On the evening of Saturday, 7th December 2013, the Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP said kitten, and the world changed forever.
In an intellectually-coherent and devastatingly powerful rebuttal to the argument that staying in the UK as a form of "solidarity" with the poor of England doesn't work because the populous south of England keeps voting for governments that continually widen the gap between rich and poor in Scotland as well as in England, Alexander explained that things would be totally different in future because of kitten.
And in a minutely-detailed and highly plausible prospectus, Alexander pledged that Labour would transform the governance of Scotland after a No vote by doing kitten.
The Scottish press were understandably wonderstruck. Editorials were united in declaring that kitten was a game-changer, and had opened up a "new phase" in the referendum campaign.
Scotland on Sunday's Kenny Farquharson noted that, while No voters constitute a fixed point in space/time and have effectively already cast their ballots, Yes voters are entirely different and are now likely to drift away in huge numbers due to the potency of kitten. "It's no great surprise to hear Scot Nats dismiss kitten - the very fact that they're Scot Nats means that they don't understand the emotional pull of kitten. But their own voters do feel the pull, and that disconnect could prove fatal for Yes."
Faced with imminent calamity, rattled SNP chiefs hurriedly dreamed up puppy as a response to kitten. After being told of this, anti-independence campaign figurehead Alistair Darling could only shake his head, more in anger than in sorrow. "Puppy? Puppy? PUPPY?! Is that it? The SNP have had 79 years to come up with a case for independence, and it's puppy??? This just won't cut it with the people of Scotland, I'm afraid. They want facts, they want details, they want a comprehensive explanation for the origins of the universe. I'm very, very angry about puppy."
A blustering Alex Salmond was reduced to asking where Mr Darling's positive case for the union was, which provoked a degree of incredulity among the Scottish press. "Quite simply, it's no longer good enough for the Nats to complain that we haven't seen a positive case for the union yet," explained Farquharson. "We now have kitten and it's sensational. The SNP's credibility depends upon acknowledging that fact. Once they've accepted the indisputable premise of kitten, then perhaps they'll be worth listening to again, and we can at last have a grown-up debate about independence."
Asked for a comment on puppy, Farquharson rolled his eyes to the heavens and muttered "for the love of Jesus".
Showing posts with label Douglas Alexander. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Douglas Alexander. Show all posts
Monday, December 9, 2013
Monday, March 26, 2012
Hankering after a socialist alternative is incompatible with British nationalism, I'm afraid
Kevin McKenna in the Observer, arguing that Scottish Labour should combat the SNP by getting back to its socialist roots -
"Douglas Alexander, the shadow secretary for foreign and commonwealth affairs, seems to have sensed this. Already, in two recent speeches in Scotland, he has tried to light a torch for Labour in Scotland. He has conceded that the SNP's heart is probably in the right place in relation to social justice and inclusion. But that these ideas will always be of secondary importance to a party which is hellbent on destroying the United Kingdom. Even if the UK was an enlightened and socially diverse Xanadu where every institution was underpinned by social justice and private corporate greed was punished and reviled, the SNP would still claim that Scots were downtrodden and enslaved."
First of all, can anyone remember the last time the SNP claimed the Scots were "enslaved"? If the party really did hold such a belief, it would probably be organising an uprising, not running a democratically-elected devolved government and calmly preparing the ground to win a democratic referendum on independence. So a direct quote from the SNP leadership might be in order the next time Kevin feels moved to embark on such a flight of fancy.
As for the priorities that ensure a belief in social justice can only be of secondary importance, I'd suggest that we could start by looking at a boneheaded commitment to Scotland remaining within the United Kingdom regardless of circumstance. After all, why is it that the United Kingdom not only fails to be a "Xanadu" of social justice, but is always bound to fall further short of that ideal than an independent Scotland would? Because it's a state with an in-built centre-right majority. It's not merely that Tory governments are the norm in the UK (whereas they plainly wouldn't be in an independent Scotland), it's also the character of the supposedly 'progressive' interludes between the long spells of Tory rule. Is Kevin not capable of spotting the irony that it's Douglas Alexander making these arguments? A man who was part of a Labour government that only made it into power by tacking well to the right to appeal to voters in the south of England, thus ensuring that we've had wall-to-wall right-of-centre governments at Westminster for the last thirty-three years.
In a nutshell, my question to Kevin is this - how do you imagine that Scottish Labour will ever get back to its roots, without first ditching its own British nationalism to which the cause of social justice will always play second-fiddle? Haven't you noticed that many people who support independence do so precisely because they believe in social justice?
"The Labour movement is essentially internationalist in nature; it ought not to place child poverty in Scotland above child poverty in the rest of the world as the SNP seeks to do."
Tell me, Kevin - when did a Labour government ever place just as much importance on child poverty in Istanbul at it did on child poverty in London? Did the Attlee government do that? Nope. And why not? Because it was a British nationalist government, and its nationalism was no more or less morally objectionable than anything the SNP currently propose. This is such an obviously irrefutable point that it's hard to understand how McKenna and Alexander can keep churning out their high-minded nonsense with a straight face, and yet on they trundle.
"Next year the Scottish government will establish a new single police force for Scotland. This will be a sinister and deeply troubling development in modern Scotland. Effectively, we are creating a national militia under the command of a superannuated plod who is not elected, will have very little accountability and has a good attendance record at the local ludge."
He may or may not have a point there. I've never been able to work out what I think about a single police force - every time I ponder the idea I'm hopelessly distracted by the memory of Tavish Scott walking menacingly down a street, intoning the words "save our p'lice".
"Douglas Alexander, the shadow secretary for foreign and commonwealth affairs, seems to have sensed this. Already, in two recent speeches in Scotland, he has tried to light a torch for Labour in Scotland. He has conceded that the SNP's heart is probably in the right place in relation to social justice and inclusion. But that these ideas will always be of secondary importance to a party which is hellbent on destroying the United Kingdom. Even if the UK was an enlightened and socially diverse Xanadu where every institution was underpinned by social justice and private corporate greed was punished and reviled, the SNP would still claim that Scots were downtrodden and enslaved."
First of all, can anyone remember the last time the SNP claimed the Scots were "enslaved"? If the party really did hold such a belief, it would probably be organising an uprising, not running a democratically-elected devolved government and calmly preparing the ground to win a democratic referendum on independence. So a direct quote from the SNP leadership might be in order the next time Kevin feels moved to embark on such a flight of fancy.
As for the priorities that ensure a belief in social justice can only be of secondary importance, I'd suggest that we could start by looking at a boneheaded commitment to Scotland remaining within the United Kingdom regardless of circumstance. After all, why is it that the United Kingdom not only fails to be a "Xanadu" of social justice, but is always bound to fall further short of that ideal than an independent Scotland would? Because it's a state with an in-built centre-right majority. It's not merely that Tory governments are the norm in the UK (whereas they plainly wouldn't be in an independent Scotland), it's also the character of the supposedly 'progressive' interludes between the long spells of Tory rule. Is Kevin not capable of spotting the irony that it's Douglas Alexander making these arguments? A man who was part of a Labour government that only made it into power by tacking well to the right to appeal to voters in the south of England, thus ensuring that we've had wall-to-wall right-of-centre governments at Westminster for the last thirty-three years.
In a nutshell, my question to Kevin is this - how do you imagine that Scottish Labour will ever get back to its roots, without first ditching its own British nationalism to which the cause of social justice will always play second-fiddle? Haven't you noticed that many people who support independence do so precisely because they believe in social justice?
"The Labour movement is essentially internationalist in nature; it ought not to place child poverty in Scotland above child poverty in the rest of the world as the SNP seeks to do."
Tell me, Kevin - when did a Labour government ever place just as much importance on child poverty in Istanbul at it did on child poverty in London? Did the Attlee government do that? Nope. And why not? Because it was a British nationalist government, and its nationalism was no more or less morally objectionable than anything the SNP currently propose. This is such an obviously irrefutable point that it's hard to understand how McKenna and Alexander can keep churning out their high-minded nonsense with a straight face, and yet on they trundle.
"Next year the Scottish government will establish a new single police force for Scotland. This will be a sinister and deeply troubling development in modern Scotland. Effectively, we are creating a national militia under the command of a superannuated plod who is not elected, will have very little accountability and has a good attendance record at the local ludge."
He may or may not have a point there. I've never been able to work out what I think about a single police force - every time I ponder the idea I'm hopelessly distracted by the memory of Tavish Scott walking menacingly down a street, intoning the words "save our p'lice".
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Devo Maxers for Indy?
After I posted my planned submission to the UK government's consultation on an independence referendum, a commenter pointed out that Westminster can hardly be trusted to accurately summarise the results of consultations, in the light of the Spartacus Report. I don't necessarily think that's an argument against taking part, but it's certainly an argument in favour of making sure that submissions are as watertight and as immune to misrepresentation as humanly possible. Having since sent my submission off, the one thing that does bug me slightly is my response to Question 8, asking about the question or questions to be posed in the referendum. I think in retrospect that before making the point that it should be exclusively a matter for the Scottish Parliament to decide upon, I should have first spelt out in crystal-clear fashion that it was my own personal view that there should be an additional devo max question. After the jiggery-pokery identified by Spartacus, it's not too hard to imagine the people who simply say it should be up to the Scottish Parliament being defined as part of "the 74% (or whatever) of respondents who expressed no interest in a second question", which would then grotesquely be used as a justification for Westminster legislating to ban the Scottish Parliament from adding a second question! So just a cautionary thought for anyone planning to make their own submission (which I would still urge you to do).
This particular subject is vitally important, because if by any chance we do end up with a single-question referendum as a result of Westminster interference, there's a massive opportunity for the SNP if they can win the 'battle of perceptions'. Potential devo max supporters who come to realise that it was Cameron and Osborne who denied them the chance to have a say on their preferred option may well be more likely than they otherwise would have been to plump for full independence in a two-way forced choice. Who knows, we might even see a "Devo Maxers for Indy" campaign!
* * *
I haven't yet followed the practice of other bloggers by putting a "things people have said about me" section in the sidebar, but if I ever do I'm going to give pride of place to the following 'testimonial' from the ever-delightful CyberYoonYoonist 'Moniker of Monza', and put it under the heading "Yet Another Reason Why I Support Independence" :
"You're a typical Brit, a product of the Empire. You can call yourself Scottish if you wish but you aren't."
* * *
Staying on the subject of the nutters over at PB, they of course overwhelmingly have a fawning attitude towards the US as a "beacon of freedom" (translation : hard-right conservatism). So it suddenly dawned on me that if Richard Nabavi ever has another bash at his rather desperate line of argument that the SNP want "children" to take part in the independence referendum, it'll be easy enough to direct him to the many examples of US states that allow "children" (ie. 17-year-olds) to vote in presidential primary elections. If it's a good enough way to choose the holder of the most powerful office on this planet, I'd say it's good enough for the decision on independence.
* * *
The other night on Question Time, Douglas Alexander trotted out the line that independence would "make the English foreigners", which presumably is going to be one of the 'appeals to the heart' during the referendum campaign. But for the answer to that charge we need look no further than the title of one of the great UK offices of state, the 'Foreign and Commonwealth Office'. By the UK government's own definition, therefore, Commonwealth countries (of which an independent Scotland will be one) are not "foreign" to each other, as they indicate by having High Commissions in each other's capitals, as opposed to embassies.
In any case, Ireland is not even a Commonwealth country. When Douglas visits Dublin and looks around at people, does he really only see "Johnny Foreigner" staring back at him? What a narrow (if I may say so) view of the world...
This particular subject is vitally important, because if by any chance we do end up with a single-question referendum as a result of Westminster interference, there's a massive opportunity for the SNP if they can win the 'battle of perceptions'. Potential devo max supporters who come to realise that it was Cameron and Osborne who denied them the chance to have a say on their preferred option may well be more likely than they otherwise would have been to plump for full independence in a two-way forced choice. Who knows, we might even see a "Devo Maxers for Indy" campaign!
* * *
I haven't yet followed the practice of other bloggers by putting a "things people have said about me" section in the sidebar, but if I ever do I'm going to give pride of place to the following 'testimonial' from the ever-delightful CyberYoonYoonist 'Moniker of Monza', and put it under the heading "Yet Another Reason Why I Support Independence" :
"You're a typical Brit, a product of the Empire. You can call yourself Scottish if you wish but you aren't."
* * *
Staying on the subject of the nutters over at PB, they of course overwhelmingly have a fawning attitude towards the US as a "beacon of freedom" (translation : hard-right conservatism). So it suddenly dawned on me that if Richard Nabavi ever has another bash at his rather desperate line of argument that the SNP want "children" to take part in the independence referendum, it'll be easy enough to direct him to the many examples of US states that allow "children" (ie. 17-year-olds) to vote in presidential primary elections. If it's a good enough way to choose the holder of the most powerful office on this planet, I'd say it's good enough for the decision on independence.
* * *
The other night on Question Time, Douglas Alexander trotted out the line that independence would "make the English foreigners", which presumably is going to be one of the 'appeals to the heart' during the referendum campaign. But for the answer to that charge we need look no further than the title of one of the great UK offices of state, the 'Foreign and Commonwealth Office'. By the UK government's own definition, therefore, Commonwealth countries (of which an independent Scotland will be one) are not "foreign" to each other, as they indicate by having High Commissions in each other's capitals, as opposed to embassies.
In any case, Ireland is not even a Commonwealth country. When Douglas visits Dublin and looks around at people, does he really only see "Johnny Foreigner" staring back at him? What a narrow (if I may say so) view of the world...
Friday, March 11, 2011
Seeking the gift of knowledge? Get a Ferrari.
"Let me tell you my background," said Nick Ferrari on tonight's Question Time from Edinburgh, when invited to offer some words of wisdom on the release of Megrahi. Given the gravity of his tone, I naturally expected I was about to learn that he had a position of some expertise on the matter. No, it turns out that he "has a show on LBC" and that irate Londoners have regularly been on the blower to tell him what a bloody awful thing those Jocks did. Yes, I think we get the picture, Nick. Later on, he authoritatively informed us that football doesn't cause half as much violence against women in England as it does in Scotland - he presumably knows this because Dave from the Office of National Statistics is a regular caller to his show. Clearly when I wondered aloud whether the link between Old Firm matches and incidents of domestic violence had been firmly established by statistical evidence I shouldn't have been looking towards academic research to provide the answers - Nick "The Encyclopedia" Ferrari was my man.
As for Douglas Alexander on the same show...well, I can only admire his brazenness. As he nodded furiously in response to Nicola Sturgeon's reminder that he had once described Megrahi's release as "stomach-churning", I wondered how on earth he was going to reconcile the reaffirmation of that view with the revelation that the UK Labour goverment of which he was part had wanted Megrahi released at all costs. Silly me - it turns out that it was merely the "scenes in Tripoli" after the release that he had been referring to as stomach-churning, and not the release itself. In that case, let's recap - the Labour government a) privately thought Megrahi's release was highly desirable, but b) thought (as did we all) that a triumphalist welcome in Tripoli was inappropriate. That being the case, wasn't it more within the Foreign Office's province to take steps to head off the latter problem, something they should have been in a position to do given Tony Blair's demonstrably close relationship with the Gaddafi regime?
Last but not least, we had David Dimbleby musing with a glint in his eye that Alex Salmond only likes to appear on Question Time when it is in England. Well, I can't claim to know for a fact why that is the case, but I'm prepared to hazard a confident guess. By my rough calculations, Question Time comes to Scotland somewhat less often than our 9% of the UK population would justify - the infamous show in Glasgow was a full four-and-a-half months ago, which even taking account of the Christmas break is a much longer gap than you'd expect. The producers can't really avoid having an SNP representative on during the Scottish editions, and Salmond may well have rightly calculated that his agreeing to appear only in non-Scottish editions is the sole way of ensuring that the party receives its fair share of participation on the programme. You can guarantee that if Salmond did routinely participate in the Scottish editions, there would have been no SNP representatives at all in shows recorded elsewhere. Not for the first time, it seems that Dimbleby is totally oblivious to the Anglocentric irony of his own bemusement.
As for Douglas Alexander on the same show...well, I can only admire his brazenness. As he nodded furiously in response to Nicola Sturgeon's reminder that he had once described Megrahi's release as "stomach-churning", I wondered how on earth he was going to reconcile the reaffirmation of that view with the revelation that the UK Labour goverment of which he was part had wanted Megrahi released at all costs. Silly me - it turns out that it was merely the "scenes in Tripoli" after the release that he had been referring to as stomach-churning, and not the release itself. In that case, let's recap - the Labour government a) privately thought Megrahi's release was highly desirable, but b) thought (as did we all) that a triumphalist welcome in Tripoli was inappropriate. That being the case, wasn't it more within the Foreign Office's province to take steps to head off the latter problem, something they should have been in a position to do given Tony Blair's demonstrably close relationship with the Gaddafi regime?
Last but not least, we had David Dimbleby musing with a glint in his eye that Alex Salmond only likes to appear on Question Time when it is in England. Well, I can't claim to know for a fact why that is the case, but I'm prepared to hazard a confident guess. By my rough calculations, Question Time comes to Scotland somewhat less often than our 9% of the UK population would justify - the infamous show in Glasgow was a full four-and-a-half months ago, which even taking account of the Christmas break is a much longer gap than you'd expect. The producers can't really avoid having an SNP representative on during the Scottish editions, and Salmond may well have rightly calculated that his agreeing to appear only in non-Scottish editions is the sole way of ensuring that the party receives its fair share of participation on the programme. You can guarantee that if Salmond did routinely participate in the Scottish editions, there would have been no SNP representatives at all in shows recorded elsewhere. Not for the first time, it seems that Dimbleby is totally oblivious to the Anglocentric irony of his own bemusement.
Friday, January 21, 2011
After Johnson
A few quick-fire reflections on the implications of Alan Johnson's departure as Shadow Chancellor...
1) Blairism is dead. Again. For now. And not within the coalition government, unfortunately. But worth a hearty cheer, all the same.
2) Labour's top team has lost its best communicator, and now looks a little less likeable and 'normal' in general.
3) Our assumption that the departure of Brown and Darling would mean that the Labour leadership looks much less Scottish than for decades isn't quite as true as we thought it would be.
4) On the other hand, Douglas Alexander now sticks out like a sore thumb as the most over-promoted shadow minister since...well, the Gold Standard that was David Mundell.
5) Cancel point 4. I was forgetting Liam Byrne.
1) Blairism is dead. Again. For now. And not within the coalition government, unfortunately. But worth a hearty cheer, all the same.
2) Labour's top team has lost its best communicator, and now looks a little less likeable and 'normal' in general.
3) Our assumption that the departure of Brown and Darling would mean that the Labour leadership looks much less Scottish than for decades isn't quite as true as we thought it would be.
4) On the other hand, Douglas Alexander now sticks out like a sore thumb as the most over-promoted shadow minister since...well, the Gold Standard that was David Mundell.
5) Cancel point 4. I was forgetting Liam Byrne.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Dimbleby and Dougie - grrrr
Without doubt one of the more infuriating editions of Question Time I've seen in recent times. For starters, what exactly was David Dimbleby's problem? Firstly, he goads Nicola Sturgeon in an utterly peculiar way about the high level of interest that a Scottish audience is taking in the misfortunes of a cabinet minister whose writ only runs in England. Well, at a rough guess, could that possibly be because the London media that Dimbleby is part of is hellbent on perpetuating the fiction of British political uniformity, thus leaving much of its Scottish audience utterly uninformed about the limits of the UK government's authority north of the border? You know, "Prime Ministerial Debates", that sort of thing?
Then at the end of the show he seemed to have a rather enormous bee in his bonnet about the suggestions that there was any problem at all with holding two ballots on the same day next May. Even after Sturgeon explained very clearly the background of the Gould Report, he was still determined to look tickled by the whole thing, citing the routine American practice of holding multiple ballots for a plethora of exotically unimportant posts. Well, I've a feeling I have a slight advantage over Dimbleby on that point - as I've mentioned before, I have dual US/UK nationality, meaning I'm entitled to vote in certain US elections. And I can tell him that even filling out the mammoth ballot form in the comfort of my own home has literally taken me two hours on occasions. Bearing that in mind, can he truly say with a straight face that combining ballots has no impact whatsoever on the democratic process? But as I pointed out a couple of days ago, the real problem in this instance will not be in the polling stations, it will be in the impact on the Holyrood campaign, and it was frustrating that none of the panellists zoned in on that far more important aspect of the issue.
Now, then - Wee Dougie. Can ever a man have been so brazen? The chaos in the 2007 elections was caused by "the Scottish government's decision to hold the local council elections on the same day", was it? Nothing to do with Alexander's own boneheaded determination to a) use a single ballot paper, and b) rely on an untested electronic counting method, despite countless warnings of the risks? And, of course, we can safely assume the reference to the "Scottish government" was in any case a cynical attempt to sow confusion in the viewing public's minds and associate the ill-fated decisions with the SNP, when in fact the devolved administration at the time was run by a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition!
And all that's before we even come to his soothing words about how he's not going to be "party political" over the Megrahi issue and will approach the matter "rather differently". A refreshingly mature approach, undoubtedly - or at least it would have been if he hadn't proceeded to do the exact opposite. A year on, I must say I'm still struggling to work out exactly how the flying of flags in a Tripoli airport was in any way the SNP's doing. More the Foreign Office's province, surely, Dougie?
Incidentally, in spite of what Nicola Sturgeon had to say, I think it's high time there was an independent inquiry into the Lockerbie case - just a very, very different one from what the US senators have in mind.
Then at the end of the show he seemed to have a rather enormous bee in his bonnet about the suggestions that there was any problem at all with holding two ballots on the same day next May. Even after Sturgeon explained very clearly the background of the Gould Report, he was still determined to look tickled by the whole thing, citing the routine American practice of holding multiple ballots for a plethora of exotically unimportant posts. Well, I've a feeling I have a slight advantage over Dimbleby on that point - as I've mentioned before, I have dual US/UK nationality, meaning I'm entitled to vote in certain US elections. And I can tell him that even filling out the mammoth ballot form in the comfort of my own home has literally taken me two hours on occasions. Bearing that in mind, can he truly say with a straight face that combining ballots has no impact whatsoever on the democratic process? But as I pointed out a couple of days ago, the real problem in this instance will not be in the polling stations, it will be in the impact on the Holyrood campaign, and it was frustrating that none of the panellists zoned in on that far more important aspect of the issue.
Now, then - Wee Dougie. Can ever a man have been so brazen? The chaos in the 2007 elections was caused by "the Scottish government's decision to hold the local council elections on the same day", was it? Nothing to do with Alexander's own boneheaded determination to a) use a single ballot paper, and b) rely on an untested electronic counting method, despite countless warnings of the risks? And, of course, we can safely assume the reference to the "Scottish government" was in any case a cynical attempt to sow confusion in the viewing public's minds and associate the ill-fated decisions with the SNP, when in fact the devolved administration at the time was run by a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition!
And all that's before we even come to his soothing words about how he's not going to be "party political" over the Megrahi issue and will approach the matter "rather differently". A refreshingly mature approach, undoubtedly - or at least it would have been if he hadn't proceeded to do the exact opposite. A year on, I must say I'm still struggling to work out exactly how the flying of flags in a Tripoli airport was in any way the SNP's doing. More the Foreign Office's province, surely, Dougie?
Incidentally, in spite of what Nicola Sturgeon had to say, I think it's high time there was an independent inquiry into the Lockerbie case - just a very, very different one from what the US senators have in mind.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Something's afoot...
Oooh, what's going on? First, Wendy Alexander says on the Politics Show that she won't "rule out" a referendum on independence, now Douglas Alexander says he is "not afraid" of one. When the Alexanders achieve something vaguely approaching inter-sibling co-ordination, you know something's afoot. Rest assured, though, by next week they'll have changed their minds again and decided that a referendum is "a distraction from the people of Scotland's priorities" after all (translation - we've had a proper think about it and we are actually quite scared).
Curiously, Wendy is continuing with her stubborn insistence that the one thing she won't countenance is Alex Salmond's suggestion of an STV-style multi-option referendum. But surely that's what would suit her best? The alternative is a straight yes/no vote, and all the polls show that format produces the most favourable outcome for independence, and sometimes a majority in favour. Is Wendy shooting herself (and the Union) in the foot here?
Curiously, Wendy is continuing with her stubborn insistence that the one thing she won't countenance is Alex Salmond's suggestion of an STV-style multi-option referendum. But surely that's what would suit her best? The alternative is a straight yes/no vote, and all the polls show that format produces the most favourable outcome for independence, and sometimes a majority in favour. Is Wendy shooting herself (and the Union) in the foot here?
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