Glasgow NE: Gubbed

Some off-piste thoughts on Glasgow North East may be in order this morning. The BBC coverage had its moments – but why, ever so often, did they seem to press the replay button and all the yammering political types would simply reiterate previously furnished statements. I assume that they were operating under the assumption that they might acquire new audience members mid-way through. Hope springs eternal in the newscaster's breast. Nevertheless, despite its relative tedium, I wanted to highlight a few themes which struck me as being of particular interest.

Firstly, racism in Scotland. Tom Devine suggested that the idea of egalitarian Scotland being a welcoming society was mythological. Racism, the historian continued, could not be imagined as another English illness, without Scots symptoms. Here, the supposed egalitarian gloss and its associated good conscience actually conceals the extent to which Scots are prejudicial – and creates a self-image which will be highly resistant to a recognition of that self as racist. We can find this argument in the work of David McCrone in his sociologies of Scotland – arguing that part of what sustains this idea of an egalitarian Scotland is its amenability to different political projects. Historically, leftists could see themselves as the bearers of an egalitarian tradition which rejects social distinctions of class – emphasising a sort of human capital in the face of laxer, more class-conscious English society. Simultaneously, old Tories can take to their tartan-trooed pins on Burns Night and roar out A Man’s A Man for A’ That, confident that the egalitarianism they are expressing relates to merit, and is thus, inherently stratifying in its ends. Its an intriguing question, and Devine’s doubts are familiar. Does thinking you have an equal and welcoming society tend to conceal the hidden transcripts of your society’s wrongs, its cruelties? I can certainly see the case.

Yet also, while such descriptive accounts of the nation may not reflect underlying human experience – there is also an aspirational element to this which we ought not too hastily to squander. Assume, as we must assume, that Devine’s suggestion can be demonstrated – that Scottishness is no vaccine to racism. Its certainly not obvious to me that the answer to that recognition of fallibility is to reject the political discourse which accounts for Scots authenticity in terms of an openness which may not be a sociological universal. Mythologies can be rejected – they can also be lived up to.

The second theme I wanted to return to was the broad commentary on the approach of Labour’s campaign. Said many, localism was emphasised. Ripping off Glasgow its chorus. Labour in opposition to Edinburgh SNP the cheeky undernote. Margo MacDonald deplored this approach to argument, insisting on the importance of collaboration between Scotland’s city states. I’m not so condemnatory. I can see the storied narrative it furnishes Labour with, whether or not I’d agree with the elements of the indictment. What interests me – and it is a subject I’ve posted on before in the context of the defunct airport rail link – is how this apparently politically expedient argument for a Glasgow by-election resonates in the wider community. Part of Labour’s problem, strategically, across the country, is its clotted constituencies in the West Coast, its Glaswegian voice and its representational limitations. Success, for Labour, seems to rely on getting its vote out - not by making alternative appeals outside of their primal, primate-electing constituencies.

From the result, it seems as if Willie Bain could have stodged his way onto the stage with a victorious clutch of votes without this story, re-emphasising that Labour seems as if it is for Glasgow and nowhere else. Ordinarily, of course, I doubt this would matter. The local arguments which by-election candidates make are soon forgotten, their little heresies from the party line to accommodate local sensitivities subsumed under the wider tales of the party’s national fortunes. Why this case is, I’d submit, a little different, is that Bain’s tack is strongly consonant with Labour’s wider, Scottish themes. He contributes to a swelling account of the party, often implicit discourse about the geographic and social divisions in Scotland’s political commitments and presages a return to the drear of hegemonic political Clydesideism in Scotland. This account is, I’d suggest, problematic in the wider constituencies of this country. Precisely because Bain et al. plucked on this string so insistently, and I suspect gratuitously, its interesting to speculate whether, for the sake of grubbing up an extra vote or two, they may actually have sustained a wider account of Labour politics apt to depress their broader electoral fortunes.

Oh, and I'm fed up of hearing about honeymoons and their inevitable (and apparently multiple) endings. Has media creativity died a death? Is there no other metaphor in the whole of bright existence which they could employ to communicate the same process of increasing attention, marginally upped focus and the accumulation of failures or the failures to succeed? No, I feared not...

Glasgow North East By-Election Blues...

I've not really commented recently on the Glasgow North East by-election. Too busy. However, this morning, I was lucky enough to stumble across the following verse-lyric, smuggled to yours truly from the personal scrapbook of an artist, too self-effacing to put his name to the text. I publish it here, merely for your diversion and the enquiring interest of political scientists of remote posterity. Any similarities to the popular poem "Funeral Blues" by Mr Melted-Wellie face (left) is, I'm sure, simply coincidental.

By-Election Blues

A poem written from the perspective of a hypothetical dejected and defeated by-election candidate D----d K—r after Wystan Hugh Auden

Stop all the benefit, cut off the telephone
Prevent the hacks from barking and Bain I might dethrone
Silence my opponents and with muffled drum
Bring out the Lodge, let Orangemen come!

Let the voters circle moaning talking-heads
Scribbling on their ballots the message ‘fuck the neds’,
Push crap prose down the soggy necks of public pigeons,
Hope they don’t say “He ain’t from round here, we don’t like his religion”

There was my Willie, my Ruth, my Bax-an-dale,
My Baillie weak and my Tommy pale
Our drone, our cant, our talk, our song,
I thought this vote would last forever: “Thank God I was wrong”

Your votes are not wanted now, spoil every one;
Hack up my fliers, slump at the end run
Implore no more Glasgow 'cos I’ve now understood
That you gave not a toss which one of us stood.

Dispatches from Glasgow North East...

I’m sure in the course of the long, trudging campaign, the candidates for the Westminster Parliamentary seat of Glasgow North East experienced a flourish of relief as one Mr Kenneth MacAskill put on his red suit, donned an archery-target waist coat and proclaimed the sovereignty of mercy in Scotland. Cue furore, heated. With a nose for gluing the stories of the moment together, Scottish Unionist pointed out the less than consonant character of the SNP candidate David Kerr’s positions once juxtaposed.

On the 21st, Kerr argued:

“I don’t believe that Al Megrahi should have been released. He was convicted of murdering 270 people so I believe justice would have been best served if he had remained in the care of the Scottish Prison Service.”

By Tuesday 25 August, this had amended itself to the crisper: “The Justice Secretary took the right decision, and above all he took it for the right reasons.”

Obviously, don’t lets be too devilishly insistent that a soul must adhere to its past sins, when it yearns for repentance. Its alright for folk to change their mind. Indeed, the polling around the whole brouhaha seems to indicate that Kerr's developing sense of the rightness and wrongness of the move mirrors that of other Scots. There is, however, a wider point. Do we really believe Malcolm Chisholm was the only opponent of this measure who bums the Labour benches? Given the more divided general opinion in the population at large and among Labour member, this seems unlikely. Equally, how plausible is it that all 47 SNP members thought that in his trundle across the tightrope before him, MacAskill balanced himself unerringly correctly? How many in both tribes swallowed their private sentiments, donned the political war paint and marched for the chief? I’d be confident that the count of such tribesmen and women who made primary their party political calculations must at least amount to a decent clutch. So I agree, there is something that smells distinctly implausible about the neatness of these divisions – which might make us look on the apparent transformation of Kerr’s views with a critical eye.

Indeed, as the recess recedes, I anticipate a spidery battery of eyes will be shifting again to the Glasgow North East by-election. And on this point, via a fellow peat worrier – we’re a close fraternity and sorority – I have a few dispatches from the field by way of an informed source within the campaign.

I’m totally unfamiliar with the constituency myself – hence what follows it a bit of third-hand repetition. It does give an indicative glimpse into the cognitive processes churning away behind the scenes, however. It is anticipated that the writ will be moved sharpish when Westminster resurrects itself, resulting in a polling day of around the 12^th of November*. On the campaign itself, apparently Kerr’s going down a storm among the more conservative, religious populous of the area – but there’s a fly in the proverbial ointment. In the more liberal parts of the constituency, which on the campaign intelligence, apparently includes Dennistoun, disquiet rumbles over precisely the same issues which might coax others into Kerr’s corner.

Along the lines of my argument, which insists that religious opinions are fair game when they inform political choices, it seems that this section of the populace may find the ominous Latin of Opus Dei a challenge to overcome, when mulling over where to put their enfranchised ‘x’s. As a consequence, I understand that the candidate’s messages are being finessed depending on the setting as an attempt to overcome the difficulties presented by the trumpet lobby of press coverage at the inauguration of the campaign. I’m a bit sceptical of all this sort of talk myself, including the happy but textureless labelling of places religious areas and whatnot. Indeed, I’d have thought the surest way these days not to communicate with your electorate is to talk to local clergy. Then again, its not just who can vote, but who will vote – and on this point, my own youthful, godless existence may not be typical of our greying electoral enthusiasts.

At any rate, these personal caveats aside, I thought you might be curious about the campaign related scuttlebutt…

* As the estimable Monsieur Burton pointed out in the comments below, the 8th of November poll date which I originally mentioned falls, as any lackadaisical examination would suggest, on Sunday. I suspect Monty's moles are stabbing far closer to the mark with their anticipation of a Thursday the 12th of November date - so have slyly amended the electronic record accordingly.

David Kerr: Thoughts on God in politics...

An act of informed voting is always going to be a trade-off among the voter’s priorities. Yes, the candidate is in favour of independence, but he is a schmuck. No, she doesn’t think that there should be a poll tax, but she also is against gay adoption. Another candidate has exemplary ideas on criminal justice, but cannot fathom climate change and is disposed to deny its significance. Nuclear power, wars, guns, free care for the elderly, graduate endowments, tuition fees – the informed voter is drawn by the nose this way and that by individual candidates’ opinions, which are never easy simulacra of the exact political positions of the voter who decides on them. You have to fudge – at least a little, sometimes a lot.

I think its in this context one has to see the warm words and interesting discussion around David Kerr’s candidacy in Glasgow North East, and precisely what weight his religious opinions should have in the decision to vote for or against him. Some, including the man himself, suggest that they shouldn’t, that it doesn’t matter, or indeed that it is villainy to enquire. I disagree, strongly.

Here is why. As has been reported, David Kerr was asked, predictably, what his views were on abortion. Avoiding providing a direct answer, Kerr justified this evasion by saying that he was not there “to talk about theology.” The quote is truncated, excised from a wider context, and hence, one ought to be cautious about being too expansionist about what he means to imply. But put it this way. Think of the many ways one can label the debate on abortion. A political issue, perhaps – one of public health – of ethics and morals – of an epistemology of embryology – in the final analysis, also one of law. To this, we can add another calculation – and cannot accuse Kerr of being exhaustively evasive of his views on the abortion question. After all, to reply that he wouldn’t talk about theology entails that if he was to talk about abortion – he would be in the theological realm. His wasn’t an absolute non-answer, since he candidly frames how he would discuss abortion as a personal and religious issue.

That said, if we were firmly in favour of abortion, it being a high priority on our voters catalogue of interests, we would probably want to know other things. For example, would he oppose or support particular approaches to public policy in this area, based on these religious norms? Alternatively, would he suspend judgement, conscious of the privacy of these feelings, and abstain on the relevant votes? Or would he go further, submitting to the party whip and follow the political commitments of his overseers, despite his personal views? One can envision similar tribulations in any number of areas where the godly norms Kerr perceives conflict with the pressing political directions taken by party and parliament. What would he do? These are relevant questions, fairly asked. There really are no protest votes – if your candidate and party win – the individual voter is implicated in giving those characters their mandate and social authority. We’re not exhaustively responsible, clearly, but if our men and women begin making mischief, or oppressing others, our continuing support for them in that knowledge is blameworthy. Given that the ideology of Opus Dei - quite consistently - seems to deny any division between public and private, just as Catholic theology generally insists that God's laws are objectively true and hence, ethics isn't as atheists imagine it - Kerr faces a problem. If he is unable to deny the religious call to wholeness in public and private life, voters who disagree with him on these issues have every reason to reject his candidacy. Depending, of course, on the priority among their individual preferences. Folk maybe don’t consciously think of it in this way, and perhaps don’t reduce these preferences to writing, but they play out in every Labour voter who gave up on the Red Rose Brigade after Iraq, or every Tory who turned UKIP on Europe.

Lets look at the religious norms in public life issue atheistically. Assume, for the moment, that God is false, that the Bible and the rules of the Church are man-crafted and without divine sanction or objective resonance. Say instead that every person has an individual notion of ethics – but some people are more individual that others. When Kerr says this is right, he is making a statement of the same sort as my statement this is right. He may feel less responsible as the originator of this ethical ejaculation – attributing it to a magic book or the word of an invisible spirit – but if his surrounding cosmology is false – he is reduced to the same, plain human level my moral views must be couched in. There is no substantive category difference.

That being so, consider the following hypothetical scenario. I am a would-be lawmaker and hate homosexuals, but for resolutely secular reasons. Heaven knows what these might be – but given man’s irrationality – anything is possible. I argue against adoption, against civil unions, even against gay teachers. For some, this is not an issue to rouse them from their lethargy, and my other virtues and views may overbear and prove conclusive. Not so for those who place equality of this sort higher up their agenda. They would vote against me with feeling, and would be correct to do so. Change this scenario only in one particular – that the aforementioned hatred and activism was animated by a religious sense rather than a godless one – and the same conditions obtain.

While it doesn’t matter whether Kerr believes in the Almighty, if you the voter do not believe in God, you have every good reason to reject him based on his views. Since the boundary between religious ethics and ethics simplicter must be fictional in an atheistic world view – it is simple consistency to hold Kerr to account based on those opinions. Faith matters, precisely because morals matter. You can’t have politics without politics. Crucially, however, how significantly particular moral positions matter will be a point of variability between different people. That is why it is erroneous to insist as a universal truth that one can excise personal faith from the political agora. While for some people, this may well be true, for others, it must be of the most intimate consequence.

Recognising this diversity is to take ethics – and religion – seriously. As we ought to.

A summer blog summary...

To enliven your lives through the gloomy, rain-streaked summer days, I've performed the cold collation of Scotland's political blogging spirit for this week.

Replete with lots of cheerful posts about the unwilling and perhaps unwitting photo-chap for Opus Dei in Scotland, David Kerr, the aforementioned trying out his John Wayne impression in an urban car park, figures from Norwich North, castigations of Edinburgh city council, proposals for a communal bucket of Scotland's crude oil and much, much more...