Labour MSP branches out

Politics must be gey wearying for Labour, but the news that Karen Gillan is Dr Who's new assistant did come as a bit of a surprise.

Respect for Justice Secretary

When judging how well Kenny MacAskill is doing in relation to the open estate, it may be worthwhile seeing what the Prison Officers' Association says:

Vice chair Phil Fairlie said
"The POA fully supports the steps taken by the Justice Secretary in addressing the transfer of prisoners to the open estate.

"The fact that at present it is only holding roughly half its capacity, despite record numbers of prisoners, would suggest that the conditions for admission to the open estate are far more stringent than was ever in place under previous administrations.

"In our dealings with the Justice Secretary, he has always shown a great understanding of the issues facing us within the prison service, and has been extremely supportive of the staff within it.

"Prison staff take their role on behalf of society very seriously and carry it out with great commitment and professionalism. At present we have a Justice Secretary who both recognises and supports them in that, and until such times as that changes, he
will continue to have the support of this union.

"This union is deeply concerned that some of the comments made this week simply undermine both the morale and confidence of the staff in our open estate, who are carrying out a very important role on behalf of the public in preparing prisoners for release back into our communities."

Who's the better judge of the efficacy of the Justice Secretary on prison policy? Would you rather trust Phil Fairlie or Iain Gray? On this, as on so much else, Labour is quite simply wrong.

Is it really all within the rules?

I keep hearing these phrases about the Westminster meltdown which is getting in the way of politics, very similar, and all amounting to an exculpation of the MP involved on the grounds that what they did was within the rules. What surprises me is why no journalist has challenged that assertion. There has been the odd one saying "hang on there, chappie, what about this bit that says that your claims should neither be nor appear excessive and that you should only claim for things that you need in order to do your job?" - most notably David Dimbleby on Question Time, but none have sandpapered it a bit to see how it looks.


Elliot Morley, Labour MP, said:

"In 1997 when I was appointed minister I was obliged under the rules at that time to class my London home as my main home. That meant I had to make my additional costs allowance claims on my constituency home."

But Gordon Brown, during all his time as Chancellor, declared North Queensferry as his main home and made his additional costs allowance claims on his London flat.


Who to believe, who to believe?

Mind how you go!

New seats - excellent!

I've just been having a look at the boundary commission's final proposals for Holyrood constituencies and regions and I'd like to say - it's excellent news!

Here in Edinburgh it puts the SNP ahead in North and Leith where we join Edinburgh East - not as big a margin of comfort in the North as in the East, but still ahead, with Labour in second place. Edinburgh Central becomes a marginal the SNP against Labour and the new seat formed from Midlothian and Musselburgh should see another SNP Member returned.

To the west, the Linlithgow seat seems to have strengthened and, with the excellent campaigning team that Fiona Hyslop has there, it should come back as another SNP seat - Fiona returned as a constituency MSP. That seat, of course, goes off to another region under the proposals and it's a wee shame to see it go but the other constituencies in the new East Central Scotland region will be delighted to have that campaigning edge and that substantial voter base added to their efforts.

East Lothian, of course, gets added to the Lothian region and that's an interesting wee number, with Labour's vote having been on a downward slope since 1999:

1999 - 51%

2003 - 44%

2007 - 35%

The swing from Labour to the SNP in 2007 was about 10%, the gap is now just 7%, Labour has internal difficulties there, some of which are clearly visible, and it could be a side bet worth taking. To lose one Scottish Parliament seat after a single term might be considered unfortunate ...

Livingston looks like it will be held with a wee degree of comfort (but no complacency), and if all of this came to pass it would give the SNP six constituency seats across the region - which is a major improvement on 2007. There might be additional interest created as well with the collapse of Lib Dem support across Edinburgh - in Edinburgh West in particular where both the SNP and the Conservatives area taking large bites out of the Lib Dem vote. Whether it will be enough to take the seat away from the Lib Dems and which party it will be that leaps past them remains to be seen.

That strengthening of the Conservative vote at the expense of the Lib Dems should secure David McLetchie's seat for him, and it brings the new Southside seat into play. Labour isn't picking up any of the Lib Dem votes as they drift away, so Southside could be a four-way contest. Very interesting - and we should know more about how things are going to pan out after the European election.

Up in Angus the new seat created as a result of population growth appears to be in Nationalist heartlands and should deliver us another SNP MSP, and my friends in the North should be confident of removing Mike Rumbles and Nicol Stephen.

Ochil and Stirling look in fine fettle (even if the name of Ochil has changed), Clydesdale is winnable for us, I think, and Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale will turn black and gold as well.

On top of the boundary changes there will be four years of good government as a running record for the SNP and Labour's recession will still be biting. If the Conservatives are in Government in London by then (as looks likely, let's be honest) they'll be having to deal with the enormous economic migraine which caused Standard & Poor's to downgrade the UK outlook and warn that "last month's budget announcements underscored that U.K. public finances are deteriorating rapidly" and that ratings could be affected if the problem isn't sorted.

There will be seats changing hands at the UK general election - the return of the Conservatives to strength presaging a collapse in the Lib Dem vote and a massive internal battle for Labour. Labour losing the UK election will leave them in meltdown - the New Labour project destroyed the base of the Labour party, driving many of their traditional activists and most of their philosophically minded members away, leaving an empty parody of the previous incarnation of Labour - a bell with no tongue.

The picture leading into 2011 could be of a Conservative party having returned to former glories in England but not quite having made the same transformation in Scotland; a Labour party that has lost all sense of itself and forgotten its heritage fighting internal battles over the dry bones of a once vibrant organisation; a Lib Dem brigade which no longer has a purpose or a point to its existence; and the SNP, having demonstrated how to govern Scotland in Scotland's interest and deal with a Cameron Government on an equal footing, is strong and identified with putting Scotland's case.

There will be opportunities for the SNP to advance, but there will also be opportunities for the other parties. A truly Scottish Conservative party or a truly Scottish Labour party would have the freedom to demonstrate that they, too, can offer a vision for Scotland. A party which actually offers liberalism would be a welcome addition to the mix, and surely there's room for the Greens to hang on in there. Scottish politics could be about to change enormously in the next few years (it might not, of course, but the possibility is there).

In the meantime, look at those fantastic boundaries!

In other news

The headlines are a bit mono just now, here are a few other things to look at:

RPI fell in March and in April - the economy is still getting worse.

Engineering Turnover and Orders have fallen both quarter by quarter and year by year.

Fuel price at the pump has been rising since January.

Average weekly earnings have shrunk.

The Credit Conditions Survey from the Bank of England looks pretty bleak.

You'll have an attack of the vapours if you look at the BoE's Statistical Interactive Database.

The employment rate is slightly better in Scotland than in our nearest neighbours but not good enough.

At least we've got Gordon Brown to save the world though.

Surely that's unconstitutional

I read today of a great wailing and gnashing of teeth as Members of Parliament are flung to the dogs by their parties for doing what those parties had encouraged them, actively or passively, to do. In the midst of it all was Harriet Harman wielding Excalibur fearlessly and snicking heads off left and right. Like an avenging angel she has descended upon the unworthy denizens of the Houses of Parliament to smite them and tell them how it's going to be.

There's no flippin flipping, no furniture, no cleaning, no stamp duty, a cap on mortgages, and external regulation.

Hang on...

Parliament answerable to external regulation without a written constitution? It would be questionable in the Scottish system where sovereignty rests with the people, under the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty as the Westminster place is supposed to be, it's just daft. Since the philosophy underpinning Westminster is that Parliament is sovereign - even to the extent that it cannot be bound by a previous incarnation of itself - how can any external regulator dare to do anything about it? If Parliament submits to external regulation it is no longer master of its own destiny and therefore, arguably, no longer sovereign.

The bigger point, though, is why would we feel that it is appropriate to trust these people to run our economy (which is still down the pan) if they can't run their own expenses system and police themselves in an open and transparent manner? It seems more like being desperate to shift the blame than sort out the problem.

Most interested was I in the tale being related in the Telegraph (not the Tele of Dundee fame, of course, this is a lesser paper but a decent organ nonetheless) - a tale of derring-don't as Gordon Brown lays out his plans for a decimation (at least) of Labour's MPs - except the saintly Hazel Blears, of course.

It was this line that gave me pause, though:

Labour’s Chief Whip, the party’s general secretary and constituency parties, will have the power to refer MPs for investigation. Expulsion could then follow.

Leaving aside the unnecessary comma, does this not sound like shades of Salem and the witch trials dramatised in The Crucible?

Are there not, in fact, echoes of regal dictatorship in the creation of the Star Chamber? Echoes of political repression and arbitrary justice, no witnesses, no right of appeal - and was it not the cause of the end of Charles I?

Ach weel, neffer mind

Michael Martin makes history

Michael Martin is the first speaker to be forced from office. Some will tell you that Paul Foley went before him in 1698. That, of course, was a different country - it was England's Parliament.

Only Gordon Brown's Government

could have difficulty giving money away...

Lazarowicz - an honourable man

Mark Lazarowicz - a fine, upstanding gentleman (except when he sits down, obviously) - was determined to get himself into the story about MPs fiddling their expenses - and he did. Screaming "me too" he flung himself in front of the oncoming expenses train, offering to pay back money that he had claimed properly, but now thought was too much before he realised he'd left his chequebook in Edinburgh so the cheque was *ahem* in the post, before realising he'd got carried away in all the excitement of the chase and he really shouldn't do anything but he was going to do it anyway because he'd said that he was going to do what he didn't have to do and so he'd now do it in spite of not having to do it, just so you all know that he's above board. Still with me? Good.

Spreading rumours
For some reason, in the middle of the madness he'd created, he decided to make the bizarre claim that

I have a family home in Edinburgh and have never claimed a penny of taxpayers' money for that.

when no-one, not even the witchsmeller pursuivant of the Daily Telegraph had suggested he had. Mr Lazarowicz has told us there is nothing wrong, and Mark is an honourable man.

You would think that, having made a mess of it, he would stay quiet and try not to make it any worse, but I suppose he reasoned that ambition should be made of sterner stuff. He has released some details of his expenses claims in today's Evening News, and I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to examine them.

Why only four years?
Every MP has in their possession just now the past five years of their expenses claims, provided by the Fees Office to allow them to be checked before release under FOI and Mark has released four of those years - I don't know why he hasn't released the fifth year or, indeed, all of his expenses given that he was first elected to the Commons in 2001 and he will have had to keep those records for income tax purposes. Why release half of it when you can release all of it?

That pesky repayment
Then there's the legal fees for extending his lease. He claimed £5,355.63 but the fees notes that he hosted on his own website indicate that he only paid out £2,698.23 - that's £2,657.40 of a difference. Interestingly, in his statement on allowances he says

The sum he will pay back is approximately £2675

In other words, he'll be paying back the amount he overclaimed by. Sadly, it would appear that, far from being above board as he has claimed, Mr Lazarowicz is attempting to repay before being caught. An honourable man.

The mortgage interest
Also in that story in Edinburgh Evening News is the claim that he renegotiated the mortgage on his London property when he extended the lease, reducing mortgage interest to £164 a month. The fees notes on his website quite clearly indicate that the extension of the lease was finalised in May 2007, so he would have paid one payment at the old, higher rate of interest and 11 at the new lower rate of interest.

Taking the previous year as the benchmark for his high cost month, he would have claimed about £1,287 in mortgage interest for that month, 11 months at £164 is £1,804 for the rest of the year - a total of £3,091 for the whole year, but he claimed £14,965.41 - apparently an overclaim of almost £12,000.

But Mark is an honourable man
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.