As those who follow me on twitter will know, I was a great Partisan of Susan Calman on Strictly. She went much further than anybody predicted and brought joy to a nation as she did so.
Anyway, when she got to Blackpool a galaxy of literary stars were rounded up in her support and photographed among them was the author Jenny Colgan.
It was, I confess, for that reason alone, having exhausted a Sunday newspaper some weeks later that I was drawn to an interview with Ms. Colgan. In that she commented that her real breakthrough novel was a book entiled "Meet me at the Cup-cake Cafe" about a woman who seizes the "opportunity" of redundancy to open a cafe where she bakes and sells her own cakes and, after various trials and tribulations, finds true love.
Andi is a mug for such tales and I thought it would make her a good Christmas present. Unfortunately it was unavailable in the late night garage on Christmas Eve, so Andi had instead to make do with a bunch of flowers and a puncture repair kit. And a bag of logs as a stocking filler. I told her it was the thought that counts. I'm not entirely sure she believed me.
Anyway, it turned out I'd have been wasting my money for, a couple of Sundays back, at the start of the good weather, I was sitting in the garden and had truly done the papers to death, so decided I would read a book. Only problem was that Andi's boy was back from Uni and in occupation of the spare room where my books are all kept.
But Andi's books are in a bookcase in the hall! So I had a rummage there and, eccola, there was the very legendary volume. And, on the principle of any port in a storm, I decided to give it a wee read.
And I loved it. Now, to be clear, even if you had known nothing about the book in advance, it would have been clear to you very early on that it would not end with the heroine dying of consumption penniless in a garret, or seeing all her children slain in a pitiless religious war, or even being sold as a wife at a fair.
No, from about five pages in, you knew this would be a book with a happy ending. The pleasure was just in seeing how it got there.
You see, people like a happy ending. That's why they had to have one final episode of Car Share. It couldn't, just couldn't, have ended as it did last year. The public wouldn't have stood for it! And if there is a man in the entire Country who knows what the public want, it is surely Peter Kay.
Now, you'll wonder where all this fits in to a political blog. Here's where. Really successful political projects promise a happy ending. Whether it was Attlee offering a new Jerusalem or McMillan you never having had it so good, or Blair, not so much New Labour as a New Britain or (even) Thatcher proposing a return to a more ordered way of life, all of these platforms were built on optimism about not just the country but the fate of its individual citizens.
Today, nobody is offering that. The Brexit riven Tories offer a future offering nothing certain except uncertainty; my own Party offer"struggle" (possibly mainly with each other) and, the SNP, post Growth Commission, a country where Enver Hoxha's famous exhortation "This year will be tougher than last year, but next year will be tougher still", looks like it would replace Nemo me impune lacessit as the National motto.
Now, that's not to say optimism can be an end in itself. No matter how illusorily, Salmond, Tsipras, Trump and now the even more ludicrous Di Maio in Italy offer optimism without rationalisation. But there is no point in denying that they attracted or attract many to their banners for that reason alone.
And that is part of the problem. If the democratic centre fails to offer real hope then their ground is occupied by those offering false hope.
Ruth Davidson got this a few weeks back when she made a speech exhorting the Tories to, essentially, cheer up. Her problem is that, beyond the continued survival of the hapless Corbyn and his poisonous allies, they really don't have very much to be cheery about.
But, if someone, anyone, could come along offering real hope of a happy ending? The nation would be theirs. Without even a cup cake or a Gary Barlow song to assist.
Sunday, 3 June 2018
Sunday, 27 May 2018
Growth
So, we finally have the report of the SNP Growth Commission.
Supposedly this was to set out the economic argument for Scottish Independence. Its publication has been much delayed and it was eventually virtually sneaked out on the Friday of a long Bank Holiday weekend. Having had a look at it, the reason for reticence is clear. Even honest Nationalists have ultimately to concede that there really isn't an economic case for Scottish Independence.
Nobody is saying it is impossible but then nobody on my side ever said it was impossible. We simply pointed out that it would involve a significant degree of economic hardship with no guarantee at all of ever even getting back, economically, to where we started. And, here, almost four years after we were attempted to be sold the "land of milk and honey" nonsense of the 2014 White Paper, it turns out that is confirmed by a document produced by the SNP themselves.
But others have made that point elsewhere so there is no point in me labouring (sic) it. Rather I want to look at what I think is to be welcomed in the document; the recognition that to date, and by that I mean not just under SNP administrations since 2007 but under the Labour/Lib Dem ones that preceded these, not nearly enough effort has been made under the devolved settlement to promote economic growth.
The Growth Commission rightly points out the asymmetrical nature of the British economy. We regularly deploy Scotland's fiscal deficit as an argument against independence without recognising that every one of the small nations in our Union has a per capita deficit at least as large as Scotland, as indeed has every region of England outwith London and the South East. And that is not as it should be. Indeed, as Andrew Wilson points out, it is not as it is in virtually any other Country in the developed world.
But this is something that Devolution was meant to do something about and yet it hasn't at all. In truth it has hardly tried.
It was not always thus. Scotland, at least urban Scotland, profited as much from the British Empire as did England and Wales, as indeed did we mutually partake in the benefits of the industrial revolution. Certainly, I share the criticism of late Thatcherism/Majorism and then New Labour that they were far too content for growth to be largely generated in the area of finance capital but when that tendency started the one part of the UK outside London that had its own indigenous financial sector was Scotland. Far from riding that wave, since 1999 we have actually seen a relative decline. And that despite technological advance which has effectively removed the geographic advantage of "being in the room".
And while we continued to bewail the lost of heavy industry that is never going to return, what has the Scottish Government done to support diversification? I am all for wind turbines but the capacity to manufacture them in Scotland falls far behind demand, never mind opportunity. And as for much of our food and drink industry, it survives (and prospers) against a barely concealed climate of hostility to its often "red in tooth and claw" (and foreign owned to boot!) capitalist model.
Then we have our new industries, bioscience, computer gaming (which currently astonishingly employs directly more than 20,000 people), distance learned vocational education? What Government help or support do they get? Do they even get asked how the Government might help?
And what could be done in many cases is bleeding obvious. Better links between colleges and industries; better basic education at school level. Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. A Scottish Investment Bank, certainly, but one working alongside private capital rather than giving money to hopeless projects already turned down by those with a nose for business.
Andrew Wilson gets this but he is not alone. Richard Leonard arrived in Holyrood only in 2016 but long before he aspired to the leadership he was the driving force behind the publication of Scottish Labour's new Industrial Strategy, sourced largely from experience he had gained working for one of the few Trade Unions with a significant residual private sector membership. Next week, Ruth Davidson will make a long trailed speech setting out her own ideas in this area. And the Growth Commission is an important contribution to this debate as well.
Andrew Wilson is widely regarded as one of the most thoughtful of Scottish nationalists but his wiser colleagues might ponder his hidden message. Independence would be very painful indeed if the UK Fiscal transfer was removed overnight, probably so painful that a majority will never vote for it. But if the need for that transfer was reduced or even eliminated? Well, that would be a very different proposition indeed. And the key to that is not more flags or more marches. It is more growth.
Supposedly this was to set out the economic argument for Scottish Independence. Its publication has been much delayed and it was eventually virtually sneaked out on the Friday of a long Bank Holiday weekend. Having had a look at it, the reason for reticence is clear. Even honest Nationalists have ultimately to concede that there really isn't an economic case for Scottish Independence.
Nobody is saying it is impossible but then nobody on my side ever said it was impossible. We simply pointed out that it would involve a significant degree of economic hardship with no guarantee at all of ever even getting back, economically, to where we started. And, here, almost four years after we were attempted to be sold the "land of milk and honey" nonsense of the 2014 White Paper, it turns out that is confirmed by a document produced by the SNP themselves.
But others have made that point elsewhere so there is no point in me labouring (sic) it. Rather I want to look at what I think is to be welcomed in the document; the recognition that to date, and by that I mean not just under SNP administrations since 2007 but under the Labour/Lib Dem ones that preceded these, not nearly enough effort has been made under the devolved settlement to promote economic growth.
The Growth Commission rightly points out the asymmetrical nature of the British economy. We regularly deploy Scotland's fiscal deficit as an argument against independence without recognising that every one of the small nations in our Union has a per capita deficit at least as large as Scotland, as indeed has every region of England outwith London and the South East. And that is not as it should be. Indeed, as Andrew Wilson points out, it is not as it is in virtually any other Country in the developed world.
But this is something that Devolution was meant to do something about and yet it hasn't at all. In truth it has hardly tried.
It was not always thus. Scotland, at least urban Scotland, profited as much from the British Empire as did England and Wales, as indeed did we mutually partake in the benefits of the industrial revolution. Certainly, I share the criticism of late Thatcherism/Majorism and then New Labour that they were far too content for growth to be largely generated in the area of finance capital but when that tendency started the one part of the UK outside London that had its own indigenous financial sector was Scotland. Far from riding that wave, since 1999 we have actually seen a relative decline. And that despite technological advance which has effectively removed the geographic advantage of "being in the room".
And while we continued to bewail the lost of heavy industry that is never going to return, what has the Scottish Government done to support diversification? I am all for wind turbines but the capacity to manufacture them in Scotland falls far behind demand, never mind opportunity. And as for much of our food and drink industry, it survives (and prospers) against a barely concealed climate of hostility to its often "red in tooth and claw" (and foreign owned to boot!) capitalist model.
Then we have our new industries, bioscience, computer gaming (which currently astonishingly employs directly more than 20,000 people), distance learned vocational education? What Government help or support do they get? Do they even get asked how the Government might help?
And what could be done in many cases is bleeding obvious. Better links between colleges and industries; better basic education at school level. Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. A Scottish Investment Bank, certainly, but one working alongside private capital rather than giving money to hopeless projects already turned down by those with a nose for business.
Andrew Wilson gets this but he is not alone. Richard Leonard arrived in Holyrood only in 2016 but long before he aspired to the leadership he was the driving force behind the publication of Scottish Labour's new Industrial Strategy, sourced largely from experience he had gained working for one of the few Trade Unions with a significant residual private sector membership. Next week, Ruth Davidson will make a long trailed speech setting out her own ideas in this area. And the Growth Commission is an important contribution to this debate as well.
Andrew Wilson is widely regarded as one of the most thoughtful of Scottish nationalists but his wiser colleagues might ponder his hidden message. Independence would be very painful indeed if the UK Fiscal transfer was removed overnight, probably so painful that a majority will never vote for it. But if the need for that transfer was reduced or even eliminated? Well, that would be a very different proposition indeed. And the key to that is not more flags or more marches. It is more growth.
Monday, 7 May 2018
Numbers.
There was a demonstration on Saturday. Depending on who you listen to it was attended by somewhere between 10,000 and 90,000 nationalists. On any view a lot of nationalists. Having declined to put a single leadership figure on the platform for the rally which followed, towards the end of the event, the First Minister panicked and, believing the attendance to be nearer the latter than the former figure, sent, as a tweet, a single thumbs up.
And, do you know what, I really wasn't interested.
There is not going to be a second independence referendum any time soon. The constitutional position is clear, It requires the agreement of the UK Government and the UK Government isn't going to agree.
So, any attempt at such a vote will come to grief in the Supreme Court . And any attempt to defy the Supreme Court has a ready example of the former Catalan Education Minister fighting for her liberty in a different country a thousand miles away. Whilst in the meantime Catalan education policy is being run from Madrid. And nobody, even in Catalonia, seems to be that bothered about it.
But anyway, the whole, All behind a Fascist Banner event was just so much yesterday's politics. In reality, the only game in town, for the moment, is Brexit.
And the key players in that are the two brexiteers, Corbyn and Rees-Mogg.
To get a sensible deal, The Prime Minister needs a Commons majority and both are determined to deny her that. The second at least because he genuinely believes in the long term benefit of a year zero approach.
The motivation of the former however is more difficult to work out. Sure, he is no Europhile but I suspect it is also because he is, frankly, not very bright.
He simply hasn't worked out that there are no conceivable circumstances in which failure to get a Brexit deal would bring down the Government. That is because of the terms of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. There are, from time to time, demands, from one or other of side of the great Tory European schism, for votes on the Brexit legislation to made "confidence votes". But this is the constitutional politics of a different age. If May was to lose a vote on a critical part of this legislation, the Government would not fall. She could toddle along to the Palace the next day and ask the Queen for a dissolution but that would be refused. Because the only circumstance in which a UK General Election would take place before June 2022 is if either the House of Commons passed a vote expressly declaring it had no confidence in the current Government (not incidentally to something else but in these specific terms) or if a two thirds majority voted for an early election. (As happened last year).
Now, are either of these things likely, even conceivable, particularly after the Tory experience last year? Are there really any circumstances in which the Tories would take even the remote risk of Corbyn becoming Prime Minister? Or at best of the Commons arithmetic potentially becoming even more chaotic? The answer to that is no. And that's the calculation of the 60 or so hard core eurosceptics in the Tory ranks. They think they can vote down any attempt by May to reach a compromise in the knowledge that "their" Government would survive and indeed a chaotic, no deal, Brexit be the outcome resulting. Precisely their desired outcome.
And, unless something changes, they are not wrong.
So, something has to change. And the change has to be on our side.
Britain joined the EU by virtue of the European Communities Act 1972. But the then Prime Minister, Ted Heath, did not have a Commons majority within his own Party for that legislation. It passed because 69 Labour MPs, including John Smith, defied an opportunist Labour leadership of a different political stripe to get the Bill through.
On continued membership of the Customs Union, at least, Labour back-benchers should, in the national interest, to be willing to offer the Government support. As should the Lib Dems. The detail would need negotiating but surely one of the pro European Tories could be recruited to that role. And if, in its aftermath, Rees-Mogg and his crew want to go through the division lobbies with John McDonnell and Diane Abbott to bring down their own Government? I'd believe that when I saw it.
Time the tail stopped wagging the dog.
And time we, on our side, stopped thinking politics is a game.
And, do you know what, I really wasn't interested.
There is not going to be a second independence referendum any time soon. The constitutional position is clear, It requires the agreement of the UK Government and the UK Government isn't going to agree.
So, any attempt at such a vote will come to grief in the Supreme Court . And any attempt to defy the Supreme Court has a ready example of the former Catalan Education Minister fighting for her liberty in a different country a thousand miles away. Whilst in the meantime Catalan education policy is being run from Madrid. And nobody, even in Catalonia, seems to be that bothered about it.
But anyway, the whole, All behind a Fascist Banner event was just so much yesterday's politics. In reality, the only game in town, for the moment, is Brexit.
And the key players in that are the two brexiteers, Corbyn and Rees-Mogg.
To get a sensible deal, The Prime Minister needs a Commons majority and both are determined to deny her that. The second at least because he genuinely believes in the long term benefit of a year zero approach.
The motivation of the former however is more difficult to work out. Sure, he is no Europhile but I suspect it is also because he is, frankly, not very bright.
He simply hasn't worked out that there are no conceivable circumstances in which failure to get a Brexit deal would bring down the Government. That is because of the terms of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act. There are, from time to time, demands, from one or other of side of the great Tory European schism, for votes on the Brexit legislation to made "confidence votes". But this is the constitutional politics of a different age. If May was to lose a vote on a critical part of this legislation, the Government would not fall. She could toddle along to the Palace the next day and ask the Queen for a dissolution but that would be refused. Because the only circumstance in which a UK General Election would take place before June 2022 is if either the House of Commons passed a vote expressly declaring it had no confidence in the current Government (not incidentally to something else but in these specific terms) or if a two thirds majority voted for an early election. (As happened last year).
Now, are either of these things likely, even conceivable, particularly after the Tory experience last year? Are there really any circumstances in which the Tories would take even the remote risk of Corbyn becoming Prime Minister? Or at best of the Commons arithmetic potentially becoming even more chaotic? The answer to that is no. And that's the calculation of the 60 or so hard core eurosceptics in the Tory ranks. They think they can vote down any attempt by May to reach a compromise in the knowledge that "their" Government would survive and indeed a chaotic, no deal, Brexit be the outcome resulting. Precisely their desired outcome.
And, unless something changes, they are not wrong.
So, something has to change. And the change has to be on our side.
Britain joined the EU by virtue of the European Communities Act 1972. But the then Prime Minister, Ted Heath, did not have a Commons majority within his own Party for that legislation. It passed because 69 Labour MPs, including John Smith, defied an opportunist Labour leadership of a different political stripe to get the Bill through.
On continued membership of the Customs Union, at least, Labour back-benchers should, in the national interest, to be willing to offer the Government support. As should the Lib Dems. The detail would need negotiating but surely one of the pro European Tories could be recruited to that role. And if, in its aftermath, Rees-Mogg and his crew want to go through the division lobbies with John McDonnell and Diane Abbott to bring down their own Government? I'd believe that when I saw it.
Time the tail stopped wagging the dog.
And time we, on our side, stopped thinking politics is a game.
Sunday, 1 April 2018
La Primavera
About twenty years ago, Maureen and I decided we would go to Puglia, in the heel of Italy, for a week's Easter holiday.
The weather at home had been foul and we had both been working exceptionally hard without a break since Christmas, so by the time the holiday arrived we were more than ready for it.
There was only one problem. It depended on a flight from Stansted to Bari early on the first Saturday of Holy Week and there was no way, that morning, to get from Scotland to Stansted in time. Indeed, since this was the first day of the holidays, there wasn't even a flight the evening before.
So we had no alternative but to drive through the night.
On my last working day everything that could go wrong went wrong and by the time I arrived home about seven o'clock my stress levels were already off the scale, never mind that in but a couple of hours I was faced with an at least six hour drive South.
But needs must and with the assistance of copious amounts of coffee, at about ten, we set off.
The rain was falling in Biblical quantities and the radio informed us this was unlikely to abate. By the time we were on the A66 and had had just about our fill of Whispering Bob Harris on Radio 2, the news bulletins were conveying police advice not to travel unless your journey was essential. But of course our journey was essential. So we pressed on.
Somewhere near Sheffield matters had got so bad that the motorway was closed by flooding and we were sent off in an interminable diversion, during which, for the first time, the thought arose that we might not get to the airport on time. Back on the A1, making the best time we could, that thought became increasingly a fear.
Still we went on. For some reason, possibly folk memory of its most famous citizen, Grantham seemed to be signposted for hours without ever getting noticeably nearer. And then, even when it passed our eventual destination seemed just as far away as ever.
All intention of stopping for a break had long been abandoned. Rain from the heavens fell torrentially but by this time was a minor irritation compared to spray and worse from the road. The "do not travel" radio warnings became ever more imperative.
We made it with less than an hour to spare. Parked the car and made the terminal, pausing only to get personally soaked to the skin in the process.
Exhausted was an inadequate word for our condition but we nonetheless boarded the plane.
Three hours later we were in the mezzogiorno.
It was still early Spring and relatively early morning at that, so the temperature was not yet the baking heat of high Summer but there was not a cloud in the sky and the Sun was shining in its full glory.
Bari Airport is to the north of the city so you initially travel south on a superstrada that takes you through the suburbs, albeit lined on both sides with Bouganville already in flower. Once you leave that urban sprawl however the road bends towards the coast and suddenly it rises and turns and you see the crystal clear blue of the Adriatic for the first time.
It was, quite literally, like a shot to the heart.
We carried on to Monopoli, where we had been before, and where we planned to lunch.
It was still to early for that so we parked and "took" a cafe and then wandered the streets of the old town.
Monopoli is a quite beautiful place, even in some of its modern parts, where it boasts a Scuola Materna dedicated to the great Anita Garibaldi, who died beside her husband while fleeing fallen Rome for surviving Venice after the failure of the rebellion of 1848. But the old town is yet more special. A Romanesque Church (what else!) a beautiful port with a small sandy beach and lanes and by ways leading everywhere and nowhere. All with the sun getting ever warmer and the sky ever clearer.
By now it was lunchtime.
We had intended to eat in the Trattoria Pierino l'Inglese where we had eaten, exceptionally well, on our previous visit to the town (Not being Nationalists, we had no objection to its antecedents). But it was full! And thus we fell upon the Trattoria del Porto.
One street back from the Port, it had an arched ceiling that marked it out as a one time wine cellar. It was busy but not to the degree that a table could not be found. Wine, water and bread appeared alongside the menu which we studied indecisively until the padrone appeared to take our order. "I would recommend the antipasto" was his counsel. So we agreed , together with a basic pasta dish to follow. Never has advice been so wisely accepted.
What followed was simply exceptional, Not just insalata di mare, which is kind of what we expected, but dish after dish after dish. Mussels in brodo certainly but also baked, unscraped of seaweed, in the oven. Polpo. Carpaccio di Pesce Spada! (cured raw Swordfish). Prawns, grilled and fresh. A flan, also with seafood. Sea urchins, sliced in half and to be scooped out raw. Calamari, both deep fried in batter and grilled. It just kept coming.
And as it did you slowly realised something. This was not "just" an antipasto, it was a Mezze. The Greek tradition of ever more and more small dishes until the guest cries enough.
And its origin? Well, you see, today, Puglia might be a part of Italy but before that it was part of "Magna Graecia", Greater Greece. I say before but in fact it was two thousand years before. Nonetheless, here, in the Trattoria del Porto, that folk memory had survived.
We struggled, if I'm being honest, to finish the traditional pasta dish which followed. And speedily declined the offer of a "secondo" of grilled fish. But we did have a sweet. Panna cotta. (My friends will know that if there is Panna cotta, then I will have Panna cotta).
But then something strange happened. Something I remember as much as the meal itself. I started to cry. And I couldn't stop. The Padrone noticed and, having been reassured it was not the fault of his food, inquired (of Maureen, in Italian) if I might perhaps have had a recent bereavement. I hadn't. And I wasn't crying tears of grief. I was crying tears of joy.
For Spring had come in one day.
Happy Easter.
The weather at home had been foul and we had both been working exceptionally hard without a break since Christmas, so by the time the holiday arrived we were more than ready for it.
There was only one problem. It depended on a flight from Stansted to Bari early on the first Saturday of Holy Week and there was no way, that morning, to get from Scotland to Stansted in time. Indeed, since this was the first day of the holidays, there wasn't even a flight the evening before.
So we had no alternative but to drive through the night.
On my last working day everything that could go wrong went wrong and by the time I arrived home about seven o'clock my stress levels were already off the scale, never mind that in but a couple of hours I was faced with an at least six hour drive South.
But needs must and with the assistance of copious amounts of coffee, at about ten, we set off.
The rain was falling in Biblical quantities and the radio informed us this was unlikely to abate. By the time we were on the A66 and had had just about our fill of Whispering Bob Harris on Radio 2, the news bulletins were conveying police advice not to travel unless your journey was essential. But of course our journey was essential. So we pressed on.
Somewhere near Sheffield matters had got so bad that the motorway was closed by flooding and we were sent off in an interminable diversion, during which, for the first time, the thought arose that we might not get to the airport on time. Back on the A1, making the best time we could, that thought became increasingly a fear.
Still we went on. For some reason, possibly folk memory of its most famous citizen, Grantham seemed to be signposted for hours without ever getting noticeably nearer. And then, even when it passed our eventual destination seemed just as far away as ever.
All intention of stopping for a break had long been abandoned. Rain from the heavens fell torrentially but by this time was a minor irritation compared to spray and worse from the road. The "do not travel" radio warnings became ever more imperative.
We made it with less than an hour to spare. Parked the car and made the terminal, pausing only to get personally soaked to the skin in the process.
Exhausted was an inadequate word for our condition but we nonetheless boarded the plane.
Three hours later we were in the mezzogiorno.
It was still early Spring and relatively early morning at that, so the temperature was not yet the baking heat of high Summer but there was not a cloud in the sky and the Sun was shining in its full glory.
Bari Airport is to the north of the city so you initially travel south on a superstrada that takes you through the suburbs, albeit lined on both sides with Bouganville already in flower. Once you leave that urban sprawl however the road bends towards the coast and suddenly it rises and turns and you see the crystal clear blue of the Adriatic for the first time.
It was, quite literally, like a shot to the heart.
We carried on to Monopoli, where we had been before, and where we planned to lunch.
It was still to early for that so we parked and "took" a cafe and then wandered the streets of the old town.
Monopoli is a quite beautiful place, even in some of its modern parts, where it boasts a Scuola Materna dedicated to the great Anita Garibaldi, who died beside her husband while fleeing fallen Rome for surviving Venice after the failure of the rebellion of 1848. But the old town is yet more special. A Romanesque Church (what else!) a beautiful port with a small sandy beach and lanes and by ways leading everywhere and nowhere. All with the sun getting ever warmer and the sky ever clearer.
By now it was lunchtime.
We had intended to eat in the Trattoria Pierino l'Inglese where we had eaten, exceptionally well, on our previous visit to the town (Not being Nationalists, we had no objection to its antecedents). But it was full! And thus we fell upon the Trattoria del Porto.
One street back from the Port, it had an arched ceiling that marked it out as a one time wine cellar. It was busy but not to the degree that a table could not be found. Wine, water and bread appeared alongside the menu which we studied indecisively until the padrone appeared to take our order. "I would recommend the antipasto" was his counsel. So we agreed , together with a basic pasta dish to follow. Never has advice been so wisely accepted.
What followed was simply exceptional, Not just insalata di mare, which is kind of what we expected, but dish after dish after dish. Mussels in brodo certainly but also baked, unscraped of seaweed, in the oven. Polpo. Carpaccio di Pesce Spada! (cured raw Swordfish). Prawns, grilled and fresh. A flan, also with seafood. Sea urchins, sliced in half and to be scooped out raw. Calamari, both deep fried in batter and grilled. It just kept coming.
And as it did you slowly realised something. This was not "just" an antipasto, it was a Mezze. The Greek tradition of ever more and more small dishes until the guest cries enough.
And its origin? Well, you see, today, Puglia might be a part of Italy but before that it was part of "Magna Graecia", Greater Greece. I say before but in fact it was two thousand years before. Nonetheless, here, in the Trattoria del Porto, that folk memory had survived.
We struggled, if I'm being honest, to finish the traditional pasta dish which followed. And speedily declined the offer of a "secondo" of grilled fish. But we did have a sweet. Panna cotta. (My friends will know that if there is Panna cotta, then I will have Panna cotta).
But then something strange happened. Something I remember as much as the meal itself. I started to cry. And I couldn't stop. The Padrone noticed and, having been reassured it was not the fault of his food, inquired (of Maureen, in Italian) if I might perhaps have had a recent bereavement. I hadn't. And I wasn't crying tears of grief. I was crying tears of joy.
For Spring had come in one day.
Happy Easter.
Thursday, 22 March 2018
Tides
Although it might be a surprise to some of the newer members of my Party, in a democracy the purpose of political Parties is to win elections.
At the first by-election in which I was heavily involved, Glasgow Garscadden 1978, I encountered for the first time, the wonders of what was known as the "Reading System" so called because it had first been developed by Reading Constituency Labour Party to win that very seat at the 1945 General Election.
Now, the Reading system, primitive as it now appears, was all about data. As activists of all colours will know, contrary to the impression perhaps of the general public, canvassing on the doorstep or in more modern times over the phone, is not intended to persuade people to vote for you. No, it is intended to find out how these people are already intending to vote and then to make use of that information to best advantage. Back in 1978 that was essentially in one way, by maximising the chances of getting your voters to the actual polling stations on the due day. And that was where the Reading system came into its own.
For canvas results were collated and then marked up onto many layered street by street duplicate pads (known as Mikardo sheets in honour of our 1945 candidate) which by polling day morning had been pinned or stuck to pasting tables in the committee rooms. "Numbertakers" were then dispatched to the polling stations with the sole purpose of asking for the polling card numbers or names of those voting and that information then conveyed back to the committee rooms where the names of those Labour voters "already voted" could be scored off the sheets.
So, when the knock up teams went out to remind people to vote and/or assist them to the polls these voters could be by-passed, making maximum use of limited personnel resources. The knock up teams could also feed back voters who, on the doorstep, claimed to have voted unrecorded at the polling station, again refining the targets for a "second knock up" (and making sure you weren't annoying people by repeatedly knocking their door).
It was very homespun technology but for its time it was state of the art. So much so that the Tories quickly realised that imitation was the best form of flattery and developed a pretty similar system of their own.
For the best use of the technology of the time, whether to "Get out the vote" or persuade the public in a particular direction has always been used by political parties.
I give but a few brief examples. The first, targeted mail. The masters of this seem to me initially to have been the Liberals. Traditional canvassing created data not just about which people were voting for your own Party but also about their voting intention if they were not. This latter information was of limited use to the two big Parties but it provided an opportunity for the one in the middle. In a "safe" Tory seat, where the Libs were second, knowing the identity of intended Labour voters could be used to turn base metal data into gold. These voters could be targeted with the message "only the Libs (Lib/Dems) can beat the Tories here", initially with little more than one of their famous/infamous "Bar chart" leaflets but as the coming computer age allowed, increasingly with personally addressed and delivered communications. To be fair, the Libs were ecumenical in this, in that they applied exactly the same technique to Tory voters in "safe" Labour seats.
Next, advertising. Political Parties had used advertising agencies to limited degree since the 1950s but in 1979, with the engagement of Saatchi & Saatchi, the Tories took this to a completely new level. Their "Labour isn't working" posters scar my memory to this day but the passage of time lets me realise that my annoyance with them was based entirely on their undoubted effectiveness.
Then, the use of the Party Political Broadcast. "Forever" these had been little more than talking heads, talking up the merits of the producing Party and in passing the iniquitousness of their opponents. In 1987, Labour changed the game with "Kinnock: The Movie", boasting state of the art cinematography, directed by a top Holywood director, talking about our candidate for Prime Minister as something more than a politician and, for a few days at least, transforming what appeared like a foregone conclusion into a real contest.
But what, including the Reading system, do these four examples have in common? Their opponents, at the time, thought them "unfair".
I'm sure, were he still in the land of the living, the Tory agent in Reading would complain that interfering with the inclination of the voter to vote, or not to vote, at their discretion, was "not cricket". Although both Labour and Tory modern digital equivalents, Contact Creator and VoteSource respectively are both truly grandchildren of Reading.
I am certain that both big Parties thought the Libs Bar charts misleading, or at least not in keeping with the spirit of a first past the post Electoral system. Indeed we still do, although both of us now use targeted mail in a far more sophisticated manner than its pioneers ever envisaged.
I am equally certain that Labour's advertising strategy, after the disastrous first try of 1983's "Think Positive, Act Positive, Vote Labour", is now based on our advertisers being better than their advertisers. Rather than that professional advertising expertise is per se a bad thing. (As was undoubtedly our 1979 response, for I was there).
And finally, the Tories rejoinder to "Kinnock: The Movie"? Ultimately it was the equally effective "John Major: Brixton boy", five years later. Scratch equally effective, for they won. Handing me the most miserable night of my political life.
So, to Cambridge Analytica.
Is this not just history repeating itself?
Obama for America was a joyous thing but its very progenitors would concede the importance of the then relatively early impact of social media in making it so. In every State, across every demographic group, streamed coverage of those wonderful early speeches were used to give rise to any number of "........... for Obama" online communities to get activists engaged for what was then, still, largely on the (terrestial) ground activity. By re-election day in 2012, the same team were boasting of their intention to fight the most micro data campaign ever. Which they then did. Online data was now king and people who understood data were overwhelmingly young and edgy and.....lefty. So the future was ours.
And less than a year ago, the surprise outcome of the UK General Election was ascribed specifically to the by passing of the "main stream media" to deliver a (literally) revolutionary message online, entirely unseen until the polls closed. Although we shouldn't lose sight that we still lost.
But that was all fair because "we" did it. When however precisely the same techniques were employed by our bitterest opponents, Trump and Leave UK, well, obviously, that must have been "unfair" in some way.
Except was it? I have struggled, in the wall of coverage, to find any actual accusation of specific illegality, as opposed to exploitation of inadequate regulation. There are lots of implications of links to "fake news" but no actual evidence of it. The one really dodgy thing, the suggestions of "honey traps" and blackmail, is the one aspect of the whole thing that has no link to the internet at all, and is hardly news to anybody who has seen the Godfather Part 2. Which is where I suspect the big talking Mr Nix got his inspiration. Mainly the coverage consists of a complaint that no properly informed people could possibly have voted for Trump or Brexit so "something" must be up.
But maybe what was up was people rejecting the status quo. The failure of a metropolitan middle class elite (me included) to appreciate that "the system" had failed too many people who felt it was due a kicking for that failure. An earlier failure to defend what we saw as that system's self evident merits against an encroaching tide of "nothing could be worse" fuelled by little more than ignorance.
And if our opponents found a tool, within the rules, to refine and target and give voice to that rejectionist sentiment?
Labour did not win Reading in 1945 just because of our superior get out the vote strategy any more than the Tories won in 1979 just because of their superior advertising. Each victory actually depended on seizing the tide of history.
Maybe my team should stop getting madder and madder amongst ourselves about contests lost and instead start to think how we might, in future contests, get even.
To accept that our losses were not down to the illegality of our opponents tactics as to, for the moment, the inadequacy of our own.
To start, once again, to catch the tide of history.
At the first by-election in which I was heavily involved, Glasgow Garscadden 1978, I encountered for the first time, the wonders of what was known as the "Reading System" so called because it had first been developed by Reading Constituency Labour Party to win that very seat at the 1945 General Election.
Now, the Reading system, primitive as it now appears, was all about data. As activists of all colours will know, contrary to the impression perhaps of the general public, canvassing on the doorstep or in more modern times over the phone, is not intended to persuade people to vote for you. No, it is intended to find out how these people are already intending to vote and then to make use of that information to best advantage. Back in 1978 that was essentially in one way, by maximising the chances of getting your voters to the actual polling stations on the due day. And that was where the Reading system came into its own.
For canvas results were collated and then marked up onto many layered street by street duplicate pads (known as Mikardo sheets in honour of our 1945 candidate) which by polling day morning had been pinned or stuck to pasting tables in the committee rooms. "Numbertakers" were then dispatched to the polling stations with the sole purpose of asking for the polling card numbers or names of those voting and that information then conveyed back to the committee rooms where the names of those Labour voters "already voted" could be scored off the sheets.
So, when the knock up teams went out to remind people to vote and/or assist them to the polls these voters could be by-passed, making maximum use of limited personnel resources. The knock up teams could also feed back voters who, on the doorstep, claimed to have voted unrecorded at the polling station, again refining the targets for a "second knock up" (and making sure you weren't annoying people by repeatedly knocking their door).
It was very homespun technology but for its time it was state of the art. So much so that the Tories quickly realised that imitation was the best form of flattery and developed a pretty similar system of their own.
For the best use of the technology of the time, whether to "Get out the vote" or persuade the public in a particular direction has always been used by political parties.
I give but a few brief examples. The first, targeted mail. The masters of this seem to me initially to have been the Liberals. Traditional canvassing created data not just about which people were voting for your own Party but also about their voting intention if they were not. This latter information was of limited use to the two big Parties but it provided an opportunity for the one in the middle. In a "safe" Tory seat, where the Libs were second, knowing the identity of intended Labour voters could be used to turn base metal data into gold. These voters could be targeted with the message "only the Libs (Lib/Dems) can beat the Tories here", initially with little more than one of their famous/infamous "Bar chart" leaflets but as the coming computer age allowed, increasingly with personally addressed and delivered communications. To be fair, the Libs were ecumenical in this, in that they applied exactly the same technique to Tory voters in "safe" Labour seats.
Next, advertising. Political Parties had used advertising agencies to limited degree since the 1950s but in 1979, with the engagement of Saatchi & Saatchi, the Tories took this to a completely new level. Their "Labour isn't working" posters scar my memory to this day but the passage of time lets me realise that my annoyance with them was based entirely on their undoubted effectiveness.
Then, the use of the Party Political Broadcast. "Forever" these had been little more than talking heads, talking up the merits of the producing Party and in passing the iniquitousness of their opponents. In 1987, Labour changed the game with "Kinnock: The Movie", boasting state of the art cinematography, directed by a top Holywood director, talking about our candidate for Prime Minister as something more than a politician and, for a few days at least, transforming what appeared like a foregone conclusion into a real contest.
But what, including the Reading system, do these four examples have in common? Their opponents, at the time, thought them "unfair".
I'm sure, were he still in the land of the living, the Tory agent in Reading would complain that interfering with the inclination of the voter to vote, or not to vote, at their discretion, was "not cricket". Although both Labour and Tory modern digital equivalents, Contact Creator and VoteSource respectively are both truly grandchildren of Reading.
I am certain that both big Parties thought the Libs Bar charts misleading, or at least not in keeping with the spirit of a first past the post Electoral system. Indeed we still do, although both of us now use targeted mail in a far more sophisticated manner than its pioneers ever envisaged.
I am equally certain that Labour's advertising strategy, after the disastrous first try of 1983's "Think Positive, Act Positive, Vote Labour", is now based on our advertisers being better than their advertisers. Rather than that professional advertising expertise is per se a bad thing. (As was undoubtedly our 1979 response, for I was there).
And finally, the Tories rejoinder to "Kinnock: The Movie"? Ultimately it was the equally effective "John Major: Brixton boy", five years later. Scratch equally effective, for they won. Handing me the most miserable night of my political life.
So, to Cambridge Analytica.
Is this not just history repeating itself?
Obama for America was a joyous thing but its very progenitors would concede the importance of the then relatively early impact of social media in making it so. In every State, across every demographic group, streamed coverage of those wonderful early speeches were used to give rise to any number of "........... for Obama" online communities to get activists engaged for what was then, still, largely on the (terrestial) ground activity. By re-election day in 2012, the same team were boasting of their intention to fight the most micro data campaign ever. Which they then did. Online data was now king and people who understood data were overwhelmingly young and edgy and.....lefty. So the future was ours.
And less than a year ago, the surprise outcome of the UK General Election was ascribed specifically to the by passing of the "main stream media" to deliver a (literally) revolutionary message online, entirely unseen until the polls closed. Although we shouldn't lose sight that we still lost.
But that was all fair because "we" did it. When however precisely the same techniques were employed by our bitterest opponents, Trump and Leave UK, well, obviously, that must have been "unfair" in some way.
Except was it? I have struggled, in the wall of coverage, to find any actual accusation of specific illegality, as opposed to exploitation of inadequate regulation. There are lots of implications of links to "fake news" but no actual evidence of it. The one really dodgy thing, the suggestions of "honey traps" and blackmail, is the one aspect of the whole thing that has no link to the internet at all, and is hardly news to anybody who has seen the Godfather Part 2. Which is where I suspect the big talking Mr Nix got his inspiration. Mainly the coverage consists of a complaint that no properly informed people could possibly have voted for Trump or Brexit so "something" must be up.
But maybe what was up was people rejecting the status quo. The failure of a metropolitan middle class elite (me included) to appreciate that "the system" had failed too many people who felt it was due a kicking for that failure. An earlier failure to defend what we saw as that system's self evident merits against an encroaching tide of "nothing could be worse" fuelled by little more than ignorance.
And if our opponents found a tool, within the rules, to refine and target and give voice to that rejectionist sentiment?
Labour did not win Reading in 1945 just because of our superior get out the vote strategy any more than the Tories won in 1979 just because of their superior advertising. Each victory actually depended on seizing the tide of history.
Maybe my team should stop getting madder and madder amongst ourselves about contests lost and instead start to think how we might, in future contests, get even.
To accept that our losses were not down to the illegality of our opponents tactics as to, for the moment, the inadequacy of our own.
To start, once again, to catch the tide of history.
Friday, 2 March 2018
Not what it appears
As you may have noticed, there has been quite a lot of snow.
As a result I've been unable to get to my work but it has given me the opportunity to write a blog about a matter of some considerable importance as a reminder that one should never take anything done by the SNP at face value. No matter what they claim to be upto they in reality are only ever up to one thing. Trying to advance the cause of independence.
As you may also have noticed, a year past in June we had a referendum in which the Country voted to leave the European Union. I'm not commenting here on the merits of that decision, my views on it are well known, but rather on its legal consequence.
Currently, Scotland has four sources of law. I set them out in order of introduction.
1.The common law Best example being that murder is a crime without it ever have been declared to be so by any Parliament.
2. UK Statute Law and secondary legislation flowing from Statute Law. Not just in areas outwith devolved competence such as the Employment Rights Act 1996 but also in relation to matters now within devolved competence but on which the law has remained unchanged since the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, such as the Family Law (Scotland) Act 1985.*
3. Scottish Statute Law and secondary legislation passed or authorised by the Holyrood Parliament.
and
4. European Community Law with direct applicability in the UK.
It is this last which so infuriates (some of) the Brexiteers. For it can mean that we have no say (or more precisely no veto) over "our" laws.
But even Jacob Rees-Mogg does not not want EU Law to disappear overnight. He is an improbable anarchist.
Existing EU law is for the vast part both uncontroversial and necessary, setting out commercial rules and standards that would be required in any advanced democracy. So, while Brexit will provide the future opportunity to amend or even repeal these laws, no-one's interest is served by the emergence of a legal vacuum on 29th March 2019. EU Law must therefor be carried forward on that date and Westminster is proposing to do that by means of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, currently proceeding through that Parliament.
But, of course, matters are not as simple as that.
And here we must first go off on a wee legal detour.
Our devolution settlement proceeds under the Scotland Act 1998 (as subsequently amended). And ,under that Act, Holyrood, subject to certain other restrictions, the importance of which I will come to, can legislate on any matter not "reserved" to Westminster. Except that when the Scottish Parliament was created in 1999 no-one contemplated that the UK would ever (be daft enough to) leave the EU. So there was no need to "reserve" to Westminster matters on which Westminster had delegated to Strasbourg. 111 such matters it appears. Thanks to a helpful list drawn up no one less than Nicola Sturgeon herself. https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/full-111-eu-powers-scotland-says-denied/
Now, if you are I were so inclined, you might think that Westminster, in preference to Holyrood, legislating about the "Energy Performance of Buildings Directive" is a matter about which a woman, even a woman with grievance as her middle name, would find it difficult about which to become outraged. Particularly as (insofar as she knew about it all) she'd been quite happy to share decision making on the subject with 27 other Countries for nearly twenty years without objection. But of course this wasn't about sharing decision making with 27 Countries but with "them" (copyright Angus Brendan McNeil). "Best of all, 27/28 Countries make decisions together. Worst of all, 2 Countries do". (Apologies to Wales and Northern Ireland).
So, in summary, the position of the SNP is that these decisions should be made anywhere except at Westminster.
But they have been facilitated by the ham fisted way the UK Government has gone about this in their withdrawal Bill. Clause 11(1) of that Bill currently reads
11 Retaining EU restrictions in devolution legislation etc.
(1) In section 29 of the Scotland Act 1998 (legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament)—
(a) in subsection (2)(d) (no competence for Scottish Parliament to legislate incompatibly with EU law) for “with EU law” substitute “in breach of the restriction in subsection (4A)”, and
(b) after subsection (4) insert—
“(4A) Subject to subsections (4B) and (4C), an Act of the Scottish Parliament cannot modify, or confer power by subordinate legislation to modify, retained EU law.
(4B) Subsection (4A) does not apply so far as the modification would, immediately before exit day, have been within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament.
(4C) Subsection (4A) also does not apply so far as Her Majesty may by Order in Council provide.”
Now, just to explain, if this becomes the final version of the Bill, its effect is that although these 111 matters are not reserved to Westminster, Holyrood would be prevented from changing "inherited law" in any way, while Westminster could do so at a whim, under the principle that power devolved is still power retained.
And nobody at Holyrood is very happy about that, including, importantly, the Scottish Tories.
So, the UK Government has committed itself to re-framing Clause 11 by House of Lords Amendments and has, behind closed doors, been discussing with Mike Russell, the Scottish Government's Brexit Minister, what changes might be made.
That's where we had got to on Tuesday when Russell suddenly announced he was bringing in his own "Continuity Bill".
Now, to say this was a surprise would be a considerable understatement. The Scottish Government/UK Government talks have not broken down. Indeed Russell has not even withdrawn from them. There is no particular urgency (a point again to which I will return), since we are not leaving the EU for at least a full year and any transitional arrangement need only be in place by then.
That notwithstanding, Russell also announced that this legislation was to be forced through Holyrood under "Emergency Procedure" in less than a month, rather than the nine month or so it takes for an "ordinary" Government Bill to proceed to a conclusion. A timescale, you will note, which would still be concluded well before 29th March 2019.
And finally, the Bill is of, to put it mildly, dubious legal competence, since it is incompatible with current EU law and Section 29 of the current Scotland Act reads:-
"(1) An Act of the Scottish Parliament is not law so far as any provision of the Act is outwith the legslative competence of the Parliament
(2) A provision is outside that competence so far as any of the following paragraphs apply.......
(d) it is incompatible with any of the Convention rights or with EU law....."
(my emphasis).
Now that the Bill is incompatible with current EU Law is not disputed on any side. The view of the Lord Advocate is however that, since it expressly won't have effect until the UK leaves the EU, it can still currently proceed. Although again, why then it needs to proceed as emergency legislation is point on which he has been strangely silent.
In any event, this argument is, as we lawyers put it "pish".
It tries to draw authority from para 130 of the Supreme Court's ruling in the (Gina) Miller case.
Presumably the Lord Advocate sailed on assuming MSPs would think that "He's the Lord Advocate, he must know what he's doing". And, to be fair, excepting Adam Tomkins, he might have a point. But he doesn't.
Here is Para 130 in full.
130. Accordingly, the devolved legislatures do not have a parallel legislative competence in relation to withdrawal from the European Union. The EU constraints are a means by which the UK Parliament and government make sure that the devolved democratic institutions do not place the United Kingdom in breach of its EU law obligations. The removal of the EU constraints on withdrawal from the EU Treaties will alter the competence of the devolved institutions unless new legislative constraints are introduced. In the absence of such new restraints, withdrawal from the EU will enhance the devolved competence. We consider the effect of the alteration of competence in our discussion of the Sewel Convention in paras 136 to 151 below.
I have underlined the sentence on which he relies, suggesting it implies Section 29(2)(d) constraint on the Scottish Parliament will automatically expire on the day we leave the EU. This is simply nonsense. There is no precedent at all, ever, for words "disappearing" from a statute as a result of an external event but just so you are in no doubt about it, firstly, have a look at (the first two sentences of) Para132 of the same judgement and indeed refer back to the current terms of Clause 11 of the Withdrawal Bill I quote above. Which does provisionally but expressly repeal clause 29(2)(d). But only at the point the UK leaves the EU.
By the logic of the Lord Advocate's position, if the Scottish Government introduced a Bill to raise a standing army but qualified it by saying this would only come into effect once Scotland was independent, then everything would be hunky dory. Aye, right.
Anyway, enough of this because the Lord Advocate is, I suspect, a pretty isolated legal voice in this matter. As he was when he last lost unanimously in the Supreme Court.
For I must now go off on a different but important wee legal detour.
The Footway Parking and Double Parking (Scotland) Bill 2015.
In March 2015, the SNP backbencher, Sandra White, introduced a Bill at Holyrood with cross Party support to do what it said on the tin. Regulate footway parking and double parking. This was a meretricious measure particularly sought by the visually impaired. There was only one problem with it. It was beyond the (then) legal competence of the Scottish Parliament, because it proposed to legislate in the area of a reserved matter, that reserved matter being Part 1 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. (Pay attention at the back there.) Not in the opinion of some terrible anti devolution Tory, but in the opinion of the then Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick. Just about as "of the Purple" as any Scottish Nationalist has ever been.
Now, you may be surprised to hear this, I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to the statutory framework of the Scottish Parliament. Yet before this episode I had believed that, to introduce a Bill to the Scottish Parliament, you needed two certificates. A statement from the introducer and a statement from the Presiding Officer. Both to the effect that the Bill was within legislative competence. Otherwise the game was a bogey.
Only you don't. The introducer must certainly make that statement but in fact the Presiding Officer must only express an opinion. If it is a negative opinion but the introducer carries on regardless "nothing" immediately can be done. That "nothing" may also become important in due course.
Anyway, Ms White's Bill went on to Committee where it was kicked about for a few months, mainly discussing how it might be amended to become competent, until it fell with the 2016 election. And by the time everybody came back, the, Westminster, Scotland Act 2016 had made it, when re-introduced, competent.
But something quite important had happened in the meantime. It had become clear that a Bill beyond the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament could nonetheless progress. For a bit at least.
Anybody still awake?
Hopefully this will wake you up. INDYREF2!!!
Stick with me, I'm slowly getting to the point.
If you Google search "Nicola Sturgeon calls for second independence referendum" you can find a result for just about every month since May 2015, although to be fair a good number of these link only to articles written by over excitable "National" columnists.
But we forget that in March 2017, less than a year ago, she really did do so. Within days, Theresa May told her to f.... go away in respect of gaining legislative consent from Westminster. Whereupon Nicola said she was considering her next move over Easter.
Except, over Easter, the self same Theresa May called a General Election. With the Scottish result we all know. Or, possibly, if you don't know, may finally make you realise that you have stumbled into reading a blog which really isn't intended for you.
So let's go back to what Nicola's next move might have been?
Might she have introduced a Holyrood Bill for a referendum without Westminster's consent?
Well, you see, that's where Sandra White re-emerges as a significant figure. Nobody, even in the SNP, would regard Ms White as the Brain of Britain. Or even, honestly, the Brain of Scotland. Or, even more honestly still, the Brain of her own street. One doubts very much if she could have mustered a counter argument to the Presiding Officer's legal objection to her Bill. Indeed, detailed consideration of the Bill's Committee proceedings leaves you in little doubt on that matter. (The sacrifices I make on my reader's behalf).
But I quite strongly suspect that others saw the path she had inadvertently laid.
So let's assume Ms White's Bill had passed through Stage 3 and become the intended law of Scotland. What would have happened then? Well, firstly, within the next four weeks, the Secretary of State for Scotland could have referred it to the Supreme Court. Where it would have died a pretty immediate death.
But suppose the Secretary of State couldn't be bothered? Or indeed publicly sympathised with the (now) Act's objectives and saw no reason to intervene? Well some random punter, leaving the football and finding themselves with a ticket for parking on the pavement contrary to the Act would have refused to pay. As his penalty was "beyond the competence of the Scottish Parliament". And eventually the Courts would have supported him in that. That's how the rule of law works.
But, from a political perspective, all of this would have been post legislation. And that's where I (finally you say) start to reach some conclusions.
There is a lot of internal pressure on Nicola to hold a second Independence Referendum. Those in her closest circle know the dangers of that. No polling suggests that Scotland wants such an event, let alone that the Nationalists would win it. But the SNP rank and file are a different matter. If you go back to the 111 powers I refer to above, one of them is the regulation of organ donation. Hardly a matter you or I might worry about, except to ensure it was regulated sensibly by somebody. But not so to the cybernat who intervened to suggest regulation must remain in Scotland to ensure his organs were never donated to an Englishman. And in that he spoke for a fair number of Nicola's foot soldiers.
So, Nicola is under a lot of pressure on this. So knowing how far she might get with this before being "stopped against her will" would be a matter of relief. With a trial run a bonus.
And that, in truth, is what this week has been about. Can the Scottish Government run "legislation" through all it's stages at Holyrood until it is referred, post stage 3, to the Supreme Court? And what can they get away with meantime?
So, I'm going to start with my second question.
There is no conceivable interpretation of the word "emergency" which makes providing for events thirteen months away an emergency. Except until you consider the definition of emergency in the Standing Orders of the Scottish Parliament. For in terms of these Standing Orders (9.21) anything certified by a Minister to be an emergency becomes one if it is supported by a simple majority in the Scottish Parliament. And legislation can then be passed in a day. Although even Mike Russell proposes three weeks in this case.
So, can the word "emergency" be self defined by the Scottish Government and not be subject to judicial review so long as it complies with the Standing Orders? Wouldn't that be interesting to know?
And then return to my first. Could the certification of a Bill as within legislative competence by a Minister, even in bad faith, also not be subject to judicial review? Wouldn't that also be interesting to know?
Particularly if an adverse consequence brought no personal liability in costs.
So, in summary, Russell's Bill is going nowhere. Not least because there will be a deal on Clause 11 in the meantime. That's not it's purpose. It's purpose is to set precedents or learn lessons on the way.
Because if you wanted to try and force through a Bill for a second Independence Referendum in a month ("as an emergency") and then risk it all, without interruption, on a single turn of pitch and toss in the Supreme Court, wouldn't it be convenient to know in advance how you might get on in that process?
That's all. Enjoy the weekend.
As a result I've been unable to get to my work but it has given me the opportunity to write a blog about a matter of some considerable importance as a reminder that one should never take anything done by the SNP at face value. No matter what they claim to be upto they in reality are only ever up to one thing. Trying to advance the cause of independence.
As you may also have noticed, a year past in June we had a referendum in which the Country voted to leave the European Union. I'm not commenting here on the merits of that decision, my views on it are well known, but rather on its legal consequence.
Currently, Scotland has four sources of law. I set them out in order of introduction.
1.The common law Best example being that murder is a crime without it ever have been declared to be so by any Parliament.
2. UK Statute Law and secondary legislation flowing from Statute Law. Not just in areas outwith devolved competence such as the Employment Rights Act 1996 but also in relation to matters now within devolved competence but on which the law has remained unchanged since the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, such as the Family Law (Scotland) Act 1985.*
3. Scottish Statute Law and secondary legislation passed or authorised by the Holyrood Parliament.
and
4. European Community Law with direct applicability in the UK.
It is this last which so infuriates (some of) the Brexiteers. For it can mean that we have no say (or more precisely no veto) over "our" laws.
But even Jacob Rees-Mogg does not not want EU Law to disappear overnight. He is an improbable anarchist.
Existing EU law is for the vast part both uncontroversial and necessary, setting out commercial rules and standards that would be required in any advanced democracy. So, while Brexit will provide the future opportunity to amend or even repeal these laws, no-one's interest is served by the emergence of a legal vacuum on 29th March 2019. EU Law must therefor be carried forward on that date and Westminster is proposing to do that by means of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, currently proceeding through that Parliament.
But, of course, matters are not as simple as that.
And here we must first go off on a wee legal detour.
Our devolution settlement proceeds under the Scotland Act 1998 (as subsequently amended). And ,under that Act, Holyrood, subject to certain other restrictions, the importance of which I will come to, can legislate on any matter not "reserved" to Westminster. Except that when the Scottish Parliament was created in 1999 no-one contemplated that the UK would ever (be daft enough to) leave the EU. So there was no need to "reserve" to Westminster matters on which Westminster had delegated to Strasbourg. 111 such matters it appears. Thanks to a helpful list drawn up no one less than Nicola Sturgeon herself. https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/full-111-eu-powers-scotland-says-denied/
Now, if you are I were so inclined, you might think that Westminster, in preference to Holyrood, legislating about the "Energy Performance of Buildings Directive" is a matter about which a woman, even a woman with grievance as her middle name, would find it difficult about which to become outraged. Particularly as (insofar as she knew about it all) she'd been quite happy to share decision making on the subject with 27 other Countries for nearly twenty years without objection. But of course this wasn't about sharing decision making with 27 Countries but with "them" (copyright Angus Brendan McNeil). "Best of all, 27/28 Countries make decisions together. Worst of all, 2 Countries do". (Apologies to Wales and Northern Ireland).
So, in summary, the position of the SNP is that these decisions should be made anywhere except at Westminster.
But they have been facilitated by the ham fisted way the UK Government has gone about this in their withdrawal Bill. Clause 11(1) of that Bill currently reads
11 Retaining EU restrictions in devolution legislation etc.
(1) In section 29 of the Scotland Act 1998 (legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament)—
(a) in subsection (2)(d) (no competence for Scottish Parliament to legislate incompatibly with EU law) for “with EU law” substitute “in breach of the restriction in subsection (4A)”, and
(b) after subsection (4) insert—
“(4A) Subject to subsections (4B) and (4C), an Act of the Scottish Parliament cannot modify, or confer power by subordinate legislation to modify, retained EU law.
(4B) Subsection (4A) does not apply so far as the modification would, immediately before exit day, have been within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament.
(4C) Subsection (4A) also does not apply so far as Her Majesty may by Order in Council provide.”
Now, just to explain, if this becomes the final version of the Bill, its effect is that although these 111 matters are not reserved to Westminster, Holyrood would be prevented from changing "inherited law" in any way, while Westminster could do so at a whim, under the principle that power devolved is still power retained.
And nobody at Holyrood is very happy about that, including, importantly, the Scottish Tories.
So, the UK Government has committed itself to re-framing Clause 11 by House of Lords Amendments and has, behind closed doors, been discussing with Mike Russell, the Scottish Government's Brexit Minister, what changes might be made.
That's where we had got to on Tuesday when Russell suddenly announced he was bringing in his own "Continuity Bill".
Now, to say this was a surprise would be a considerable understatement. The Scottish Government/UK Government talks have not broken down. Indeed Russell has not even withdrawn from them. There is no particular urgency (a point again to which I will return), since we are not leaving the EU for at least a full year and any transitional arrangement need only be in place by then.
That notwithstanding, Russell also announced that this legislation was to be forced through Holyrood under "Emergency Procedure" in less than a month, rather than the nine month or so it takes for an "ordinary" Government Bill to proceed to a conclusion. A timescale, you will note, which would still be concluded well before 29th March 2019.
And finally, the Bill is of, to put it mildly, dubious legal competence, since it is incompatible with current EU law and Section 29 of the current Scotland Act reads:-
"(1) An Act of the Scottish Parliament is not law so far as any provision of the Act is outwith the legslative competence of the Parliament
(2) A provision is outside that competence so far as any of the following paragraphs apply.......
(d) it is incompatible with any of the Convention rights or with EU law....."
(my emphasis).
Now that the Bill is incompatible with current EU Law is not disputed on any side. The view of the Lord Advocate is however that, since it expressly won't have effect until the UK leaves the EU, it can still currently proceed. Although again, why then it needs to proceed as emergency legislation is point on which he has been strangely silent.
In any event, this argument is, as we lawyers put it "pish".
It tries to draw authority from para 130 of the Supreme Court's ruling in the (Gina) Miller case.
Presumably the Lord Advocate sailed on assuming MSPs would think that "He's the Lord Advocate, he must know what he's doing". And, to be fair, excepting Adam Tomkins, he might have a point. But he doesn't.
Here is Para 130 in full.
130. Accordingly, the devolved legislatures do not have a parallel legislative competence in relation to withdrawal from the European Union. The EU constraints are a means by which the UK Parliament and government make sure that the devolved democratic institutions do not place the United Kingdom in breach of its EU law obligations. The removal of the EU constraints on withdrawal from the EU Treaties will alter the competence of the devolved institutions unless new legislative constraints are introduced. In the absence of such new restraints, withdrawal from the EU will enhance the devolved competence. We consider the effect of the alteration of competence in our discussion of the Sewel Convention in paras 136 to 151 below.
I have underlined the sentence on which he relies, suggesting it implies Section 29(2)(d) constraint on the Scottish Parliament will automatically expire on the day we leave the EU. This is simply nonsense. There is no precedent at all, ever, for words "disappearing" from a statute as a result of an external event but just so you are in no doubt about it, firstly, have a look at (the first two sentences of) Para132 of the same judgement and indeed refer back to the current terms of Clause 11 of the Withdrawal Bill I quote above. Which does provisionally but expressly repeal clause 29(2)(d). But only at the point the UK leaves the EU.
By the logic of the Lord Advocate's position, if the Scottish Government introduced a Bill to raise a standing army but qualified it by saying this would only come into effect once Scotland was independent, then everything would be hunky dory. Aye, right.
Anyway, enough of this because the Lord Advocate is, I suspect, a pretty isolated legal voice in this matter. As he was when he last lost unanimously in the Supreme Court.
For I must now go off on a different but important wee legal detour.
The Footway Parking and Double Parking (Scotland) Bill 2015.
In March 2015, the SNP backbencher, Sandra White, introduced a Bill at Holyrood with cross Party support to do what it said on the tin. Regulate footway parking and double parking. This was a meretricious measure particularly sought by the visually impaired. There was only one problem with it. It was beyond the (then) legal competence of the Scottish Parliament, because it proposed to legislate in the area of a reserved matter, that reserved matter being Part 1 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. (Pay attention at the back there.) Not in the opinion of some terrible anti devolution Tory, but in the opinion of the then Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick. Just about as "of the Purple" as any Scottish Nationalist has ever been.
Now, you may be surprised to hear this, I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to the statutory framework of the Scottish Parliament. Yet before this episode I had believed that, to introduce a Bill to the Scottish Parliament, you needed two certificates. A statement from the introducer and a statement from the Presiding Officer. Both to the effect that the Bill was within legislative competence. Otherwise the game was a bogey.
Only you don't. The introducer must certainly make that statement but in fact the Presiding Officer must only express an opinion. If it is a negative opinion but the introducer carries on regardless "nothing" immediately can be done. That "nothing" may also become important in due course.
Anyway, Ms White's Bill went on to Committee where it was kicked about for a few months, mainly discussing how it might be amended to become competent, until it fell with the 2016 election. And by the time everybody came back, the, Westminster, Scotland Act 2016 had made it, when re-introduced, competent.
But something quite important had happened in the meantime. It had become clear that a Bill beyond the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament could nonetheless progress. For a bit at least.
Anybody still awake?
Hopefully this will wake you up. INDYREF2!!!
Stick with me, I'm slowly getting to the point.
If you Google search "Nicola Sturgeon calls for second independence referendum" you can find a result for just about every month since May 2015, although to be fair a good number of these link only to articles written by over excitable "National" columnists.
But we forget that in March 2017, less than a year ago, she really did do so. Within days, Theresa May told her to f.... go away in respect of gaining legislative consent from Westminster. Whereupon Nicola said she was considering her next move over Easter.
Except, over Easter, the self same Theresa May called a General Election. With the Scottish result we all know. Or, possibly, if you don't know, may finally make you realise that you have stumbled into reading a blog which really isn't intended for you.
So let's go back to what Nicola's next move might have been?
Might she have introduced a Holyrood Bill for a referendum without Westminster's consent?
Well, you see, that's where Sandra White re-emerges as a significant figure. Nobody, even in the SNP, would regard Ms White as the Brain of Britain. Or even, honestly, the Brain of Scotland. Or, even more honestly still, the Brain of her own street. One doubts very much if she could have mustered a counter argument to the Presiding Officer's legal objection to her Bill. Indeed, detailed consideration of the Bill's Committee proceedings leaves you in little doubt on that matter. (The sacrifices I make on my reader's behalf).
But I quite strongly suspect that others saw the path she had inadvertently laid.
So let's assume Ms White's Bill had passed through Stage 3 and become the intended law of Scotland. What would have happened then? Well, firstly, within the next four weeks, the Secretary of State for Scotland could have referred it to the Supreme Court. Where it would have died a pretty immediate death.
But suppose the Secretary of State couldn't be bothered? Or indeed publicly sympathised with the (now) Act's objectives and saw no reason to intervene? Well some random punter, leaving the football and finding themselves with a ticket for parking on the pavement contrary to the Act would have refused to pay. As his penalty was "beyond the competence of the Scottish Parliament". And eventually the Courts would have supported him in that. That's how the rule of law works.
But, from a political perspective, all of this would have been post legislation. And that's where I (finally you say) start to reach some conclusions.
There is a lot of internal pressure on Nicola to hold a second Independence Referendum. Those in her closest circle know the dangers of that. No polling suggests that Scotland wants such an event, let alone that the Nationalists would win it. But the SNP rank and file are a different matter. If you go back to the 111 powers I refer to above, one of them is the regulation of organ donation. Hardly a matter you or I might worry about, except to ensure it was regulated sensibly by somebody. But not so to the cybernat who intervened to suggest regulation must remain in Scotland to ensure his organs were never donated to an Englishman. And in that he spoke for a fair number of Nicola's foot soldiers.
So, Nicola is under a lot of pressure on this. So knowing how far she might get with this before being "stopped against her will" would be a matter of relief. With a trial run a bonus.
And that, in truth, is what this week has been about. Can the Scottish Government run "legislation" through all it's stages at Holyrood until it is referred, post stage 3, to the Supreme Court? And what can they get away with meantime?
So, I'm going to start with my second question.
There is no conceivable interpretation of the word "emergency" which makes providing for events thirteen months away an emergency. Except until you consider the definition of emergency in the Standing Orders of the Scottish Parliament. For in terms of these Standing Orders (9.21) anything certified by a Minister to be an emergency becomes one if it is supported by a simple majority in the Scottish Parliament. And legislation can then be passed in a day. Although even Mike Russell proposes three weeks in this case.
So, can the word "emergency" be self defined by the Scottish Government and not be subject to judicial review so long as it complies with the Standing Orders? Wouldn't that be interesting to know?
And then return to my first. Could the certification of a Bill as within legislative competence by a Minister, even in bad faith, also not be subject to judicial review? Wouldn't that also be interesting to know?
Particularly if an adverse consequence brought no personal liability in costs.
So, in summary, Russell's Bill is going nowhere. Not least because there will be a deal on Clause 11 in the meantime. That's not it's purpose. It's purpose is to set precedents or learn lessons on the way.
Because if you wanted to try and force through a Bill for a second Independence Referendum in a month ("as an emergency") and then risk it all, without interruption, on a single turn of pitch and toss in the Supreme Court, wouldn't it be convenient to know in advance how you might get on in that process?
That's all. Enjoy the weekend.
Saturday, 20 January 2018
Decisions, decisions, decisions.
I want to start by saying something that might surprise you. I am in favour of the decision to close Ward 15 (the Children's Ward) at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley.
And here is why.
The standard of hospital medical treatment is not, can never be, the same across the whole of the NHS. It depends on the number and qualification of the medical staff available and inevitably in busier metropolitan areas these staff are more numerous and the possibility of sub-specialism much more readily available. The larger the unit therefor the greater the level of expertise and experience available and with that the greater the prospect of expeditious and successful treatment.
Further, the quality of all medical professionals is not the same and inevitably the very best are inclined to be attracted to where they will enjoy the greatest variety of medical experience. Again creating a virtuous circle where the best treatment is inclined to be in the larger hospitals.
Further still, the constant interaction between the university based medical schools and the hospital sector makes working in a hospital near to such a university a much more attractive proposition for those providing teaching as well as treatment, as well as for those still engaged in professional development.
And finally, when it comes to the quality of life, working with more colleagues and being able to draw on their expertise is in itself a significant stress reducer. Not to mention the greater flexibility likely to be available when wanting a holiday. But, outwith work, basing yourself where you can work until 6.30 and still get to the opera or the theatre is a consideration all of its own. So if you are at the top of the profession, with skills in demand and the opportunity to make a choice then the choice is obvious.
Thus, as a general rule, medical expertise is greater and treatment likely to be superior in the cities.
At the back of our minds we all recognise that but we also recognise that in where we are treated the system makes a trade for our own convenience. If hospitalised we might, indeed often do, prefer to be treated where we can easily be visited by friends and family and readily and easily get back home when our treatment is concluded. That's why not all hospitals are in the cities, even in urban Scotland.
But of course that's not always possible. Some illnesses or conditions are sufficiently complex but relatively rare to preclude the maintenance of local expertise and to require the creation of National or regional specialist units to which, like it or lump it, the patient requires to travel.
And it is not at all unreasonable to class children sufficiently ill as to require hospitalisation as falling into that rare or complex category. Particularly as the hospital to which Paisley's juvenile patients will now be referred, The Royal Hospital for Children in Govan, Glasgow, is, frankly, no great distance from Paisley and indeed for patients from the north and east of the town, if not nearer as the crow flies then certainly quicker to get to at certain times of the day when otherwise you would require to negotiate the centre of Paisley.
And the geography is hardly unprecedented. It is eight miles from my home town, Paisley, to the hospital. My new home, Kilsyth, hardly in the middle of nowhere, is twelve miles from our nearest general hospital, Monklands, without anybody locally being noticeably outraged by that. Our nearest Lanarkshire Health Board children's ward is in Wishaw!
So why all the fuss?
Because the decision making over the RAH is indicative of something much more concerning in Scottish public life under the SNP, an unwillingness to be honest with the electorate. To be honest about difficult decisions for fear of offending.......somebody. "Rumours" about the possibility of the ward closing have been circulating for more than two years but the response of the SNP until yesterday, not just locally but in a now notorious television appearance by the First Minister herself, has been simply to deny the very possibility. Accusing opposition politicians raising concerns of, using that all purpose nationalist response, "scaremongering".
The problem for them is that this is a strategy that eventually falls foul of time. The outrage over the closure will inevitably be much greater now than if an honest case had been made for it earlier in much the manner described above by..........me. As it is going to be over a similar exercise still going on over the eventual permanent closure of the children's ward at St John's Hospital in Livingston.
But this is only indicative of a wider stasis in our devolved public services. Consider education. There is a widespread acceptance that something needs to be done but doing anything will inevitably upset somebody, I suspect indeed a good deal more somebodies than the local Paisley campaigners. So the response has been little more than the wringing of hands.
Take fracking. They could pass legislation blocking this permanently but in doing so cause significant damage to the Scottish economy possibly paving the way for the departure of our biggest single site employer. Or they could allow it, outraging their more luddite supporters and perhaps even causing discrete noises of disapproval from their not quite totally owned minor Party allies. So instead they have announced a permanent moratorium clearly in the hope that the judicial review now launched by Ineos will get them off a hook of their own creation.
Or taxation. They could stick with UK levels ("while we remain without the full levers") on a point of principle or they could raise taxes to sufficient effect as to provide meaningful additional public spending. Instead they've done neither. Bringing in negligible additional income (less than £200 million against expenditure of more than £32 billion) with tinkering aimed at little more than making us "different" from England.
Why this timidity on all these fronts and, perhaps most appallingly, on the example I conclude with?
Because the SNP are in reality two things at once. Certainly they are the government of Scotland but they are also a permanent campaign for Scottish Independence. And that latter function depends on the maintenance, indeed the expansion, of the fragile "Yes coalition" that has got them (to their mind at least) close to their ultimate goal. But the danger of alienating anybody as a supporter of the SNP is that you also offend them as a supporter of independence. And decisions of any sort inevitably offend somebody.
Yet sometimes decisions have to be made as they ultimately had to be made over the RAH children's ward. As they will ultimately have to made over education and the other examples I provide. And ignoring that inevitability only makes the ultimate climb down all the more offending.
As I said I will finish with one particularly outrageous example.
On 3rd May 2015, a man called Sheku Bayoh died while being restrained by police officers in Kirkcaldy. Now, as I said above, the Yes coalition is a wide one. It includes on one wing many who are of a naturally anti authoritarian bent with little time for the "forces of state repression" in any form. But it also extends well into the leadership of the Scottish Police Federation, who have come repeatedly to the nationalists assistance, from during the referendum when they claimed to have seen little or no evidence of nationalist thuggery, to more recent support over the handling of the leadership crisis at Police Scotland.
But the problem over the Bayoh case is that, whenever a decision is made on whether there should be prosecutions, one or other group is going to be furious, "offended". For the former can see no circumstance in which a black man might die accidentally while in police custody while the latter no circumstance in which Police officers might ever be heavy handed in dealing with any suspect (at least unless they had brought it on themselves).
So, the nationalist answer to this conundrum? Nearly three years after Mr Bayoh's death, eighteen months after a report was submitted to Crown Office, no decision has been made either way whether to prosecute or to rule out prosecutions.
Now the actual decision is of course a matter for the independent prosecution service but demanding that they make a decision is surely a matter within the remit of the Justice Minister's responsibility to protect the integrity of the system? Except of course, no decision offends nobody. And perhaps offending nobody matters more than any other consideration.
I'd only point this out as a statement of the bloody obvious. A decision of some sort will have to made sometime and that's highly unlikely to be after a "second referendum", even on the most optimistic of nationalist timetables.
Perhaps it's time for them to realise that, to paraphrase Lincoln, "You can't please all of the people, all of the time" and just get on with it. Indeed get on with deciding things more generally.
And here is why.
The standard of hospital medical treatment is not, can never be, the same across the whole of the NHS. It depends on the number and qualification of the medical staff available and inevitably in busier metropolitan areas these staff are more numerous and the possibility of sub-specialism much more readily available. The larger the unit therefor the greater the level of expertise and experience available and with that the greater the prospect of expeditious and successful treatment.
Further, the quality of all medical professionals is not the same and inevitably the very best are inclined to be attracted to where they will enjoy the greatest variety of medical experience. Again creating a virtuous circle where the best treatment is inclined to be in the larger hospitals.
Further still, the constant interaction between the university based medical schools and the hospital sector makes working in a hospital near to such a university a much more attractive proposition for those providing teaching as well as treatment, as well as for those still engaged in professional development.
And finally, when it comes to the quality of life, working with more colleagues and being able to draw on their expertise is in itself a significant stress reducer. Not to mention the greater flexibility likely to be available when wanting a holiday. But, outwith work, basing yourself where you can work until 6.30 and still get to the opera or the theatre is a consideration all of its own. So if you are at the top of the profession, with skills in demand and the opportunity to make a choice then the choice is obvious.
Thus, as a general rule, medical expertise is greater and treatment likely to be superior in the cities.
At the back of our minds we all recognise that but we also recognise that in where we are treated the system makes a trade for our own convenience. If hospitalised we might, indeed often do, prefer to be treated where we can easily be visited by friends and family and readily and easily get back home when our treatment is concluded. That's why not all hospitals are in the cities, even in urban Scotland.
But of course that's not always possible. Some illnesses or conditions are sufficiently complex but relatively rare to preclude the maintenance of local expertise and to require the creation of National or regional specialist units to which, like it or lump it, the patient requires to travel.
And it is not at all unreasonable to class children sufficiently ill as to require hospitalisation as falling into that rare or complex category. Particularly as the hospital to which Paisley's juvenile patients will now be referred, The Royal Hospital for Children in Govan, Glasgow, is, frankly, no great distance from Paisley and indeed for patients from the north and east of the town, if not nearer as the crow flies then certainly quicker to get to at certain times of the day when otherwise you would require to negotiate the centre of Paisley.
And the geography is hardly unprecedented. It is eight miles from my home town, Paisley, to the hospital. My new home, Kilsyth, hardly in the middle of nowhere, is twelve miles from our nearest general hospital, Monklands, without anybody locally being noticeably outraged by that. Our nearest Lanarkshire Health Board children's ward is in Wishaw!
So why all the fuss?
Because the decision making over the RAH is indicative of something much more concerning in Scottish public life under the SNP, an unwillingness to be honest with the electorate. To be honest about difficult decisions for fear of offending.......somebody. "Rumours" about the possibility of the ward closing have been circulating for more than two years but the response of the SNP until yesterday, not just locally but in a now notorious television appearance by the First Minister herself, has been simply to deny the very possibility. Accusing opposition politicians raising concerns of, using that all purpose nationalist response, "scaremongering".
The problem for them is that this is a strategy that eventually falls foul of time. The outrage over the closure will inevitably be much greater now than if an honest case had been made for it earlier in much the manner described above by..........me. As it is going to be over a similar exercise still going on over the eventual permanent closure of the children's ward at St John's Hospital in Livingston.
But this is only indicative of a wider stasis in our devolved public services. Consider education. There is a widespread acceptance that something needs to be done but doing anything will inevitably upset somebody, I suspect indeed a good deal more somebodies than the local Paisley campaigners. So the response has been little more than the wringing of hands.
Take fracking. They could pass legislation blocking this permanently but in doing so cause significant damage to the Scottish economy possibly paving the way for the departure of our biggest single site employer. Or they could allow it, outraging their more luddite supporters and perhaps even causing discrete noises of disapproval from their not quite totally owned minor Party allies. So instead they have announced a permanent moratorium clearly in the hope that the judicial review now launched by Ineos will get them off a hook of their own creation.
Or taxation. They could stick with UK levels ("while we remain without the full levers") on a point of principle or they could raise taxes to sufficient effect as to provide meaningful additional public spending. Instead they've done neither. Bringing in negligible additional income (less than £200 million against expenditure of more than £32 billion) with tinkering aimed at little more than making us "different" from England.
Why this timidity on all these fronts and, perhaps most appallingly, on the example I conclude with?
Because the SNP are in reality two things at once. Certainly they are the government of Scotland but they are also a permanent campaign for Scottish Independence. And that latter function depends on the maintenance, indeed the expansion, of the fragile "Yes coalition" that has got them (to their mind at least) close to their ultimate goal. But the danger of alienating anybody as a supporter of the SNP is that you also offend them as a supporter of independence. And decisions of any sort inevitably offend somebody.
Yet sometimes decisions have to be made as they ultimately had to be made over the RAH children's ward. As they will ultimately have to made over education and the other examples I provide. And ignoring that inevitability only makes the ultimate climb down all the more offending.
As I said I will finish with one particularly outrageous example.
On 3rd May 2015, a man called Sheku Bayoh died while being restrained by police officers in Kirkcaldy. Now, as I said above, the Yes coalition is a wide one. It includes on one wing many who are of a naturally anti authoritarian bent with little time for the "forces of state repression" in any form. But it also extends well into the leadership of the Scottish Police Federation, who have come repeatedly to the nationalists assistance, from during the referendum when they claimed to have seen little or no evidence of nationalist thuggery, to more recent support over the handling of the leadership crisis at Police Scotland.
But the problem over the Bayoh case is that, whenever a decision is made on whether there should be prosecutions, one or other group is going to be furious, "offended". For the former can see no circumstance in which a black man might die accidentally while in police custody while the latter no circumstance in which Police officers might ever be heavy handed in dealing with any suspect (at least unless they had brought it on themselves).
So, the nationalist answer to this conundrum? Nearly three years after Mr Bayoh's death, eighteen months after a report was submitted to Crown Office, no decision has been made either way whether to prosecute or to rule out prosecutions.
Now the actual decision is of course a matter for the independent prosecution service but demanding that they make a decision is surely a matter within the remit of the Justice Minister's responsibility to protect the integrity of the system? Except of course, no decision offends nobody. And perhaps offending nobody matters more than any other consideration.
I'd only point this out as a statement of the bloody obvious. A decision of some sort will have to made sometime and that's highly unlikely to be after a "second referendum", even on the most optimistic of nationalist timetables.
Perhaps it's time for them to realise that, to paraphrase Lincoln, "You can't please all of the people, all of the time" and just get on with it. Indeed get on with deciding things more generally.
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