Corbyn, Labour and Independence

First of all can I say that if I lived in England I would vote labour tomorrow. No if, no buts and no hesitation. Anything is better than the Tories.

But I would vote in the full awareness that the Labour Party is riddled with treachery, deceit and betrayal and has been for generations. They have had period after period of government and done very little to advance the country to socialism. Far from abolishing the House of Lords, despite the opportunity many times they have never attempted it and most of their former leaders, even the ones who purport to be socialists went on to sit in the Lords. They will always betray the working class. It’s in their DNA.

They spectacularly failed to support the miners when they really needed it. The miners were far too left wing for them. They love to complain about the press barons but as soon as they get a chance they cosy up to them. That’s why, despite all of their false posturing, we still have a media dominated by the right and which ruthlessly attacks and mis-informs working people. Labour had had many chances to put that right and they do nothing. They have no interest in an informed working class. We are just here to be exploited by a team which in the matter of the expenses scandal were not a bit better than the Tories.

As for Corbyn, he has been the subject of the treachery and betrayal which is endemic in his party. They have tried and failed to get rid of him because they think he’s too socialist for them. But they needn’t have bothered because he’ll join the betrayal of the working class just like the rest of them, it might just take a little longer. We already know he has a penchant for deceit. Three times he was elected on a Blairite manifesto and over a hundred times he voted against his party. To some that might point him out as a man of principle but to me it just says that he was quite willing to vote with or fail to oppose the Tories if it suited him. But his supporters seem quite proud of that. He will either betray them or he’ll be betrayed. They just can’t help themselves.

But as I said at the start, if I lived in England I would vote Labour but only as a slightly better option than the Tories.

But I don’t live in England. I’m a supporter of an independent socialist Scotland and since the Labour Party in Scotland are even worse I see no likelihood of them delivering any kind of socialism to Scotland. When Corbyn is knifed, and it won’t take long after the election is lost to the Tories, it is Labour in Scotland who will be in the lead among the plotters. They still worship Blair and Brown and see socialism as a retrograde step. So given that the road to socialism is temporarily blocked off for me I look at my other objective and I will cast my vote, however reluctantly to try to advance nationhood. We are lucky in Scotland that we can manufacture the opportunity to reboot our social system and start anew in an independent country. Even that won’t be easy but it will be far less difficult than turning around the Tory juggernaut that another five years of austerity will impose on us.

So I propose to vote for nationhood and to strengthen those who support it despite my reservations. Nothing else can stop the Tories from breaking the working class of Scotland and that has to be the first priority for me.

The Scottish National Party Election Strategy

I must admit to being a bit, well more than a bit really, unsettled by the latest pronouncement from the Scottish National Party that it will allow ineligible candidates to stand under an independence banner with the support of the SNP.  If they want to amend their constitution to allow new celebrity members to stand then that is a matter for them, but if they are to support candidates from other parties who have been prominent in the independence movement and expect them to take the SNP whip then that is a different story.

It is, and has long been my opinion that every voter who supports the aims and ambitions of the Scottish Socialist Party should have the opportunity of going into the polling booth and placing their cross against the Red Star of the SSP in every election where we have a candidate.  No 'ifs' nor 'buts', we should be sailing under our own flag all of the time.  If we fail to gather sufficient support from the electorate despite having the best raft of policies then so be it. It means we must work harder to get our message across. We can't blame the electorate for our own failings.

But the latest plans of the SNP look like a giant step towards a social democratic one-party state within a capitalist framework and I'm not sure that such a one-party state led by the SNP and packed with the great and the good of independence minded celebrities is a price worth paying for our independence.  We should be thinking long and hard before we get our people involved.
 
We were useful in the referendum campaign and I held my tongue because the end was, in my own opinion, great enough to justify the means, but does everyone remember the howls of protest from the SNP when we were excluded from the Smith Commission despite being represented on the Yes campaign board. Neither do I, but if you lie down with dogs then you get up with fleas and we should remember that duplicity for a long time before we get involved in supporting them given their record of failure to support us.

We have our own vision of independence and it doesn't coincide with theirs except at the most basic level.  That is what we should be standing for and campaigning for.  We should not be looking for scraps from the SNP table

Scottish Independence Referendum and the Currency Debate.

There seems to be a lot of nonsense being talked about the Scottish currency in the event of a vote for independence so I might as well get in my tuppence worth (assuming the new currency will have tuppence as an expression of currency). This is the situation as I understand it but I don't claim to be an expert. It's not really as difficult as the NO campaign would have us believe.

Plan A.

We keep the pound in a currency union with the remainder of the UK. The benefits of this in terms of transaction costs have been explored at some length but I have been asked to try to explain what transaction costs are.

For the most part they are that portion of your money which is stolen by the money changers when you convert from one currency to another, just as they do when you go on holiday but on a much more massive scale when you're buying and selling between two countries. In a currency union these costs would be eliminated.

The drawback is that you lose control of your monetary policy (the amount of money circulating in your economy) as a lever of policy. That means we will only have the same control over our monetary policy as France and Germany have in their particular currency union and they manage well enough. That doesn't seem to be all that scary because the economic interests of Scotland and the rest of the UK (except London) are broadly similar. We would retain control of our fiscal policy (the power to tax and spend according to our own social priorities).

Plan B.

We keep the pound without a currency union. Because the national debt has been incurred by the UK in support of the united currency, if we are, as the NO campaign seems to think, effectively kicked out of the united currency it seems unlikely that we would be required to assume part of the united currency's accumulated debt. If we don't share the asset it is grossly unreasonable to ask us to share in the liabilities of the currency union. The UK Government have already conceded that it would accept responsibility for the national debt should we vote YES, but we understand that this was only to re-assure the financial markets to keep their own credit rating up. That's not the Scottish Government's preferred option. They would rather have a currency union and accept a share of the debt.

We are told that if we do not share the debt then borrowing on the world financial markets would become difficult, but we already know that Scotland would have a triple A rating. The markets have said so. Even if we were to renounce the debt, interest rates depend on how much risk is involved for the lender. There is little risk in lending to an oil rich, stable democracy with a massive balance of payments surplus. International finance are no fools and they will recognise our renouncing of the UK's debt burden as a one off in peculiar circumstances and since the UK government has assured markets that the debt will be repaid they wont worry about lending to Scotland. It's just another scare story.

All of this is made clear in the Scottish Government's White Paper. It's not called Plan B but it is, and it's there for anyone to see who's interested and geeky enough, but lazy, bought and paid for journalists can't be bothered to look so they keep shouting that there's no Plan B. It's just another scary lie.

They like to talk about a Plan B because it implies the possible failure of Plan A, so Salmond will never refer to it as Plan B. He's old and wise enough to realise that Plan B is a term coined by the NO campaign to imply failure of the best option and a degree of uncertainty about planning itself. He's a consummate politician and since Plan B is a NO campaign term he will not accede to their terms. He knows that if you control the terminology then you control the debate and he will end up debating on the opposition's terms. So he will never use the expression 'Plan B' however desperate the NO campaign are to get him to utter the words. Language is important and all of us who are old enough remember the cheer that went up in the house of commons when Thatcher after years of calling it the Community Charge eventually used the words 'Poll Tax'. It was the beginning of the end.

Plan C

We use our own currency. However much I would like that to happen it seems unlikely, but if push comes to genteel jostle then it's got to be done. It may involve a longer wait for its full benefits to show but it'll be worth it in the long run.

That's my offering. Good luck with it.

Syria, Scotland and the UK Government

As Parliament sits today in emergency session to discuss the merits of military intervention in Syria subject to confirmation that chemical weapons have been used, I hope they will consider the matter with some gravity. The usual response that we must back up our American allies isn't good enough. There is no doubt about the response of France. They are completely gung ho because they desperately need influence in the middle east because their oil leases in Libya are in the pocket of a jacket that's hanging on a very shaky nail.

One approach might be to consider that if we intervene militarily then the lives of some of our people will be lost. That is inevitable, whether it be in the theatre of war or at home when the Syrian people exact their revenge by terror attacks in the UK. But our troops or our civilians will die one way or another as a result.

Cameron and his crew may well consider that this is a price worth paying, so I urge them to consider, if by killing your children you could put an end to chemical warfare, would you kill them. or perhaps it is only a price worth paying if you are not the one who has to pay. Someone else's children will pay the price for your global ambitions, because all of this chemical warfare talk is nonsense, there are no nice ways to be killed. But the Eton / Sandhurst ethos doesn't care about that. They will sacrifice other people's children in the interests of empire without a second thought. That's what all of their training is designed to do. Those who do not belong to the elites are sub-human as far as they are concerned and unworthy of the same consideration they give their own children.

This is all about being seen to be a global power. There doesn't seem to be the same moral imperative on Denmark or Norway or a host of other countries to throw away the lives of their people to retain global influence. It's about English imperial ambitions, and not even all of England, only London and the south east. The rest of the U.K. are firmly against any intervention.  But the Joint Intelligence Committee will produce a review of the intelligence. The last one acquired the title 'the dodgy dossier' because they are so politically motivated that a neutral review of the facts is almost impossible. And off to war we'll go again.

But Scotland can opt out of those global ambitions and try to be a country that lives at peace with its neighbours. Scottish soldiers have been at war virtually unbroken somewhere in the world for the best part of 100 years, and what have we to show for it. The massive wealth of the U.K. has agglomerated into the south east and we have been forced by the money, our money, wasted chasing dreams of empire into poverty for which we are now condemned.

It doesn't have to be that way. There is a referendum on independence coming up and if we only have the courage to grasp the thistle it could be very different. It's time to say, 'enough', keep Scottish troops out of foreign wars, and call a halt to Westminster rule.

Global Cities and Regional Crises. London and Scottish independence

London is a Global City. With New York and Tokyo it is one of the top ranked global cities of the world. At a lower level we probably have Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Paris and a few others. Decisions, social, cultural, political and, especially, economic taken in top global cities are truly global in their effects. They house the real levers of international power.

Having a global city as its capital can bring massive economic benefits to a country in terms of international trade and in attracting international investment and events, and looking in particular at London it is clear that the power of the global city contributes massively to the economic growth and performance of the economy of the United Kingdom. The City of London generates enormous wealth and its contribution to the U.K.'s Gross National Product cannot be overstated.

This means that in national terms the U.K. can be seen as one of the richest countries in the world despite its relative lack of geographic area. It can, and does, demand a seat on the United Nations security council and a variety of other world institutions. Having a successful global city as its capital helps the U.K. punch well above its weight in the world. The result of that is that the U.K. has to fulfil a role in world events and that means becoming involved on a regular basis in the internal affairs of other nations as an international policeman or 'peacekeeper' or some other modern type of colonialism in order to maintain its position as a global power led by a global city.

The real problem, however, of having a global city as the capital city of the U.K. is that, although global cities reside geographically in the countries that they lead, they exist more in another notional country where the only relationships which matter are those relationships with other global cities. Rather than being involved with other parts of the country London has a stronger relationship with New York and Tokyo than it has with Glasgow or Sheffield, Newcastle or Birmingham. Trillions of Dollars are sent whizzing around the globe in milliseconds between London, Tokyo and New York to generate wealth for those cities, but very little of that wealth finds its way out of those cities and into the real wealth creating areas of their respective countries. They are like black holes sucking in wealth and power of which practically none escapes further than the distance of the daily commute to the institutions of wealth and power.

So we end up with travesties like the London Olympics where billions of pounds were raised from the whole country from taxation and lottery funding and poured into the most affluent area of the country. The billions of pounds of returns which we were led to expect, if it eventually materialises will remain with the south east of the country. It will not escape back into the economy of the whole U.K. but it will be traded with New York and Tokyo to generate more wealth for the global city.

Similarly, the high speed rail project which is supposed to increase the flow of wealth to the north will only serve to suck wealth and investment into London, because given the choice, and if it is within easy travelling distance, business in search of higher profits will not re-locate out of a global city, it will re-locate to where the money and the market is. The cities of Manchester and Birmingham are in danger of becoming dormitories for workers who service the bee hive but can no longer afford to live in London.

It ends up in a situation where the south east of the country, in relative affluence, have little or no real understanding of the problems and situation of the other regions. They fail to see the problem because they don't have the problem of poverty and deprivation experienced by those unfortunate enough to live north of the Watford Gap. London has 281,000 millionaires (and it's been said that one in seventeen Londoners is a Dollar millionaire) while 34% of Glasgow primary school children receive free school meals and that tells its own story.

The conclusion is reasonably clear. Scotland would not be deprived of the wonderful economic benefits of the U.K. in the event of independence. They receive very little of the benefit of the sparkling economic performance of the economy of the south east at present and there is no real reason to believe that the black hole of the global city of London will surrender up any of its wealth any time in the near future. That's not how global cities work. Global cities make nothing but money. They trade currency back and forward between themselves and believe that the value of their currency assets is the price the last person paid for them. Until the bubble bursts and the last fool in the chain has to come cap in hand to the rest of the country to bail them out by increasing tax (but never on the rich) and cutting benefits for the vulnerable they have created.

Global cities are only good for themselves and other global cities. For the rest of the country that they occupy geographically they are a curse. A real economy can only be sustained in the long term by real people producing real goods and services in the real world, not in the cyber-world of the global city.

The other regions of England can do little about it because as soon as their representatives are elected into position they are absorbed into the London Parliament and sucked into the black hole to become part of the grand conspiracy. But Scotland can escape, so I'll take my chance on government from Edinburgh.

Scottish Independence Referendum and the Westminster Parliament

I speak here for no-one but myself as usual.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about some of the questions raised by Westminster about the future of Scotland after the Independence Referendum, so let me try to give an answer to the Westminster Parliament to some of the key issues e.g
Will we join the European Union ?.

Will we join the Euro ?

Will we join Nato ?

Will we have our own currency or piggy-back on another?

Will we retain the Queen as head of state ? … and,

What will we do about an army ?

My answer is that it’s none of your bloody business. These are matters that will be decided by the people of Scotland after we are independent.  You will not bind us in advance to policies of your choosing. You are no longer our big brother looking after us and making sure we act in the best interests of the English parliament, we will not submit to your oversight and we will no longer answer to you on matters that are no concern of yours. Independence will be just what it says on the tin.

The political parties of Scotland will have an election and each will, no doubt, propose a different raft of policies, just as you do at Westminster, and for you to try to insist that a common raft of the most fundamental policies must be agreed in advance between all of the parties is supremely arrogant. These decisions are for the people of Scotland and for them alone. They may well have consequences for the rump of the UK but that should affect our decisions no more than the effect on the UK moderates the policies of your other neighbours such as France or Germany i.e. not at all.

So please stop interfering. You have many bigger problems which are much more demanding of your attentions, such as filling in your expenses.

Wimbledon and the Other Class

In Ferguslie Park, Paisley yesterday …. The kids have a rope tied to a lamp post and the other end to a shopping trolley across the street. The Umpire is sitting in the shopping trolley and as cars approach he pulls himself along the fence so as to drop the ‘net’ and let the cars pass. Then he hauls himself back shouting ‘play a let’. I don't know if it’s actually covered in the LTA rule book but it obviously works for the kids.

And that’s what will make this country great again. Not individual achievement by elite individuals, but the teamwork, innovation and imagination of working class kids in housing schemes all over Scotland just waiting for that fair chance to shine that we hope independence will bring.

The Scottish socialist Party is the only Scottish party that can unleash the power and potential buried in the housing schemes of our country. The major parties and other elites are terrified that we realise what we have.

Allan Armstrong Speaks on Scottish Republicanism

Renfrewshire Scottish Socialist Party are hosting an open meeting on Tuesday 8th June 2010. Long time republican campaigner Allan Armstrong will be the guest of the branch to discuss the idea of an independent socialist republic for Scotland's future. All members and any others with an interest are invited to this open meeting at 7.30 pm in Paisley Grammar where they can find out more about the republican concept and about the other policies of the Scottish Socialist Party.

Free Public Transport

On Thursday 19th the SSP launched its week of action on free public transport by leafleting and posting around stations and other transport hubs.

I've put a link to the site in 'Some other views from the left' in the sidebar.

Public reaction was very positive, as you might expect from people who are about to have to buy a ticket for an inferior service at an extortionate price to feed the fat cats who operate and mis-manage public transport for their own and their shareholders benefit.

Perhaps more surprising was the number of people who took the opportunity to express their support for our other policies on abolition of the council tax and its replacement by a fair system of taxation, on ending our involvement in American wars, on council housing, and on independence in a socialist Scotland.

It seems that it has taken a global financial meltdown to get across the message that capitalism is destroying itself through its own greed and to make people seriously consider an alternative 'not for profit' system which puts people before profit.

Smirky the Fishy King, or First Minister Salmond

Well it appears that I was wrong and Gordon (clunky) Brown and Ming (the merciless) Campbell didn't manage to impose a deal on the Scottish Lib/ Dems. Alex (smirky) Salmond is now First Minister.

Great news you might think. I can stop re-paying my student loan (if I ever earn enough to be required to make repayments). I'll stop paying my council tax (surely the income based alternative won't affect people on my earnings). I'll dig out the banners to celebrate our boys coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. There must be some other things, remind me what I'll be free to do now that we have won our freedom that we couldn't do before.

Oh yes, vote in an independence referendum...........or maybe not.

Scottish Coalition Negotiations Cont.

I hear from Radio Scotland News at 10 pm that negotiations between the Lib/Dems and the Nats have broken down over the issue of a referendum on independence, but that the Lib/Dems have already excluded a coalition with Labour.

Time perhaps for the really big Westminster boys to step in. My previous post is looking more like prophecy than comment.

Let's keep watching, it's getting interesting.

Smirky and the SNP

I don't often agree with Terry (TKMax) Kelly, and I think I'm going to have to get therapy for it, but I also think it a bit strange that the Scottish Nationalist Party are not standing any candidates in the elections and instead supporting this strange 'Alex Salmond for first minister' splinter group because let's face it, he was not the unanimous choice of his party for leader.

It's insulting to his party because it doesn't mention Scottish, Nationalist, or any other post barring first minister.

It's insulting to the voters to ask them to vote for a slogan rather than a party with a worked out approach to taxation, spending and independence. 100 days, 1 year, 1 term, all have been proposed and sacrificed on the altar of expediency and Smirky's ambition to be a dictator in absence. They have no joined up approach to public policy because they never expected to get this close. Smirky must be crapping himself at the thought that he might have to return from exile , although he will probably offer some excuse about staying on in Westminster until the General Election, at which time he will hand over to the wee lassie to run the show, and stay on in London saying that his job is done because he delivered independence and it is time for others etc. You know , the usual crap. They thought that they only needed one policy, independence, and they are now scrabbling around for a raison d'etre because they are terrified that they might have to put their money where their mouth is.

At the Election Hustings in Paisley

I had never attended a hustings before and I was assured that it would be interesting. I wasn't disappointed'

Like everything in politics we started with a tea break before a blow had been struck, and whilst it was very good (fair trade) stuff, and a credit to the churches which provided it, perhaps they should have asked the candidates to do some work first.

As to the parties, well Labour did not show up due to illness, which disappointed a lot of the audience who had clearly come to give the Labour candidate a good kicking, so perhaps his illness was tactical. If not then I apologise for my cynicism; Labour made me this way.

The Tory was a revelation. I had heard rumours of their existence in Scotland but had never before seen one in the flesh as it were. I believed that they existed like unicorns or yetis. Something to frighten children with who won't behave. He was clearly under some pressure on the issue of Trident when he told us that we had to have nuclear weapons to defend ourselves from the U.S.A. I rather switched off at this point and pretended not to be listening because I didn't want to embarass the man any further. I hope his carers managed to find him because he seemed nice, if unhinged.

The Lib/Dem, in a typical Lib/Dem compromise, torn between nuclear and non-nuclear, decided that she would get rid of half of our nuclear weapons and keep the other half just in case (of what I'm not sure).

The Scottish Nationalist candidate decided to promote their new 'ethical foreign policy' which considering their attitude to the English and the fact that their domestic policy is ethically questionable (they took the Souter money) seemed to be just a bit opportunistic. She also mentioned on two or three occassions how her party's policies were fair and just. She talked a lot about economic growth and increased prosperity, but she didn't tell us how this new found wealth would be shared out. I think she is just offering a rich boss with a different accent and all of her blethering about just and fair society is a smokescreen. There will be increased prosperity with independence, but if the Nats have their way it will all go into the same pockets it goes into now because the Nats offer no real social change. That's why the rich love them. This is not my kind of independence.

Solidarity put up a good candidate with really sound socialist policies, but they didn't seem to be very well fleshed out with specific policy committments. Perhaps it is early to be looking for that, but their man looked uncomfortable and I think he knows he has backed the wrong horse.

The Greens were green, what else can I say.

The Scottish Socialist (and my loyalties are no secret) was an old hand at hustings. He played his cards with some style, and he had the big cards for this audience. End trident, stop the war, build council houses, free public transport, scrap the council tax, and challenge big business to accept their share of social responsibility--I think we had the best of this evening.

The Chairman, parachuted in from the University of Paisley did a fine job.