Go Lassie Go

Honest John v the toadies

The Scottish parliament debate on the Tartan Tax was dispiriting to watch. Far from seeking clarification in the interests of the people they serve, the opposition parties all indulged in point scoring about an issue they didn't actually care about. Far from "allowing the Scottish tax powers to lapse", it seems that the SNP in 2007 inherited a system which was inoperable, at least according to what HMRC told them at the time. I think the word used was "mothballed". But rather than address this rather important new fact, the opposition ploughed on with pre-prepared spontaneous hysteria.

It is pretty obvious from John Swinney's statement that there was a long and protracted row between his officials and those at HMRC over the latter's demands that the Scottish government should pay for a portion of the upgrade of the tax authority's IT systems. The convention normally is that when a Whitehall department makes a change that affects devolved administrations, it is the Whitehall department who pays for it. There are important issues here. To concede to HMRC demands would have set a dangerous precedent. For example can HMRC think-of-a-number any time they like in relation to Scotland? What will they charge to implement Calman, which is based on income tax collected in Scotland (not, of course the important stuff like corporation tax, whisky and oil revenue). So the London Treasury continues to rob us blind and then charge us whatever they like.  If Scotland moved to full economic powers with taxes still collected by HMRC, would they hold us over a barrel again? The Revenue is clunky, confused and tangled - and  will fight to control every twisted tentacle of its operation.

Perhaps the opposition parties believe you do business by gifting your opponent a gun to hold to your head. After all, that's how Labour and Liberal Democrat gave us a parliament building which over-ran its original cost by several hundred million. The contract was open ended. Same goes for the Edinburgh trams, another Labour/ Lib Dem pet project. Nor did Labour, Liberal Democrat and Tory have any problem handing public contracts to PFI consortiums who will charge us from here to eternity for schools and hospitals. Good Housekeeping is not their strong point.

The other completely duplicitous aspect of opposition argument today was the accusation that Swinney had somehow conspired to strip the parliament of its miniscule tax power and then stage a cover-up. What on earth would the nationalists have to gain from this? What could their motive possibly be? As the opposition well know there was no ulterior motive. Going public would have been a winner for the SNP politically. But Swinney is not in the business of picking fights and breaching confidential negotiations for political gain. Even when the row culminated in a £7m demand by London this year, Swinney felt it would have been discourteous to speak out on the disagreement, clearly hoping it could be resolved. This says a lot about the man and how he operates. He earned the nickname Honest John for a reason. It's something his opponents today could learn from. Calling him a liar is totally unacceptable and will be seen as such. Swinney's budget statement contained a formal phrase about the SVR. So did the budget statements of Gordon Brown, Alastair Darling and the Comprehensive Spending Review of George Osborne. All mentioned the tartan tax as an option. If Swinney was "lying" so were they, as they too knew about the HMRC position. They were all telling the truth because the tax power still exists, it has not lapsed. London is refusing us the machinery to exercise that power (if we wanted, which we don't).

The Scottish Secretary Michael Moore proved himself a far less honourable man than Swinney when he delibrately triggered this row with his "open letter". Ostensibly, his job is to represent Scotland in Westminster - something he has done singularly badly as he is about to present a Scotland Bill that will cut our budget by another £900m a year. But this pretendy part of the job is a figleaf anyway. Moore's raison d'etre is to undermine the Scottish government at every turn, no matter the level of duplicity involved. Moore is trying to distract attention from the cost and flaws of Calman. On several occasions Tavish Scott has tried to spin tartan tax row into an attack on fiscal autonomy eg "the SNP, which bangs on about giving more powers to this parliament, give away the one it already has etc etc..." Given that fiscal autonomy is about taking full control of the economic levers in a way that benefits the people of Scotland, there is no comparison. The tartan tax is so small, that some estimate the cost of implementing it would cancel out any money it raised.

This week the Liberal Democrats had an even more pressing embarrassment than Calman to cope with - the student demonstrations against tuition fees in England. Tavish Scott fulminated away about SVR as students in London were prevented by massed police lines from demonstrating outside the Liberal Democrat head quarters. (Didn't hear much LibDem talk of civil liberties then, eh?)

This was one occasion to be pleased that the BBC national news led with an England-only issue. Nick Clegg's hypocrisy was the big UK story of the day. They even demonstrated on his home turf of Sheffield where at the General Election, students had queued outside polling stations for hours to back him. Then came Reporting Scotland whose viewers must have wondered what on earth was going on in their own parliament. All this sound and fury about nothing more significant than an obsolete,  tax...which Labour and The Tories never wanted the Scots to have in the first place.

Any viewer who persevered may have been more struck by Swinney's edited highlight - he didn't want to hand £7m of Scotland's money to HMRC, an organisation whose incompetence had lead to tens of thousands of people paying the wrong amounts of tax. Sounds reasonable to me...and millions of others I imagine.  

For a detailed narrative on how the tartan tax story has been distorted day-to-day please go to Moridura 

 Alan Trench at Devolution Matters has just filed an excellent explanation about how The Treasury deals with devolved governments  inadequately. Trench is an academic and politically non aligned. He is incredibly knowledgable about the detail of how government works and this piece is invaluable.

 

Snapping our taxes. Should Cameron employ his official photographer?

There will be a few raised eyebrows at the news that the campaign photographer used by UK Prime Minister David Cameron is to join the civil servants' payroll. At times of austerity should the state pay for more intimate-yet-flattering pics of Dave and his lovely family? (The government insist the photographer will work across all Whitehall departments).

My view on this might surprise readers. Given that all governments employ politicised advisors [SpAds], often to present policy in the media, I cannot see why this appointment should be any more controversial. We live in a visual culture in which the image often gets more attention than the written word. An official photographer with special access also plays a role in laying down a historical record. Nobody thought twice about informal pictures of Barack Obama and his family as they prepared for inauguration day. In fact, the Whitehouse has its own flickr photostream. These days it seems to show endless pictures of a troubled President on the telephone...

An embedded snapper will never show the whole picture. An unposed picture can be more misleading that the old fashioned formal handouts. It was selected by PR people. The photographer may have been directed. We are unlikely ever to see Sam Cam or the Obamas having a row. These images have the power to manipulate us. They do have worth, but we must remember the circumstances and power-relationships behind their creation.

This is why it remains so important for press photographers to do their jobs, even if that occasionally risks intrusion. One of the best political pictures of the last two decades was taken in a public space by a snapper surrounded by newspaper colleagues who failed to get the same shot. He glanced up at a gauze curtain in time to to see - and capture - a tearful Margaret Thatcher take her last look from the Downing Street window the day she left office. I once worked with the photographer on a less glamorous job. He was freelance, and told me the Number 10 picture earned more money than every other shot he took that year. Despite its impact at the time, I have been unable to find a link to it. The internet means we have an infinity of images at our disposal. But how many are memorable? 

When should we hold a referendum?

SNP may drop 'referendum plans'

(UKPA) – 2 hours ago

The SNP Government may be set to drop plans to hold a referendum on Scottish independence before next year's elections, it has been confirmed.

The issue will come under discussion at next week's meeting of Alex Salmond's cabinet, but the First Minister accepts the proposed vote is likely to be voted down by opposition parties at Holyrood.

Instead, he wants to make it a central issue in next May's Scottish Parliament Holyrood election campaign.

Copyright © 2010 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

_______________________________________________________________________

The above is a story put out by the Press Association today. Some might think it is hypothetical, given that the unionist parties have vowed to vote down the referendum bill in The Scottish Parliament - despite polls which show the majority of Scots in favour of a referendum. Even the inclusion of a question on full economic powers within the UK has not persuaded them. Why are they so afraid of the Scottish people? And why are the Liberals imposing an AV referendum on us but denying us one on our country's future? 

But postponing the bill until after the election would be a high risk strategy.  My own preference would be to find a way to consult the people despite unionist opposition. Then we can put independence at the heart of the debate between now and the election.

Independence is the only alternative to meekly following the Tory agenda, which as well as cutting, gives us no power to grow our own economy. Full economic powers will allow us to do that, but they are in the gift of London while independence is for us to claim ourselves.  At the moment the government in London is offering Scotland nothing except the flawed and damaging Calman proposals - a shameful indictment of the Liberals who appear to have sold out their own longstanding commitment to far more extensive devolution, as outlined in The Steel Commission.

We know one thing about the outcome of a three question referendum - very few will vote for the status quo. The majority will favour independence or full economic powers. That will put the government at Westminster under serious pressure and will change the relationship with Holyrood. But can we afford to wait until after the 2011 election? All views are welcome - for more on the subject you might enjoy this piece by Kevin Williamson

Wikipedia enters anti-Scottish BBC radio row

 Was rather flattered - and a little perplexed - to find Jimmy Wales following me on Twitter the other day. The founder of Wikipedia is one of Time magazine's most influential people in the world, but not know for taking a close interest in Scottish politics. Until now. Wiki has entered the row over anti-Scottish comments on the BBC's Any Questions programme on Radio Four. Someone tried to include Baroness Deech's broadcast comments about Scots in her wiki entry. Wales objected because he argued that it unbalanced her short entry and that this one incident did not justify that. (The discussion provides a fascinating insight into how wiki checks material ) Wales, and some other wiki editors, also questioned whether this really was a row since nothing had appeared in the mainstream media. This struck me as fascinating given that wiki itself has had to fight for recognition. Certainly the web is jumping with conspiracy theorists and unbalanced commentary so must be treated with caution - especially when it comes to serious allegations. However in Scotland the internet is increasingly used as an outlet by a significant section of the population who feel the media does not represent their point of view. It was also disappointing that the wiki editors took the audience response to the comments by Deech and her fellow guest Douglas Murray to be evidence of approval - and confirmation that they were uncontroversial. Wiki editors clearly do not understand that the approval of an English audience in Sutton Coldfield, a leafy suburb of Birmingham does not reflect Scottish opinion - something even the BBC seems to acknowledge in its standard reply to complaints here. 

I was caught up in the wiki discussion as the only MSM journalist to comment on the story - in The Scotsman - and am cited as a reliable source confirming that some folk are not too happy with Deech, Murray and the BBC. Alas, because I do not (yet) have a wiki entry, there is some debate over the significance of my intervention. I felt obliged to correct details of my CV, on the wiki discussion page, but resisted the temptation to get really petty and point out I have 870 Twitter followers compared to Baroness Deech's paltry 104. Jimmy Wales has 18,655 so is unlikely to be impressed...

If you still don't know what all the fuss is about, here is an abridged version of my Scotsman column. I should, however, point out that the story was first highlighted by Newsnet Scotland and then shared extensively around the web.

BBC failing Scots by allowing prejudice on air

Greg Dyke once described the BBC as “the glue that binds the nation together” But can that really be the case?  For the last ten days or so, a protest has been building on the internet, and social networks like facebook and twitter, as a result of an extraordinary outburst of intolerance on Any Questions, the flagship Radio Four current affairs show. One of the panelists who caused the most offence was Baroness Ruth Deech, a former governor of the corporation. The other was Douglas Murray a polemicist whose precocity is matched only by his talent for self-promotion. They were discussing the release of the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing when Deech launched into what can only be described as an rant. She is an academic and lawyer best known for chairing the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Yet her language was intemperate in the extreme, like a Jeremy Clarkson column without the jokes: “It’s been very embarrassing for the rest of us. And it started me thinking along these lines, if Scotland wants to be independent, OK, be my guest, go ahead.....go off on your own, because actually, we're all subsidising them I think, by way of benefits and all sorts of reasons." 

Murray a young neocon who is expected to shock, went further: “There is not very much to do if you are the Scottish Justice Secretary in a devolved Scottish Assembly. You can at least read the one important bit of news that comes across your desk in the last five years. The problem that I think the most galling thing about this whole thing is this pretend, horrible, charade building in Edinburgh called the Scottish Parliament and the horrible charade politicians who inhabit it and who occasionally crawl out of the darkness and explain something to the rest of us, as if we’ve never thought of moral questions before." He went on to describe Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond as “horrible grandstanding, Mickey Mouse politicians,” and mocked suggestions that the Scots were a compassionate people.

If Britain really was one nation under the flag, it didn’t seem that way in the Birmingham suburb from where the show was broadcast. These were not the comments of maverick oddballs. The audience cheered, applauded and laughed with Deech and Murray. It was the aural terrain more often inhabited by shock jocks and went further than attacking Salmond, MacAskill or the devolved settlement. It was Scotophobia writ large. Can you imagine a serious Radio Four Show getting away with similar comments about the Irish Dail? Would it be acceptable to describe the Major of London as  “crawling out of the darkness”? It would be unthinkable because, from a metropolitan perspective, Boris presides over the centre of the universe. Edinburgh and Scotland are on the dark side. Compare the silence over this incident to the blanket coverage, in England and Scotland, of any anglophobic incident during the World Cup Finals, where the word racist is often bandied about. Where are the phone in shows devoted to Scotophobia?

Given that 90% of the population of the UK resides in England, it is, perhaps understandable that the views (prejudices?) of the majority will be indulged, even on Radio Four. Two YouGov polls, one in 2007 another earlier this year, showed that around two thirds of English people think Scotland is subsidised by the rest of the UK.  Only 12% of Scots agree. There is an alternative version of Scottish English power relations that is very seldom heard on "national" talk shows, even north of the border. It would include the fact that Scotland is entitled to 95% of the oil revenues that have made Britain rich these last 30 years – a fact pointed out most recently by the Nobel Prizewinning World Bank Economist Joseph Stiglitz. There is the 1970s government-commissioned McCrone Report which  predicted an independent Scotland could become fabulously wealthy. It was classified and kept secret for 30 years. There is the fact that the official  government statistics GERS, published earlier this year show Scotland in surplus by £1.3billion in 2008-2009.We can argue the details, or course. But we seldom get the chance because a consensus appears to have been manufactured suggesting that Scotland is the poor, ignorant sponger up north. It is strange, isn't it, that neocon and anti-Scottish views like those expressed by Deech and Murray seem terribly familiar. The alternative, Scottish nationalist view, seems radical and unusual because it is so seldom given a platform. It is kept outside the mainstream, separate from the manufactured consenus. Note the decision to exclude the SNP from the leaders debates with dominated the General Election. It’s difficult to see how the BBC, so heavily weighted towards the centre of population, can tell two opposing stories at once. As a national glue, it's getting a bit tacky.

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

What if Swinney's plan works?

John Swinney last night said he was likely to defer the Con-Lib cuts until next year. Presumably his Liberal and Labour opponents in Holyrood cannot complain about this since it was the position they campaigned for in the UK election eg cuts this year will damage recovery.  

It is important to remember that this does not constitute the injection of cash the SNP wanted in order to boost recovery. Unlike the US, Britain has no stimulus plan. Without economic powers of its own - not even borrowing powers - the Scottish parliament cannot have a stimulus plan either.

This move by Swinney is the minimum he is allowed to do and it is Westminster's gift. If the plan works, Scotland's economy will pick up, more people will be in work, businesses perhaps will make modest profits or expand. This is the best case scenario. But we will not directly reap the benefit of our increased tax take.  We will get a double whammy cut in our block grant next year calculated on the performance of a UK economy that could be back on the critical list. 

It's a brilliant illustration of how Scotland is served poorly by the current constitutional arrangements.

The sooner we have full economic powers in Scotland the better.

The Big Lie

 

How will Labour cope without Jim Murphy's sustaining presence in the Scotland Office? Murphy was the minister that online activists love to loathe, probably for the same reason that many Labour apparatchiks get all foamy at the mouth when Alex Salmond comes on the telly - both are extremely effective politicians. Murphy was always ready with a leaked document (remember the Queen's paths debacle?) and a stage managed announcement (publicly "saving" the missile tracking jobs when the local MP had done all the work). He was the first Labour Scottish Secretary who made it his job to campaign for and with the party in Holyrood.

One thing he will leave behind is Big Lie politics. This is something I wrote about in the column a few weeks ago but didn't post. Big Lie is the propaganda technique where you choose a lie so audacious the public think you would not dare make it up. Then you repeat it continually until they believe it. George Orwell, in his novel 1984, suggests the Big Lie could involve telling fibs while convincing yourself it is true — the famous doublethink. Examples would be Labour's recent claims about health service cuts, and, during the election campaign, the claim that the SNP would support the Tories. You could also add the audacious lie that voting Labour was the way to keep out a Tory government. Or the promise of 100,000 new Scottish jobs from Labour during the campaign. How? 

Orwell’s Big Lie demanded the omission of any fact that had become inconvenient, hence, during the election campaign and its immediate aftermath, Labour ignored the Lib Dems who WERE talking to the Tories, to attack the nationalists, who vowed they would not. In historical terms, the biggest Big Lie of all is that Scotland is too poor to sustain itself alone. Or that Europe would not allow an independent Scotland into the club of which it is already a member.

Anyone unfamiliar with Scottish politics might be confused at the vitriol Labour and the Lib Dems pour on the SNP given that all three are left-leaning, social democratic outfits. This is the killer fact you never hear. Labour and the Lib Dems must preserve The Union for their own political advantage. Their respective political parties would both be devastated by the loss of their Celtic power bases. Without a block of Scottish seats, Labour cannot rule England, unless under PR. The Scottish Lib Dem wedge is smaller, but also has a  disproportionate influence on the national reorganization. Indeed, they now rule England - at least in coalition  - with help from their substantial Scottish block. And England is the prize, as far as these parties are concerned. Securing Scotland is simply a means to an end.

Big Lie politics is self-serving. It is ruthless. It springs from desperation. But often, it works. 

Haven't we seen these health cuts before somewhere...?

To even the circumspect end of the media it was a “ruthless cost-cutting drive”. To Labour in Holyrood, it was all Alex Salmond’s fault. These were SNP cuts. In Scotland, please remember it is not good enough to use the cuts word once. It’s cuts . . . cuts . . . cuts ... Iain Gray has a habit of presenting all his arguments in triplicate . . . very slowly.

 This is an extract from my column in  today's Sunday Times Scotland. Following on from First Minister's Questions I look at why health boards are restructuring despite receiving inflation-proof budget rises. Though the Scotland and England health services are run separately, some of the difficulties they face are uncannily similar...probably because the same government ran them in both countries from 1997 to 2007.

Also, if you thought the behaviour of certain MSPs during the FMQs on health was disgraceful, you will enjoy reading Rab McNeil in the Caledonian Mercy. Also in The Mercury, Jennifer Trueland ignores the hysteria to explain some of the managerial processes behind changes in the health services.

The inevitable outcome of that x-factor election

With thanks to Charles for sending this.... 

Democracy and deficit reduction. Is the media asking the right questions?

A consensus seems to have emerged in public life that our deficit is an enormous problem and the only way to clear it is by cutting vital public services. You so seldom hear a well constructed alternative argument. Professor Greg Philo, of the highly respected Glasgow University Media Group, has a different perspective. Here is an unpublished letter he sent to a national newspaper.

 

Each time I turn on the BBC I hear that difficult decisions have to be made, by whoever is elected. This comes down to: Do we want to give all our money to pay for the bankers this year or would we rather wait a bit? In all this debate no one has asked the obvious questions of how much wealth there is in the country, and who is best able to pay.

The focus groups which we conduct, light up when such issues are raised, but heaven forbid that politicians should be asked about such indelicate topics. The total UK wealth is £ 9 thousand billion, the top 20% own between 5 and 6 thousand billion of this, nearly all in property and pensions.*

Remember in a single year the denizens of the city paid themselves £21 billion in bonus payments and now we know where these went. The deficit is a mere £150 billion or thereabouts. But instead of discussing who could pay without missing it too much, public debate is constrained to issues like vat rises, which would hurt the poorest, who have no wealth, only debts.

Or alternatively we can choose if we want less schools and hospitals or more potholes. The class who caused all this will not be bothered in the least by the consequences of their actions, let alone be told on the BBC that they should pay for them.

Professor Greg Philo
Glasgow University Media Group

 

 If you like this you might also like Gary Younge in the Guardian who questions the ratings agencies threat to downgrade 

countries unless they cut.  He points out that these agencies gave top marks to financial institutions who gambled away other people's money and required the state to bail them out. The ratings agencies are funded by those same banks. Am I the only person to feel  queazy as young analysts from The City tell TV viewers "prepare to suffer" - or the market will punish you.

 

As Gary puts it so well

 

It's as though you borrowed money against your home to save a wayward relative from penury only to have them roll up a week later in a brand new Porsche and tell you to cut your food bill or they'll repossess the property.