting bicycles and heading off in search of the promised land; and the protection of those who cannot work rather than their vilification as scroungers.<br /><br />Public ownership of the public sector and the infrastructure of the state is regarded as a good thing in Scotland, far less so across the UK, and the argument that the public sector drags down the private sector is contested vigorously here but appears to be accepted wisdom across the UK – even when the private sector turned to the public sector recently and begged for investment in massive public sector procurement projects to help the private sector. ‘Project Privatise UK’ which has appeared in many guises over the years has been met with increasing opposition in Scotland – even to the point of turning it back (the SNP Government, obviously, but don’t forget that the last administration did their bit with things like the Skye Bridge). While there continue to be moves afoot in the UK to toll roads Scotland has removed tolls from bridges because they are part of the roads network (again, the SNP Government with panache but the previous mob also got into the act with the Erskine Bridge).<br /><br />Whisper it, but there’s a tendency in Scotland to favour progressive taxation while the UK seems set on moving towards flat taxes, having only come towards progressive tax as a necessity; and a willingness in Scotland to use the business tax system to encourage smaller businesses to thrive rather than simply create conditions for yet more massive profits for those already making fortunes.<br /><br />It’s not an exhaustive list by any manner of means but it is indicative of some of the big issues. It can be expanded as we go – or, indeed, challenged. It serves, I think, to indicate that Scotland thinks and feels differently about big issues in society, that we pull towards a different path, that we would be more comfortable, more stable, feel more in solidarity if we went our own way.<br /><br />The UK politicians aren’t necessarily wrong to follow the paths they are taking and it may be that the policies they have chosen to pursue are the right policies for some parts of the UK. They may have positioned the UK just right for its interests but they do not appear to be Scotland’s interests.<br /><br />The wellbeing of a nation, of a people, is about much more than economics, it’s about how a nation walks together, about how we rub along, agree and debate and decide the way forward. I can’t understand why, as one of my SNP colleagues put it, some politicians don’t appear to want Scotland to have an economy fit for independence even before it happens, but I don’t think that it’s the most important point in the debate. Poets contribute as much as economists, engineers as much as programmers, it’s a collective effort that drives a country forward and it seems that the impetus to drive Scotland forward is missing from the UK agenda – not out of conspiracy or evil intent but merely because Scotland’s interests do not align with those of the UK.<br /><br />Scotland is pulling in a different direction, our interests lie other than alongside those of the UK, we have different attitudes, different collective opinions, a different solidarity. It isn’t just that we might have come to a different conclusion in taking this decision or that decision, it’s that we approach the decisions differently.<br /><br />We are a nation with all the attributes of a nation and all of the gatherings of a nation, a nation whose sovereignty is currently commanded to take pathways which don’t sit easily with us, with our beliefs or our collective conscience.<br /><br />That is the case for our independence, that is why we should reclaim our statehood, that is why Scotland should rejoin the family of nations - Scotland is a different nation and should be seen as such.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-921305489111107574?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-88725218130680077822010-09-03T17:42:00.000+01:002010-09-03T17:42:00.595+01:00Councillor Dawe - just not worthyThere was <a href="http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/Gathering-lessons-39must-be-learned39.6496261.jp">a wee story in Edinburgh's Evening News recently</a>. The gist is that Edinburgh Council paid out £6,000 to a company involved in the Gathering and no-one had told Council Leader Jenny Dawe who had told other councillors that no money had been paid, she instituted some kind of inquiry to get to the root of it all and that report has indicated a series of events which resulted in the money being paid out and it was, of course, all the fault of a senior council officer.<br /><br />At first I regarded this as being a bit of a waste of public money and just a bit snide on the part of Cllr Dawe, seeking to shuck off responsibility but thinking about it now, I'm thinking that it's indicative of a deeper malaise, leading the council carries a responsibility similar to the leader of any other organisation - your desk is where the buck stops whether you ordered the action or not. Tony Hayward never ordered the rig explosion or the oil slick but he took the rap; Dugdale resigned in spite of not being responsible for the Crichel Down Affair; Carrington resigned because the FCO had failed over the Falklands in spite of not being personally responsible; and if memory serves there was even a Minister in Blair's Government who resigned over exam marking even though she was not personally responsible. Being at the top of the tree means you have to be prepared to accept responsibility for the organisation you lead. Slippy shoulders when it comes to responsibility (aye, and the blame) are not acceptable.<br /><br />I laughed at the irony a while back when I saw a leaflet from an Edinburgh SNP councillor which stated that the Lib Dems now only stand for hypocrisy; now I wonder whether he was being too kind. When you're in a position of privilege and responsibility like the leader of the council in Scotland's capital city you have a duty to strive always to be worthy of the office, you should always be asking whether when all is said and done you will have said more than you've done or done more than you've said. Cllr Dawe doesn't match that specification, she is just not worthy.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-8872521813068007782?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-90737791983983896122010-09-01T08:44:00.001+01:002010-09-01T08:44:00.895+01:00Labour and alcoholMost interested was I in <a href="http://www.jackiebaillie.co.uk/uploads/13438f00-3097-f2f4-1d07-c4bbbe270c51.pdf">the 'independent' commission on alcohol that Labour set up</a>. It had six members: Sam Galbraith, Labour party member and former Labour Minister; Stephen Doran, Labour party member and Glasgow Labour councillor; Brian Fearon, Labour party member, former Labour councillor and Labour's candidate in Ochil in 2007; Sally Brown (chair), former Labour party member and friend and neighbour of Labour MSP and former Labour Minister Richard Simpson; Graeme Pearson, former policeman and now Labour's adviser on crime (providing the skeleton for Richard Baker's sterling work); and Jeremy Blood who spent 21 years working for Scottish & Newcastle and is now a director of Mitchell's & Butler's. Impartiality - ye canna whack it!<br /><br />Anyway, this commission, fascinatingly, came up with proposals that are already Labour party policy - remarkable the prescience that Labour politicians have - and scorned Minimum Unit Pricing (the policy of the SNP Government). This commission argued that "MUP is not in place anywhere in world and the evidence presented for its effectiveness relies on estimates of impact" just before it refers to the Canadian Social Reference Pricing which it suggests differs markedly from MUR. Perhaps they should have done the tiniest bit of research, something like reading the <a href="http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S3/committees/hs/inquiries/AlcoholBill/documents/019BrewersAssociationofCanadaBAC.pdf">submission from the Brewers Association of Canada to the Alcohol Bill </a>which describes SRP and shows it to be the same as MUP. In addition, Russia introduced minimum pricing on vodka earlier this year to curb consumption and has already had minimum pricing for other spirits for a couple of years, Moldova introduced it on strong alcohol products, Ukraine and China both have minimum pricing (Ukraine's politicians were arguing about how much it should rise by in April last year), and Australia was considering it at the beginning of last year (just me and my research assistant Mr Google finding MUP in action)<br /><br />If you want something more stunning than that, though, look at the recommendations - this commission rejects the idea of Scotland bringing in a minimum price for alcohol based on the strength of the product and suggests, instead, that the Scottish Government asks London to introduce a floor price below which alcohol may not be sold and harmonise prices so that the cost of the drink will be based on the strength of the product. So that would be an argument that we shouldn't do it but should ask London to - the argument being that you shouldn't have a different system in Scotland. The irony of Labour being last to understand devolution is almost painful. Also interesting in that section, though, is that Labour's minimum price is based on adding together the cost of production, duty and VAT but there is an aside that "The Commission is unconvinced by those who argue that it is not possible to arrive at a notional basic cost of production." This is the only time in the report that it is mentioned that someone has suggested that it might be impossible to isolate notional basic costs (for instance, if one site is producing 20 different products on 7 different lines, how do you allocate production costs to each unit of each product?)<br /><br />Labour once again ignoring the duty of responsible politicians and, instead, messing around looking for a tiny political pointscoring opportunity - a party that really can't be trusted. It's time to properly address Scotland's unhealthy relationship with alcohol and Labour just isn't interested.<br /><br />Let's leave the last word to<a href="http://www.ias.org.uk/resources/publications/theglobe/globe201001/gl201001_p8.html"> some international alcohol experts who have written to MSPs encouraging them to support the SNP Government proposals</a>.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-9073779198398389612?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-83072187101106859532010-08-26T21:08:00.000+01:002010-08-26T21:10:05.215+01:00Top Trumps - Justice<div><div><div><div>As<a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2010/08/lets-play-top-trumps.html"> I said before</a>, you can buy <a href="http://www.toptrumps.com/index.asp">Top Trumps </a>packs but they've forgotten Holyrood (how could they?). One of the comments on the Top Trumps post on the candidates for First Minister suggested that I should have added "Ability to think on ones feet" as a category - it's one I didn't consider but it would hardly be fair, would it? Salmond seems mildly disappointed if nothing unexpected happens while the Labour front bench looks like it would need to go home for instructions if the newsagent didn't have its favourite brand of chewing gum.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509812361529331090" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 267px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/THbJJowDDZI/AAAAAAAABk0/lDMO98B6Tjw/s400/Judge+walkings.jpg" border="0" /><strong>On to Justice though; our contenders are</strong><br />SNP - Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill MSP<br />Lab - Shadow CSfJ Richard Baker MSP<br />Con - Shadow CSfJ John Lamont MSP<br />LD - Spokesperson on Justice Robert Brown MSP (I had to look that up)<br />Green - I dunno, I'll let <a href="http://www.twodoctors.org/">James</a> tell us<br /><br /><strong>Categories</strong>:<br /><br /><strong>Tough on crime</strong><br /><br /><strong>MacAskill</strong> takes assets from criminals and recycles them into <a href="http://www.cashbackscotland.com/">assets for communities</a> - on his watch Scotland’s police and courts have been<a href="http://news.stv.tv/scotland/184049-police-elite-targeting-gangland-criminals/"> pursuing organised crime and getting results</a> . <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article804678.ece">This is</a>, of course,<a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/scottish-secretary-jim-murphy-shocked-after-gangster-attends-election-fundraiser-1.1019813"> a big change </a>since <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2010/07/03/gangster-paul-ferris-linked-to-steven-purcell-50k-corruption-probe-86908-22378809/">Labour’s time in power</a> - I think he gets <strong>10 out of 10</strong><br /><br /><strong>Baker</strong> talks about ASBOs for teenagers drinking but won’t agree with action to address the drinking and wants to jail daft wee laddies who go out with a knife in their pocket but won’t agree with the action needed to persuade them not to. He never mentions serious crime and has never talked about taking on organised crime. He wants to appear to be tough on crime but doesn’t have what it takes to actually be tough on crime. <strong>He gets 0<br /></strong><br /><strong>Lamont</strong> is new to the job, having taken over after Bill Aitken decided to sing the closing aria on his political career so he doesn’t have much of a record to examine. He does seem to have slotted straight into the strange twilight world of the Scottish Conservatives Justice theory, though, (a pity that he doesn’t take a leaf out of the book of Ken Clarke who takes somewhere approaching sense on Justice issues) and is obsessing on a few matters rather than offering solutions. He’s for short prison sentences and agrees with Labour on jailing wee laddies – wants to appear tough on crime but doesn’t know how. <strong>He gets 0</strong><br /><br /><strong>Brown</strong> is strange, it’s never very clear where he stands on anything (enough with the ‘typical Lib Dem’ comments, now), he’s unusually indirect for a Geordie. He doesn’t actually say much about the operation of the Justice system and hasn’t brought forward any alternative policies. He most certainly hasn’t spoken about how he would like to see us tackle organised crime. <strong>He gets 0<br /></strong></div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509812380128424290" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 310px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/THbJKuCasWI/AAAAAAAABk8/LL6OhO3qUf0/s400/Labour.jpg" border="0" /> <div><strong>Tough on the causes of crime</strong><br /><br /><strong>MacAskill</strong> wrote a fair bit on how to address the causes of crime in the books he wrote a few years ago as well as in articles – firstly address the three Ds – drink, drugs and deprivation, lock up the bad guys, treat those needing treatment, and find ways to give society a fair crack of the whip. In Government he’s implemented restorative justice – Cashback for Communities as already mentioned, but also in putting community service workers to work in places where it will be helpful – like clearing snow from pensioners’ paths last winter or putting headstones back up in Edinburgh graveyards or helping restore peatlands in Lanarkshire. He’s set up a review of sentencing, gave the Advocate General free reign on reforming the prosecution of rape, moved to get rid of short sentences, started the process of addressing Scotland’s unhealthy relationship with alcohol, and started to make sure that offenders pay back to the communities they have damaged.<br /><br />He’s addressing recidivism – removing short sentences is a big part of it, <a href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Justice/public-safety/offender-management/offender/community/16906/payback">keeping people out of prison as far as possible and trying to make them productive members of society</a>, keeping prison for those who are a danger to society . He hasn’t done everything yet, so <strong>only 8 out of 10</strong><br /><br /><strong>Baker</strong> has never laid out his thought on paper as far as I can tell and only comments to say “I’m against that” – I can’t recall a single time when he has said that he agrees with something that is begin done. He’s in favour of short sentences – even wanted a mandatory six month sentence in spite of the overwhelming evidence that short sentences encourage reoffending and embed many people in a life of crime. Instead of offering the underprivileged a hand up and out of the hole they’ve landed themselves in, Baker appears to want to just put a lid on the hole and keep them down there. <a href="http://www.scottishlabour.org.uk/crime">For a devastating indictment of the lack of vision in Labour’s Justice policy, there’s only one place to go</a>. <strong>Scores 0</strong></div><div><br /><strong>Lamont</strong> hasn’t said much (give him time) but he’s got to defend <a href="http://www.scottishconservatives.com/policy/justice">this barking policy</a> he hasn’t scored yet, but he could do worse than learn from Malcolm Rifkind who delivered the Kenneth Younger Memorial Lecture to the Howard League for Penal Reform while he was the Minister in charge of Justice policy in Scotland in 1988 and he said:<br /><blockquote>There will always be those who commit serious or violent crimes and who pose a threat to society which requires them to be confined for significant periods. Nevertheless there are many good reasons for wishing to ensure that, as a society, we use prisons as sparingly as possible. While the use of imprisonment may be inescapable when dealing with violent offenders and those who commit the most serious crimes, we must question to what extent short sentences of imprisonment and periods of custody for fine default are an appropriate means of dealing with offenders and there is no single answer to that. Prisons are both expensive to build and to run and do not provide the ideal environment in which to teach an offender to live a normal and law-abiding life, to work at a job or to maintain a family. If offenders can remain in the community, under suitable conditions, they should be able to maintain their family ties, opportunities for work or training and they may be better placed to make some reparation for their offence.</blockquote><strong>Brown</strong> is just wishy-washy, nothing much there, but he does oppose short sentences. <strong>Give him 3 points</strong> (is this like Eurovision?)<br /><br /><br /><strong>Taking decisions while resisting undue influence<br /></strong><br /><strong>MacAskill</strong> Showed his mettle here by holding off the US Government in the decision to free Megrahi, making the decision on the basis of the evidence in front of him rather than the political pressures that were on him. <strong>10 by gum!<br /></strong><br /><strong>Baker</strong> doesn’t have that fortitude; he even thought that MacAskill should go and beg <a href="http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/Straw-turns-his-back-on.6437910.jp">forgiveness from the US Senate</a>. <strong>Nil points</strong><br /><br /><strong>Lamont</strong> – nae record to examine, he hasn’t made clear how he would make decisions. He doesn’t even get to speak on Megrahi, Murdo Fraser does that.<br /><br /><strong>Brown</strong> gave MacAskill full support in refusing to kowtow to the US Senate, saying that the Scottish Justice Secretary is accountable to the Scottish Parliament and not the US Senate – then he ruined it with a sly dig – <strong>8 out of 10<br /></strong><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509812388731688626" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 180px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 210px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/THbJLOFmFrI/AAAAAAAABlE/KewUrDd16lw/s400/intellectual.jpg" border="0" />This would be an awfy boring game of Top Trumps but you get the picture. I think a legal mind might do a better job of analysing these contenders, <a href="http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.com/">I know one who frequently opines on Mr Baker, for instance</a> …<br /><br />Mind how you go!</div></div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-8307218710110685953?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-74359105257795052912010-08-26T12:15:00.000+01:002010-08-26T12:15:25.682+01:00L'esprit de l'escalierI was having a wee debate about capital punishment last night (not with myself you cheeky rapscallion) and the deterrence effect of punishment on levels of crime (next to nought in my opinion) and I've just thought of the question I should have put to my pro-hangin-an-floggin chum:<br /><br /><blockquote>Do you need the deterrent of capital punishment to prevent you committing murder?</blockquote><br /><br />Must remember in future ...<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7435910525779505291?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-15381427403601489202010-08-24T11:17:00.000+01:002010-08-24T11:17:10.825+01:00Twits of the world unite!You may remember that cool, hip and groovy chap, Frank McAveety MSP who turned out not to be cool, hip and groovy and had to<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10332299"> resign from his convenorship over offensive remarks</a>. He has decided not to be offensive in future and has, instead, decided to employ someone else to do that for him. Step forward Stuart MacLennan, onetime Labour candidate for Moray who <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/election2010scotland/2925549/Twitter-ranting-Labour-hopeful-Stuart-MacLennan-is-blasted.html">resigned in disgrace over, erm, offensive remarks </a>and is now happily ensconced in Mr McAveety's Glasgow office.<br /><br />I'm sure that they've both learned their lessons and there will be no more behaviour treating people in a derogatory and dismissive fashion. Move along, now, nothing to see here!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-1538142740360148920?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-55317819117488519132010-08-23T18:18:00.000+01:002010-08-23T18:18:30.732+01:00Art loversHere's a thing to go to when you're tired of seeing shows at the Edinburgh Festivals - art that you can contemplate in peace. Barbara Rae is exhibiting some prints in <a href="http://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk/place/718-dundas-street-gallery/">the Dundas Street Gallery </a>(paintings across the road in the Open Eye Gallery).<br /><br />If you fancy being really nice to me the one I like best is on the left hand wall just opposite the pillar (I've forgotten the name of it). You can see some of her stuff on<a href="http://212.67.202.54/~barbara/index.html"> her website</a>. Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5531781911748851913?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-40020395237213419862010-08-22T23:13:00.000+01:002010-08-22T23:13:00.744+01:00Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Southern EstaitisIf it hadn't been for the chance promotion of wee Danny Alexander to Chief Secretary to the Treasury the UK Government would lack a single Cabinet Secretary who represents a Scottish seat other than the Scottish Secretary. John Major's last cabinet, with fewer Scottish Members to choose from (11 Tory seats under Major, 12 Coalition seats now), had Lang at Trade and Industry and Rifkind as Foreign Secretary (Forsyth was Scottish Secretary).<br /><br />Interestingly, Brown had only three (including himself) but Blair had four in his last cabinet - each with far more to choose from than Major. Is the quality of unionist MP from Scotland in decline? I suppose it is blindly obvious that Mundell does not have the quality of Rifkind or Forsyth, that Moore is no Jo Grimond and Danny Alexander isn't even Russell Johnston. It's just as clear, I suppose, that Murphy is no Tom Johnston and Douglas Alexander can't hold a candle to Willie Ross, but are they really that much worse than the fodder being served up south of the border - Vince Cable, Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Huhne, Andrew Lansley, Eric Pickles?<br /><br />It's just as well we can fend for ourselves, isn't it? Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4002039523721341986?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-40606975885755531712010-08-21T23:59:00.000+01:002010-08-21T23:59:00.224+01:00Remember when?A long, long time ago there was an election and some people used videos, remember these ones?<br /><br /><br /><object height="385" width="640"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JolzRd2NPW0?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JolzRd2NPW0?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7tEPFIerqtY?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7tEPFIerqtY?fs=1&hl=en_GB&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />Ah, principles, eh?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4060697588575553171?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-29504746420004871572010-08-21T18:55:00.000+01:002010-08-21T18:55:09.189+01:00Let's play Top Trumps<a href="http://www.toptrumps.com/index.asp">Top Trumps</a> is a series of decks of cards which all have the same theme - you compare the attributes of two of the cards and the person holding the card with the best attribute wins. So, for example, if you and I were playing with a deck of F1 cars, I might pitch speed as the attribute and whichever of us had the fastest car on our card would win the hand. A fun wee game which lots of us enjoyed as children and which covers subjects as diverse as baby animals, football players, Harry Potter, Horrible Histories and Politicos. Inexplicably, they've never done Holyrood and the politicians in Scotland's Parliament so I find myself shouldering that burden.<br /><br />Let's start with the candidates for First Minister in next May's election:<br /><br /><strong>Alex Salmond:<br /></strong>First Minister of Scotland<br />Leader of the Scottish National Party<br /><br />Election history –<br />Won Banff & Buchan Westminster seat1987, re-elected in 1992, 1997, 2001, 2005 – retired undefeated<br /> Won Banff & Buchan Scottish Parliament seat 1999 – retired undefeated<br /> Won Gordon Scottish Parliament seat 2007<br /><br />Current majority – 2,062<br /><br />Age - 55<br /><br />Employment immediately before election – Oil Economist and Bank Economist, Royal Bank of Scotland<br /><br /><br /><strong>Ian Gray<br /></strong>Opposition leader<br />Leader of the Labour Group of MSPs in the Scottish Parliament<br /><br />Election history –<br /> Won Pentlands 1999<br /> Lost Pentlands 2003<br /> Won East Lothian 2007<br /><br />Current Majority – 2,448<br /><br />Age - 53<br /><br />Employment immediately before election – SPAD to Alistair Darling<br /><br /><strong><br />Annabel Goldie<br /></strong>Opposition leader<br />Leader of the Scottish Conservatives<br /><br />Election history –<br /> List Member for the West of Scotland Region 1999, re-elected 2003 and 2007<br /><br />Current majority – none<br /><br />Age - 60<br /><br />Employment immediately before election – solicitor<br /><br /><br /><strong><br />Tavish Scott<br /></strong>Opposition leader<br />Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats<br /><br />Election history –<br /> Won Shetland 1999, re-elected 2003 and 2007<br /><br />Current majority – 4, 909<br /><br />Age - 44<br /><br />Employment before election – councillor and farmer<br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>Patrick Harvie</strong><br />Opposition leader<br />Leader of the Scottish Green Party (co-convenor with Eleanor Scott)<br /><br />Election history -<br /> List Member for the Glasgow Region 2003, re-elected 2007<br /><br />Current majority – none<br /><br />Age - 37<br /><br />Employment immediately before election – youth worker and development worker for PHACE Scotland<br /><br /><br /><strong>Other things</strong><br />Then, of course, there's debating and rhetorical skills. Out of 10 points you've surely got to give Salmond at least 8 and possibly 9, Goldie probably 7 maybe 6, Harvie has to be 5 or 6, Scott about the same, and Gray 2 maybe 3.<br /><br />Stature (in terms of befitting the office) - Salmond 7, Goldie 5, Harvie 3, Scott and Gray down about 2.<br /><br />Capacity to develop policy (relies on party to a great extent and how much freedom there is to work) - Salmond 10, Harvie 8 maybe 9, Goldie 3, and Scott and Gray 0.<br /><br />Recognisability wouldn't be a fair category, Salmond is the only one who would figure.<br /><br />Courage to take decisions - Salmond 10, Harvie 10, Goldie 4, Scott 2, Gray 2<br /><br /><br />I can't think of any other categories to add at the moment, but feel free to suggest some. It doesn't look like a very even contest just now, does it? That might change when I get the chance to look at the other cabinet positions, right enough...<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-2950474642000487157?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-2666222684658500552010-08-21T17:46:00.001+01:002010-08-21T18:01:42.547+01:00Charles KennedyThe riders on <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">the</span> negotiations have been severe - what's wrong with red smarties anyway? Funny that the papers got it wrong and suggested he'd be joining Labour, isn't it?<br /><br />Ahem.<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-266622268465850055?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-47320129717293011442010-08-20T18:50:00.000+01:002010-08-20T18:50:22.859+01:00Effective Government?I am indebted to m'learned friend for alerting me to the presence of a very important commission operating under the auspices of the Westminster Government - <a href="http://www.dmo.gov.uk/index.aspx?page=CRND/ND_Commissioners">the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, known as the National Debt Commissioners</a> - a commission which, I hear you say, is coming not a moment too soon, it's about time the National Debt was reduced.<br /><br />I thought so too, and I was about to applaud the institution of this fine and well-thought-out organisation until I realised that I would be roughly 224 years too late (we'll have no comments about my working practices, thank you!), the body was established in 1786, the year that Robert Burns published his first collection of works (Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect), the year that the first prison ship sailed for Botany Bay, the year that Mozart's <em>Marriage of Figaro</em> premiered, and the year that the Affair of the Diamond Necklace helped prepare the ground for the French Revolution and the creation of the First Republic - interesting times, indeed. This bit is from page 85 of <a href="http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/416777/lmr100701.pdf">the list of Ministerial responsibilities </a>of the new Government:<br /><br /><blockquote><strong>COMMISSIONERS FOR THE REDUCTION OF THE NATIONAL DEBT</strong><br />The Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt (CRND), established in 1786, primarily manage the investment portfolios of a number of government and public bodies including HM Revenue & Customs (National Insurance Fund), National Savings and Investments (National Savings Bank Fund), Her Majesty’s Courts Service (Court Funds Investment Account) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (National Lottery Distribution Fund). It also manages some residual operations relating to the National Debt including Donations and Bequests and 3.5 per cent Conversion Loan Sinking Fund. The statutory functions of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt (CRND) are carried out within the United Kingdom Debt Management Office.</blockquote>There are eight commissioners:<br /><ol><li>The Chancellor of the Exchequer </li><li>The Governor of the Bank of England </li><li>Deputy Governor of the Bank of England </li><li>The other Deputy Governor of the Bank of England</li><li>The Speaker of the House of Commons </li><li>The Master of the Rolls </li><li>The Accountant General of the Supreme Court </li><li>The Lord Chief Justice</li></ol><p>How often do they meet? Well, back to <a href="http://www.dmo.gov.uk/index.aspx?page=CRND/ND_Commissioners">the UK Debt Management Office</a>:</p><blockquote>Meetings of the Commissioners were at first held regularly, but the last recorded business meeting took place on 12 October 1860.</blockquote>Move along, move along, nothing to see here! They leave the responsibility for managing down the national debt in the hands of two civil servants. I have no doubt that they are extremely competent civil servants but surely the elected politicians would want to be in control of such an important function? If you were hoping that the Government of the day in Westminster was keeping an eye on the massive debt then it's probably best you don't look at the other pages on the Debt Management Office site. I looked at the sections on accounts hoping to see some figures that I could ponder upon. Alas and alack, it would appear that I must seek such information elsewhere.<br /><br />That'll be for another day, I think. Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4732012971729301144?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-5616167461737867462010-06-16T19:49:00.000+01:002010-06-16T19:49:31.486+01:00McAveety is disgraceful<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/briantaylor/2010/06/cultural_encounters.html">Frank McAveety has been in the news a bit</a> for his tasteless comments about a member of the public during a <a href="http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/petitions/index.htm">Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee</a> meeting. His comments were lewd, sexist, a tad colonial and imperialistic in tone, and, frankly, unprofessional.<br /><br />This former Labour Culture Minister, though, should also hang his head in shame for<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/10332299.stm"> this bit</a>:<br /><blockquote>"She looks kinda . . . she's got that Filipino look.<br />"You know . . . the kind you'd see in a Gauguin painting. There's a wee bit of culture."</blockquote>Gauguin in the Philippines? I think not! Tahiti and a couple of other islands in French Polynesia, yes - nowhere near the Philippines.<br /><br />Sheesh!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-561616746173786746?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-4722277106363624092010-06-11T18:36:00.000+01:002010-06-11T18:36:45.758+01:00Told you soFollowing <a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/transport-environment/tram-chiefs-in-dispute-over-revealing-final-cost-of-project-1.1033225">the realisation that Edinburgh</a> now definitely, absolutely cannot afford the tram project, council officials and TIE representatives will <a href="http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Tram-chiefs-prepare-to-hold.6356143.jp">meet with John Swinney soon</a> to ask whether the money received from the Scottish Government will have to be paid back when the project is cancelled. <a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2007/10/blinkers-on-and-tally-ho-down-tramline.html">Told you so</a>!<br /><br />Some time ago at a briefing in the Scottish Parliament we were told that <a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2008/06/tramlining-across-universe.html">investors were champing at the bit to get a slice of the Edinburgh Tram project </a>but that TIE wanted to build it with public money (we were told that you could raise 100% of the dosh in London or Munich) - wouldn't that be a solution (he asked in all innocence). <a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2010/03/trams-are-they-hiding-from-me.html">I still haven't had that other briefing </a>...<br /><br />There's nothing worse than falling flat on your face and getting your nose stuck in a tramline (unless you fling your leg over the wire at the same time). Tramatic it is!<br /><br />Mind how you travel ...<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-472227710636362409?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-5429833025655541012010-06-04T18:04:00.000+01:002010-06-04T18:04:20.103+01:00Let's support England in the World CupAfter all, they're our nearest neighbours and dearest friends, and they've never won it before, have they? No, no, laddie that was a Swiss referee and a Russian linesman. England is, after all, the greatest footballing nation in the world - although they are so modest about it you would hardly know - and they play beautiful and graceful football with good manners and great sportsmanship. Pip pip for our boys in white with the three scrawny leopards on their chests, and if we need any more inspiration, let's turn to their national bard:<br /><br /><blockquote><a name="1">Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="2">Or close the wall up with our English dead.</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="3">In peace there's nothing so becomes a man</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="4">As modest stillness and humility:</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="5">But when the blast of war blows in our ears,</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="6">Then imitate the action of the tiger;</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="7">Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="8">Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="9">Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="10">Let pry through the portage of the head</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="11">Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="12">As fearfully as doth a galled rock</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="13">O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="14">S</a><a name="1">will'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.<br /></a><a name="15">Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="16">Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="17">To his full height. </a><a name="1"><br />On, on, you noblest English.<br /></a><a name="18">Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="19">Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="20">Have in these parts from morn till even fought</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="21">And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="22">Dishonour not your mothers; now attest</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="23">That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="24">Be copy now to men of grosser blood,</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="25">And teach them how to war. </a><a name="1"><br />And you, good yeoman,<br /></a><a name="26">Whose limbs were made in England, show us here</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="27">The mettle of your pasture; let us swear</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="28">That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="29">For there is none of you so mean and base,</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="30">That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="31">I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="32">Straining upon the start. </a><a name="1"><br />The game's afoot:<br /></a><a name="33">Follow your spirit, and upon this charge</a><a name="1"><br /></a><a name="34">Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'</a><a name="1"><br /></blockquote></a><br /><br />The game's afoot indeed - mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-542983302565554101?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-7179740649821797162010-06-03T13:31:00.000+01:002010-06-03T13:31:59.568+01:00More NatsThere are Labour MSPs wandering around Parliament just now wearing badges that say "More Nats". En route to Damascus?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-717974064982179716?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-22914436396887953612010-06-02T08:37:00.000+01:002010-06-02T08:37:00.448+01:00Holier than who?Turn your back for two minutes and the Lib Dems are at it again, preaching piety and claiming superior probity and all the while they're dipping the till. Remember <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8549591.stm">Clegg of Clegg Hall in the pulpit </a>saying he was out to clean up politics, that MPs ripping off their expenses was a "symptom of a deeper malaise" and that MPs had been "abusing the system on an industrial scale". There was a new sheriff in town, though, a superhero - Nick would deliver "fair, decent, transparent politics". Of course, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7611295/MPs-expenses-Nick-Clegg-defends-84000-expenses-on-modest-second-home.html">he'd need a few expenses to do the job</a> - £83,824 should do it, including £160 a month for a gardener to prune his fruit trees and maintain his rose garden (no, honestly).<br /><br />He had a damned fine rationale for it all, though, “It was in a state of complete disrepair, the garden was a complete eyesore, it hadn’t been touched for ages." Great reasoning - he bought a hovel so we should pay to clean it up - he can't be expected to wield a pair of secateurs by himself, after all, and it is "a modest semi-detached home" after all (you know, the kind of place that thousands of people aspire to have as their only home), not a palace... I wonder if he's stopped making claims on our money for his refurbishment of this white elephant he bought with our money?<br /><br />And so to David Laws. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/politics/10204798.stm">He knew that </a>he shouldn't have been paying rent to his partner since at least 2006, admitting that he and his partner should "probably have changed our arrangements". Probably? It goes further, though, the house was <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7141764.ece">paid for partly by David Laws </a>- and that was after the rule change that meant he was no longer allowed to pay his partner for accommodation. He was, in effect, paying himself rent for his second home using his Parliamentary expenses. Its different in detail but surely not in degree from <a href="http://news.scotsman.com/nigelgriffithsfinancialscandal/No10-blocked-Griffiths-sacking.2286503.jp">Nigel Griffiths and his first office scandal </a>or, for a more contemporary comparison, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/14/elliot-morley-mortgage-expenses">Elliot Morley's phantom mortgage</a>.<br /><br />David Laws has referred himself to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner - whoop-de-doo, I'm not sure I can contain myself. The behaviour to which he has admitted is criminal, he's committed fraud, he shouldn't be in the rector's office worrying about a bad report card, he should be in the police station worrying about a court case. Just to top off the ridiculousness of his position, Clegg and Cameron have both said that Laws might return to Government at some point in the future - I wonder <a href="http://www.jonathan-aitken.com/">who else </a>they might<a href="http://www.jeffreyarcher.co.uk/"> be considering </a>for <a href="http://s239530965.websitehome.co.uk/joomla_dc/">a return </a>to <a href="http://www.christinehamilton.co.uk/index.php?f=data_home&a=3">the fray</a>?<br /><br />We shouldn't be surprised, of course, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/6235338/Lib-Dems-tutored-MPs-on-how-to-exploit-their-expenses.html">the Lib Dems have a reputation for encouraging their MPs to use Parliamentary allowances in ways that were never intended</a>.<br /><br />Let's polish off wee Danny Alexander while we're at it (what is it with politicians with that surname) - there was a stooshie over his sale of his London home and not paying Capital Gains Tax. He was, of course, entitled to relief under the three year rule (as would Hazel Blears have been if she'd thought to claim it) and so not obliged to pay CGT. I can't help feeling that the biggest part of the story has been missed:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/6235338/Lib-Dems-tutored-MPs-on-how-to-exploit-their-expenses.html">Mr Alexander bought his London home in 1999 </a>when he was a press officer for the Britain in Europe campaign. In 2004 he got a job as press officer for the Cairngorm National Park (how did someone living in London get that job?), and in 2005 he was elected as an MP and immediately designated his London home as his second home in spite of not owning another home. He rented a place in Aviemore but the home he owned in London was what he called his second home.<br /><br />Here's the thing, though - he'd owned the London home for six years before getting elected but <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/liberal-democrat-mps-expenses/7787519/Danny-Alexander-new-Treasury-chief-avoided-capital-gains-tax-on-house.html">as soon as he got elected he started spending money on doing it up</a>, a new boiler, repairs to the roof, and so on - £37,000 worth in two years, then he sold it. Basically, he charged us for the costs of doing up a house he already owned and then he flogged it at a huge profit (about £150,000) and bought another (and charged us for the costs of moving as well) - I wonder whether he's been charging us for the refurbishment of this flat as well?<br /><br />The Lib Dems - never knowingly underclaimed.<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-2291443639688795361?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-54495447711741562552010-05-28T10:00:00.000+01:002010-05-28T10:00:05.284+01:00Is Labour bankrupt?Leaving aside the question about moral bankruptcy, is the Labour party bust? It was <a href="http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-finance/database-of-registers/statements-of-accounts/soa/pdfs/soa_22-07-09_10-01-08.pdf">twelve million quid in the red </a>at the end of 2008 having sold assets and brought union contributions in early to reduce its massive structural problems. Given that it spent around £25 million on the 2005 campaign and that it had a bigger fight on its hands this year, it's a decent guess that its 2010 election spend was over £20 million (it's a party known for irresponsible spending, after all). Given that<a href="http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/party-finance/uk-general-election-donations-and-borrowings"> it only brought in £5 million </a>during the campaign, it's a decent question to be asking - is Labour broke?<br /><br />If, as I suspect, the answer is "awfy broke" and it is now out of power without a single leadership candidate looking like they'd be a credible alternative Prime Minister any time in the next decade, thereby affecting the possible business donations, will it have to fold? If it does, would that leave each of its members liable for a proportion of the debt as members of an unincorporated association?<br /><br />If the Labour party is scooshed, how will it fight the next election?<br /><br />Mind, now!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5449544771174156255?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-29923176899912293402010-05-28T08:35:00.001+01:002010-05-28T08:35:00.091+01:00Jack's back!Remember Jack McConnell? You might have thought that he had fled these verdant shores for pastures new and exotic given that he <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/aug/16/development.scotland">had his eye on a diplomatic post in Malawi </a>(what do you mean he should <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/aug/16/labour.uk1">leave diplomatic posts to diplomats</a>?) - a post that his big buddy Gordon Brown had secured for him. He had the opportunity to copy his muse, <a href="http://news.scotsman.com/helenliddell/Strewth-Dragonlady-a-surprise-hit.2667941.jp">Helen Liddell</a>, and nip off to warmer climes and less intrusive politics - or so he thought. It all went wrong when <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/scotland/3140476/Jack-McConnell-denies-Gordon-Brown-axed-Africa-role-to-avoid-by-election.html">Labour realised it didn't want a byelection in Motherwell</a> and told him to stay as an MSP - <a href="http://www.wishawpress.co.uk/wishaw-news/local-wishaw-news/motherwell-news/2008/10/08/jack-mcconnell-hits-back-at-critics-over-envoy-role-76495-21985619/">part-time</a>, of course.<br /><br />It was thought at one stage that he'd step down at next year's election and take up the Malawi posting, even <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7069706.ece">chatting up the Conservatives </a>to try to secure himself a deal in spite of having already <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8373014.stm">eyed up standing again and taking another pop </a>at leading the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament. Now he's making sure he's noticed again, with public pronouncements and the <a href="http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2987515/Jack-McConnell-I-cry-when-Im-happy-its-very-embarrassing.html">'human being, honest' </a>revelations of this week. Why would he be seeking the limelight so blatantly now? I think it's straightforward, he thinks that Labour is in trouble, dispirited at its plight, that members and activists will drift off, and that there is little chance of Labour winning an election in 11 months' time.<br /><br />I think Jack McConnell is positioning himself for the leadership battle when Iain Gray steps down after losing the election. Ironically, he's using the same tactics as Iain used when he sensed a weakness in Wendy Alexander. Lupus pilum mutat, non mentem.<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-2992317689991229340?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-74789914826725975102010-05-18T09:00:00.000+01:002010-05-18T09:00:00.541+01:00Charlie Kennedy MP to join the SNPCharles Kennedy (he prefers the proper name; he's a highlander) will join the SNP in the next couple of weeks. He hasn't said so yet - and probably hasn't considered it yet - but remember you heard it here first.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7478991482672597510?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-45823062673749484622010-05-18T00:31:00.000+01:002010-05-18T00:31:09.460+01:00Priorities, priorities, priorities...In spite of Lib Dem promises to the contrary, <a href="http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Baby-girl--held-.6300541.jp">another child has been seized</a> and incarcerated at Dungavel - a baby in prison - eight months old and a failed asylum seeker - quite clearly a threat to this great nation, eh?<br /><br />Immigration Minister Damian Green said they hoped to "have plans agreed within the next few months" to stop putting babies in prison. See how fast this new UK Government acts? They <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7129299.ece">have, of course, already allocated the grace-and-favour houses and stately homes </a>that their Ministers will luxuriate in.<br /><br />Priorities, priorities, priorities...<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4582306267374948462?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-59018964813466718112010-05-14T16:38:00.001+01:002010-05-14T17:34:03.277+01:00Lib Dems duplicitous? No, surely not!Chris Huhne, Lib Dem MP and Energy Secretary in the Whitehall Government, has already started breaking Lib Dem election promises - <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8679827.stm">he's signalled that he'll give the go-ahead to new nuclear power stations</a>. The <a href="http://issuu.com/libdems/docs/manifesto?mode=embed&layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Flight%2Flayout.xml&showFlipBtn=true&proShowMenu=true">Lib Dem manifesto, </a>though, said Liberal Democrats will reject a new generation of nuclear power stations (pages 58 & 59 - the list of pledges). Those much-vaunted principles sold for the chance of a Ministerial salary and car - most politicians want to get into power to use the offices of state to implement their policies - it's a sad thing to see politicians using their policy as bargaining chips to get into power. I presume we'll be in for a long shift of these u-turns and back-tracks as policies are tossed overboard like ballast in an attempt to keep the Libservative coalition flying.<br /><br />Ach well, back to the barricades, mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5901896481346671811?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-82806651634696117882010-05-13T19:15:00.000+01:002010-05-13T19:15:13.285+01:00Oh Danny Boy ...Secretary of State for Scotland - Scotland's man in the Cabinet or the Cabinet's man in Scotland? Does the SoS work for Scotland in the Cabinet or for the Cabinet in Scotland? I find myself from time to time wondering, if this United Kingdom is the wonderful and cohesive place we're so often told it is, why does Scotland need a man or woman in the Cabinet and why does the Cabinet need a man or woman in Scotland.<br /><br />If you take the opportunity to read <a href="http://news.scotsman.com/opinion/John-McTernan-Three-pieces-of.6291080.jp">the piece written by John McTernan that appeared in the Scotsman today</a>, you might be forgiven for thinking that the last Secretary of State was Labour's man in Scotland. John McTernan was Jim Murphy's Special Adviser, he advises that<br /><blockquote>Your press team will be your Praetorian Guard. Listen to them.</blockquote>How telling that statement is. The Praetorian Guard was consolidated by Augustus to protect him from the wrath of the people he ruled as he turned Rome from a republic into a monarchy. Politicians viewing press officers as a shield against the wrath of the people could be taken to be an indication that the politicians have lost touch with the people they purport to represent - not that I would draw such an inference, of course, with my innocent and accepting demeanour ... If the press office is the Praetorian Guard, though, we'd be quite entitled to ask <em>quis custodiet ipsos custodes</em>?<br /><br />Our good friend and guide to the internal workings of the Scotland Office continues with his sage ponderings:<br /><blockquote>You must make the case for reducing the deficit – it's in the national interest, will deliver economic stability and is what the voters wanted – while passporting the responsibility for unpopular decisions onto the SG.</blockquote><br />SG is his abbreviation for SNP Scottish Government. How sad it is that he thinks that it is an appropriate use of a Cabinet Secretary's time to be using his publicly-funded office of state for party political purposes, never mind making it his first priority. Knocking the Scottish Government and trying to blame it for the failings of the UK Government shouldn't be the job of the Scottish Secretary, making the relationship work and serving the people of Scotland should be the number one priority. That attitude, though, might help to explain <a href="http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/scotlandoffice/files/PR%20and%20Marketing%20Expenses.pdf">the strange and sharp rise in marketing spend </a>by the Scotland Office as soon as the SNP won the Holyrood election up from £114,826 in 2006-07 to £161,328 in 2008-09.<br /><br />He's not finished yet. Talking about implementing the Calman recommendations he says:<br /><blockquote>it must draw a sharp dividing line with the nationalists. You need a consensus that isolates your opponents.</blockquote><br />Strangely, I had thought that the debate was about how to best serve Scotland and her people. It had been whispered to me that the other parties might be involved in some petty political point-scoring but I couldn't believe that of these fine, decent upstanding people who just happen to disagree with me on the best way forward for Scotland. Mr McTernan has destroyed my illusions, though - ah, woe is me!<br /><br />We're not through yet, though, he advises that a presentational strategy is required and says:<br /><blockquote>Achievement is 25 per cent perspiration, 75 per cent promotion</blockquote><br />This may explain why Labour never managed to do much, the obsession was with what was in the papers rather than with what was being done and it indicates the dearth of analysis and the poverty of ambition which so bedevils Labour. Dare I say that this country may have been better off if it had had a Scottish Secretary who was pulling for us over the last few years instead if trying to knock our Scottish Government?<br /><br />Our whirlwind tour of Labour's attitude to the Scotland Office ends with Mr McTernan's advice that<br /><blockquote>You need to put country before party at every stage, and to be seen to do that.</blockquote><br />It's ironic that he's just spent the rest of the article saying exactly the opposite, is it not? Ah, Labour, Scotland's Janus, advising Scotland's Novus Homo of the Lib Dems on how to aid their Conservative partners - Scotland's Caligula (whose Praetorian Guard, of course, assassinated him). We can only hope that the SNP will not turn out to be Scotland's Cassandra.<br /><br />We have <a href="http://www.scotlandoffice.gov.uk/scotlandoffice/24.23.html">a new Secretary of State for Scotland</a>, a man whose career so far is unparalleled, he has been:<br /><ol><li>A student.</li><li>A press officer for the Lib Dems</li><li>A press officer for the European Movement</li><li>A press officer for the Cairngorms National Park</li><li>An MP for five years (this is only his second term).</li><li>Erm, that's it.</li></ol><p>We could have had a real heavyweight in the shape of Charlie Kennedy. I know the Lib Dems stabbed him in the back, but he'd serve if he was asked. Perhaps he'd overshadow Clegg, but that's a price worth paying! If not Charlie, then what about Alistair Carmichael - not quite in the same league as Kennedy but still streets ahead of Alexander, he's a former solicitor, a former Procurator Fiscal Depute, a former hotel manager and he's a third term MP. Or what about Michael Moore? In his fourth term as an MP, he was a successful chartered accountant before he fell amongst thieves and became a Lib Dem MP. Malcolm Bruce maybe - 27 years an MP, a previous successful career in publishing as well as experience in other businesses?</p><p>It may, perhaps, be a little uncharitable of me, but I think that in Danny Alexander we have been given not Scotland's man in the Cabinet, not the Cabinet's man in Scotland, but Nick Clegg's man in the Cabinet. I hope that I will stand corrected at some future time but it appears to me that this is not an appointment based on ability but on that most base of purposes - cronyism - that Danny Alexander has been appointed because he will cause no trouble for Clegg and Clegg will never have to doubt his loyalty. I find it difficult to picture Alexander holding his own against George Osborne in arguing for Scotland's budget, getting points in Scotland's favour made to William Hague before the Foreign Office takes action, making Scotland's case to Ian Duncan Smith, or getting a fair deal on defence for Scotland out of Liam Fox. That's before you come to the picture of him squaring up to Ken Clarke Justice Issues.</p><p>I hope I turn out to be wrong but I cannot but suspect that Scotland will pay a heavy price for the appointment to the Scotland Office of a man who aspires to be a featherweight. Scotland faces an uncertain time when we will need a collective will to protect our country from the worst when the legionnaires of Whitehall cry 'Havoc' and let slip the dogs of war, we must gird our loins for the task ahead, civic Scotland will have to defend her again. This time, though, we have a Scottish Government on our side.</p><p>Mind how you go!</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-8280665163469611788?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-15629821239068318652010-05-12T09:44:00.000+01:002010-05-12T09:44:45.419+01:00Well, that was fun!Right, years of campaigning, months of pounding the streets, thousands of pounds spent, hundreds of episodes of Coronation Street interrupted, dozens of dinners burnt, scores of shoes worn through and hundreds of exhausted activists and we've got exactly the same result as in 2005 across Scotland.<br /><br />It's like jogging on a treadmill so it is. Still, plenty politics to come in the next wee while, cheer up there, sit up straight at the back, stop telling those dreadful jokes, and mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-1562982123906831865?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-21835653534651659642010-04-26T15:13:00.000+01:002010-04-26T15:13:44.620+01:00To the barricades!M'learned friend is squaring up to Auntie (not his auntie, he's scared of her) and is currently engaged in a most interesting legal case. The question to be settled is whether the BBC is in breach of its duty to be politically impartial by screening the leaders' debates in Scotland. It costs a fortune, apparently, and <a href="http://www.snp.org/node/16972">there's a wee appeal out for funds </a>- it's already past the half-way point so dip in your pocket and<a href="https://my.snp.org/donate"> shell out a shilling for the cause of fairness.</a> I'm told that any amount will be welcome and that the spirit of Voltaire is knocking on the door of the BBC.<br /><br />In other news, the <a href="http://www.christianjones.net/">leaves are back on the line </a>with a secret weapon in tow.<br /><br />Mind how you broadcast!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-2183565353465165964?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-10693453177226418742010-04-22T17:56:00.000+01:002010-04-22T18:11:49.202+01:00Lib Dem cutsEver wonder what a Lib Dem Government would look like? Well, where<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/18/nick-clegg-liberal-democrats-spending"> Nick Clegg promised 'savage cuts'</a> Vince Cable has <a href="http://www.reform.co.uk/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=RQ0obqjHA9A%3d&tabid=118">laid it all out for us</a>. Here's the Lib Dem plan for cuts:<br /><br /><ul><li>£2.4 billion a year cut from public sector pay</li><li>25% cut in salary for highly paid civil servants</li><li>Ending national pay bargaining (in Lib Dem speak, decentralised bargaining and independent pay reviews)</li><li>£1.35 billion a year reduction in family tax credits</li><li>£5 billion a year cut in child benefit</li><li>Higher retirement ages brought in quickly</li><li>£500 million a year cut from the Child Trust Fund</li><li>£28 billion a year cut from public sector pensions</li><li>Dismantling <a href="http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/strategy/deliveringservices1/contactpoint/about/contactpointabout/">Contactpoint</a> (English system that helps professionals care for children) - £40 million a year</li><li>Scrapping ID cards (but not biometric passports) to save an unidentified amount of money somewhere between £5 billion and £20 billion (big capital costs)</li><li>£50 million a year cut from England's NHS IT scheme (Barnett consequentials will apply, of course)</li><li>Save £6 billion by scrapping a communications database that has only been discussed and not costed</li><li>£500 million by using freeware</li><li>£2.3 billion cut by scrapping England's Regional Development Agencies </li><li>£200 million by scrapping the Export Credit Guarantee Department</li><li>£500 million cut to England's skills and training budgets </li><li>Unspecified amount to be cut from agriculture support £1 billion cut by scrapping England's Audit Commission and other watchdogs</li><li>£2 billion cut by scrapping the Government's regional offices in England (they deliver things like the Supporting People Programme for vulnerable people, tackling social deprivation and encouraging local enterprise)</li><li>£200 million by scrapping English Strategic Health Authorities</li><li>£600 million cut from England's education budget</li><li>£5 billion cut from maintenance and upgrade on military aircraft</li><li>£22 billion cut from military aircraft purchase (didn't the Lib Dems criticise Brown for not providing enough aircraft?)</li><li>£7 billion cut from military vehicle purchase</li><li>£70 billion saved by not buying the Trident replacement - offset by the Lib Dems' intention to buy other nukes.</li><li>£1 to £2 billion cut from military procurement by privatisation</li><li>£2 billion cut from England's NHS budget</li></ul><p>There's an awful lot of Barnett consequentials in there...</p><p>Then they want to raise money:</p><ul><li>Privatise Royal Mail</li><li>Privatise Royal Mint</li><li>Seek other Government enterprises to sell</li><li>Sell the Highways Agency (that'll be England's roads then) and allow them to be tolled</li><li>Sell the shares in the banks early (rather than wait for a good price)</li><li>Sell off any public properties they can find</li></ul><p>Can I just ask - what will they do next time there's a problem?</p><p>Mind how you go!</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-1069345317722641874?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-27775816591927399162010-04-16T15:15:00.000+01:002010-04-16T15:15:16.310+01:00A wee thanksBefore the election consumes us all I thought I might just put on record my gratitude to the fantastic team we have at SNP Headquarters who seem to be working every hour of the day providing us with excellent support. Thanks very much, your efforts are appreciated.<br /><br />My campaign team as well - you're all wonderful (well, most of you anyway). Thanks very much - three more weeks and then you can sleep!<br /><br />Mind how you go.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-2777581659192739916?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-70285424291270868732010-04-14T21:42:00.000+01:002010-04-14T21:42:29.727+01:00Greens - do they practise what they preach?When I left my office tonight I noticed that the Greens had left their office lights on - I had to go in and turn them off. Honestly, if the environment police are slipping up what hope is there? Everyone should complain to <a href="http://www.twodoctors.org/">James</a>.<br /><br />To far more serious matters, I hear that the Greens are coming on a storm down Norwich South way and there's a possibility we may see the first Green MP elected in May. That'd be something, wouldn't it?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7028542429127086873?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-65912327566936120992010-04-12T17:44:00.000+01:002010-04-12T17:44:25.238+01:00Campaign launch in Edinburgh North and LeithThe SNP's short campaign (the last three and a half weeks) was launched in Newhaven today with the First Minster, Alex Salmond MSP, rousing our activists from all over Scotland to get out and campaign for victory in seats the length and breadth of the country. Then he came campaigning with us in Stockbridge and the reception he got was as good as the reception we're getting on the doorsteps. I think, though, that it's the first time I've seen people queueing up to meet politicians campaigning.<br /><br />2007 saw a sea-change in Scottish politics, 2009 confirmed the SNP as Scotland's biggest party, 2010 is going to show that Scotland keeps moving forward.<br /><br />Mind how you vote!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-6591232756693612099?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-90318616494948458872010-04-12T01:35:00.000+01:002010-04-12T01:35:50.767+01:00A wee message<p><object width="320" height="266" class="BLOG_video_class" id="BLOG_video-3fdf0a5d4c86505e" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/get_player"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><param name="flashvars" value="flvurl=http://v24.nonxt3.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?id%3D3fdf0a5d4c86505e%26itag%3D5%26app%3Dblogger%26ip%3D0.0.0.0%26ipbits%3D0%26expire%3D1329850690%26sparams%3Did,itag,ip,ipbits,expire%26signature%3D30A5EFCAAC4E71506B4FD36552EBAE9FDCC5226B.2426ADEFAC783AC406D48F404FD62A1A30260892%26key%3Dck1&iurl=http://video.google.com/ThumbnailServer2?app%3Dblogger%26contentid%3D3fdf0a5d4c86505e%26offsetms%3D5000%26itag%3Dw160%26sigh%3DOeueOz5pedkkeyPWMoPY0R5cgmQ&autoplay=0&ps=blogger"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/get_player" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"width="320" height="266" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"flashvars="flvurl=http://v24.nonxt3.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?id%3D3fdf0a5d4c86505e%26itag%3D5%26app%3Dblogger%26ip%3D0.0.0.0%26ipbits%3D0%26expire%3D1329850690%26sparams%3Did,itag,ip,ipbits,expire%26signature%3D30A5EFCAAC4E71506B4FD36552EBAE9FDCC5226B.2426ADEFAC783AC406D48F404FD62A1A30260892%26key%3Dck1&iurl=http://video.google.com/ThumbnailServer2?app%3Dblogger%26contentid%3D3fdf0a5d4c86505e%26offsetms%3D5000%26itag%3Dw160%26sigh%3DOeueOz5pedkkeyPWMoPY0R5cgmQ&autoplay=0&ps=blogger"allowFullScreen="true" /></object></p><p>Indeed!</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-9031861649494845887?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-10562757667598571492010-04-09T16:01:00.000+01:002010-04-09T16:02:01.061+01:00Neigh bother!<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S79ASTg7TPI/AAAAAAAABkQ/SWiz2Ev2yqU/s1600/Back_a_champion.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5458151956616531186" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 212px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S79ASTg7TPI/AAAAAAAABkQ/SWiz2Ev2yqU/s400/Back_a_champion.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Have a laugh, go on. In the midst of an election where some candidates are being rude, some are telling lies, some are getting caught being twits with tweets, and some are taking themselves far too seriously, a wry smile and a wee chuckle helps things along. Politics is a serious business, just like comedy and tragedy, and there's enough faux gravity around. A bit of levity is in order.</div><div> </div><div>This lovely poster was sent to me (as was the 'fire up the quattro' one) and I thought I'd share.</div><div> </div><div>Mind how you vote!</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-1056275766759857149?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-52923576441087883822010-04-07T05:27:00.000+01:002010-04-07T05:27:39.224+01:00Nukes awayOnly one day after<a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2010/04/no-nuclear-weapons-here-thank-you.html"> I write about nuclear weapons </a>having no place in our world, the US publishes its <a href="http://www.defense.gov/npr/docs/2010%20Nuclear%20Posture%20Review%20Report.pdf">plans to reduce its nuclear capability</a>. Good to know they're paying attention over there. I like these bits:<br /><ul><li>No development of new warheads</li><li>Change of attitude to nuclear engagement with a conventional attack no longer leading to nuclear reprisal</li><li>Presumption against using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries</li><li>Reduction in SDVs</li><li>ICBMs reduced to carrying single warhead</li></ul><p>There are a couple of disappointing points but by and large it's a step in the right direction. Interesting that the US is intending to just refurbish its nuclear weapons rather than build new ones while the UK is still ruminating about replacing Trident.</p><p>Ach well...</p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5292357644108788382?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-64865055944623210832010-04-05T20:09:00.000+01:002010-04-05T20:09:49.109+01:00No nuclear weapons here, thank you.Nuclear weapons, created during the Second World War, used only twice in anger (both times against a nation which had not managed to develop nuclear weapons - although this could not be known at the time), and displayed ever since as totems of state virility, have no place in modern weaponry and we should be doing all we can to rid our world of them.<br /><br />Leo Szilard, the physicist who first properly developed the concept of nuclear weapons (purportedly after reading an HG Wells novel) and it was his urging, supported by Einstein, that moved the US administration down the path that led to the Manhattan Project. Szilard worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear weapons (Einstein was refused security clearance and never worked on it) and petitioned the US President not to drop the bombs on Japan but to allow them to observe a demonstration of the power of the bombs, thus persuading them that they should surrender. <a href="http://members.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html">His views were made clear after the war</a>:<br /><blockquote>Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?</blockquote><br />He wasn't the only one of the scientists involved in the development of nuclear weapons who opposed their use. Joseph Rotblat resigned from the project when he found out that the Germans had not made a nuclear weapon and Klaus Fuchs shared information with the Soviet Union to ensure that there was parity of knowledge - a move that may have led to proliferation but certainly led to the stand-off of Mutually Assured Destruction which may have focused minds and helped hold off a nuclear holocaust.<br /><br />They weren't the only people whose opposition to nuclear weapons might be termed surprising. <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/01/27/colin-powell-nuclear-weapons-are-useless/">Colin Powell, for example</a>:<br /><blockquote>The one thing that I convinced myself after all these years of exposure to the use of nuclear weapons is that they were useless. They could not be used. </blockquote><br />Mountbatten argued that nuclear weapons had no military utility, Kissinger said they risked the destruction of civilisation, Gayler said:<br /><blockquote>There is no sensible military use of any of our nuclear forces. The only reasonable use is to deter our opponent from using his nuclear forces</blockquote><br />They were bested by<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/field-marshal-lord-carver-729579.html"> Field Marshal Lord Carver </a>who asked of Trident:<br /><blockquote>What the bloody hell is it for?</blockquote><br />Nuclear weapons are ludicrously expensive and singularly useless pieces of military hardware. <br /><br />There can be no moral justification for such an indiscriminate and deadly weapon; not only would nuclear weapons affect non-combatants, their very nature suggests that they are designed to target civilian populations, designed to inflict damage on non-combatants rather than to give a military advantage.<br /><br />In fact, one of the reasons for the choice of targets in Japan during WWII was that these places had escaped the worst of the fire bombing we had already inflicted upon that country and it would be easy to see how much damage could be done to a city by a nuclear weapon. I can see no justification for their use and, therefore, no justification for their existence.<br /><br />Interestingly, an Observer story last year indicated that the UK was the only one of the established nuclear powers to have increased its arsenal between 200 and 2009 - <a href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=phNtm3LmDZEP-ZIl-TOB9Pw">http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=phNtm3LmDZEP-ZIl-TOB9Pw</a> - not only is there talk of replacement in the UK Government, there also appears to be growth in the nuclear arsenal.<br /><br />While other areas of spending, even other areas of defence spending, are being squeezed until the pips are squeaking nuclear weapons appear to be untouchable - the UK's virility totem is protected while public services suffer but would-be international statesmen demand the mojo. If only they had the moral strength to work towards what is right rather than what they think makes them look tough...<br /><br />I was delighted when the SNP Scottish Government set up the working group Scotland Without Nuclear Weapons even though defence, and therefore control over these things, is reserved to Westminster - defence may be reserved but morality and common human decency cannot be reserved. I look forward to seeing our Scottish Government continue to seek to drive the issue forward. I want to see nuclear weapons removed from Scotland and I want to see disarmament across the world, and each of us has to do our bit to try to make sure that that happens.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-6486505594462321083?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-59972355321716327842010-04-02T17:41:00.000+01:002010-04-02T17:41:49.907+01:00Victor Meldrew I presume?Leith Business Association sent out its regular news update today and one of the pieces of news had me in full Victor Meldrew mode. <a href="http://www.leith.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=569:tie-veto-bilfinger-lba-meeting&catid=1:news&Itemid=28">LBA invited the tram contractor </a>to attend a committee meeting to allow the businesses to better understand the project. You would have thought that this was a reasonable thing to do, wouldn't you? TIE vetoed the request on the grounds that Bilfinger Berger might accidentally breach the confidentiality agreement.<br /><br />So the businesses which are being badly affected by the fiasco formerly known as the Tram Project are being denied the opportunity to get a bit of knowledge about what's going on. TIE regularly attends LBA meetings but they don't want the contractor to go and 'accidentally breach the confidentiality agreement'. It would appear that having someone tell the truth about the project isn't helpful to TIE's way of thinking. Could it possibly be because the project has run into the sand, hundreds of millions of pounds over budget, years behind schedule, about to be truncated and fast reaching the position where it will have to be cancelled?<br /><br />TIE still hasn't returned with a date for the briefing on the project that it promised for candidates. I suppose candidates might accidentally tell someone about it.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5997235532171632784?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-27264564525770197402010-04-01T20:52:00.000+01:002010-04-01T20:52:35.409+01:00And there's moreWhere was I? Oh yes, additional responsibilities and powers from 2002 back to 1999:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/20020261.htm">Agency arrangements</a> for Kyoto responsibilities;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/20020800.htm">Agency arrangements</a> for responsibilities under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (information gathering on the import, acquisition, release or marketing of genetically modified organisms, maintaining the public register, and commercial confidentiality exclusions); receiving and processing applications for the release and the marketing of GMOs; Air Quality Limit Values regs; and Control of Ozone-Depleting Substances;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/20021629.htm">Promotion and construction </a>of railways:<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2002/20021630.htm">Financial assistance </a>for shipping;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2001/20010954.htm">Funding rail</a> travel franchises;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2001/20011456.htm">Regulation </a>of social landlords;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2001/20013504.htm">Electricity </a>and Utilities;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2001/20013917.htm">Agency arrangements </a>for controlling ozone-depleting substances;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2000/20000745.htm">Agency arrangements</a> for CJD surveillance; control of medicines; and seven different parts of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2000/20000935.htm">Transfer of staff</a>, property, rights and liabilities from the National Audit Office to Audit Scotland;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2000/20001563.htm">Temporary speed </a>limits; Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors boards; child care regs for tax credit purposes;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2000/20003250.htm">Agency arrangements</a> for air quality standards; ozone monitoring; the sulphur content of liquid fuels; and "The function of taking steps preparatory to the implementation of Directive 96/62/EC of 27th September 1996 on ambient air quality assessment and management and the legislation provided for in Article 4 thereof";<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2000/20003252.htm">Financial assistance</a> to post offices; strategies for rail services; provision and regulation of rail services; strategies for air services; and a wee bit on pesticides;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2000/20003253.htm">Wireless telegraphy </a>for crime fighting purposes; intrusive surveillance; compulsory purchase and compensation for gas supply pipes; partial regulation of electricity generators; and poisons;<br /><br />That's back to the beginning of 2000 (I might have missed something). The transfers in 1999 will have been, by and large, part of the starting of devolution so shouldn't be regarded as being additionals, I think. The links are here if you want to look at them:<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991104.htm">http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991104.htm</a><br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991105.htm">http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991105.htm</a><br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991106.htm">http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991106.htm</a><br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991512.htm">http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991512.htm</a><br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991596.htm">http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991596.htm</a><br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991748.htm">http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991748.htm</a><br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991750.htm">http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991750.htm</a><br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991756.htm">http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991756.htm</a><br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19993320.htm">http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19993320.htm</a><br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19993321.htm">http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19993321.htm</a><br />this one is a modification of the reservation schedules:<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991749.htm">http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19991749.htm</a><br /><br />I haven't even looked at the stuff sent to me by other people yet, so there may be more. There is the obvious caveat that some of the orders will have replaced others and some of the movements are relatively small administrative changes. I think, though, that the increase in responsibilities of the Scottish administration from 1999 onwards is clearly enormous. Most of these transfers appear to me to include expense and some would leave the Scottish Government incurring substantial additional expense. Many of them have transferred functions but not powers (particularly the agency arrangements), placing burdens on Scotland without us having the ability to alter those burdens.<br /><br />Having considered the increase in expenditure which these burdens would create I find myself thinking that the siren cry of Labour politicians of "there's twice as much money coming to Scotland now as there was in 1999" a rather hollow jibe. Indeed, looking at it I can only surmise that double the money isn't nearly enough, it should be doubled again. Scotland is being short-changed by the Labour Government in London and it's time it stopped! I suppose it would be a good thing if someone quantified that, and I'll applaud anyone who does - or we could just have fiscal autonomy just now and be satisfied.<br /><br />Mind how you go.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-2726456452577019740?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-54265453844353463692010-03-31T20:48:00.000+01:002010-03-31T20:48:40.210+01:00Additional responsibilities and powersI asked a couple of people (the type of people who would know) about what responsibilities and powers have been devolved to Scotland since 1999, and I looked at the very important <em><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/scotland/scotact">Scotland Act 1998 and Associated Delegated Legislation</a></em> web page. Ready?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2009/uksi_20091380_en_1">Convention rights limitations</a>;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2008/uksi_20081035_en_1">Agency arrangements </a>for Artificial Insemination of Pigs, Export of Horses, Rabies, Importation of Animals, Diseases of Animals (Approved Disinfectants, Importation of Birds, Poultry and Hatching Eggs, Importation of Embryos, Ova and Semen, Bovine Embryo (Collection, Production and Transfer), control and eradication of certain transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, animal by-products not intended for human consumption, The Pet Travel Scheme, the intra-species recycling ban for fish, the burial and burning of animal by-products, Animal By-Products regulations, animal health requirements for the movement of circus animals between Member States of the EU, TSE research, control, eradication and limitation on feedstuffs, Products of Animal Origin regulations, Animal and Animal Products regs, Bovine Semen regs, Zoonoses and Animal By-Products regs;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2008/uksi_20081776_en_1">Environmental protection and pollution control</a>;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2008/uksi_20081788_en_1">Agency arrangements</a> for prisoners on licence being transferred to Scotland from England;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/uksi_20070286_en_1">Agency arrangements</a> for environmental protection and analysis of heavy fuel oil<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/uksi_20072915_en_1">Investigatory powers</a>;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20060304.htm">Feedstuffs and additives</a> under EU Designations;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20061040.htm">Hydro electric generation</a>;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20061251.htm">Agency arrangements</a> for the purchase Fire and Rescue radio systems (admit it - you thought that would just be part of the normal operation of the Fire Boards, just as I did);<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20062913.htm#71">Financial implications</a> from the fisheries on the Tweed;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20063248.htm">Agency arrangements </a>for welfare food;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20063258.htm">Welfare food definitions and renewable energy obligations</a>;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20063338.htm">Agency arrangements</a> for a load of NHS functions;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2005/20050849.htm">A whole load of functions</a> across Fire and Rescue, Electricity, Energy, Food and Environment, Food Standards, Road Traffic, and Roads;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2005/20050865.htm">Health and Safety</a> on construction sites;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2004/20042030.htm">Something under</a> the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 (I didn't bother looking it up), control of fireworks and consumer protection in the area of fireworks;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2004/20042980.htm">Common Agricultural Policy </a>burdens;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043324.htm">CAP stuff </a>again (I'm struggling to see the difference between 3324 and 2980);<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043329.htm">Railways and academic research</a>;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2003/20030415.htm">Tax Commissioners, rehabilitation of offenders and access to justice</a>;<br /><a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2003/20032617.htm">Warrants </a>under investigatory powers;<br /><br />That's as far back as 2003, more later if my brain recovers. Mind how you transfer!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5426545384435346369?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-6467903450400878302010-03-30T19:33:00.000+01:002010-03-30T19:33:03.684+01:00Changing the debate on climate changeEver heard of Gaia? The planet as an organism theory was developed by <a href="http://www.jameslovelock.org/page0.html">Professor James Lovelock</a> and he's said<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8594000/8594561.stm"> some very interesting things </a>in an interview with John Humphrys. I find myself agreeing with him in his criticisms of politicians and scientists who are taking liberties with data and observations - that helps no-one. The <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8594000/8594274.stm">full broadcast </a>is worth listening to, I love his frank admission that he could be wrong - a proper scientist - and his comment that fudging data is tantamount to "a sin against the holy ghost". <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange">He's said similar things before</a>, right enough.<br /><br />Well done that man!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-646790345040087830?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-9976861652839141692010-03-30T18:53:00.000+01:002010-03-30T18:53:20.175+01:00Vote SNPThat chap <a href="http://iaindale.blogspot.com/">Iain Dale</a> has published <a href="http://astore.amazon.co.uk/biteshop-21?_encoding=UTF8&node=16">a book or two</a> on who to vote for in the election. I've read the "Vote SNP" one (what do you mean I've missed a word out?) and can only say that Iain Dale has me convinced - I'll be voting SNP. I note that the SNP book has a higher price than all of the others except Plaid - obviously of a higher quality...<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-997686165283914169?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-24299427536517038442010-03-30T00:56:00.001+01:002010-03-30T00:59:49.123+01:00SCDEAI<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rwqbl/Newsnight_Scotland_29_03_2010/"> watched Newsnicht </a>earlier (as ye do) and it had one of those daft chats between a presenter and a reporter - this time talking about Steven Purcell's puff piece in the Sun. The young reporter chappie mentioned the <a href="http://www.sdea.police.uk/">Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency </a>visit to Purcell while he was in office and reasoned (it seemed to me) that, since the SCDEA is an intelligence-led policing organisation that doesn't tell anyone what it's up to and the officers didn't arrest the council leader for drug use, we should accept Mr. Purcell's explanation that two officers from the SCDEA had nothing better to do with their day than wander up to George Square to warn him that some drug dealer might have a video of him taking drugs.<br /><br />As Jeremy Paxman would say "yeeeeesssss.....". The hubris we have come to expect from Labour politicians is quite clear in Purcell's claim but surely a journalist would look a little harder? Might not the officers from an intelligence-led organisation be gathering intelligence, for example? Is that not a more reasonable explanation? It's about time a journalist challenged this daft claim that serious police officers spend their time sooking up to councillors.<br /><br />Maybe tomorrow, eh?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-2429942753651703844?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-73972000025488277772010-03-26T19:09:00.000Z2010-03-26T19:09:57.235ZDouble your moneyI keep hearing Labour politicians talking about how the Scottish Government has twice as much cash as the 1999 administration had. Leaving aside the effects of inflation, the 99 administration never had as much responsibility - railways, for example.<br /><br />I think I'll take a closer wee look...<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7397200002548827777?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-75350932794183222472010-03-25T22:46:00.000Z2010-03-25T22:46:10.129ZCatch the glacier!<div><div>Here's an interesting thing (well, I'm interested) - there's a glacier in Alaska called the Hubbard <a href="http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF18/1890.html">Glacier which is advancing so far and so quickly </a>that it's threatening to dam a river and create a glacial lake. It's done this before (with debris that it shoved against the opposite shore in 1984 and in 2002) and there's a possibility that the lake it creates will overflow into a small creek, <a href="http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF15/1554.html">enlarging the creek by about 20 times </a>and possibly ruining some fisheries - as well as possibly flooding villages!</div><div></div><br /><div><a href="http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-001-03/">The US Geological Survey </a>says that calving glaciers are not affected by climate and it will keep coming - it's been advancing for over a century and <a href="http://ak.water.usgs.gov/glaciology/hubbard/reports/200206_igs_poster/2002.06_igs_poster.pdf">it's moving at a speed of 32 metres per year </a>into Disenchantment Bay (must have been a right cheery cartographer who named that).<br />It's 123km long, as high as 100 m above sea level and 414 m below sea level with a calving face that is 11.4 km in length. That's some monster on the move.<br /></div><div>To think some people complained about clearing the snow from their own paths this winter.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5452706359578452722" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S6vni1sv4vI/AAAAAAAABkA/XSXCxTq8shs/s400/Hubbard_Glacier_09.jpg" border="0" /></div><div>Mind how you slide!</div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7535093279418322247?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-38924146520897031222010-03-25T15:26:00.000Z2010-03-25T15:26:15.135ZVanities and QuangoesToday, I predict, there will be the touching of the flame to the foot of the pyre in which the quangoes rest, the beginning of the bonfire. The Public Services Reform Bill also includes provisions which will allow Ministers to get rid of quangoes more easily in future. Some opposition parties want that bit of the Bill removed. Go figure!<br /><br />Mind how you burn!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-3892414652089703122?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-72418171261416920712010-03-24T20:36:00.000Z2010-03-24T20:36:19.660ZJim Murphy!Being a cheeky fella for a few minutes, can I just share with you something that occurred to me as I saw Jim Murphy being interviewed earlier.<br /><div><div><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S6p22M92xYI/AAAAAAAABjY/tFUfeckxYVI/s1600/Griffin+Vulture.jpg"></a></div><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S6p3L9bNs3I/AAAAAAAABjo/VmcjjHMv1nM/s1600/Griffin+Vulture.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5452301346236380018" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 267px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S6p3L9bNs3I/AAAAAAAABjo/VmcjjHMv1nM/s400/Griffin+Vulture.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S6p3RBdOCEI/AAAAAAAABjw/T-2T_0nymgk/s1600/SOS.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5452301433217878082" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 251px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S6p3RBdOCEI/AAAAAAAABjw/T-2T_0nymgk/s400/SOS.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><div></div></div><div> </div><div><div><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><div></div><div></div><div>Sorry about that, Secretary of State, mind how you go!</div></div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7241817126141692071?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-41650359864900000862010-03-24T10:12:00.000Z2010-03-24T10:12:00.582ZThat didn't last long!They'd <a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2010/03/trams-changed-my-mind.html">got me hooked</a>, and then it <a href="http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Ian-Rankin-slams-trams-over.6175049.jp">all fell apart</a>!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4165035986490000086?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-82104040992872630672010-03-24T09:30:00.000Z2010-03-24T09:30:00.608ZCall that a bribe?What do you do if you're asked by a corrupt official to pay a bribe?<br /><br />Well, if you're an Indian who's cheesed off paying bribes, you might just <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/05/zero-rupee-note-that.html">hand them a zero rupee note </a>and watch them back down.<br /><br />That's fantastic!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-8210404099287263067?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-71026530528588848232010-03-23T23:50:00.000Z2010-03-23T23:51:00.444ZTrams - changed my mindI've always opposed the tram project in Edinburgh. I like light rail as an urban transport system but it should be separated from road traffic and, more importantly, pedestrians. I've criticised the poor planning (<a href="http://www.edinburghtrams.com/include/uploads/media_release/Traffic_Mgt_Phase1_Jan08.pdf">we were told that the city centre utility diversion work would be completed by August 2008 </a>- it's still going on - and that all of the utility diversion work would be <a href="http://www.edinburghtrams.com/include/uploads/media_release/haymarket_utility_jun08.pdf">finished by February 2009)</a>, questioned the costing (<a href="http://www.edinburghtrams.com/include/uploads/media_release/financial_close.pdf">TIE indicated a "final contract cost" of £508 million on 24th April 2008</a> - up from<a href="http://www.edinburghtrams.com/include/uploads/media_release/tram_options.pdf"> £438 million the year before</a>), worried about the disinformation (<a href="http://www.edinburghtrams.com/include/uploads/media_release/tramtracks031008.pdf">we were told that tram track would be laid in Leith Walk in October 2008</a>), and prodded the schonky business case (well<a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2009/03/trams-how-bad-it-is-how-bad.html">, at least I've read it</a>).<br /><br />Given that two trams will now be <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8583531.stm">painted with pictures of Ian Rankin and Alexander Graham Bell</a>, though, what can I say? I'm sold on it - bring on the trams!<br /><br />Just keep them off the roads.<br /><br />Maybe use some of the miles of underused railway track around the city.<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7102653052858884823?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-5363761723709938792010-03-23T17:44:00.000Z2010-03-23T17:44:11.861ZUnassailable SNP lead<a href="http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/TheSun-results_22.03-trackers.pdf">The Sun's daily tracker </a>has the SNP having soared past Labour and into an unassailable lead of three points (27 to 24) with a huge sample size of 136. On a uniform result right across the country that would give the SNP 59 seats!<br /><br />Mind how you go.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-536376172370993879?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-46578210244644080822010-03-19T17:54:00.000Z2010-03-19T17:54:29.828ZFarewell to a friend<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S6O4vWT6fRI/AAAAAAAABi4/MqFPys3H7MU/s1600-h/wolfie"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450403097630899474" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S6O4vWT6fRI/AAAAAAAABi4/MqFPys3H7MU/s400/wolfie" border="0" /></a> <div><div><div><div><div>Billy Wolfe has died. Like thousands of other members of the SNP I regarded Billy as a friend and a good companion on the road to independence. <a href="http://remember.snp.org/tributes/view/billy_wolfe/">The tributes will pile up on the party's website</a>. He was one of those grand old stagers of the party who was an ever-present at conferences and campaigns, gently eccentric and always ready with a smile and a bit of encouragement for all of us. One of the first pieces of mail received by newly elected SNP Parliamentarians would be a wee card from Billy with his congratulations and best wishes for the term ahead, his incredible generosity of spirit always lifted people who came into contact with him and he was always delighted to share a joke and a laugh.</div><div></div><div>He's credited with turning the SNP into the modern party it is today, reforming our organisation and our campaigning methods, underpinning our policy platform with a socially democratic ethos, driving our cause forward.</div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450402110702028178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S6O315tvBZI/AAAAAAAABig/iWGeZYUQ-ZQ/s400/billy_wolfe.jpg" border="0" /> <div></div><div>His activism and his energy seemed not to know any limits, as well as turning up at elections when he was well into his 80s, he was a determined campaigner for nuclear disarmament, part of the deep-seated opposition to nuclear weapons that is part of the lifeblood of the SNP and created <a href="http://www.snpcnd.org/index.php">SNPCND</a>. Billy's CND membership led him into as many 'interesting' positions as his SNP membership, he was one of those who <a href="http://www.banthebomb.org/archives/news/000303.html">went to Cape Wrath </a>to protest against the US Navy using it for shelling practice and there's a tale told about Billy and <a href="http://www.ianhamiltonqc.com/blog/">Ian Hamilton QC </a>at Faslane <a href="http://gallery.tridentploughshares.org/main.php?g2_itemId=1643">sitting on the road side by side </a>and complaining about the police refusing to manhandle them out of the way with the refrain of "what's an old man got to do to get arrested around here?" and complaints that they'd paid their taxes all their life and should have the right to get lifted. A formidable pairing, you might say.</div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450403101354087298" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 356px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S6O4vkLl04I/AAAAAAAABjA/5YALkPe2HCc/s400/billy" border="0" /> <div></div><div>He was an environmental campaigner as well, leading the charge to protect Scotland for future generations, and I believe he was a prime mover in setting up the Eilean Mor MacCormick Trust to look after the SNP's island which is at the mouth of Loch Sween and home to a 12th century Chapel dedicated to St Cormac. In the same spirit in which Billy did everything else, visitors are always welcome on the island:<br /><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oYp5QBJzZU4&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oYp5QBJzZU4&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></div><div></div><br /><div>Billy was a man who believed in peace, in love and in gentleness. He served in the Second World War and campaigned for peace thereafter. An excellent bloke, he'll be missed by a lot of us but we'll still be cheered by the memory of him. His family have lost a husband and father, we've lost a friend, and Scotland has lost a patriot but Billy was the kind of person who would rather you celebrated his life than mourned his death. There's a lot to celebrate.</div><div></div><div></div><div>So long Billy.</div></div></div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4657821024464408082?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-70075059441204956722010-03-17T21:21:00.000Z2010-03-17T21:21:26.722ZLib Dem king-makers? Nope.The fuss and flutter of speculation and feverish rubbish from commentators in the run-up to the election really getting started has led some people to speculate that the Lib Dems will be in a position of strength after the election and ready to decide who becomes Prime Minister. I've come to the conclusion that it's all havers, and the reason I've come to that conclusion is simple - the Lib Dems are going to lose a lot of seats at this election, they won't pick up any in Scotland, and they'll do rather badly elsewhere too (maybe picking up one in Newcastle).<br /><br />They're consistently fourth in Scotland in opinion polls, third across England, miles behind the Conservatives in the South of England, they're showing up fourth in Wales and are falling further and further behind and I think they face losing seats. They don't have a leader with the charisma of Charlie Kennedy or Paddy Ashdown or even David Owen any more, having apparently been left with the runt of the litter in Nick Clegg.<br /><br />Looking at opinion polls, adding in 2005 results (boundary changes coming in England), adding my excellent judgement and terrible prejudice to that, totting up what's what, I don't think they can take a single seat that they don't currently hold, I think they'll get squeezed everywhere, and I think that this is what will happen to the seats they currently hold (some nominally after boundary changes):<br /><br /><strong>Scotland:</strong><br />Inverness Nairn Badenoch & Strathspey - lose<br /><div>West Aberdeenshire & Kincardine - lose heavily</div><div>East Dunbartonshire - lose</div><div>Gordon - lose (taken by<a href="http://scotsandindependent.blogspot.com/"> a blogger</a>)</div><div>Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk - lose</div><div>Argyll & Bute - lose</div><div> </div><div>Dunfermline & West Fife - might hold, might lose. Willie works hard and that might be enough to save him (it'd be lost otherwise)</div><br />Edinburgh West - weakened, a possible loss and will only be saved, if it is, because of the battles going on in nearby seats (they have a terrible candidate here) - and it goes in 2011 if they do save it this time.<br />NE Fife - hold<br />Orkney & Shetland - hold<br />Ross, Skye & Lochaber - hold<br />Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross - hold<br /><br /><strong>Furth of Scotland:</strong><br />Mid Dorset & North Poole - lose to Con<br />Taunton Deane - lose to Con<br />Solihull - lose to Con<br /><div>Southport - lose to Con</div><div>Cornwall North - shrinking majority, lose to Con</div>Westmorland & Lonsdale - lose to Con<br />Bath - lose to Con<br />Romsey & Southampton North - lose to Con<br />Camborne & Redruth - lose to Con (Labour nominally second but have faded here)<br />Portsmouth South - about a 3,300 majority about to be lost to Con.<br />Somerton & Frome - lose to Con<br />Oxford West & Abingdon - boundary chanegs remove the university, Evan Harris is looking for a new job - lose to Con.<br />Carshalton & Wallington - a battle, but probably lose to Con<br /><div>Teignbridge - the home of Buckfast is abolished, but Boris Johnston's dad got to 6,000 votes away last time, the new seat will be lost to Con.</div><div><div><div>Eastleigh - lose to Con</div><div><div>Torbay - lose to Con</div><div>Brecon & Radnorshire - lose to Con</div>Cheadle - lose to Con</div><div>Richmond Park - Jenny Tongue's old seat, never safe, lose to Con</div>Cheltenham - rapidly shrinking majority - lose to Con.</div>North Devon - Harvey's majority was lower in 2005 than in 1997 - lose to Con</div>Hornsey & Wood Green - lose to Lab<br />Birmingham Yardley - lose to Lab<br />Chesterfield - lose to Lab<br />Cambridge - won't be able tohold onto the 4,000 majority; lose to Lab<br /><div>Manchester Withington - lose to Lab</div><div>Leeds North West - lose to Lab</div><div>Rochdale - the cowboys are going to ride on out, lose to Lab</div><div>Brent Central - lose to Lab</div>Ceredigion - lose to Plaid<br /><br />Thornbury and Yate - hold<br />Bristol West - hold<br />Cardiff Central - hold<br /><div>Berwick Upon Tweed - hold</div><div>South East Cornwall - hold</div><div>Sutton & Cheam - hold</div><div>Twickenham - hold</div><div>Sheffield Hallam - hold</div><div>Kingston & Surbiton - hold</div><div>St Ives - hold</div><div>Lewes - hold <div>Harrogate & Knaresborough - bit of a boundary change but probably hold <div>Bermondsey & Old Southwark - a straight choice, hold. <div>Hereford - disappears Lib Dem should take new seat of Hereford and South Herefordshire <div>North Norfolk - hold</div><div>Yeovil - hold <div>Meon Valley (successor seat to Mark Oaten's Winchester - Lib Dem hold</div><div>Montgomeryshire - hold <div>Colchester - hold <div>Hazel Grove - hold</div><div>Truro & St Austell - splits in two, I've no idea how that'll pan out.</div><div> </div><div>So, that's between 4 and 6 seats in Scotland and maybe 22 elsewhere. It's going to be a sore election for the Lib Dems, very sore. Far from being king-makers, questions about their viability will be asked. With no policy platform, having tossed it aside for this election, and no real purpose in politics, why would that party stay together?</div><div> </div><div>Of course, I might be wrong. Mind how you go.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7007505944120495672?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-88485414497954572262010-03-17T13:51:00.000Z2010-03-17T13:51:00.613ZLabouring the pointThe Scottish Government announced today that it was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8572444.stm">dumping the proposal</a> to allow local authorities to advertise online instead of in local newspapers. Labour leader Iain Gray said:<br /><blockquote>"This decision is a victory for democracy and a humiliating climbdown for the SNP. John Swinney's proposals to allow local councils to put public notices online instead of in newspapers were undemocratic and I am glad that they have now been dropped.<br />"Large numbers of people in Scotland don't have access to the internet and there is a real danger that putting public notices online would have led to important decisions being taken without proper scrutiny."</blockquote>The proposal was introduced in 2006 by the last bunch who were in power. That'd be Labour then!<br /><br />Mind how you go.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-8848541449795457226?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-24439351887207514942010-03-16T14:49:00.001Z2010-03-16T15:54:48.646ZJohn Scott - 10 todayTen years ago today the good people of Ayr went to the polls in the first by election of the Scottish Parliament. Labour MSP Ian Welsh, who had had a majority of 25, resigned for family reasons after eight months in Parliament.<br /><br /><br />There were some tiring journeys back and forward to that constituency, but it was an interesting exercise and an interesting result. The Labour vote plummeted less than a year after they had become the largest party in Holyrood (unlike the SNP, of course, we won Glasgow East after becoming the largest party in Holyrood), the Conservative vote eased upwards, and the SNP vote shot up by nine and a half points to take us into second.<br /><br /><br />Victor on the day was John Scott of the Conservatives with a majority of 3,344 and he's held it in two elections since then.<br /><br /><br />Here's the <a href="http://www.south-ayrshire.gov.uk/elections/msp/results2000.aspx">result as announced</a><br /><blockquote>William Clifton BOTCHERBY Scottish Independent 'The Radio Vet' 186<br />Gavin Nelson CORBETT Scottish Green Party 460<br />Kevin James DILLON Independent, Anti-Cloning Candidate 15<br />Robert GRAHAM Pro-Life Alliance 111<br />Jim MATHER Scottish National Party (SNP) 9,236<br />Alistair David McCONNACHIE UK Independence Party 113<br />Rita MILLER Scottish Labour Party 7,054<br />Stuart David RITCHIE Scottish Liberal Democrats 800<br />John SCOTT The Scottish Conservative and Unionist Candidate 12,580<br />James STEWART Scottish Socialist Party (Convener Tommy Sheridan) 1,345<br />Rejected papers 58<br />Majority 3,344</blockquote><br />And here's a picture of John Scott and David McLetchie trying to keep up with William Hague shamelessly nicked from <a href="http://www.alba.org.uk/">Ian Old's excellent site:</a><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449243405392399602" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 180px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S5-aAYENzPI/AAAAAAAABiY/BDUn96p4zSo/s400/14pintsaday.jpg" border="0" /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-2443935188720751494?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-49997544771981065202010-03-15T19:39:00.000Z2010-03-15T19:39:29.005ZIt's still a runaway tram.On the last day of September last year, <a href="http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/edinburghs-new-tram-network/Row-erupts-as-MSP-claims.5689806.jp">Shirley-Anne Somerville MSP disclosed </a>that the Edinburgh Tram Project was £200 million over budget and wouldn't run until at least 2013. Lib Dem council leader Jenny Dawe claimed that it wasn't true:<br /><blockquote>Cllr Dawe dismissed Ms Somerville's claim as "purely scaremongering".<br />She said: "It's a lot of nonsense and unbelievably unhelpful when we are trying to deliver such a major project as close as possible to the sum of money we know we have available and we have a contractor in dispute over various things.<br />"She doesn't like the trams and is doing everything she can to foil the project. She is not going to."<br />TIE spokeswoman Mandy Haeburn-Little said:<br />"For Shirley Ann Somerville to be suggesting that there is some other information being held back is ridiculous and unhelpful. If Ms Somerville would like to name her sources then we would be very pleased to respond fully."</blockquote><br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8281360.stm">She went further </a>when speaking to the BBC:<br /><blockquote>Jenny Dawe, Edinburgh City Council leader, said: "The funding situation and projected delivery date for trams running on the street has not changed since being reported to the council last month.<br />"The dispute resolution process is currently underway and both the council and Tie are committed to ensuring that we come in as close to budget as possible.<br />"Speculation from Ms Somerville is purely scaremongering - a fact backed up by her inability to substantiate her sources."<br />Mandy Haeburn-Little, Tie spokeswoman, said: "Not only is this information incorrect but it is deeply damaging to the positive progress of the Edinburgh tram project.<br />"Categorically there is nothing to suggest that the programme will extend beyond 2012 as had been stated publicly.<br />"The programme is making good progress and is on track to be clear of Princes Street at the end of November as planned." </blockquote><br />Of course, I believed the MSP. <a href="http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/Plug-to-be-pulled-on.4713492.jp">She was the one who revealed that line 1b was for the chop </a>back in November 2008 and that was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7738352.stm">denied by Councillor Dawe </a>as well, but the cancellation was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/8015204.stm">announced in April 2009</a>.<br /><br />Now, it would appear, <a href="http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Tram-chiefs--39are-deceiving.6150862.jp">TIE and the council both knew at the time the council leader and the TIE PR consultant were making these statements that they were false</a>.<br /><br />Mandy Haeburn-Little said it would was "ridiculous and unhelpful" to suggest that information was being held back - while TIE and the council were both holding this information back. It's not the job of the leader of a PR team to tell lies, if she knew the truth then her position is untenable, if she didn't know the truth then the veracity of any and all of her other statements on behalf of TIE is open to question. <br /><br />Jenny Dawe said that the claim was "a lot of nonsense and unbelievably unhelpful". If she knew that the council knew then her position is untenable, if she didn't know then serious questions have to be asked about her grip on the largest local authority public procurement project in Scotland in decades. Either way we can't take her at her word on the Tram Project.<br /><br />It's time for some openness. <a href="http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/docs/local/2009/fa_0809_edinburgh_city.pdf">Audit Scotland reported </a>to the council on the Tram Project in January:<br /><blockquote>91. We will discuss these matters further in a more detailed report on the tram project which will be issued in the first instance to the Director of Finance in January 2010.</blockquote><br />The council should publish that report in full. While it's going about that, it should also publish in full the "independent analysis of the project" which it <a href="http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Tram-chiefs--39are-deceiving.6150862.jp">claims to have had done</a>. Some claim commercial confidentiality as the reason for keeping the chaos secret - how many more tram projects do they think the council will be commissioning in the near future?<br /><br />Today's story included the memorable line:<br /><blockquote><p>There is absolutely no question of a cover-up</p></blockquote><br />I can't help thinking "so why did you feel the need to say that?" There'll be no whitewash?<br /><br />Mind how you go.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4999754477198106520?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-78809054062353461412010-03-09T17:54:00.000Z2010-03-09T17:54:20.610ZControversy in New York!You do a wee blog-post and you create controversy. Indy commented on my last post that <em>New York, New York</em> was a Gerard Kenny song but that's not the one I meant. Here, have a listen:<br /><br /><br /><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jsi5lXxzByU&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jsi5lXxzByU&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br /><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2-K9QBR1uXc&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2-K9QBR1uXc&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7880905406235346141?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-20465297419051337542010-03-09T15:24:00.000Z2010-03-09T15:24:07.740ZManifesto commitments - so good we hit them twice!Frank Sinatra's got nothing on me! I just realised while perusing <a href="http://bellgrovebelle.blogspot.com/2010/03/more-police-on-beat-fewer-crimes.html">a certain Belle's ponderings </a>that the SNP Scottish Government has surpassed the 'additional 1,000 police officers' target. Thing is, <a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2009/09/1000-more-police-another-promise-kept.html">we did that already</a> and it was so satisfying that we did it again (I know, fluctuation in numbers is normal and the drop in the middle was just a matter of retirals and waiting for new recruits but I managed to squeeze a terrible Frank Sinatra joke out of it).<br /><br />Mind how you plod!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-2046529741905133754?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-43652540728426028292010-03-08T20:24:00.000Z2010-03-08T20:24:14.507ZJoan McAlpine - she's no badI find myself in agreement with<a href="http://joanmcalpine.typepad.com/joan_mcalpine/"> Joan McAlpine</a> (a journalist whose style tends to the succinct and direct - excellent) in her recent musings. I, too, wonder why some media outlets seem to think it perfectly acceptable to<a href="http://joanmcalpine.typepad.com/joan_mcalpine/2010/03/httpwwwtimesonlinecouktolnewsukscotlandarticle7052533ece.html"> traduce the character of a young lady </a>on the basis of hearsay while failing to question <a href="http://joanmcalpine.typepad.com/joan_mcalpine/2010/03/purcell-criminality-and-blackmail-what-did-downing-street-know.html">the failure of senior members of the Labour party </a>to have even a smidgen of good grace about a colleague of theirs departing politics (apparently permanently - but <a href="http://en.allexperts.com/e/p/pa/pat_lally.htm">you can never be certain</a>). There were interesting revelations <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7052453.ece">in her column this week</a>, too, about the one lawyer representing so many newspapers on a regular basis that snapping him up for a client effectively neuters a fair chunk of Scotland's press pack and in<a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7052533.ece"> the piece by her colleague </a>on the paper about who would turn up at a Glasgow Labour fund-raiser.<br /><br />We need good journalists as much as we need good politicians, keep it up!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4365254072842602829?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-43271214090112399652010-03-06T21:00:00.000Z2010-03-06T21:00:00.798ZScotland wee?<strong>Scotland small?</strong><br /><br />Scotland is often referred to as a small nation (I think that it's just the right size, but there you go) and that can obscure our actual position. Our population is <a href="http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/files2/stats/high-level-summary/j11198/j1119801.htm">5,168,500 </a>or thereabouts making us about the <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html">113th most populous country </a>in the world with about 124 countries smaller than us. We've got<a href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/923/0010669.pdf"> 78,722 square kilometres</a>, putting us <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2147rank.html">about 116th</a> in terms of land mass, 121 countries being smaller than us. We are, as it were, about the middle in terms of size, we fit in nicely.<br /><br />Size is all-important, apparently ...<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4327121409011239965?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-17243168478309680452010-03-06T19:22:00.000Z2010-03-06T19:22:39.033ZSTV Homecoming programmesThere is an attempt to create a stooshie and a fuss over the Homecoming programmes aired by STV, as you'll recall. It has been widely covered in the inky fingers press and you might have imagined that the Labour-supporting Daily Record would be eager to jump on that particular passing bandwagon. <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics-news/">You'd be surprised if you did</a>.<br /><br />Why would the Record not be covering the story in great depth? Well, <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/homecoming-scotland/">the Daily Record was another sponsor of the programmes and was a partner</a> with the Scottish Government in the whole adventure. SNP propaganda sponsored by the Daily Record? I think not!<br /><br />Mind how you read<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-1724316847830968045?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-14840135330290442682010-03-05T20:18:00.000Z2010-03-05T20:18:14.624ZLeave Purcell aloneThe strange Steven Purcell saga is a private tragedy for the man (tragedy in its Aristotelian definition, of course) and his fall is huge. What I have found most distasteful, though, have been the reactions of his Labour Party colleagues. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/scotland/7359352/Steven-Purcell-leaves-rehab-clinic.html">Brown, Murphy and Gray refused to pay any tribute to him</a> as he left office as leader of Glasgow Council and the statement today after he left office as a councillor was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8552466.stm">made by a party spokesman </a>rather than by a named politician, there is still nothing on Scottish Labour's website giving thanks of any kind to Mr Purcell (although there is a childish jibe at George Osborne), he got <a href="http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2010/03/02/steven-purcell-blames-stress-and-exhaustion-as-he-steps-down-from-post-as-leader-of-glasgow-city-council-86908-22080223/">a passing mention from his erstwhile deputy </a>who has temporarily taken over the reins at the council and some more fulsome praise from Alex Salmond, but nothing from senior members of his own party. Indeed, Labour members seem to be<a href="http://www.scotsman.com/steven-purcell/Labour-urges-Steven-Purcell-to.6126393.jp"> keen to get themselves into the newspapers </a>telling him to divulge details of his personal life.<br /><br />I don't think that his expensive PR team and lawyer have been useful to him throughout this and he must have a huge bill to settle with them for all their services, but he shouldn't have needed to lean so heavily on them at all. Whatever Mr Purcell's tragic flaw that has brought him to this end, he should have had support from his party and from his party colleagues - they seem, instead, to have been intent on doing him down.<br /><br />There are people now saying that the public have a right to know the details of Mr Purcell's health, a right to know why he resigned. No we don't. We have no right to his personal information, no right to rake through his private life, prurience does not equate to the public interest. The administration in Glasgow might take a look over the decisions he made recently, just to check that nothing went awry but we have no right to probe into his private life - he was not owned by the public, he was employed by the public. I believe that the newspapers will be carrying more bad news for him tomorrow, news unconnected to his resignations. In a week his life has been turned upside-down and dropped on its head.<br /><br />I find myself in the unusual position of feeling some sympathy for a Labour politician. By all means examine what his decisions in office were and whether they were good, but leave the man alone. He'll be needing time and space and the support of friends to recover from whatever he has been suffering. In the name of common human decency, leave the man alone.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-1484013533029044268?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-88910770251065649142010-03-05T18:24:00.000Z2010-03-05T18:24:37.758ZSame again?Once again the opposition parties in Scotland are hoovering about saying that a European ruling on minimum pricing on tobacco gives the Scottish Government some problems on alcohol pricing.<br /><br />I say it just goes to show that they don't understand the European ruling, and <a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2010/01/minimum-pricing.html">here's a blog-post I wrote on Burns Day</a> (I chose that day just for the piquancy, you understand) reproduced in its entirety (near enough):<br /><br />Monday, 25 January 2010<br /><a name="5919854325518651360"></a><br /><a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2010/01/minimum-pricing.html">Minimum Pricing</a><br />Now that a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8478568.stm">major brewer </a>has joined the campaign to bring Scottish alcohol consumption under control, let's dispose of the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8321546.stm">'illegal under EU law' </a>argument. The argument goes like this -<br /><br />1. The European Court has ruled that minimum pricing for tobacco contravenes Article 9(1) of Council Directive 95/59/EC of 27 November 1995 on taxes other than turnover taxes which affect the consumption of manufactured tobacco so minimum pricing on alcohol is illegal.<br /><br />2. Er, that's it.<br /><br />Here's the problem with that argument - the case to which they refer (<a href="http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=en&jurcdj=jurcdj&jurtpi=jurtpi&numaff=&nomusuel=&ddatefs=10&mdatefs=10&ydatefs=2009&ddatefe=22&mdatefe=10&ydatefe=2009&docnodecision=docnodecision&allcommjo=allcommjo&affint=affint&affclose=affclose&alldocrec=alldocrec&docor=docor&docav=docav&docsom=docsom&docinf=docinf&alldocnorec=alldocnorec&docnoor=docnoor&radtypeord=on&newform=newform&docj=docj&docop=docop&docnoj=docnoj&typeord=ALL&domaine=&mots=&resmax=100&Submit=Rechercher">it's actually three cases but the Advocate General issued one Opinion to cover them all</a>, delivered on the 22nd of October 2009) rests on the fact that tobacco producers and importers are permitted to set maximum prices for their products (it's about payable duty, they fix a maximum price and pay the duty on the maximum price in order to make sure they can't pay duty on a price lower than they sell it for - then there's another duty added on 'per unit' - the second one is the one you hear about in the budget) and that case law has indicated that this means that minimum prices for tobacco are illegal.<br /><br />It's a wee bit tortuous but not too bad - minimum pricing on tobacco is not expressly forbidden but the opinion of the Court has been that imposing a minimum price limits inhibits the rights of the manufacturers to decide their own maximum prices (they couldn't decide on a maximum price lower than the minimum price), so the imposition of minimum pricing was illegal. The legal argument upon which the member states were contesting the action was contained in the reservation that the right to set maximum prices "may not, however, hinder implementation of national systems of legislation regarding the control of price levels or the observance of imposed prices, provided that they are compatible with Community legislation" and you should expect that to come back to the Court in due course.<br /><br />What's important, however, is that the Opinion is based solely on the right of the tobacco companies to set a maximum price and that right being infringed by the imposition of a minimum price - alcohol producers do not have the right to impose maximum prices.<br /><br />Tobacco taxation (including the right of manufacturers to set maximum prices) is governed by <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=EN&numdoc=31995L0059&model=guichett">Council Directive 95/59/EC</a> while the alcohol taxation regulations are contained in <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31992L0084:EN:HTML">Council Directive 92/84/EEC</a>.<br /><br />Meanwhile, <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexplus!prod!DocNumber&lg=en&type_doc=COMfinal&an_doc=2006&nu_doc=625">the EU's strategy to reduce alcohol-related harm</a> includes using taxation as a means of introducing minimum pricing (an option not open to the Scottish Government because of the restrictions of the current devolution settlement; but indicates that the EU is in favour of using pricing policy as a means to manage alcohol consumption); <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7676897.stm">altering the ages at which alcohol can be sold </a>(remember that one?); and <a href="http://www.snp.org/node/14636">lowering the allowable blood alcohol </a>limit for drivers, including a zero rate for young drivers, public transport drivers and freight drivers.<br /><br />There's lots and lots of information available through the<a href="http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_determinants/life_style/alcohol/Forum/alcohol_forum_en.htm"> European Alcohol and Health Forum </a>for anyone who wants some light reading with their sherry.<br /><br />Mind how you drink!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-8891077025106564914?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-53807573318275851832010-03-03T20:07:00.000Z2010-03-03T20:08:06.905ZHow much money wasted?How much public money do you think has been wasted by Labour Party members making entirely spurious complaints about the behaviour of members of the Scottish Government?<br /><br />There was<a href="http://news.stv.tv/scotland/159746-salmond-and-sturgeon-cleared-over-lunches/"> the lunches complaint</a> (there was also a complaint made about this to the Standards Commission which doesn't investigate MSPs) - complaint dismissed; there was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/8185629.stm">the escaped prisoners complaint</a> - complaint dismissed; there was the <a href="http://www.perthshireadvertiser.co.uk/perthshire-news/scottish-news/2009/03/06/salmond-cleared-over-funding-row-73103-23081548/">Scottish Inter Faith Council </a>complaint - complaint dismissed; there was the <a href="http://news.stv.tv/scotland/152395-salmond-complaint-over-class-sizes-rejected/">class sizes</a> complaint - complaint dismissed; even the <a href="http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/lgc/reports-08/lgr08-05.htm">partisan inquiry </a>into the Balmedie planning process dismissed the complaints.<br /><br />Now more public money is being wasted on yet another inquiry that will result in the complaint being dismissed - <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8548013.stm">Ofcom is to investigate </a>the STV Homecoming programmes.<br /><br />How much of our money has Labour (and the Lib Dems just a little) wasted on these complaints whose purpose appears to be nothing more nor less than the gaining of a few newspaper headlines and some scandalised reporting? No wrongdoing (intentional or not) in any one of these cases, just cheap headline-grabbing by politicians who have nothing positive to say. What a scandalous misuse of public money, what a sad way for politicians to end up - snuffling around the regulatory institutions of our public life looking for scandal like an olfactory-impaired boar hunting for truffles.<br /><br />There should always be proper scrutiny of the actions of Governments, and opposition parties should forever be keening their political tools in the probing and testing of Ministers - that makes for good democracy, for good government, for a good legislature. What is not acceptable is for politicians to abdicate their responsibility for scrutiny and, instead, to attempt an ordure shower. Scotland deserves better from her opposition parties than this dreadfully poor attempt.<br /><br />They should up their game!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5380757331827585183?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-7827011215135933462010-03-02T23:59:00.000Z2010-03-02T23:59:00.091ZTrams - are they hiding from me?Way back in December TIE offered me a briefing on the tram project (along with the other interested SNP candidates) and said the same offer had been made to the other political parties. When I accepted it was scheduled for February. I met the chairman of TIE at the rugby against France (don't ask the score) and nudged him about it. February has come and gone and not another word.<br /><br />Hmmmm....<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-782701121513593346?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-19989184189186108342010-03-02T20:57:00.001Z2010-03-02T20:58:37.811ZWhat a dayWhat a day for politics:<br /><br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8545991.stm">Leaders' debates for the forthcoming election were announced </a>and include two parties who are not in government at Westminster nor in any of the devolved nations (Conservatives and Liberal Democrats) but don't include the party of government in Scotland (the SNP), one of the parties of government in Wales (Plaid Cymru), or any party of government in Stormont.<br /><br /><a href="http://www2.jpscotland.co.uk/steamie/2010/03/david-maddox-change-of-lib-dem-strategy.html">Dave Maddox beats me to the punch </a>in pointing to Lib Dem hypocrisy (Alistair Carmichael criticising those who offer binary political choices while his own party is infamous for it).<br /><br />Finally, I get a phone call from a friend of mine which went like this:<br />"Why do I never get any of your leaflets through my door?"<br />"Because you live in Portobello, it's way outside the constituency."<br />"I got one from your Lib Dem opponent..."<br />There's an enthusiastic leafleter who's got a bit lost then!<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-1998918418918610834?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-73799077711977112952010-03-02T15:37:00.000Z2010-03-02T15:38:01.005ZSTV and the SNPLet's just jump back in the water of <a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2010/03/thats-way-to-do-it.html">the daftness of the opposition </a>claiming that it is somehow wrong for the Scottish Government to have supported Scottish culture by sponsoring programmes made by STV for the Year of Homecoming. In true l'esprit d'escalier style, it has struck me that the whole story was actually back to front. The Year of Homecoming was actually started under the Labour administration before 2007 (and a decent idea it was as well) under Jack McConnell, as <a href="http://www.homecomingscotland2009.com/media-centre/new_events_guide.html">Iain Gray was at pains to point out</a> - the question really shouldn't be "why was STV involved?" but "why were the broadcasters not involved earlier?"<br /><br />The earlier the involvement of Scotland's media companies (and corporations, Auntie, even with today's bit of slimming) in such things, the better the promotion and the historical record of them. The story shouldn't have been 'shock, horror, the First Minister met STV' but 'jings, crivvens, this is long overdue'.<br /><br />We've got decent media in Scotland; the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8529971.stm">BBC will even change a piece </a>when you <a href="http://calumcashley.blogspot.com/2010/02/bbc-in-basic-error-tsk-tsk-tsk.html">point out the slight inaccuracies</a>.<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7379907771197711295?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-56737918446284283452010-03-01T17:22:00.000Z2010-03-01T17:24:18.347ZBankrupt Britain?<a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f14fb952-249e-11df-8be0-00144feab49a.html">The Financial Times is reporting </a>that UK Government debt is being traded at prices that suggest that the investors are treating it as less than AAA rated. British bond yields have gone back above Italian yields and are approaching those of Portugal, putting the UK right in among those countries <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-05/swine-acronym-ordered-out-of-barclays-capital-research-reports.html">so condescendingly referred to as PIIGS </a>for a time by some who thought themselves superior. As the FT says, Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch have indicated that they are unlikely to re-rate the UK before the election but, since the agencies follow the markets in most cases, that's hardly a comfort, and the credit agencies are saying that the debt has to be reduced sooner rather than later.<br /><br />The cost to the UK of servicing its debt is increasing while other European states are holding steady, and the UK's public debt <a href="http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/public_finances_databank.xls#">now exceeds 60% of GDP</a> and is predicted to keep rising. If memory serves, PFI and PPP projects have to be added to that debt figure as well. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE50I4BU20090119">Some commentators warned</a> as far back as January of 2009 that the debt was unsustainable and a month later the <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5811186.ece">Chief Executive of the Audit Commission warned </a>that debts were at 'Armageddon levels' - and debt has risen since then.<br /><br />I guess Ted Hawkins isn't the only one searching -<br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wR3CYJKoFi0&hl=en_GB&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wR3CYJKoFi0&hl=en_GB&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5673791844628428345?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-41316344951109010562010-03-01T02:20:00.000Z2010-03-01T02:20:16.458ZThat's the way to do it!<a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article7044554.ece">The Times is reporting </a>a range of synthetic angers over the Scottish Government sponsoring three programmes made by STV. Here's the spouting:<br /><blockquote>Ted Brocklebank, Culture Spokesman for the Scottish Tories, said: “If the SNP government has being trying to use taxpayers’ money to undermine the impartiality of STV then there must be an investigation.”.<br />“If [Mr Salmond] has been using taxpayers’ money to buy favour and influence, then that would be a serious breach of power.”<br />Iain Gray, leader of Scots Labour, said: “The suggestion that Alex Salmond tried to manipulate Scotland’s largest commercial broadcaster is deeply concerning.”<br />Iain Smith, the Liberal Democrat Culture Spokesman, said: “Independent broadcasters aren’t there to act as PR agencies for the government.”</blockquote><br />Scottish Government encourages Scottish cultural shows shock...<br /><br />So who hosted these shows which were undermining the impartiality of STV, which were an attempt to buy favour and influence, manipulated a commercial broadcaster, and turned STV into public relations consultants?<br /><br /><a href="http://entertainment.stv.tv/tv/104577-kirsty-wark-haggis/">Kirsty Wark</a>, Labour supporter, friend of former First Minister Jack McConnell MSP.<br /><a href="http://entertainment.stv.tv/tv/104574-charles-kennedy-engineering/">Charlie Kennedy MP</a>, former leader of the Liberal Democrats.<br /><a href="http://programmes.stv.tv/made-in-scotland/presenters/104552-alastair-campbell-the-pipes/">Alastair Campbell</a>, one time <a href="http://entertainment.stv.tv/tv/104552-alastair-campbell-the-pipes/">gentle persuader</a> for Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair.<br /><br />You can see how that twists it all towards support for the SNP, can't you?<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4131634495110901056?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-51559434552713931302010-02-26T17:55:00.000Z2010-02-26T17:55:51.711ZUniversity funding - better under the SNPI see that <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8538926.stm">university funding is to rise by £40 million in Scotland</a> - an increase under the SNP Scottish Government - while university funding south of the border is being<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8427546.stm"> slashed by £398 million under the Labour Government</a>.<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5155943455271393130?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-72809024760084926162010-02-23T17:57:00.000Z2010-02-23T17:57:44.840ZBBC in basic error - tsk, tsk, tsk<div>The BBC website is carrying a story that's headlined "Knife killing at record high rate" and begins:</div><div><blockquote><p>The percentage of knife killings are at an all-time high, according to the latest Scottish homicide figures.</p></blockquote></div><div>and it includes a wee table:</div><div><blockquote>PEOPLE KILLED WITH SHARP INSTRUMENT<br />2005-06: 34 (36%)<br />2006-07: 54 (45%)<br />2007-08: 55 (48%)<br />2008-09: 57 (58%)</blockquote></div><div>If only the reporter had included <a href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/254429/0095173.xls">the figures from the previous year</a>, 2004-05 where knife killings accounted for 72 murders in Scotland, 53% of the total, giving a lie to the headline - given that all the figures come from the same sheet in the same document and this was the only year left out, I wonder whether the BBC reporter has sexed up the story by omitting uncomfortable facts or whether she or he given the story and just didn't bother to check the facts.</div><br /><div></div><div>The story claims the highest percentage ever, which might be true, but that doesn't indicate that murders with a sharp instrument are increasing. If you <a href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/12/14114316/18">look back further</a>, you'll see that the numbers of knife murders were: <blockquote>1997-98 - 39<br />1998-99 - 39<br />1999-00 - 67<br />2000-01 - 48<br />2001-02 - 56<br />2002-03 - 60<br />2003-04 - 55<br />2004-05 - 72<br />2005-06 - 34<br />2006-07 - 54</blockquote></div><div>The reason the most recent percentage is so high is because the number of other types of murder has decreased. For some reason, what should be a good news story has been turned inside-out by the BBC. Someone at the BBC seems to think that it is acceptable to talk Scotland down, to tell us that we're somehow failing - even when the truth is directly contrary to that assertion. I know it's not Brian Taylor because he's a decent, fair and balanced political editor who does his homework, does the digging, and has a fine understanding of Scottish politics (in spite of the football team he supports), but someone else in the organisation is failing. We should be able to trust the BBC to be impartial, and we should be able to trust the Corporation to do its homework. Failures like this are a right scunner.</div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441499410389437314" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 203px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 152px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_g05rcQEz--I/S4QW4inCi4I/AAAAAAAABiM/j8EVRMtGZeo/s400/BBC+journalist.jpg" border="0" /> <div></div><div>I'm off to campaign now. Mind how you go!</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-7280902476008492616?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-57710518240703762742010-02-23T06:00:00.000Z2010-02-23T06:00:02.473ZScottish ice dancingWatching the Winter Olympics, I came upon the ice dance and the Scottish sister and brother team. She lifted him as well as him lifting her. Equality in action...<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5771051824070376274?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-45265911257471152362010-02-23T01:35:00.000Z2010-02-23T01:35:44.368ZObsessionIt's always good to see a man indulging his obsession - <a href="http://www.rigglemerie.com/">http://www.rigglemerie.com/</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-4526591125747115236?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7466643334422987322.post-50009605864356029622010-02-22T17:31:00.000Z2010-02-22T17:31:08.933ZElectoral Commission - no concerns over wordingThere is a tale being reported <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8527765.stm">by the BBC </a> and <a href="http://news.scotsman.com/politics/SNP-defends-independence-referendum-against.6093652.jp">by the Scotsman </a>as well as <a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/minister-denies-referendum-rigging-proposal-1.1008439">the Herald</a> that centres around claims by opposition parties that the Scottish Government is seeking to rig the independence referendum. This is based on a release of correspondence under FOI which, it is claimed, demonstrates that the Electoral Commission is being cut out of the referendum and alleging that the EC had concerns over the wording.<br /><br />The truth is somewhat different. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/21_02_10_referendumminutes.pdf">The BBC is hosting the FOI </a>in all its glory - 30 pages worth - and a quick read shows something rather different. The Electoral Commission raised a question about whether the Scottish Government or Scottish Parliament had the power to instruct the Commission and, by implication, whether the Commission could have a regulatory role. Both the Scottish Government and the Electoral Commission were to seek legal advice on whether there was a means by which these points could be addressed. The Commission also noted that the Scottish Government was asking the Commission's advice on the question and that the Government was committed to adhering to the ballot paper standards which were being developed.<br /><br />Far from being unhappy with the Scottish Government, the Electoral Commission appears to be rather pleased with the level of cooperation. Interestingly, none of the reports quotes anyone from the EC - I would have thought that that was an obvious quote to seek. Another thing - these opposition parties complaining that the Scottish Parliament is to choose the Commissioner to oversee a Scottish referendum seem to have forgotten that their Calman Commission recommended that the Scottish Parliament takes over the overseeing of Scottish elections.<br /><br />Consistency?<br /><br />Mind how you go!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7466643334422987322-5000960586435602962?l=calumcashley.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Calum Cashleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01059728094634130387noreply@blogger.com1