"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.
Showing posts with label Nicola Sturgeon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nicola Sturgeon. Show all posts
Friday, March 11, 2011
Friday, October 29, 2010
'Please remember you're talking to the whole United Kingdom...'
So said David Dimbleby on tonight's Question Time during a discussion on the economy, as he made a determined (and clearly premeditated) effort to prevent Nicola Sturgeon making even the briefest comment relating to Scotland specifically, rather than to the United Kingdom as a whole. "We may be in Glasgow," he went on, "but Question Time goes out to the whole United Kingdom". Now, we know that the broadcasters have no political axes to grind, and simply apply perfectly reasonable principles like this with absolute consistency. Therefore, we can rest assured that no political discussion broadcast to the whole United Kingdom, regardless of whether it was broadcast from an English location, has ever focused solely on any of the following topics as they relate to England alone :
1) Health
2) Education
3) Criminal justice
4) Policing
5) Sport
6) Local government
7) Environmental protection
8) Agriculture and fishing
And, for the avoidance of doubt, according to the principle Dimbleby laid down tonight, it would in no way be sufficient to merely briefly "signpost" that any discussion of these topics related to England alone - it would plain and simply be inappropriate to discuss them at all.
But what's that you say? They do just that on Question Time every week? And they justified a 90-minute long UK-wide Prime Ministerial (sic) Debate predominantly concerned with purely English matters on the grounds that ten seconds of "clear signposting" by a bored-looking Alistair Stewart was more than sufficient? Well, this is indeed deeply mysterious. Could it be that it's in fact the London broadcasters who have yet to notice that they are "talking to the whole United Kingdom", and not just to one part of it?
I think I have a small clue as to the distorted thinking that lies behind Dimbleby's outrageous intervention tonight, however. A couple of years ago, on another Question Time edition broadcast from Scotland, he stopped Sturgeon in similar circumstances. The issue being discussed was the injustice of innocent people having their DNA stored permanently on a database. Sturgeon tried to explain how the system worked differently in Scotland, but was thwarted by an indignant Dimbleby, who informed her that the discussion was about the United Kingdom position on DNA retention, not the Scottish position. Just one small problem with that - there is no United Kingdom position on that subject. There is a Scottish policy, and there is an English and Welsh policy. That's the way devolution works - the same applies to health, education, and all the other policy areas that I referred to earlier. If the broadcasters want to comfort their audience by implicitly sending them the message that nothing has really changed since 1999, and that "national programmes" are still able to solely concern themselves with "national issues" (leaving the peripheral devolved stuff to "regional" programmes like Reporting Scotland), what they're actually doing is promoting a fiction. Some would put it a bit stronger than that.
It is nothing short of incredible that the broadcasters apparently think it is perfectly reasonable to invite a Scottish nationalist politician onto a programme and then expect her never to talk about Scotland or her nationalism at any point. If it is seriously going to be their policy that UK-wide programmes must be wholly free of 'sub-UK' discussions, then clearly previous practice is going to have to change beyond all recognition, and any future Question Time exchanges on health, for example, will somehow have to cover all four different health systems in the UK simultaneously. How on earth they intend to achieve that is beyond me - but if, as I suspect, what Dimbleby and the broadcasters really mean is "United Kingdom discussion = discussion of the policy that applies in England", then it totally blows out of the water the thin justification they put forward for going ahead with general election debates held exclusively in English locations, that covered many English-only matters (but no matters that related only to other parts of the UK), that specifically excluded non-English residents from participating in the audiences, and that of course totally excluded the leaders of all parties that did not stand in English constituencies.
I think we could sum up the position by saying that the broadcasters imagine they are performing a public service by snuffing out what they see as a politician's attempt to 'hijack' the UK-wide airwaves for a Scottish-only discussion - and yet imagine they were also performing a public service by conspiring with politicians during the election campaign to hijack the UK-wide airwaves for an English-only discussion. I'd really like to see how they can possibly justify that blatant contradiction - but it seems for the time being they won't even have to try, simply because their own regulatory bodies are caught in precisely the same Anglocentric trance.
As an aside, it's also worth pointing out that the first fifteen minutes of tonight's edition of Question Time - broadcast from Glasgow, remember - was taken up with a discussion about a remark made by the Mayor of London, in his capacity as Mayor of London. And yet Dimbleby still couldn't see the irony of chiding Sturgeon for spending just a few seconds talking about a 'non-national' issue later in the programme. You really couldn't make it up...
1) Health
2) Education
3) Criminal justice
4) Policing
5) Sport
6) Local government
7) Environmental protection
8) Agriculture and fishing
And, for the avoidance of doubt, according to the principle Dimbleby laid down tonight, it would in no way be sufficient to merely briefly "signpost" that any discussion of these topics related to England alone - it would plain and simply be inappropriate to discuss them at all.
But what's that you say? They do just that on Question Time every week? And they justified a 90-minute long UK-wide Prime Ministerial (sic) Debate predominantly concerned with purely English matters on the grounds that ten seconds of "clear signposting" by a bored-looking Alistair Stewart was more than sufficient? Well, this is indeed deeply mysterious. Could it be that it's in fact the London broadcasters who have yet to notice that they are "talking to the whole United Kingdom", and not just to one part of it?
I think I have a small clue as to the distorted thinking that lies behind Dimbleby's outrageous intervention tonight, however. A couple of years ago, on another Question Time edition broadcast from Scotland, he stopped Sturgeon in similar circumstances. The issue being discussed was the injustice of innocent people having their DNA stored permanently on a database. Sturgeon tried to explain how the system worked differently in Scotland, but was thwarted by an indignant Dimbleby, who informed her that the discussion was about the United Kingdom position on DNA retention, not the Scottish position. Just one small problem with that - there is no United Kingdom position on that subject. There is a Scottish policy, and there is an English and Welsh policy. That's the way devolution works - the same applies to health, education, and all the other policy areas that I referred to earlier. If the broadcasters want to comfort their audience by implicitly sending them the message that nothing has really changed since 1999, and that "national programmes" are still able to solely concern themselves with "national issues" (leaving the peripheral devolved stuff to "regional" programmes like Reporting Scotland), what they're actually doing is promoting a fiction. Some would put it a bit stronger than that.
It is nothing short of incredible that the broadcasters apparently think it is perfectly reasonable to invite a Scottish nationalist politician onto a programme and then expect her never to talk about Scotland or her nationalism at any point. If it is seriously going to be their policy that UK-wide programmes must be wholly free of 'sub-UK' discussions, then clearly previous practice is going to have to change beyond all recognition, and any future Question Time exchanges on health, for example, will somehow have to cover all four different health systems in the UK simultaneously. How on earth they intend to achieve that is beyond me - but if, as I suspect, what Dimbleby and the broadcasters really mean is "United Kingdom discussion = discussion of the policy that applies in England", then it totally blows out of the water the thin justification they put forward for going ahead with general election debates held exclusively in English locations, that covered many English-only matters (but no matters that related only to other parts of the UK), that specifically excluded non-English residents from participating in the audiences, and that of course totally excluded the leaders of all parties that did not stand in English constituencies.
I think we could sum up the position by saying that the broadcasters imagine they are performing a public service by snuffing out what they see as a politician's attempt to 'hijack' the UK-wide airwaves for a Scottish-only discussion - and yet imagine they were also performing a public service by conspiring with politicians during the election campaign to hijack the UK-wide airwaves for an English-only discussion. I'd really like to see how they can possibly justify that blatant contradiction - but it seems for the time being they won't even have to try, simply because their own regulatory bodies are caught in precisely the same Anglocentric trance.
As an aside, it's also worth pointing out that the first fifteen minutes of tonight's edition of Question Time - broadcast from Glasgow, remember - was taken up with a discussion about a remark made by the Mayor of London, in his capacity as Mayor of London. And yet Dimbleby still couldn't see the irony of chiding Sturgeon for spending just a few seconds talking about a 'non-national' issue later in the programme. You really couldn't make it up...
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.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
It's the thought that counts
"What on earth was Nicola Sturgeon thinking of?" spluttered an incredulous Gordon Brewer repeatedly on Newsnight Scotland earlier tonight. Well, whether people agree with her actions or not, I don't actually think there's a lot of mystery about what she was thinking of. She was taking her responsibilities as a constituency representative seriously, and was trying to act in the best interests of her constituents - constituents plural, let's not forget, because the welfare of Abdul Rauf's children was also uppermost in her mind. Brewer (and Richard Baker) continually pointed out that Sturgeon had no duty to act and had complete discretion over whether to do so - and, again, there's no sign that she lost sight of that at any stage. My guess is that she took into account that Rauf's offence was non-violent (however serious), and when taking that fact in conjunction with his apparent health problems and the welfare of his children, felt that the balance of arguments fell in favour of making a representation on his behalf. Other reasonable people may weigh up those circumstances and conclude she reached the wrong judgement, but the suggestion that she lost sight of the proper boundaries of an MSP's role - and more particularly Brewer's bizarre proposition that she would have acted in the same way even if the offender concerned had been a serial killer - is patently absurd.
But what's really dangerous about the cynical calls for Sturgeon's resignation is that it could mean in future that ministers will feel considerably less able to fearlessly represent individual constituents' best interests, which is a vital part of their job. Why should constituencies that happen to be represented by a minister receive a lesser service than those represented by backbenchers? In my view Sturgeon should be applauded for this clear evidence that she hasn't lost sight of her basic duties as a humble constituency MSP - surely the one thing no-one can credibly dispute is that there was no conceivable personal gain for her here.
But what's really dangerous about the cynical calls for Sturgeon's resignation is that it could mean in future that ministers will feel considerably less able to fearlessly represent individual constituents' best interests, which is a vital part of their job. Why should constituencies that happen to be represented by a minister receive a lesser service than those represented by backbenchers? In my view Sturgeon should be applauded for this clear evidence that she hasn't lost sight of her basic duties as a humble constituency MSP - surely the one thing no-one can credibly dispute is that there was no conceivable personal gain for her here.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
World Exclusive : Some serious stuff is going down, man
I'm not a regular reader of 'Yapping Yousuf' Hamid, so many thanks to Ezio for pointing me in the direction of his latest scoop. I've always prided myself on keeping my finger firmly on the pulse, so I certainly would never have forgiven myself for missing this jaw-dropping exclusive - Nicola Sturgeon has convened a meeting of the Glasgow City Council SNP group.
That's it.
A small suggestion for Yousuf - I appreciate that genuine exclusives (particularly the golden ones that really catch out your political opponents) are quite difficult for bloggers to come by, however well-connected, so no-one is really going to blame you for slightly over-hyping the facts you actually do have. But to pull that trick off successfully it might be better not to openly concede "I've no idea what's going on" and then to finish your 'story' with the following appeal to readers - "If anyone knows what is going on then please do get in touch!"
But the fun doesn't end there. Yousuf adds a disclaimer that he rarely blogs about pieces of gossip, and only does so "if they are serious and if I am sure that I can believe them". This might have a touch more credibility if he hadn't already revealed that his sole rationale for believing there is any significance to Sturgeon's meeting is that it "must be serious" if she is making the time for it despite "firefighting on so many fronts". Now, for this logic to stand up to scrutiny, Yousuf does of course first have to establish that Nicola is indeed fighting on a number of fronts. So what are they? According to Yousuf, they include boundary changes to her constituency, the fact that she was 'in the cabinet that scrapped GARL', the fact that she once said something unspecified but really rather nasty about Steven Purcell, and the fact that the SNP group on Glasgow City Council 'didn't offer any resistance' to the SNP cabinet scrapping GARL. Crikey. With a diary chock-full of crises like that, Nicola really doesn't have time to do anything, does she?
Future Yapping Yousuf exclusives -
Sturgeon sneezes. No politician in the almighty mess that Sturgeon's in has the time to expel phlegm from her nasal passages. Only possible conclusion - the noise from the sneeze was intended to cover up the latest Salmond gaffe. Don't know what the gaffe actually was, but were YOU in the area? Do let me know what you heard.
Sturgeon visits Mum. Come on, does anyone seriously think a politician facing calamity on so many fronts would choose to waste an hour visiting her mother? Only possible conclusion - her mother is planning to defect to Labour, and Sturgeon is locked in desperate last-minute crisis talks to prevent that happening. Are YOU Nicola Sturgeon's mother's next-door-neighbour? Does she have thin walls?
Sturgeon goes to the hairdressers. Are we seriously expected to believe that a woman at the centre of the most perfect political storm the western world has witnessed since Watergate would stop off for a quick trim? Of course not. Now, I must admit I don't know what she was up to this time - perhaps her hair was planning to defect to Labour? OK, maybe not, but there must be something. So, do YOU work at Daphne's Scissor Palace?
That's it.
A small suggestion for Yousuf - I appreciate that genuine exclusives (particularly the golden ones that really catch out your political opponents) are quite difficult for bloggers to come by, however well-connected, so no-one is really going to blame you for slightly over-hyping the facts you actually do have. But to pull that trick off successfully it might be better not to openly concede "I've no idea what's going on" and then to finish your 'story' with the following appeal to readers - "If anyone knows what is going on then please do get in touch!"
But the fun doesn't end there. Yousuf adds a disclaimer that he rarely blogs about pieces of gossip, and only does so "if they are serious and if I am sure that I can believe them". This might have a touch more credibility if he hadn't already revealed that his sole rationale for believing there is any significance to Sturgeon's meeting is that it "must be serious" if she is making the time for it despite "firefighting on so many fronts". Now, for this logic to stand up to scrutiny, Yousuf does of course first have to establish that Nicola is indeed fighting on a number of fronts. So what are they? According to Yousuf, they include boundary changes to her constituency, the fact that she was 'in the cabinet that scrapped GARL', the fact that she once said something unspecified but really rather nasty about Steven Purcell, and the fact that the SNP group on Glasgow City Council 'didn't offer any resistance' to the SNP cabinet scrapping GARL. Crikey. With a diary chock-full of crises like that, Nicola really doesn't have time to do anything, does she?
Future Yapping Yousuf exclusives -
Sturgeon sneezes. No politician in the almighty mess that Sturgeon's in has the time to expel phlegm from her nasal passages. Only possible conclusion - the noise from the sneeze was intended to cover up the latest Salmond gaffe. Don't know what the gaffe actually was, but were YOU in the area? Do let me know what you heard.
Sturgeon visits Mum. Come on, does anyone seriously think a politician facing calamity on so many fronts would choose to waste an hour visiting her mother? Only possible conclusion - her mother is planning to defect to Labour, and Sturgeon is locked in desperate last-minute crisis talks to prevent that happening. Are YOU Nicola Sturgeon's mother's next-door-neighbour? Does she have thin walls?
Sturgeon goes to the hairdressers. Are we seriously expected to believe that a woman at the centre of the most perfect political storm the western world has witnessed since Watergate would stop off for a quick trim? Of course not. Now, I must admit I don't know what she was up to this time - perhaps her hair was planning to defect to Labour? OK, maybe not, but there must be something. So, do YOU work at Daphne's Scissor Palace?
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