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The SNP in Perth: an inside view of day 2

 
It's fast becoming a social media cliche, but the Random List still pulls in the page-hitters. My last one on the Papal Visit was well read, and the biog bullet points proved strangely popular. In that spirit I give you Day Two of the SNP  Conference in Perth.  It's a particularly attractive blogging option because (a) there's a lot of material to get through and this is a fun way to summarise the best bits, and (b) The time is now 2am.

 

Viral video. The new SNP viral video features a young rock band - Jakil - playing a version of the old Canned Heat number Let's Work Together. It shows Scots from all walks of life doing just that. Someone suggested I might wish to share it on my social media networks  "if you like it". I do, and so here it is. I'm particularly looking forward to the classic soul version featuring my hero Al Green.... 

Smouldering John Swinney no, really.... I don't want to damage his reputation for frugal moderaton, but John Swinney's speech was - whisper it - somewhat passionate. At the end he suggested that Scotland could no longer afford to remain in the UK Union. We have been in surplus for four years while UK was in deficit. You can read the whole speech here.http://www.snp.org/node/17386

I always thought the Fair Maid of Perth was invented by Sir Walter Scott to add romantic interest to an extremely complicated plot line in his novel. But I see that her house is being restored right opposite the multi-storey car park I am using. Historical dramatisation is all the rage again so who cares if Sir Walter took a few liberties with the fair maid? Cultural tourists don't..

 While waiting for coffee I meet the leading soprano Alicia Hayes, who has just started working for Bruce Crawford MSP, the parliamentary business manager. Alicia has sung with opera companies all over the world, often playing the romantic lead. She's staying closer to home on account of her baby daughter these days, we will surely see her on the political stage before too long.

Good debate on PFI this morning. For more on the ever mounting price tag go to Jim and Margaret Cuthbert 

 I meet Liberal Democrat Andy Myles, a facebook friend who's fair scunnered with some of the compromises made by his party leaders in coalition at Westminster. He's here in his professional capacity as a lobbyist for Scottish Environment Link which represents dozens of individual groups. I am particularly interested in the human ecology of the countryside - eg preserving its people as well as flora and fauna. Turns out he is very keen on repopulating the highlands and breaking up sporting estates.  He offers examples of mixed use tenure. Environmentalists encourage cattle being wintered outside when possible, especially in woodland. Would love to taste some of the beef that spends months grazing in pine forests around Abernethy. Is it aromatic?

Lunchtime fringe meeting. But which one? The SNP conference has grown considerably in recent years with lots of groups like the charity mentioned above keen to influence policy makers. One of the downsides is that a lot of interesting fringe meetings are scheduled for the same time. At 12.30 today you could chose to learn more about Victim Support, Scotland's Colleges, the challenges of Foster Care, the difficulties older women have in accessing the right breast cancer care and a Scottish Social Enterprise seminar on how communities can buy their assets. I was tempted by a Reform Scotland/NESTA discussion on reforming public services but went instead for...

Dragons' Den. Sponsored by the Centre for Public Policy Research, Stewart Stevenson the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Minister lead a team of dragons listening to pitches for a new Forth Crossing, upgrading the Glasgow Subway and introducing a smartcard for all public transport. All three had merit. Was particularly impressed with  Jonathan Findlay the Labour councillor who chairs SPT, who was brave enough to come before the nationalist audience. He was applauded too. It is surely something of a scandal that the Glasgow Subway (rebuilt in 1970) and the Forth Road Bridge, are major postwar engineering projects that have scandalously failed to pass the test of time. If we must invest billions to replace or renew, let's take a tip from those sustainable Victorians and make our bridges and tunnels last longer than a few decades.

Angus Brendan MacNeil, the MP for the Western Isles and hard-working Barra crofter, has sacrificed the Mod to attend conference. He directs me to this funny exchange from Hansard on the Arc of Prosperity. How many times do you hear that Ireland and Iceland still enjoy standards of living far higher than our own...?

Fantastic fringe meeting on the creative industries with Jim Mather, minister for Enterprise, Andrew Dixon, of Creative Scotland, Jackie MacKenzie, Head of Innovation Programmes Scotland at NESTA and Rob Woodward at STV. One of these meetings that you really wish had been webcast. Andrew Dixon has had a few knocks but I was very heartened by his presentation. He seems genuinely enthused by what he has found here - and keen to grow audiences for artists in Scotland. The more local something is, the more compelling it can be to a global audience. Is the word glocal?  He has identified music as a vibrant cultural resource that doesn't get enough attention. Jackie had interesting things to say on education - the divide between art and science, in both school and university, is damaging our competitiveness in computer games. Artistic kids need the maths skills to programme as well, say developers. Breadth is supposed to be the rock on  which our educational system stands, so Scotland should be able to find a way around this. On a positive note it's a shame Jim Mather is retiring, though he will be 68 at the close of the next parliament and has many other plans. Until next May we should celebrate having as Enterprise Minister a highly successful entreprenuer who quotes Hugh Macdiarmid And Richard Florida. It doesn't get better really...

Chat to representatives of The Police Federation who say they have more access to government since the SNP took power than under any previous Scottish administration. They are not the first group to say this. I wonder why previous ministers were so remote - did they fear contradicting London policy by accidently promising what they could not deliver?

Media reception in the evening, hosted by Scottish Power. Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is in good humour. She gives the diarists a nice story about her own social networking slip. Recently married, she tried to change her relationship status to reflect this and link to her husband Peter Murrell. Unfortunately the predictive language married her off the party press officer Paul Togneri. It took a few desperate phone calls to undo her cyber-bigamy, without a puzzling broken heart appearing on the profile... 

Alex Salmond arrives at conference today (Saturday) fresh from Dehli where he joined Glasgow Provost for the "handover" ceremony fo the Commonwealth Games. The question on everyone's lips is: "Will he bring the hat?"

Massachusetts Institute of Technology hacks - a hack writes...

 

I'd not normally use the word hack - the disparaging self-definition some journalists use that seems to celebrate - and so excuse - sloppy work. However it is too tempting in the context. I'm currently in Boston visiting MIT, where my daughter is an engineering undergraduate.  MIT is famous for producing Nobel prizewinners - and hacks. Here a hack is not a scibbler - though they do have a fine newspaper The Tech. An MIT hack is a practical joke, but one carried out with skill and ingenuity. Often a hack involves some sort of violation of the landmark MIT dome. Two years ago students built a solar powered subway car that circumnavigated the dome. On another occasion they stuck a police car on top and, most recently, a Doctor Who Tardis. Like the Tardis, the hack must appear from another dimension - or at least arrive overnight and unexplained. The best hacks put a smile on the city's face and make the news beyond Boston. Even those who are hacked see the funny side - and the advantages. Once a burger bar that famously had a lifesize cow on its roof found the bovine kidnapped by students. It was returned wearing a little mortar board, chewing on an MIT "degree". The restaurant was delighted by the free publicity.

 The cow features in a college exhibition devoted to hacks. I liked one from 1987 where a warning traffic sign featuring a human figure was changed to Nerds Crossing. The figure acquires glasses and carries a...floppy disc. Definitely a period piece. One of MIT's founding fathers made a famous speech in which he said an education there should be like drinking knowledge through a fire hydrant. So the students somehow acquired a street fire hydrant and and linked it to the college drinking water system so it could be used as a fountain.

The exhibition features a list of hack rules for students, such as never steal, never endanger yourself or others, never hack alone, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. These are more than jokes, of course, requiring imagination, weeks of hard work and technical ability. But still they reflect the sense of fun and mischief that motivates many young people. My daughter's dad, Pat Kane, would call it the Play Ethic. In Scotland, in time gone by, student pranks were tolerated and enjoyed, and it was not uncommon for medics to do unspeakable things with body parts. Today even throwing flour bags is likely to result in a breach of the peace. And for young people without the benefit of full time education, any high spiritedness will immediately be branded anti-social. There were reports of kids being cautioned for throwing snowballs during the last cold snap in Scotland...and when sixth year leavers decided to turf their  gymnasium in Scottish school a few years back they were all expelled...

Of course when youth is left idle, unstimulated, stripped of any cultural pride, respect for others or themselves,  the most likely outlet for  natural thrill-seeking is drunken mayhem. It is worth remembering that pent-up energy and creativity need to be released somehow. That doesn't have to mean causing damage and upset. At MIT the results are impressive and applauded. Perhaps there is a lesson there as to how we view youthful abandon. A little less condemnation and a little more direction perhaps...? 

Will the greedy Crown Estate finally be put in its place?

Delighted to see that the Scottish government intend to look at ways to stop the revenue from Scotland's seabed going directly to The Treasury in London via The Crown Estate. For more on this aspect of Alex Salmond's statement go to Andy Wightman's blog here. It should put the Liberal Democrats in a spot because their Highland and Island MPs and MSPs have long campaigned for this reform. Andy is the author of Who Owns Scotland and a relentless and influential campaigner on land issues for 20 years. His forth-coming book, The Poor had no Lawyers is a history of Scotland from the perspective of land struggles. It promises to be a fascinating - and controversial - read.  The First Minister seems to agree with Andy that Scottish communities should have a say in, and benefit from, renewable resources such as wind and tide energy in their waters. See this piece by David Ross in The Herald

I wrote a column on the subject earlier this summer in The Scotsman, reproduced below:

"If I told you an absentee laird controls half of Scotland’s sovereign territory you would be surprised. If you learned this individual collects rents from those using the land, but expects Scots to fund its maintenance, surprise might turn to anger. Assets worth billions of pounds have recently been discovered on this vast estate. The Scottish people will subsidise the extraction of those assets. But our fabulously wealthy laird, who resides in splendour just off London’s Regent Street, will pocket the proceeds.

Only one journalistic liberty has been taken in the paragraph above. The laird is not an individual. Rather he is a faceless quango known as the Crown Estate. While laws passed by the Scottish parliament limited the rights of  private landowners – even the good ones - the Crown Estate, which is really a glorified factor, continues to operate like a robber baron of old.

If you are a small boat owner, you will be familiar with the Crown Estate, which manages a £6billion property portfolio including half of Scotland’s foreshore and the seabed out to the 12 mile nautical limit. Many coastal residents, who have historically moored small craft near their homes, were shocked when the Crown Estate began demanding rent in the 1980s for what was considered a community asset.  Only this year the Crown Estate fought small boat owners on Bute in the Court of Session using public funds. The islanders insisted the seabed was granted to them by royal charted centuries ago, but had no funds to defend the case.

In future many more Scots, urban and well as rural, are going to have their lives touched by the Crown Estate. The potential of offshore wind, wave and tidal energy change the game plan entirely. It belongs to us all and we should all feel the benefits. But the Crown Estate website claims, erroneously, that this treasure is all theirs. It is worth considerably more than mooring rents. In 2008-9 the UK marine estate was valued at £409.5million and generated revenue of almost £50m, a rise of 18% on the previous year. A substantial part of that comes from Scotland.

What the Crown Estate does to earn this income is unclear. It is the Scottish government which invests in attracting and supporting renewable energy companies with initiatives such as The Saltire Prize. It is Marine Scotland, also funded by Holyrood, which maintains the seabed.

But the Crown Estate gets the loot. Money from renewable wind, wave and tidal licences goes to its elegant offices in Burlington Place, W1, and then the Treasury just along the road. It is not earmarked to develop the industry, or benefit the Scottish people by easing the impact of public spending cuts.  Our seabed revenue is not factored into Scotland’s block grant.

It is surprising that the Scottish government has not challenged the power of the Crown Estate. It is a subject close to the heart of SNP activists, and it fits perfectly with the current campaign for fiscal responsibility. My understanding is that senior civil servants in the rural affairs department are a cautious bunch who dislike change.

Also, a minority government doesn’t want to pick fights unnecessarily, particularly not with an organisation it needs to partner in the development of an important green industry. 

But this caution is misplaced. There is the chance to build a cross-party consensus. The Liberal Party in the highlands has spoken out against Crown Estate excesses for years. The West Highland Free Press, the radical newspaper founded by the former Labour minister Brian Wilson, has conducted a long-running campaign questioning its authority.

Andy Wightman,  the land reform campaigner, has done a considerable amount of work on the issue. Wightman says the Crown Estate has pursued a successful strategy of confusion. Many people think the land belongs to The Queen. In fact it is a public asset.  In 2006, the Crown Estate  Review Working Group, formed by local authorities in the highlands and islands, urged Westminster to review the organisation’s post-devolution role and ensure revenues benefited the people of Scotland.

This March, the Treasury Select Committee at Westminster published its own, devastating report. It concluded that Scotland’s territorial seabed and continental shelf area are defined and governed by Scots Law and stated: “As a result of the Scotland Act of 1998, the Scottish parliament can legislate over the extent and nature of Crown property rights in Scotland.” 

Effectively it means we can pass a law ensuring the revenue stays in Scotland. This is what happened until 1832 when an Act of Parliament diverted the money south. Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man were affected by similar centralising laws, but have succeeded in getting their cash back.  Only Scotland fails to reap the benefits of its long and lucrative coastline.

The election of coalition government in Westminster means we could repatriate the revenue without a Holyrood bill however. A one line change in the Scotland Act is all it takes. A simple matter, since the government has already promised to re-open the Scotland Act post-Calman. And remember the coalition’s Scottish representation comprises mainly Liberals from rural constituencies.

Wightman suggest Marine Scotland should administer and collect the revenues. These could be invested in coastal communities and a national common good fund – similar to the oil fund proposed by the SNP. The Crown Estate, which has a tiny staff in Scotland, is determined not to let go. “Scotland is a goldmine for them,” says Wightman, “they are desperate to keep hold of it.”

The gold plated quango is nervous as well as desperate. Dermot Grimson, its head of external affairs, warned this week that any questioning of its role in Scotland will threaten renewable energy jobs by causing “uncertainty”. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Vested interests cited “uncertainty” as a reason why Scotland should not have its own devolved parliament.

Grimson, who once headed Rural Forum, a campaigning group which collapsed owing more than half a million to creditors, is particularly nervous because Tavish Scott, the Liberal Democrat leader in Holyrood, is pushing for change. Scott has promised to write to his colleague Michael Moore, the Scottish Secretary, calling for marine revenues to be devolved.

Scott should be commended for doing so, though it would be an outrage if he failed to act. The Liberals who hold highland and island seats today benefit from their party’s long association with the land reform movement dating right back to the Crofters War of the 19th century.

The Crown Estate is trying to undermine Scott’s efforts by offering the Scottish government a “memorandum of understanding” on the whole issue. That must not happen as it would pin us to an organisation whose interests are at odds with those of Scotland’s people.  When Alex Salmond said that we could become the Saudi Arabian of renewable energy, he  didn’t mean we should emulate that country’s feudal system."  

Fancy zig-zagging through the ash to please airline shareholders?

The great ash backlash has begun. Never mind that Dr Colin Brown of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers has explained very carefully (see video) how jet engines operating at extremely high temperatures can have their cooling systems jiggered by this fine dust. With airlines losing money and supermarkets running out of maple syrup, not to mention all those sun burned Brits moaning about the cost of hire limos from the Algarve to Madrid...we are all getting a bit bored with volcano stories now thanks very much. Time for the news agenda to move on.  If only seismic activity would play the media game...

 

Our impatience is now being exploited by big business, principally the airlines, who would like us to think it's another ludicrous health and safety story, like kids being banned from playing conkers. There is, they assure us, "a way through the dust" Well I don't fancy zig zagging between killer clouds to keep airline shareholders happy. When the fly ban is lifted, we need to feel assured it's because the skies really are safe - not because experts have been leaned on. As Dr Brown explained on the news tonight,(the video above is earlier) it's no time for a "Let's give it a go guys!" approach. Granny stranded in Tenerife may be irritating, but if a plane's jet engines fail, it will fall from the sky. This means, says plain speaking Dr Brown, "everybody dies". There's just no way around it.

 

Volcanic ash drifts down in Shetland

One of my favourite radio presenters and bloggers Tom Morton has seen his Beatcroft in Shetland covered in a film of volcanic ash. Check out his pictures.  Might this be what's in store for the rest of the country? I wonder if the ash is like Dead Sea mud, good for the complexion? And has anyone figured out how much these grounded flights have reduced our carbon footprint this week? I love this story because there is nobody to blame...

The Crown DOES NOT own Scotland's seabed, says Treasury Committee. So why is all the revenue heading south..to the Treasury?

 

A report by the UK Treasury Select Committee, chaired by Michael Fallon MP, has given a real boost to land campaigners who want the Scottish parliament to control the seabed around our coasts. In evidence to the committee, the Crown Estate admitted it did not own the seabed. The committee's final report says the current system doesn't work in the public interest. I recently filed a post called Who Owns Scotland's Seabed picking up on Andy Wightman's point that future marine energy developments could generate considerable revenue. But under the current system that money goes straight to London, and all decisions about rentals etc are made by the Crown Estate whose offices are in Kensington.  In fact, there is no reason why it couldn't be administered in Scotland for the benefit of Scotland. Bizarre that the SNP in Holyrood hasn't made more of this. It's not often you get London saying Scotland should have more revenue raising powers!

The excellent local news website forargyll.com has been campaigning on this matter.  The Herald's Highland Correspondent, David Ross broke the news of the committee's report. However for some reason only the Sunday follow-up to his Saturday front page story comes up on the search engine.  

What Salmond should tell Copenhagen: We have the technological power to harness the waves - but need the political power to make it happen quicker

Those who say Alex Salmond should not attend  the world climate change summit in Copenhagen demonstrate a depressing lack of ambition for Scotland. Yes, energy is in most respects reserved to Westminster. And yes, only Westminster can negotiate on Scotland's behalf in Denmark. But instead of bleating about why the First Minister is there, we should be bleating about how control from London is preventing Scotland developing its renewable potential to maximum effect. If Salmond's presence this week draws attention to this power vacum, it will be worthwhile. 

 Marine power could meet our peak energy requirements in Scotland.   But first we need a North Sea grid in place, according to this interesting story by Chris Watt in The Herald. Watt quotes Professor Jim McDonald, principal of Strathclyde University and co-chair of the national Energy Advisory Board, who says we need the correct infrastructure to capitalise on the best marine energy potential in the world. 

Professor McDonald said: “The technology’s there, it’s proved and it’s understood. It’s challenging, but the technologies are mature enough to deliver a sub-sea grid.” A report brought in front of the board of Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) last week claimed that the country “could easily meet 100% of our electricity needs,"  if we developed marine.

Please remember this the next time you hear someone harping on about the need for nuclear power stations,  and how the Scottish government has its head in the sand, and other such cliches.  If we did build replacement nuclear stations they'd require considerable subsidy and take a great deal of time. We'd also have to import most of the technology and expertise. However, marine energy gives Scotland the opportunity to commercialise and export its own specialised  knowledge.  Our universities  already lead the world. We have a world first in the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.  We just need to make it happen commercially.  Scotland could build a reputation in harnessing the waves to rival the old glory days of Clyde shipbuilding.

The Scottish government is funding the Saltire Prize to show how seriously it takes this industry and its potential. But sometimes you wonder if the UK  government is dragging its heels on helping marine energy because, for political and military reasons,  it wishes to retain the nuclear option.  (And it hates the fact that Scotland might exert any independent decision making on energy). The industry body that represents wave and tidal energy developers  complained in October that it didn't get enough support from the UK government.

We have lots of wind turbines, but we don't actually construct them.  We have no wind industry because in the early days of wind turbine development it wasn’t taken seriously by government.  Danish and German firms developed the technology instead.  Now they are making money across the globe. Tide and wave power will need government help to become commercially viable. Otherwise they too could be developed abroad, and we will miss the chance of a lucrative industry offering highly skilled engineering and manufacturing jobs.

That  was the fear of scientists and engineers who  spoke to Richard Wilson for this Ecosse article  back in  2008. Here is a particularly instructive passage:  

“A man particularly aware of Britain’s neglect of renewables is Professor Stephen Salter, generally regarded as the pioneer of wave power. He invented a device in the 1970s called Salter’s Edinburgh Duck, which could extract 90% of energy from waves. But the UK government withdrew funding from wave power in 1982, many believe because of the influence of the nuclear industry. “We’ve got a good resource and there was a lot of good engineering in the early days,” says Salter, professor of engineering design at Edinburgh University. “We can make ships, so we should be able to make these.” Salter wrote an energy review document for the SNP two years ago that suggested previous calculations of the energy potential of the Pentland Firth, the deep body of water that separates the Orkney Islands from Caithness and is renowned for the strength of its tides, were underestimated.

He believes that if turbines can be designed to work on the bottom of the sea bed, 70m down, and be placed close together, up to 20GW of energy could be extracted from the firth.

We don't hear this story told often enough. The constant refrain is " nuclear must be part of the mix".  Cannot help wondering whether that's because the nuclear industry has huge lobbying power and deep pockets -unlike  the small, university spin off companies in wave and tidal. But maybe I'm just too cynical...

More on the Curriculum for Excellence - this time from teachers

Yesterday I commented that A Curriculum for Excellence had united Chris Woodhead and Professor Lindsay Paterson. These two men, one progressive, one traditionalist, are both opposed to the curriculum's philosophy that "learning about leaning" is more important than knowledge itself. 

It's not just an academic debate. The chatrooms for teachers on the Times Education Supplement are buzzing with comments from teachers who feel able to express their doubts very freely because the postings are anonymous. It's entertaining - and sometimes worrying stuff.

Because the Curriculum for Excellence doesn't really value content, it amalgamates subjects such as history, geography and modern studies into the group "social studies"  Already teachers are under a great deal of pressure to work in a cross-curricular way, often at the expense of imparting knowledge. I was particularly struck by this comment from a teacher of history, my own subject.

Please explain to me how, in the curriculum for my city, I have 45 mins to teach the Holocaust and an hour to do a art lesson based on the Holocaust as well as 45 mins to look at how to write a newspaper article on one small aspect of it? I will never change my opinion that it would be better to have the time spent actually teaching what its about rather than using it to teach art and writing. Explain how 45 mins of core understanding on a subject like this can be effective...Pure history is about much more than dates and names

Lost Land of the Volcano: The BBC at its best

Loving the BBC's Lost Land of The Volcano on the i-player. A bunch of derring-do scientists enter the rainforest of a long extinct volcano crater in Papua New Guinea. It's completely unexplored and full of new species, such as the giant rat whose discovery was one of the most watched clips on the BBC website before the series even broadcast. The was how the programme caught my attention. Not a great telly watcher but I now make an effort to catch up with it every week. This demonstrates the power of the internet - and its users - to capture readers for "old media".

Lost Land could have been the plot of a Rider Haggard novel. But these 21st century adventurers engage with the local people respectfully. The programme explains the indigenous community's dilemma: sell their forest to loggers or struggle on without medicine or education. Around ten children in the tiny settlement are killed by malaria each year - they don't even have mosquito nets. Hope this documentary's legacy will preserve both the forest, its unique animals and its people. The website for the Lost Land of the Volcano is here

Animal testing could have saved my childhood friend

From The Herald
http://www.theherald.co.uk

PAUL was my cousin but felt more like a brother. We were born six months apart and spent our early years living in the same tenement block. Then our families obtained council houses facing each other across a neat little street. For years, we spent every moment of our free time together. We fished, built dens, dammed streams and enjoyed an oldfashioned childhood exploring the beaches, woods and moorland around our home on the lower Clyde at Gourock. It never occurred to me that he couldn't keep up, despite his yearround pallor and spindly limbs. We grew used to his regular spells in the old ear, nose and throat hospital, just as we stopped noticing the foul smelling sludge he was forced to consume before meals, to help him to gain nourishment from his food.

I was in London when he died, a few weeks short of his 23rd birthday.