If English Higher Education policy has 'nothing to do' with the Scottish Liberal Democrats, why have they helped to vote through higher fees for English students?

Lib Dem blogger Caron Lindsay left a couple of comments on my post about Tavish Scott's double-standard of 'basking in the reflected glory' of Westminster coalition policies he agrees with, while refusing to explictly distance himself from coalition policies such as tuition fees that he must by definition disagree with (because the Scottish party has followed a completely different path).  Here is what Caron had to say -

"Policy on Scottish Higher Education is none of Nick Clegg's business. It's all down to the Scottish Party. Similarly, the Scottish Party has no control over what the party in England decides to do on tuition fees down there. That's what devolution is all about."

Which begs the obvious question - what on earth was "Deputy Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats" and East Dunbartonshire MP Jo Swinson doing voting through higher university tuition fees for English students?  The same question of course also applies to a number of other Scottish Lib Dem MPs, such as Danny Alexander and Malcolm Bruce.

Not so much a case of the Lib Dems having their cake and eating it, but of having their cake, eating it, and then consuming it.

The first principle of 'first past the post' is that no-one has a clue where the 'post' actually is

I've just caught up with the No to AV television ad.  Based on the delights of the poster campaign to date, I was naturally expecting the following tearful dialogue at a hospital bedside -

"But what happened, doctor?  He seemed to be getting better..."

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Peters.  It was the alternative voting system."

But, no, it seems they've now moved on from tragedy to 'comedy'.  We were treated to three basic messages - AV makes coalitions likely (it doesn't), AV means losers win and winners lose (they're thinking of the current system), and AV is really, really complicated (it's actually simpler than the voting system on the X Factor).  To drive the latter point home, a 'teacher' was depicted trying to explain this fantastically straightforward system to her 'students' in the most garbled way imaginable.  Having evidently concluded that her charges were nowhere near befuddled enough, she then resorted to a piece of outright invention from her trusty 'AV manual' -

"No, you can only use the third preferences for those people who have already been eliminated twice."

Now, of course what she's describing here bears absolutely no resemblance to AV, but all the same, a voting system under which a candidate can be eliminated, reinstated and eliminated again (at which point the returning officer rings round the voters and informs them that they can now use their third preferences if they'd like) certainly sounds like cracking good fun.  Can we have a referendum on that one as well, please?

Meanwhile, the 'losers win' point was illustrated by means of the ubiquitous horse-race visual metaphor, with the 'winning jockey' moaning that he'd passed the finishing line first, but AV had handed victory to the horse that came in third.  Now, this bugs me, because as I've pointed out before, if there's one system that can most accurately be described as 'first past the post', it's actually AV - for the very simple reason that it provides a fixed 'winning post', namely 50% of the vote.  By contrast, under our supposedly 'simple' current system, no-one has the faintest idea what will constitute the winning post - it might be as little as 15% of the vote, or as much as 45%.  Where it finally falls is determined by a complex mixture of how many candidates there are, and how evenly the vote is spread between them.  So to return to the horse-racing metaphor, Jason Maguire may have thought he won the Grand National on Saturday, but if the race had been conducted according to the principles of our current voting system he might well have had this to say afterwards -

"I thought I'd won, because I was ahead after all nineteen fences, and I was still ahead where the finishing line normally is, but now they're saying they've moved the winning post back to fence 11 because there were so many horses in the race, and that means someone else has won instead.  I asked them why they couldn't just tell us in advance that the winning line would be there, because after all they knew how many horses were in the race before we started, but they said it wasn't as simple as that.  Apparently they had to wait and see how big the gap was between all the horses midway through the race before they could work out which fence would be the last one.  It's a bit confusing, really.  I'm gutted.  Totally gutted."

Official : Tavish only 'agrees with Nick' because to do otherwise would 'look like panic'

Yesterday's Politics Show leaders' debate shed considerably more heat than light, but all the same there were a few extremely telling moments, none more so than when Isabel Fraser asked Tavish Scott why he hadn't distanced himself from Nick Clegg by conceding that his UK party leader had made a massive mistake and let people down.  This was the rather extraordinary reply - 

"Because I think it would have looked like panic..."

That's a strikingly honest answer, but I'm not sure it's one that's going to be terribly attractive to voters.  He's essentially openly admitting that what he says about the actions of the Westminster coalition will not be based on principle or even on loyalty, but simply on a crude calculation of 'what would look bad'.  Well, if that's the sole test, perhaps he'd like to know for future reference that his indignant cries of "this is so unfair!" when he was put on the spot for politicking over alcohol pricing didn't come across at all well.

Alex Salmond had a brilliant and unanswerable reply when Fraser raised his supposed 'problem with women', namely that if he has such a problem then all the other leaders must have as well, because he actually has the highest personal ratings with both genders.  Nevertheless (and at the risk of sounding like a broken record here), I look forward to the day when an interviewer gets round to asking a leader about his or her 'problem with men'.  For as long as there are gender gaps in polling data the issue will always cut both ways, but the media don't seem to have spotted that rather obvious point yet.

As ever, the debate's much-needed comedy moments were unwittingly supplied by Iain "the Snarl" Gray.  When asked if anyone who carried a knife would be automatically sent to prison, he replied "no" emphatically.  Only those who were convicted of carrying a knife would be subject to mandatory jail terms.  OK, so we've now established that Labour don't want to introduce internment without trial.  Given the recent direction of travel, I suppose that's a relief of sorts.

But it got better.  Fraser challenged him on the cost and practicalities of sending far more people to jail, and added with a touch of irony "presumably you've done the figures".  A look of sheer panic appeared on Gray's face, and as he tried desperately hard to think of something to say he very sloooowly intoned the words "yes-I-have-done-the-figures", as if it honestly hadn't occurred to him that he was being asked what the figures actually were.  There's really got to be a better way of flannelling than that - it was right up there with his all-time classic "well, yes I can speak Portuguese actually".

Having said all that, Gray successfully managed to avoid his finger-jabbing excesses of the STV debate, and with Scott looking so uncomfortable on a number of occasions it's a bit harder to say who was the outright loser this time.  Here is how I would rate it -

Alex Salmond 8/10
Annabel Goldie 6/10
Iain Gray 5/10
Tavish Scott 5/10

Scotland through to world curling final

I was hoping/dreading (delete as appropriate) that we might have another Holyrood opinion poll overnight, but as that doesn't seem to be the case I'll instead say a quick congratulations to Tom Brewster and his Scotland team for reaching the final of the world curling championships in Canada - they defeated Thomas Ulsrud's formidable Norwegian rink in an extra end within the last hour.  We can take particular satisfaction from this result given that the Swedish skip, watching from the sidelines, was undiplomatically keen to write Scotland off...

"Edin’s troops will now prepare for Sunday’s bronze-medal game at 12 noon against the semi-final loser.

“I think Norway will win for sure so we are expecting to play Scotland,” said Edin. “Norway has really stepped up its game by 10 per cent over the Scottish team.""

It's hard to be hugely optimistic about tomorrow's final against the host nation given that Canada have already beaten Scotland twice this week, and with a bit to spare on both occasions.  However, Brewster and his inexperienced team have already handsomely exceeded expectations.  And if by any chance Scotland do win, there's one obvious question - will the Canadians play God Save the Queen in our 'honour' once again?! 

UPDATE : Alex Massie, who celebrated the Scottish women's team's semi-final triumph over Canada last year in admirably restrained fashion with the words "take that moose-munchers, now for the Krauts", is rather more bullish about our chances in the final...

"OK, Great Satan you have beaten Truth, Honesty, Goodness & Virtue twice this tournament but the Final must be ours, OK?"

SNP vote almost triples in Wick by-election gain

I've just caught up with the news of the SNP's sensational Highland Council by-election gain on Thursday, with the party's share of the vote almost tripling.  Rather irritatingly, the full first preference results don't seem to be availaible anywhere on the internet, and I see that Vote 2007 stalwart John Loony has sent a politely irate email to the council's chief executive demanding that this oversight be put right forthwith!  However, extrapolating from the partial figures contained in the SNP's press release, these seem to be the percentage changes for the main parties -

SNP up 30

Labour up 5 or 6

Liberal Democrats down 6

Conservatives unchanged

It's fairly obvious from these figures that the bulk of the SNP vote is made up of former backers of independent candidates, which - a little like the Paisley by-election a few weeks ago - makes it slightly harder to pin down what real movement is going on between the main parties.  Nevertheless, the result is another hugely positive straw in the wind, and hopefully indicates that the SNP are the party best-placed to reap the benefit of any Lib Dem collapse in the Caithness, Sutherland and Ross seat on May 5th.

'Yeah, they had that AV in Mongolia, that's how the giraffes went extinct'

I caught up with the Daily Politics AV debate on the BBC iplayer earlier, and I think I may have just discovered why the No campaign's star turn John Prescott was never made Foreign Secretary.  We were treated to an impressively confident recital of assorted 'facts' about the electoral systems of foreign countries, most of which Prezza seemed to have gleaned from a conversation with his mate Dave down the pub.  For your delectation...

1.  The German Greens dumped their Social Democrat coalition partners midway through a parliament, and put in the Christian Democrats instead.

(The German Greens have never done any such thing, and at federal level have only ever been in coalition with the Social Democrats.  Prescott is thinking of something the liberal FDP did in 1982.  This, is any case, has no relevance whatever to AV, given that Germany uses a proportional and non-preferential voting system that bears no resemblance to the preferential and non-proportional system we're currently being offered.)

2.  AV has led to the current coalition government in Australia.

(Australia doesn't have a coalition government at present, for the very good reason that the only independent third party with representation in the lower house of parliament holds just one seat.  What there is instead is a minority government, the first of its kind under Australia's AV system for several decades, and one that occurred simply as the result of an unusually close election.  In case Prescott hasn't noticed, something remarkably similar happened in Britain under his own beloved voting system just last year.)

3.  AV in Australia meant that the right-wing Liberal-National coalition was always in power until last year's election, and even then Labor was only able to assume office with the help of the Greens and "a couple of farmers".

(Prescott seems to have slept through the previous Labor administrations led by well-known Prime Ministers such as Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.  He also seems oblivious to the fact that the current Julia Gillard administration were the incumbents going into the last election, and had an outright majority.)

4.  How do we know that AV makes coalitions more likely?  Well, it's only used in three countries, and in Belgium they've been without a government for a year.

(A sentence that would make considerably more sense if only Belgium was actually one of those three countries that uses AV.  The proportional system it instead uses does of course make balanced parliaments and coalitions far more likely, but as that system bears absolutely no resemblance to AV, what in God's name is the relevance in pointing this out?)

But apart from these minor quibbles, I must say I learned a great deal.

Alex Salmond's most stunning personal endorsement yet?

I'm sure most readers of this blog will vividly recall AM2, the unrelenting one-man scourge of the SNP on the Scotsman and Herald comment boards, who later took up blogging as 'Scottish Unionist', before retiring from the scene altogether about eighteen months ago.  I had a series of skirmishes with him myself in 2007 and 2008, first at the Herald but more frequently at the Scotsman, when I was posting under a pseudonym.  Imagine my astonishment, then, to spot that he briefly came out of retirement six hours ago to write a one-off post entitled 'Alex Salmond for First Minister' (and, no, it's not an ironic title).

Given past history, I suppose we shouldn't completely exclude the possibility that his account has been hacked, but if this is what it appears...wow.

Mebyon Kernow leader backs Yes to AV

I'm encouraged to read on his blog that Councillor Dick Cole, leader of the Cornish nationalist party Mebyon Kernow, is strongly supporting a Yes vote in the forthcoming referendum on electoral reform.  MK is an ally of the SNP and Plaid Cymru in the European Free Alliance, and like its Scottish and Welsh counterparts is firmly in the social democratic, civic nationalist mould.

"I say this because it is my strong view that the present First Past the Post system does not work as part of a 21st century democracy. I fully support a more proportional voting system (PR) and recognise that AV is not PR, but I do see this reform as a step in the right direction. At the present time across the UK, the vast majority of parliamentary constituencies are safe seats and the main political parties pour disproportionate resources into a small number of marginal seats...

Politics is also becoming increasingly pluralistic with more and more political parties entering the fray, but the electoral system has not caught up. In modern parliamentary contests, as I know from experience, great pressure is brought to bear on people to vote tactically to stop certain political parties from winning. I feel that this distorts political debate and often derails serious consideration of the issues that really matter to communities throughout the UK. AV will eliminate tactical voting, allowing voters to always support their first-choice candidate." 

In a Scottish context, this of course means an end to Labour's false - but all too often persuasive - argument that only a vote for them in Westminster general elections can keep the Tories out.  In future, voters will be able to simply say "no problem, I'll give you my second/fourth/seventh preference, ahead of the Tories".

By my reckoning, all three leaders of the nationalist parties in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall are now supporting a Yes vote, albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

An independent-minded pier

Interesting to read Stuart Dickson's post about the ongoing consultative referenda on Catalan independence, in which 96.7% of the electorate have thus far voted Yes (although presumably on figures like that there must have been a heavy boycott by natural No voters).

"Anyhoo, during our first couple of days, the only signs of rampant natism were passing by a couple of nationalist offices (CiU and JERC), and seeing a couple of JERC's bright red "Sí' a la independencia" posters. Being more familiar with the Basque tendency to splash nationalist paraphernalia all over the shop, I thought that this was rather a poor show."

Actually, I was in those parts myself last September, and I was astonished to see the word "Independencia" scrawled very artistically across a huge portion of one side of the pier at Blanes. I somehow can't imagine the Scottish national movement getting away with a similar enhancement of Wemyss Bay. Unfortunately, I didn't take a close-up picture, but if you're eagle-eyed you can spot it in the distance in this one (not quite sure what the archery and medieval costumes were in aid of) -

I was struck the whole week by how Catalan graffiti is in a different class to our own, both in terms of artistic merit and the seriousness of the message. There was quite a lot of it in Barcelona on the subjects of discrimination and racism. I kept meaning to take some photos, but never got round to it, so in the end I had to settle for this much more familiar looking effort. Still, you can't deny the neatness of the handwriting...

I was also amazed at how many Catalan flags were in evidence everywhere I went, although that may have been in honour of the national day -

The ever-resistable allure of a Farage à trois

The UK Independence Party confuse me, and I strongly suspect they confuse themselves.  According to the BBC report of their campaign launch, they want to scrap direct elections to Holyrood and instead have a Scottish Parliament comprised of double-jobbing Westminster MPs - all in the name of greater "democracy".  This would imply a very traditionalist Tory view of British democracy, and yet UKIP are supposedly strongly in favour of proportional representation.  Indeed, they are backing a Yes vote in the AV referendum, in line with the vast majority of PR supporters in the mainstream parties.  Why on earth, then, do they want to scrap PR for the Scottish Parliament and replace it with an in-built, overwhelming, near-permanent Labour majority?

It's plainly a double-edged sword that Nigel Farage spearheaded the launch - on the one hand he is the party's only remotely recognisable figure, but on the other hand it simply emphasises that they are basically an English party going through the motions of fighting a Scottish campaign.  One very silly blunder is Farage's repeated and patronising use of the word "our" in relation to Scottish institutions, which brings to mind Mrs Thatcher's infamous gaffes of the "we in Scotland" variety.  It's testament to the extent to which the Tory party of those days simply didn't 'get' Scotland that by all accounts she was explicitly advised to adopt such a condescending tone.  Apparently at one point it was even suggested she should put on a Scottish accent when venturing north - a comedy spectacle of truly epic proportions that in the end we were cruelly denied from witnessing.