Go Lassie Go

Kevin the Teenager can never lead Scotland

Oh dear. Kevin the Teenager (aged 53 and a half) is over excited again. Iain Gray, according to an interview in Scotland on Sunday,thinks  he can win a personality contest with The First Minister Alex Salmond. Mmm, I guess it depends on what takes your fancy. If leaden delivery of scripted speeches is your bag, then I guess the Labour leader wins hands down. If a total lack of any ambition for your country gets you going, then look no further than the man who has nothing: no policies, no solutions, no positives.  The worst Gray seems able to throw at Salmond in the interview is an ill-advised photo-opp in a sun hat at the Commonwealth Games in India this year. Someone should tell him gently that, even in silly hats, Salmond is a more serious politician than he can ever hope to be. Indeed this is proved by the newspaper itself. While Gray splutters desperately about sunhats, elsewhere in Scotland on Sunday the SNP First Minister has written a column outlining his vision for Scotland's renewables industry and how it might take our economy to another level (100% of our energy from renewables by 2025)

My first and lasting impression of Iain Gray was when he spoke at a Fabian Society conference I attended several years ago. He opened his comments on the financial sector by saying he knew nothing about economics. Salmond is an economist by profession. This contrast wouldn't matter if Gray's lack of experience on such matters was compensated by charm, vision and ideas. Gray has none of these. He has risen without trace, assuming the leadership of the Scottish Party not because he was an inspiring figure, but because he was close to Gordon Brown and nobody else seemed up to much. So what if Salmond has a guid conceit of himself?  Isn't that what you want in a leader? Who would you rather have represent your country? Someone clever and forceful who  answered only to the people of Scotland, or someone lacking in knowledge, confidence and fluency who needed to check everything with his bosses in London?

Gray's interview in Scotland on Sunday today berates the SNP government on the spurious grounds that they should have created more construction jobs during the worst recession for generations. Bad timing, given that Scotland's unemployment figures are better than the UK as a whole and the SNP just announced the funding for a new Forth Crossing. Wasn't it the SNP who postponed Tory cuts and brought forward capital spending in order to stimulate construction in the Scottish economy? And wasn't it the case  that Labour in Holyrood was less than enthusiastic about this approach and at one point appeared to suggest that we should front load the cuts to "get them out of the way",so to speak? Might it not be the case that the SNP's determination to stimulate the economy is the reason for those encouraging employment figures? The last Labour government in Westminster also opposed giving the Scottish parliament workable borrowing powers to finance major construction projects.

If the Labour Party really care about creating jobs in Scotland, why are they so keen on a Tory Scotland Bill which gives us no powers to grow the economy and actually reduces the income of future Scottish governments, including any Gray aspires to lead? Then again, Gray knows little of economics. Like many frustrated teenagers, he is more comfortable with self-delusion. And like any adolescent who is defeated by cool reasoning, he is liable to erupt into petulant displays of rage for no good reason.

Old and new media - the battle for Scotland

Some of the most exciting things happening in Scotland are happening online. That's what I took from the Political Innovation Camp today at The School of Infomatics in Edinburgh. I already knew one of the main speakers, Pat Kane rather well.  It was great to put faces to some bloggers I hadn't met in person, such as James MacKenzie of Better Nation, Peter Curran of Moridura, David Farrer from Freedom in Whisky and of course the redoubtable Caron of Carons Musings. Also caught up with an old colleague from the Herald, David Milne, who is now heading STV's hyperlocal service. It was heartening to meet the young women behind mypolice.org, a tool that allows the public to give their feedback to the force in their own area.

I met some new people who impressed me greatly, such as Peter Geoghegan, an Irish writer living in Scotland who edits Political Insight and another Irishman, Mick Fealty of Slugger O'Toole, the Northern Irish politics, community and culture blog who organised the event along with Paul Evans. Slugger O'Toole is a blog that manages to engages all sides of the debate in Northern Ireland, which is quite an achievement - and something we have not managed to replicate in Scotland to date. Much of the discussion was about this - whether we could have a Scottish hashtag that would link disparate online content - like a permanent scotlandspeaks, the twitter campaign that tried to get Scotland's voice heard during the last general election. At the PI Camp, there was a lot of enthusiasm for establishing so-called "aggregated sites" . It seems to me that this desire to create online communities is already happening naturally. Like minded bloggers are grouping together on aggregated sites such Bella Caledonia and Better Nation. Two sites, Scottish Review and newsnetscotland take this further and strive to create online sites that hope to compete with the mainstream.  Kenneth Roy at Scottish Review  has broken stories. Or these sites highlight news overlooked elsewhere - such as newsnet's campaign on the anti Scottish episode of Any Questions. A couple of weeks later I was invited on the Newsweek on Radio Scotland to discuss the rise of anti-Scottish outbursts.  

As I pointed out in the PI Camp plenary session, many bloggers in Scotland have gone online in frustration at the mainstream media failure to engage positively with the independence debate. At least a third of Scots favour full independence and more than half, according to polls, think real economic power for the Holyrood will help Scotland out of recession.  Despite this, and the Campaign for Fiscal Responsibility attracting many high profile names, our public discourse continues to frame the debate in UK terms, seldom challenging the block grant system or exploring alternatives.  

Bloggers challenge this manufactured consensus. But as a mainstream journalist who now blogs as well, I worry that online activists only reach others with similar views. Established broadcast and print media offer entertainment, fashion, sport, business, breaking news that attracts a wide spectrum of people including, crucially, voters who have yet to make up their minds.  And while many of my independista facebook friends would claim that the MSM is completely without merit, it is material generated by these newspapers and broadcasters that they share and comment on. Often this is original material that you need professional journalists to create. The Scotsman, for example, has devoted a lot of resource to exposing the tram debacle in Edinburgh. Newsnight Scotland was the first outlet to think of interviewing Professor Joe Stiglitz and asking specifically about oil in a Scottish context. And Newsweek, the Radio Scotland Saturday morning show, ran a long interview with Professor Andy Hughes Hallett explaining how Scotland was subsiding England. The reason we know about Stephen Purcell et al, and the scandal about Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, is because my previous paper, The Sunday Times Scotland, put a lot of resources into exposing Labour clientism in greater Glasgow.

Now, of course, the Sunday Times Scotland has been effectively closed down. Other newspapers struggle to keep afloat. Circulations continue to shrink with alarming speed. Investigative journalism, in particular, requires resources. Scotland does not have an philanthropic organisation such as the American propublica which funds public interest reporting. When activists complain about newspapers simply "reprinting political press releases", as can happen, it is often a matter of resources as much as prejudice. A hard pressed reporter with an FOI handed to him on a plate, especially if it's "exclusive" and makes for a strong headline, will likely take it to his or her newsdesk. Real, self generated stories take much longer. They require you to speak to lots of people in the first place, really get to know the subject and spend hours on research. They might also require you to ditch the story given to you by a political contact when you realise that the facts just don't stack up...

Bloggers unhappy with the perceived bias of the mainstream media shouldn't crow too loudly about the troubles of print though. We desperately need more quality public discourse in this country. Can we afford to lose the space we do have? Where are the online spaces that attract Scots who are not necessarily political junkies?   Some of the self described young geeks I spoke to at the PI camp yesterday confessed they got a lot of their news from the BBC website and The Guardian - but they also complained that they couldn't get coverage for their own digital projects in the shrinking Scottish media...a vicious circle. If we get more news from UK wide sources, do we risk becoming Scotlandshire, North UKania...?

I don't think this will happen, phew! I left the PI Camp today feeling pretty optimistic about the future of blogging and political social media in Scotland. Ideally the rise of aggregated sites would be backed by investment to allow them to break more original stories and attract readers from outwith the politically consumed classes - Huffington Post is a good model. It set out to create an online liberal voice for the US but used entertainment to help drive traffic. Even without this largesse, I predict the blogosphere in Scotland will increase its influence, a view shared by the majority of those at yesterday's event. The thing about all media, old and new, is that it is interdependent. Currently, the agenda of newspapers feeds into radio and television. If the circulation of newspapers continues to decline, bloggers and online aggregated sites will become more powerful influencers. The evidence? A man from the BBC checking out the PI Camp, keen to meet as many bloggers as possible. I already get invited onto the radio occasionally as a result of Go Lassie Go.  Social media helps too. The simple act of sharing a story creates a buzz that cannot be ignored. Content producers will take note. 

At the PI Camp, Peter Geoghegan was very informative on how independent online commentary already shapes the agenda in Ireland, where  economists have taken to the blogosphere to explain the financial crisis. In Scotland, we have a good recent example of blogpower re the Dimbleby debacle. The Question Time from Glasgow which excluded Scottish discussions caused immediate anger that was articulated first through the blogosphere by myself,  Gerry Hassan, Scot Goes Pop and Alex Massie among others. I predict that such incidents will become more common. The traditional media are beginning to understand the power of the blogosphere, and cannot ignore what it is telling them.The rise of aggregated sites will accelerate this. If such sites could attract enough investment to fund some original journalism...well who knows where it might go... 

 

 

Finland, the WHO and alcohol: Solid evidence that price DOES matter

In 2004, Finland lifted the prohibition on people bringing cheap alcohol into the country. The results were disastrous and consumption rose by 10%, along with alcohol related illness.

Labour and the other unionist parties are totally disingenuous when they say minumum pricing is untried and untested. Price does matter, as Finland shows. Yes, it would be better if the money went to the state instead of the supermarket. But the UK government refuse to act. Why, then, do these parties oppose calls to give Scotland control over duty on alcohol and other taxes? Might it be because Scotch whisky alone provides £1.6bn a year to the UK exchequer? 

Kaye Adams was taken aback when Labour's Doctor Richard Simpson, a guest on her show, lamely responded that his only solution to the problem was to bat it back to the UK government - without even trying a Scottish approach. Some people think he was given too much time by the BBC. Personally, I think he was given enough time to hang himself. Listen again to Call Kaye here. Dr Simpson thinks most of the pensioners in the country are addicted to cheap vodka....he must hope Scotland is too inebriated to notice his inconsistency and opportunisim.

Incidently, the SNP proposal did not come out of thin air. It was based on research by the World Health Organisation . The WHO studied policies aimed at reducing alcohol consumption around the world. It concluded that the most effective methods to reduce consumption were 1. Target at risk groups. 2. Control price. 3 Reduce access.

WHO said woolly approaches such as "improve education" were least effective.

The SNP followed WHO advice by addressing the three different points in these ways 1. Ban under 21s from off sales (eg target as risk groups). 2. Set a minimum unit price. 3. Introduce separate tills for alcohol at supermarkets. 

1 and 3 were killed off quickly and 2 was stopped yesterday.

There was a time when the Scottish divisions of London parties included a few folk who sincerely believed they were defending their country inside the UK. They were misguided but genuine. A few devolutionists were motivated by a sense of public service. Now, the plates have shifted. Nobody who watched yesterday's debate could believe those old time, pro-Scotland unionists still exist. The whole debate was an exercise in cynicism.  

See early articles in the Sunday Times and here

 

 

 

 

 

Spot the deliberate mistake above Edinburgh Castle

This is a stunning picture of Edinburgh Castle but can you spot the deliberate mistake? Yes, there is something not quite right about the flag. That's why I was delighted to sign the e-petition to the Scottish Parliament demanding that the Saltire fly above the most imposing landmark in our capital city. The puzzling thing is why it has gone on so long. For more about the saltire see my previous Sunday Times column on Gerard Burns's Christmas card here.

If you like the photograph, apart from the flag, you can see more of the photographer's work on the flickr photo-sharing site

 

Goodbye to all that

 
The Sunday Times Scotland, as we know it, is gone. The section I edited, Ecosse, was launched in 1995. I wrote the cover of the first edition. It was a re-imagining of Scotland had the Jacobites won the Battle of Culloden.  As I recall, Sean Connery was President because we were independent and - for reasons no longer clear - Michael Forsyth had ended up Prime Minister.

Ecosse gave all its staff the opportunity to write at length on matters close to home. In those early days I conducted a cover interview with the late Donald Dewar in which he confessed to never having owned a coat. We went to an Indian restaurant called the Killermount Polo Club which I imagined was his local but he said he found  "a bit too expensive".  He kindly offered a lift into town afterwards in his very modest car.  Donald died within a few years and his will showed him to be wealthy man. He was not so much "canny" as completely lacking in materialism.

I will always be grateful to The Sunday Times for giving me space to write columns that were pro-independence. I could cast a critical eye on the country, but always with the presumption that we'd be better off outside The Union. My work has covered everything from the cultural ubiquity of the Playboy bunny to the merits of education in the great outdoors. The Sunday Times style demands clear, direct writing. It loves wit and despites waffle. Self indulgent digressions and purple patches just wouldn't make the paper. The discipline of these restrictions helped me me develop as a writer from the day I joined in 1995. That's why I was happy to return in 2006 after spending five years as deputy editor of The Herald. The team of writers at Ecosse - Gillian Harris, Gillian Bowditch, Allan Brown, Anna Burnside and Rachel Devine made the job of editing a pleasure. So did working with photographers like Stuart Wallace whose picture features here.

Finding out you are about to lose your job - on the first day of the Conservative Liberal government - has a black humour about it. The "continuing economic uncertainty" was quoted as the reason. Given that we were market leader in Scotland, that gives you an idea of how bad things are. But nobody working in the newspaper industry expects a job for life and such events bring opportunities we might have considered too risky with the safety net of an annual salary.

The last few weeks were pressured - hence the sporadic nature of this blog. That will change, and Go Lassie Go will soon go even further. I have not abandoned the paper media either and you will see my by-line again very soon. 

PS If you want the LAST EVER Sunday Times Scotland featuring Ecosse you will need to BUY it. The online version has not been put up today. I would recommend highly that you do. There's a great piece by Stuart Cosgrove on why it's okay not to support England, an interview with Louise Welsh by Gillian Bowditch, Rachel Devine on the new album by McFall's Chamber, Anna Burnside on the launch of Glitterball to help Cancer Research and me on the Alcohol Bill. 

Calman or full fiscal powers for Scotland...the plates begin to move

A rare outbreak of consensus has appeared on the Scottish political scene. At least among the pundits, from various perspectives. Quite a few of us are a bit alarmed at the government's haste to get the Calman Commission proposals on to the statute book.  We now have the chance to get something more radical than the extra powers proposed, so please can someone tell the government?

 

 
ConDemNation are determined to play nice as far as Scotland is concerned, giving us back our share of the fossil fuel levy (maybe) allowing Scottish ministers to lead European talks that mainly concern us, and most significantly of all, shying away from plans to change Scotland’s funding formula to deliver a double cut in our budget.

So while they are still listening, let’s press for a funding formula that would please many more people north and south of the border. Fiscal  responsibility is the way forward. That is, the power not just to gather tax raised in Scotland, but to set it as well. Tax isn’t just about raising money, it's about encouraging people to behave in a certain way. Hence the extra tax on cars with higher carbon emissions or  tax breaks for industries we want to encourage, like renewables and the creative digital sector.  The Budget in London cannot address our specific problems because it is a blanket plan for the whole of the UK. The fact that we had two Scotsmen as Chancellor under the last Labour government made not a jot of difference. We need a Scottish Chancellor in Holyrood running our economy in the way that suits us best.

The Liberals have always been warm towards fiscal responsibility and their former chief executive Andy Myles spoke in favour of it last week. There are Tories who find it appealing as well, as do the SNP.  There are individuals within Labour who know it will benefit Scotland – Wendy Alexander springs to mind – they are unlikely to speak out in favour of anything that diminishes the power of the London party, which relies so much on Scotland to make up MP numbers.

 In my column today I urge the UK government to take a step back and give us something better.

James Mitchell, the Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University also backs this move, and, like myself, believes it is important to achieve a cross party consensus on it.

 

Kenny Farquharson also backs a more radical solution and points out that the presence of Gordon Brown's old schoolfriend Murray Elder on Calman was designed to reign it in from anything too radical.

 

All of us urge a more cross party push for more fiscal power - this is a rare opportunity for Scotland, and we need to get a plan in place before the Holyrood election next year .

 

For more detail on how a Scottish Exchequer might benefit us read the Fiscal Powers paper by James Aitken and Graeme Blackett published by Reform Scotland

 

For the dangers/shortcomings of Calman read this paper by the economists Andrew Hughes Hallett and Drew Scott . These two emminent professors have also produced their own alternative to Calman that they argue would boost economic growth in Scotland

Scottish firm gives Ava Gardner her bloom back

One of Ava Gardner's most alluring performances can be viewed in cinemas again from this week thanks to the Glasgow company Park Circus Films. Pandora and The Flying Dutchman has been restored by the company and is in UK cinemas from today. Much of the beauty of the Albert Lewin film is down to the skill of Jack Cardiff, who died last year aged 94, and was considered one of the greatest Technicolor cinematographers of his day. Writing in The Observer,  Philip French says the film, in which Gardner falls fatally for James Mason: "Draws on Dutch and Spanish painters as well as Giorgio de Chirico, and looks as if the colours were mixed on the screen".

Sounds amazing, though I cannot imagine anyone falling fatally for James Mason, let alone someone as stunning as Ava.  Look forward to having my mind changed at The Filmhouse in Edinburgh

Park Circus  have restored more than 12,000 classic movies, including Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life and From Russia With Love. Their managing director's ambition is to make going to the movies as special as going to the theatre. You can read my colleague Allan Brown's  feature on the company here in The Sunday Times Ecosse.

 

The man who thinks a £6bn deficit cut is chickenfeed

As the coalition talks chunter on, we keep getting told that the markets demand strong government to hasten deficit reduction. Translate the markets into the money men who caused the problem in the first placed - and who will not be suffering as a result of any austerity programme. (Why did they get off so lightly in the election campaign anyway?) Still, it was refreshing to hear one of the money men break ranks this weekend and tell my colleague Gillian Bowditch that we are over-reacting to the financial crisis. Martin Gilbert of Aberdeen Asset Management - the biggest independent fund manager in Europe, said:

" As for the deficit, it suits them all to say how bad it is.” He believes that the situation is not as bad as has been painted. Suggestions that we may turn into another Greece if the new chancellor does not get to grips with the economy quickly are overblown, he says. In fact, compared with most businessmen, he is positively optimistic. “Our debt as a percentage of GDP is less than Germany’s,” he says. “The problem is the deficit, not the level of debt. As long as we cut the deficit, we’re okay. As for fears over the £6 billion that the Conservatives intend to cut from the budget this year, Gilbert is sanguine.“All three parties would have been constrained on public expenditure. They are all going to have to cut. The only difference between them is that the Conservatives want to cut £6 billion straight away. It’s such a small amount of money in terms of the deficit, in terms of where we are, it’s tiny — a rounding error — but everyone is making a meal of it.”

For the full article go to The Gillian Bowditch profile in Sunday Times Ecosse

As a post-script, I keep reading the Clegg and Cameron are making deficit reduction the priority in their talks. Wonder if that means Clegg is insisting that the Tories postpone the worst cuts till next year to let the economy recover? Both he and Vince Cable were adamant about this during the campaign. Then, again, there is talk of six cabinet seats...maybe that's the price of a double dip recession for the Lib Dems. As well as selling out on electoral reform of course.

We have seen the future: it involves powdered egg

 If you are one of the many with election ennui, you probably take some comfort knowing it will soon be over. The politicians will no longer hide behind slogans and refuse to reveal exactly how they will reduce the UK’s terrifying £789 billion debt burden. We got a hint of it last week from Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, who confided to an American economist who then blurted to an Australian television presenter: Britain will experience a level of austerity last seen during the second world war. So there you have it, albeit third-hand from the Aussies: we have seen the future and it involves powdered egg.

Except for viewers in Scotland, to adapt a phrase used in those televised leaders’ debates. We will remain in election mode because we have another vote, for Holyrood, next year. The grinding war of attrition will go on — and so will the fudge, evasion and simply not telling it like it is. For the rest of this article go to The Sunday Times here

Going Underground

Depending on the outcome of the election next week, some of you may feel the need to hide away. If so I can recommend going underground on the island of South Uist. If you still have a job that offers paid holidays...