Blue Bella?

British politics seemed to have crossed a subtle psychological threshold a few weeks ago when it emerged that Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Anna Arrowsmith had been a director of 'adult films' in a (not very far distant) past life, and yet survived completely unscathed. Even the Conservatives' Andrew Lansley seemed relaxed about her candidature when asked about it on Question Time. The more cynical side of me did wonder if Arrowsmith would have got off quite so lightly if she hadn't been both a woman and an avowed feminist, but nevertheless it did seem to be a small signal that Britain is leaving some of its traditional hypocrisy behind. Nevertheless, if the rumours swirling around the blogosphere about an unnamed senior female MSP are correct, it now seems that Arrowsmith may merely have been a kind of 'John the Baptist' figure, preparing the ground for an imminent and much greater revelation - the potential consequences of which are truly mind-boggling. The suggestion that the politician concerned may not merely have been involved in the same industry as Arrowsmith some twenty-five years ago, but that the involvement may have been of a more 'in-front-of-the-cameras' variety, truly takes us into uncharted territory.

But what really made me splutter on my corn flakes was reading a couple of dark hints that the MSP in question may in the mid-1980s have been known by the screen name of 'Bella'. Just a piece of blogosphere mischief? Or pure coincidence? Surely????

Osborne's true potential

George Osborne on the Ask the Chancellors programme : "I've got to remember that it's not my money I'm dealing with, it's the public's".

A great pity. Dipping into the Osborne family fortune sounds like a deficit reduction plan with considerable potential.

Mysterious that it was perfectly feasible to find a politically balanced audience for this debate, drawn from across the whole United Kingdom. As I've mentioned before, the audiences for the main leaders' debates will be restricted to a fifteen mile radius of the venues, all in England. This not only means that residents of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be literally banned from participating, but also that the audiences cannot possibly be politically balanced, as by definition SNP and Plaid supporters will not be present, despite commanding roughly 3% support across the UK.

A London party stitch-up? Perish the thought.

Baker waves the white flag (but only for effect, sadly)

I couldn't resist having a wee peek at Kevin Baker's blog to see how he's coming to terms with the horrific new reality of having to share his country with millions upon millions of poor people who have access to affordable health care. Predictably, the answer is...not terribly well. After swimming through vast oceans of yelping prose exploring predictable themes such as America's new status as a fascist or socialist state (take your pick), Barack Obama's anti-semitism (no photo for poor old Bibi is seemingly tantamount to outright Nazism), and assorted logical gymnastics to try to convince us the US constitution has in some way been wickedly contravened, one fatalistic observation particularly leaped out at me -

"We can't stop what's happening. We are too few and too unpopular."

If only that were true. The conservative side of the US culture wars is so strong that in all likelihood any prospect of further progress towards social justice will be abruptly halted by Republican gains in the November Congressional elections. But the miracle is that healthcare reform 'sneaked under the wire' during the small window of opportunity afforded by the rare conjunction of a (reasonably) liberal Democratic president, a Democratic majority in the House, and a fillibuster-proof Democratic supermajority in the Senate that lasted only a few months. It may be decades before another such golden opportunity presents itself - but the good news is that each wave of reform tends not to be reversed, and is eventually built upon. So what will be the next battleground, in that far distant future? The abolition of the death penalty? Meaningful gun control legislation? Both may seem utterly unthinkable for now, but I suddenly have considerably more faith in America's snail's pace march towards a more civilised society than I did just a few short weeks ago.

No wonder Kevin's depressed.

The delights of following Scottish curling on "British" Eurosport

When the dedicated British version of sports channel Eurosport was launched a decade or so back, it was billed as the end of frustration for British viewers - never again would they be left watching a little-known Belgian playing an even-littler-known Slovenian at Roland Garros, while Greg Rusedski or Tim Henman was playing on another court. But this seems to be yet another instance where the word 'British' mysteriously translates as 'English'. Last night, extraordinarily, Eurosport International showed extensive live coverage of the crucial women's world curling championship play-off between Scotland and Sweden, while British Eurosport showed just the final fifteen minutes, apparently feeling that it was far more appropriate to fill the preceding eighty minutes with recorded coverage of a cycle race in France - which at a cursory glance appeared to feature no British contenders (even of the higher-grade south-of-Tweed variety). Is a Scotland v Sweden curling match really of more interest to Eurosport International viewers in Israel than to British Eurosport viewers in Scotland? The schedulers appear to genuinely believe so.

Anyway, leaving such frustrations aside, the good news is that Scotland defeated Sweden to set up a semi-final against Jennifer Jones' formidable Canadian rink. It seems that British Eurosport will in their benevolence be showing considerable recorded coverage at 7.30 this morning, so I won't give away the scoreline, but suffice to say it might just be worth a little look...

Question Time sensation : Liam Byrne thinks Gordon Brown should be banned from the "Prime Ministerial" Debates

Labour's Liam Byrne on Question Time tonight : "these debates are for the parties that are standing in every single seat in the United Kingdom".

Labour are standing in only 631 seats out of 650. By Mr Byrne's standard - which was absolutely crystal-clear, leaving no conceivable room for misunderstandings - Gordon Brown, remarkably, does not qualify for inclusion in the Prime Ministerial (sic) Debates.

The Liberal Democrats' Julia Goldsworthy on Question Time tonight : "these debates are for the parties standing in every part of the United Kingdom".

The Liberal Democrats are not standing anywhere in Northern Ireland. As Northern Ireland is indisputably one of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom, Ms Goldsworthy has just added Nick Clegg to the list of those automatically disqualified from the Prime Ministerial (sic) Debates.

The slightly depressing thing is that these politicians probably aren't even consciously engaging in sophistry here - they're so Anglo-centric that they genuinely believe that standing in every area of England automatically equates to standing in every area of the United Kingdom. And as superbly as Alex Salmond performed tonight (demonstrating what an asset he would be to the leaders' debates, even leaving aside all questions of fairness), the one thing that slightly disappointed me was that he didn't draw attention to these blatant own goals from Byrne and Goldsworthy. To be fair, of course, he was too busy trying to cram in all the other innumerable reasons why the SNP's total exclusion from the debates is such an affront to the principles of a free and fair election. And he wasn't even given the opportunity to point out why Goldsworthy's predictable jibe of "you're not even a candidate in this election" is such an idiotic red herring - what has Alex Salmond's status as an individual got to do with the SNP's case as a party to be included in the debates? As I've pointed out many times, I'm quite sure the SNP don't really give a monkey's whether they're represented in the debates by Salmond or by their Westminster leader Angus Robertson, who is also an excellent debater.

Salmond did, fortunately, have a chance to show up Sayeeda Warsi when she resorted to one of the other standard red herrings.

Warsi : "Much as I like Alex Salmond, he is not going to be Prime Minister after this election, and therefore shouldn't be in the Prime Ministerial (sic) Debates."
Salmond : "Is Nick Clegg going to be Prime Minister?"
Warsi : "Well...maybe Julia can answer that."

As weak responses go, that one really is in a league of its own. We're in truly Alice in Wonderland territory if a Tory can't even bring herself to dismiss the Liberal Democrat leader's prospects of becoming Prime Minister, when given an open initation to do so!

Even more bizarre was David Dimbleby's own jibe, when Salmond suggested that the SNP and Plaid could put up candidates in England, if that was supposedly all that was required to qualify them for the debates -

"You'd better be careful, people in England might vote for you, because they want Scottish independence".

Hmmm. I'm starting to wonder if Mr Dimbleby has entirely grasped the basics of the SNP's aims and objectives.

SNP take rare lead in YouGov subsample

I hesitated about posting this, because it's only a few hours until the details of a newer poll are published, which in all probability will show a completely different picture. However, on reflection I think it is well worthy of note that, for the first time in ages, a GB-wide YouGov poll (published in Tuesday's Sun) has shown an SNP lead in its Scottish subsample. Here are the full figures -

SNP 27% (+10)
Labour 24% (-10)
Conservatives 23% (-4)
Liberal Democrats 18% (+5)
Others 7% (-2)

Labour's low percentage once again gives the lie to the CyberTory delusion that the tightening GB-wide lead (just four points in this case) can be easily explained away by Labour racking up votes 'where it doesn't need them' in its Scottish heartlands.

Can I come in for a gloat?

Not that I would want to be remotely triumphalist about the afternoon's events in Dublin, but nevertheless this might be an opportune moment to recall a comment left here by a certain 'liberal' Northern Ireland blogger less than two weeks ago -

"Flower of Scotland is certainly a neat emblem for your rugby team. A long ago victory which was followed by a series of humiliating defeats."

At the time it did occur to me to respond by saying "if by any chance Scotland spoil the party a week on Saturday, I may return to this subject at some length", but as the chances of that happening seemed slim, I reckoned discretion was the better part of valour. I should have had more faith...

(PS. Medieval history isn't my strongest suit, but does anyone have the faintest idea what Chekov's 'string of humiliating defeats' in the aftermath of 1314 are supposed to be? As it secured independence for no fewer than four full centuries, Bannockburn looks like a fairly decisive sort of battle to me.)

YouGov admits 'we got it wrong, gov'

As I've mentioned in previous posts, one of the most diverting spectator sports over the last few weeks (it even marginally beats the curling, seeing as we haven't been winning) has been keeping up with the increasingly fantastical array of theories that panic-stricken CyberTories have dreamt up in an attempt to explain away the reality that their party's once-impregnable YouGov poll lead has pretty much receded to nothing. No wonder YouGov have just given their website a dodgy makeover - the old version must have been creaking under the weight of all the rather tired and emotional number-crunchers who had turned up, desperate to spot The Killer Flaw. With truly delicious irony, their efforts have finally coaxed an official response out of YouGov's chairman Peter Kellner, in which he refreshingly concedes that a mistake has indeed been made with the weightings - but that the party whose support has been underestimated is not the Tories, but the SNP! Kellner candidly spells out the precise extent of the blunder -

"These [new weightings] will typically reduce Labour’s recorded share of support in Scotland by two-to-three percentages points and increase the SNP’s recorded share by a similar amount."

In other words, Labour's lead over the SNP has been regularly overstated by a whopping four to six percentage points in YouGov polls. This doesn't entirely clear up the mystery of the disparity between the Scottish findings of YouGov and Ipsos-Mori, but it certainly narrows what had previously been a yawning chasm between the two.

Perhaps the only disingenuous part of Kellner's statement is when he suggests that the discovery of the mistake doesn't really materially alter the 'big picture' of the Scottish political scene. I beg to differ. Only a man who reckons that 'only Westminster matters' could possibly make such a statement, because (unless I'm missing something) Labour's recent five-point YouGov lead in Holyrood voting intentions has essentially just been shown to be a mirage. But even on the issue of Westminster voting intentions, a great many overblown 'big picture' claims were being made on the back of YouGov's recent flawed Scottish polls, most notably that the Tories may be on the cusp of overtaking the SNP in the battle for second place at the general election. That prospect now, at a stroke, looks considerably more distant. As an illustration, here is YouGov's latest Scottish poll/subsample aggregate for the Sun (covering Westminster voting intention only), with the figures reweighted under the new system -

Labour 39%
SNP 26%
Conservatives 18%
Liberal Democrats 12%
Others 6%

Now, those numbers could of course be better still, but doesn't that look a lot healthier for the Nats?

Murphy's Law

Call me a sadist, but what a pleasure it was to see Jim Murphy well and truly floundering on Reporting Scotland tonight on the subject of tidal and wave power. You might say that, in fairness, it's impossible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but isn't this guy supposed to be Scottish Labour's latest Messiah? Water into wine is the required standard, I'm afraid, and any party that freely chose to elect Iain Gray as its leader is in dire need of some miracles soon.

Murphy would have been even sicker when he saw the context in which his feeble soundbite had been inserted into the report. First, it was pointed out in a straightforward factual way that it costs £21 per kilowatt to connect this new source of renewable energy to the National Grid from the north of Scotland, whereas in Cornwall you would actually be paid £6 per kilowatt for your trouble. Then, we heard from Alex Salmond in full statesmanlike mode noting that, while this outrageous discrimination wouldn't stop developments like this, it clearly wasn't helping matters. And only then did Murphy have his chance. So not the most helpful build-up when all you've got to offer is a load of incoherent mumbling about how "there is no evidence to suggest" that any of this is really a problem. If it turned out it was a problem, the UK government might just get round to doing something about it eventually - but no promises, mind.

And surely Jim missed his cue? Given that the UK government had just been shown to be cynically stacking the economic odds against Scottish renewable energy, could there ever have been a more propitious moment to break into some passionate Brian Wilson-style evangelising about how nuclear is the only conceivable option, given that renewables are famously so 'uneconomic'?

Demand your voice on the election issues that won't affect you

I gather that during the televised leaders' debates, selected email questions from the public will be asked of the three leaders lucky enough to have the novel and extra-constitutional status of 'Prime Ministerial Candidate' conferred upon them by the broadcasters, in addition to the questions posed by the live studio audience. In which case, could I strongly suggest that it might be a good idea in the debate covering 'domestic' matters for Scottish viewers to send in highly pertinent questions, such as "do you propose to abolish the Scottish Parliament, in order that you will have the chance to implement your health or education policies in Scotland, and if not, why are you talking as if your policies apply to the whole UK?".

You see, we've been constantly told that the reason why it is legitimate to ban one - just one - of Scotland's four principal parties from the three main debates to be shown here is that these are "UK" debates, and as such the programmes must reflect the political balance across the whole UK, not just in Scotland. Of course, this makes a mockery not only of the broadcasting regulations but also of clear-cut precedents spanning decades, but let's just for a moment take this bogus proposition at face value. As Scotland has 9% of the population, and as each debate will be ninety minutes long, it stands to reason that any accurate reflection of the make-up of the UK as a whole necessitates that approximately eight minutes of the domestic debate be taken up with a discussion of the entirely separate situation that exists in Scotland in respect of nearly all the issues to be covered over the course of the evening - namely that the outcome of this election is utterly irrelevant, since the issues concerned are the province of the Scottish Parliament. I must confess I haven't a clue how this could be done with a straight face - perhaps an air of benevolent colonialism could be affected as Scottish viewers ponder how they should exercise their onerous responsibilities for helping to decide the fate of another country's health and education system. Such a scenario would, I freely concede, be "pure Monty Python" (in the immortal words of Charles Wheeler), but it's nevertheless precisely what logic demands. The much more likely alternative - that the entire domestic debate will be conducted under the false premise that the policies being discussed are equally and uniformly relevant to every elector watching, regardless of where they live - means that the broadcasters will be making the basic error of confusing a debate that truly reflects the political reality of the whole UK with one that reflects the political reality of England alone. Simply showing it outside England does not somehow magically confer upon it the status of a "UK debate".

And one thing's for sure - if the Scottish public want to use their right to submit questions as a last-ditch opportunity to put things right and force the Scottish dimension onto the agenda, they'll absolutely have to do it by email, because they'll be banned - literally banned - from taking part in person on the night. Only people who live within thirty miles of the three English venues will be entitled to be part of the studio audience. Call me naive, but I was genuinely flabbergasted when I first heard of this a day or two ago. A few weeks back, it occurred to me to raise the issue of whether the make-up of the audience would be politically balanced (thus including SNP and Plaid supporters) even if the panel itself was not. But I didn't bother, because when I reflected on it for a moment, it seemed self-evident that the broadcasters would put together audiences that reflected the make-up of the UK as a whole, not just England. It would, it seemed clear to me, make a mockery of their whole "UK-wide" logic for excluding the nationalist parties if they followed any other course. But, astonishingly, they have.

So in absolutely every sense of the word, these are English rather than UK debates. The three leaders have been chosen because they are the leaders of the three main parties in England - certainly not the UK, because two of the three will not be standing candidates in any of the eighteen Northern Ireland constituencies. The audience will be selected to form a representative cross-section of the population of England - certainly not the UK, because residents of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be specifically banned from taking part. And the issues up for debate will reflect what is at stake in this election in England - certainly not the UK, because the only issues uniformly at stake throughout all four constituent parts of the country are non-devolved issues.

So, morally at least, it seems the SNP have got the broadcasters pretty much bang to rights over this. All that remains to be seen is whether the law views things in the same way, or indeed whether some compromise can still be reached at this late stage that would head off the unfortunate need for legal action. So far, though, there's precious little sign of progress. Having said that, the SNP did secure a minor, almost comic moral victory by persuading ITV to consider ensuring that their Scotland-specific side-debate is shown throughout the whole of Scotland, not just in the regions covered by STV - by the sounds of it this problem hadn't even occurred to them until the SNP pointed it out! It's difficult to know whether to laugh or cry...