Tom Harris' definition of the lunatic fringe : nationalists, socialists, and Ed Miliband

Tom Harris' latest piece for Labour Hame is actually quite sensible in parts (well, even a broken clock is accurate twice a day), but I had to laugh at this sentence at the beginning -

"Whatever those conclusions [of Labour's internal review] are, we can be sure of at least a few facts in advance: every single SNP member without exception will dismiss them out of hand, Ed Miliband will say they’re great, and Labour’s hard left will complain that the review doesn’t mention the renationalisation of the railways."

Now, given that he's a right-of-centre career Nat-basher, it's no great surprise to learn that Harris perceives the nationalists and the "hard left" as being parts of the lunatic fringe whose views can be safely treated as meaningless background noise. But throwing in his own party leader for good measure? Oh dear. I think we can safely conclude that Tom genuinely isn't eyeing a triumphant return to the Labour frontbench as Shadow Minister for Lightbulb Acquisition.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

On Wednesday's final edition of The Daily Politics before the summer recess, Tim Montgomerie of ConHome fame provided a telling glimpse of the unreconstructed nature of the Tory grassroots when he earnestly informed us that the public want the government and the media to move away from the Murdoch scandal and back on to the things that really concern ordinary people, like "the euro, immigration and crime". Now, no-one would deny for a moment the gravity of the euro crisis, and both crime and immigration are of course perennial concerns for voters. But if you conducted a poll of the electorate's priorities, would those really come out as the top three? Hmmm, I doubt it somehow. It's that old Tory syndrome - hold up a mirror to yourself and think you see the British people staring back at you approvingly.

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I had to rub my eyes in disbelief the other night when I saw a TV ad for Soda Stream that ended with the slogan "get busy with the fizzy". It'll be the return of the pterodactyls next.

SNP lead in Ipsos-Mori subsample

In recent times, I haven't really bothered covering non-Angus Reid subsamples from GB-wide polls of Westminster voting intention. However, this one is interesting, because traditionally Ipsos-Mori (like ICM) haven't troubled themselves with Scottish subsamples at all, instead lumping Scotland into a "northern region". The sample size is so small that the figures have to be taken with a lorry-load of salt, of course, but for what it's worth they show the SNP in the lead -

SNP 45%
Labour 38%
Conservatives 6%
Liberal Democrats 6%

Those are the figures for all "certain to vote". Among all respondents, the SNP lead by 39% to 31%.

Where is the George Cross for Christopher Biggins?

There were only really two satisfying parts of the parliamentary grilling of the Murdochs - the celebrated shaving cream incident, and James Murdoch's rising tide of panic as Tom Watson very politely refused to allow him to rescue his father from the only truly forensic line of questioning of the day. Other than that, the session made for a frustrating spectacle. Murdoch junior, who must be a contender for the most irritating man on the planet, repeatedly left open goals that the questioners failed to exploit. Just to give one example, he told Tory MP Philip Davies that he was as surprised and shocked as anyone to learn that payments had been made to the convicted phone hacker Clive Goodman. But when he was then asked who had authorised those payments, he (for about the three billionth time in the session) disinterestedly claimed he had absolutely no idea. Now, surely the obvious follow-up question at that point is - don't those two responses look rather odd when taken together? What Chief Executive worth his salt (or even a lousy one for that matter) discovers something has been going on that "shocks" him, but then shows not even the slightest interest in discovering who was responsible? But no, that absurdly went unasked.

I also dearly wish the chairman had had a stern word with James Murdoch about his breathtakingly arrogant habit of embracing the very few questions he didn't find objectionable with the words "that's a great question and I'm very happy to answer it". It may have escaped his notice, but he was actually summoned to answer questions, not to rate them out of ten.

To be fair, Louise Mensch (née Bagshawe of chick-lit fame) was one of the better inquisitors, but she ruined it all at the end by obsequiously commending Murdoch senior for his "extraordinary courage" in returning to give evidence after suffering a "common assault". Dear God. If regaining your composure a full ten minutes after having your face splattered in foam constitutes extraordinary courage, Christopher Biggins and the Krankies are surely long overdue for the George Cross.

Questions to which the answer is 'just before I answer that question, how about a game of hide-and-seek?'

The latest in Labour Hame's series of "impossible" questions for nationalists is this -

In what way would Scotland be better off in the euro, with interest rates set in Brussels rather than London?

Answer : We would have a direct vote in the decision-making process in a way that we don't have at the moment. And in case you're thinking of mentioning Danny Alexander at this point, don't make me laugh. A Scottish representative in the UK government would be a person chosen by Scotland, not by Nicholas William Peter Clegg.

But as ever, in posing this rather easy question, the admin of Labour Hame has drawn attention to a much more tricky question for his/her own comrades, if they can find the time in their busy schedules to answer. Given that "no issue more clearly illustrates the irrelevance of independence in the modern world than the question of national currency", I can't help but wonder this -

In what sense is the independence of Finland, a country with an almost identical population size to Scotland, an "irrelevance" now that they have joined the euro? Would they really not notice the difference if they gave up the ghost and became an autonomous province of Germany?

No rush, guys - in true Labour Hame style, I won't be declaring the question UNANSWERED for at least six minutes.

Tom Harris reveals that Oceania is at war with Eastasia, and has always been at war with Eastasia

If you ever find yourself reading a post by Tom Harris and sense that it's highly objectionable in some way, but can't quite put your finger on exactly what the problem is, you probably need look no further than his cavalier attitude to The Meaning Of Words. Orwell would have had a field day with some of Harris' contributions to the AV referendum debate, and his latest article for Labour Hame is in much the same vein. As a public service, I thought I'd provide you with a cut-out-and-keep Tomspeak-to-English translator...

"So why, after Labour’s second defeat at Holyrood, are we being told that we must abandon our support for the devolution settlement?"

Translation : Why are we being told that we must start supporting devolution in a meaningful way for the first time since 1999?

"let’s try to make devolution work."

Translation : Let's keep the devolved Scottish Parliament as weak as possible.

"The 1999 devolution settlement was not some kind of half-hearted compromise."

Translation : It was an imperfect compromise hungrily embraced by a country that had been totally starved of self-government for almost three centuries.

"On the contrary, the White Paper, “Scotland’s Parliament”, published by Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar weeks after he took office, impressed all sides of the debate."

Translation : It impressed some sides of the debate (roughly half).

"And yet, ever since the overwhelming “Yes” vote in the referendum, the SNP have done everything they can to belittle and undermine that devolution settlement."

Translation : After being an indispensable part of the campaign that won the overwhelming Yes vote, the SNP have built on that success by doing everything they can to strengthen the powers of the devolved Scottish Parliament.

"So, a question for the nationalists: what is it about Scotland that makes us so incapable of making devolution work?"

Translation : What is it about Scotland that makes us incapable of being ruled by others?

"What are the peculiar defects of Scottish political culture that make us incapable of taking full advantage of our devolved parliament?"

What peculiar defects of Scottish political culture make us unhappy about being ruled by others?

"Are we too small?"

Are we too small to be dependent on others?

"Too weak?"

Too weak to be dependent on others?

"Not confident enough?"

Not confident enough to be dependent on others?

"Too easily bullied?"

Too easily bullied to allow our natural resources to be exploited by others?

"Not capable of running our nation efficiently while taking a full part in the United Kingdom?"

Not capable of sitting back and allowing our nation to be run inefficiently by others?

A decade-and-a-half of institutional pigheadedness at the MoD

Many years ago, Sir John Day and Sir William Wratten, the two RAF Reviewing Officers who found the deceased pilots of the Mull of Kintyre crash guilty of gross negligence, appeared before a House of Lords committee that was inquiring into the affair. Barely had the chairman managed to finish uttering his first question before Day and Wratten's astonishing arrogance was on full display. The question was irrelevant, they insisted, because it was about safety issues relating to the Chinook fleet, which had nothing to do with their rationale for finding the pilots guilty. All that mattered was that the pilots had been flying dangerously low in their approach to the Mull of Kintyre - no-one need trouble themselves with any details beyond that. And if anyone took issue with that proposition, it was because they lacked the Reviewing Officers' immense expertise.

The irony, of course, as yesterday's report makes abundantly clear, is that there was a key factor that the Reviewing Officers themselves should never have looked beyond, that should have utterly precluded them from finding the pilots guilty, and that was only set aside because of their own lack of expertise in the relevant area. That factor was the incredibly high standard of proof required to find deceased pilots guilty of gross negligence, ie. "absolutely no doubt whatsoever". You only need to look at the difference between that and the standard criminal test of "beyond reasonable doubt" to understand the implications - even an "unreasonable doubt" may be sufficient reason to acquit. OK, perhaps not the possibility that the aircraft was hijacked by pixies, but just about any other conceivable doubt you might care to raise. As it happens, the report lists so many potential grounds for doubt that the Reviewing Officers chose to ignore that it's hard to see how even the "beyond reasonable doubt" test could be said to have been satisfied.

The real disgrace, though, is not the original verdict, but the way that the MoD have pig-headedly attempted to defend it to the death over the last decade-and-a-half, in spite of the obvious flaws in the Reviewing Officers' reasoning. It's also been incredibly telling that every single Defence Secretary (and indeed every junior Defence minister) over that period has "gone native" and obediently defended the verdict, rather than engaging their own brain cells and examining the issues objectively. The worst offender (unsurprisingly) was John Reid, that obsequious loyalist to "the British way" and venerable British institutions like the MoD, who we learned on Channel 4 News acted like a petulant "two-year-old" when two aviation experts had the audacity to raise concerns with him - he apparently sat in his chair with his finger to his mouth, refusing to acknowledge or engage with anything that was being said.

Given her known views about Mr Reid, it's a rather delicious irony that Helen Liddell, of all people, sat on the panel that finally cleared the pilots, and savaged the MoD's conduct over the years.

Will the last Murdoch apologist to leave the building please turn out the lights

On the morning of the 1992 general election, The Sun ran one of the most infamous headlines in British history -

"If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights"

Curiously, however, we learned from a Murdoch apologist on Newsnight last night that this was in no sense an attempt to tell people "not to vote for Kinnock".

Crikey. It does rather beg the question - what on earth would a proper anti-Kinnock headline have looked like?

Questions for Alex Gallagher (to which the answer may well be "I no speak so good zee Eengleesh")

I've just caught up with Councillor Alex Gallagher's latest "contribution to the debate" on independence over at Labour Hame. Some of his musings do give rise to a few intriguing questions, if he can spare the time...

"But they are sure that we must have referendum. Nae buts, nae mebbes, it’s the seasonal right of the Nat Triumphal that s/he must have a single/double/triple question consultation with the – it has to be said – largely uninterested populace.

But.

Wait a wee minute. Aren’t we leaping ahead just a tiny wee bit? Do we really need it?"

D'you know, Alex, I seem to recall a time, not so long ago, when Labour told us that "we were getting ahead of ourselves" by seeking an independence referendum before winning a specific mandate for it. There now is an utterly unambiguous mandate for a referendum. If that is no longer the test for determining if a referendum is appropriate, just exactly what is? Whether Mr Alex Gallagher, Labour councillor for North Coast and Cumbraes, personally approves of it? Forgive our sniggers as you sheepishly admit the answer to that question is "yes".

"Nor have I heard any positive, comprehensive and coherent case made by any Nationalist from any wing of the party that would convince anyone, on mature reflection, that it is better for the people of Scotland that we sever our links with our neighbours"

Given that opinion polls consistently show a significant minority of the Scottish people are convinced by the arguments for independence (indeed there has sometimes been a plurality in favour), does that mean you are by definition branding every single one of those people "immature" and incapable of "reflection"? Once again, forgive our sniggers as you sheepishly admit the answer to that question is "yes".

"But that fact in itself doesn’t seem to me a sufficient argument for breaking the subsequent, and successful, union of these countries"

Don't we first have to establish whether it actually is "successful" or not, before we can take that as read? Once again, we appear to have something of a problem with benchmarks here, because it's only a matter of weeks since Councillor Gallagher informed us that if the majority of people rejected the notion that the union is "successful" by voting against its continuation in a referendum, that was neither here nor there - Scotland should be forced to remain in the union, because the minority of people "mature" enough to understand (snigger) are apparently the only ones entitled to adjudicate upon the question. I believe scientists would call this a falsifiability problem - how do we know if someone is sufficiently "mature"? Why, by checking if they agree with Mr Alex Gallagher, Labour councillor for North Coast and Cumbraes, of course.

"By that argument, the principalities of pre-Bismarck Germany or 18th century Italy should all be independent. Indeed, if once-upon-a-time difference was a case for independence, why not return to the borders of Pictland or Dalriada or any other of the ancient kingdoms?"

Alex, mate, deep breath here, and I will try to help you understand. You appear to be using the line "Scotland was once independent" as a muddled proxy for the argument that nationalists actually put forward - that Scotland is a nation and thus has the right to self-determination. Not that it must be independent because it once was, but that it has the right to choose for itself. The reason why the Scottish independence debate has absolutely no bearing on the future of the "principalities of pre-Bismarck Germany" is because we have no right to choose for them, and they have no right to choose for us. But if you want to pursue this logic, it certainly has rather profound implications - are you suggesting that we should never alter our income tax rates, without ensuring (by military force if necessary) that the new rates also apply in Peru? After all, how can we seriously argue that something is good for Scotland if we don't have the courage of our convictions by demanding that it must also be good for Peru, or Mongolia, or Equitorial Guinea? Actually, don't bother answering, Alex - the entire planet can see you're havering on this one. Moving on...

"What is the point of claiming sovereignty from the UK only to invest it in the EU? All the arguments about remoteness from decision making and the differences in culture (London’s too far away, the English don’t understand Scotland) just look silly when the idea is to replace London with Brussels and UK law makers with law makers from 27 other countries – including, incidentally, England. It’s frankly nuts."

Excellent, Alex - would you therefore confirm that you now support only pooling sovereignty with the rest of the UK to the far, far more limited extent that EU states pool sovereignty with each other? What do you mean, "no"? In that case, I'm slightly unclear as to what point you think you're making here. What do you mean, "er"?

"Meanwhile, on the real evidence in the real world, there are strong indications that an “independent” Scotland would have significant economic weaknesses as compared to its current position."

What, you mean like the real-world evidence in GERS that an independent Scotland would have a proportionately smaller deficit than the UK does at present?

"The collapse of the Scottish banks and Alex Salmond’s preferred Celtic Tiger model has laid bare (some would say threadbare) the paucity of the Nationalists’ economic analysis."

Given that the collapse of those "Scottish banks" occurred under the regulation laid down by the UK Labour government, doesn't it say rather more about the paucity of Gordon Brown's economic analysis?

"It’s likely that an “independent” Scotland would be weaker in defence and security terms as well"

Just when are the Russians planning to invade, Alex? Given that Labour is (or so Duncan Hothersall assures me) an "international movement", shouldn't you be doing something to warn those in an even "weaker" position to defend themselves, such as poor little Luxembourg?

"Better to pretend that their Scotland wouldn’t have a military or a defence posture or even a foreign policy, a ridiculous position but acceptable to the SNP, apparently."

Could you direct me to the relevant link on the SNP website, please, Alex? Certainly the first I've heard of any of this.

And, last but not least, here comes the biggie -

If you're so happy to post under your own name on Labour Hame and a variety of other websites, Councillor Alex, why are you so mysteriously bashful on your own blog?

Hisse et ho, Santiano...

Way back in the mists of time (well, 1999 to be specific) I was on a family holiday in Brittany, and we just happened to be doing some sightseeing in Saint Malo when the Tall Ships Race was in town.  I mainly just regarded it as a nuisance, as we got stuck in traffic as the procession of competitors went by at a snail's pace.  Later on, I got into a conversation with a couple from Jersey who were enthusing about the whole thing ("oh, isn't it marvellous?), and asking me if I had been down to see the ships "yet".  I didn't have the heart to tell them I had no intention of doing so!  A couple of weeks later I was back home, and as it turned out the next stop for the race was in Greenock, and the media were talking about it as if it was the biggest thing ever.  I started to feel a bit silly for having passed up the opportunity in Saint Malo, so I decided to have a second bite of the cherry.  It was very good, although the organisation left a lot to be desired - there were mile-long queues at the train stations in both directions, no doubt as a result of the over-the-top decision to virtually cordon off the whole of Greenock.

Twelve years on, and the event is back in Greenock, so I went along again yesterday. I'm pleased to report the organisation is much better this time, although when I was making my way back I did feel like strangling someone who forced me to go about a quarter-of-a-mile out of my way because I had attempted to enter Bogston Station by the 'wrong entrance for my destination'!  I later discovered that if I'd just told him I'd been going to Gourock instead of Glasgow I could have saved myself the walk and he'd have been none the wiser - I think it was a health and safety measure that was being over-zealously applied at a time when the station was extremely quiet.

The event itself is a bit curious - it's a bit difficult to soak up the maritime atmosphere when you have a Duran Duran tribute band belting out Hungry Like the Wolf a few feet away!  Other random highlights included 'Four Poofs and a Piano' performing an Abba medley, a dance group called 'The Temptress Girls' (or something of the sort) performing a routine that was a bit on the racy side for an audience that must have been at least 20% comprised of confused-looking children, and last but not least "TV's Colin and Justin" pacing up and down purposefully in very sharp suits.  It may not have made a lot of sense, but at least there was no danger of boredom!