An attempt to spread democracy to that unlikeliest of places : the United Kingdom

Thought I'd give a quick plug to an Unlock Democracy petition I've just signed calling on the coalition government to deliver an elected second chamber within the lifetime of this parliament. Although Nick Clegg recently unveiled plans to do just that, there have been a lot of mutterings from the usual suspects suggesting that there isn't a cat in hell's chance of it actually happening, because nobody cares about the subject and it's all far too difficult anyway. There have also been siren voices telling the Lib Dems that they can't afford to preoccupy themselves with 'process' anymore, and need to focus on (if you'll forgive the phrase) the things that really matter. So any small steps that we can take to stiffen their resolve can't do any harm - after all, try telling gay men that 'process' doesn't matter when it was the Lords who blocked equality before the law in the 1990s, on the basis of no popular mandate whatsoever. It's high time the UK was dragged kicking and screaming into joining the rest of Western Europe in the democratic age.

If you'd like to sign the petition, it can be found here.

Try telling the Nordic countries you need to have a single state to retain a multi-national identity

You may recall our old friend Chekov, the self-styled Northern Ireland 'liberal unionist' blogger who curiously chooses to channel his liberalism by being an enthusiastic cheerleader for the Conservative party. Anyway, it suddenly occurred to me that on past form he probably would have had some stern words to say about recent developments on this side of the North Channel, and after a quick search it turned out that I was at least half-right. Referring to David Mitchell's Observer article on a perceived threat to British identity following the SNP's win, he writes -

"It's not an unprecedented state of mind to which Mitchell refers. Many citizens of the former Yugoslavia, for instance, mourn their multi-national state and their multinational identity. Let's hope that there is no opportunity for a similar sense of loss in the United Kingdom. The Scots, Welsh, English and Irish nations can be accommodated within the UK in a way that is simply not possible the other way about."

Well now. It seems the election result has had an impact already - as I've highlighted many times, Chekov has been notably reluctant in the past to concede that Scotland is actually a 'nation' at all. The Scottish Tories got over that particular hang-up years ago, but to Chekov we stubbornly remained a mere 'region', with a 'regional parliament'. If we're now getting the honeyed words treatment even from a liberal unionist, the situation must be grave indeed.

I first read David Mitchell's piece a few days ago, and it was an impressive one - unlike the offerings from so many other scribes in the "UK press", it was clearly written from the heart. But I'm equally convinced he's fretting over nothing in fearing the loss of his British identity. If Chekov is so sure that a multi-national identity can only exist within the straightjacket of a single state, he'll have to explain how, for instance, the shared Nordic identity has proved so resilient following the independence of Norway from Sweden, and of Iceland from Denmark. Indeed, doesn't the close political relationship between all of those countries within the Nordic Council bear a striking resemblance to the post-independence confederal relationship between Scotland and the rest of the UK that is now being strongly hinted at by SNP sources?

Has Scotland suddenly become one of Labour's weakest areas?

It's been fascinating since the Holyrood election to see how Labour's support in Scotland seems to have slumped to a level closer to that you'd expect in the south of England, rather than one of their heartland areas. As an illustration, here are the party's regional voting intention shares from the last four GB-wide YouGov polls -

18th May :

North of England 52%
Midlands/Wales 43%
London 41%
South (excluding London) 31%
Scotland 28%

19th-20th May :

North of England 55%
Midlands/Wales 44%
London 44%
Scotland 35%
South (excluding London) 33%

22nd-23rd May :

North of England 55%
Midlands/Wales 46%
Scotland 39%
London 38%
South (excluding London) 31%

23rd-24th May :

North of England 56%
Midlands/Wales 47%
London 40%
Scotland 38%
South (excluding London) 31%

Of course, this may well be nothing more than a transitory side-effect of the SNP's honeymoon period. All the same, it's a timely reminder that taking your core vote for granted is all very well - up to the point that your core vote finds somewhere else to go.

The gun control dividend

A few months ago, I suggested that you didn't need to look much further than the disparity between US and European life expectancy to work out that the much-vaunted "choice" and "excellence" of the US health system simply doesn't deliver what is claimed of it. But there is also another all-too-familiar factor at play in the relatively low US life expectancy figures -

"The US remains far behind most other affluent countries in terms of life expectancy. One of the possible causes of this life expectancy gap is the widespread availability of firearms and the resulting high number of US firearm fatalities: 10,801 homicides in 2000. The European Union experienced 1,260 homicides, Japan only 22. Using multiple decrement techniques, we show that firearm violence shortens the life of an average American by 104 days (151 days for white males, 362 days for black males)."

So it seems we can reasonably conclude that male life expectancy in this country is boosted by several months as a result of our saner gun laws.

Nation shall speak irrelevance unto another nation

Joan McAlpine MSP has an excellent article in the Scotsman today about how Scotland is poorly served by a public service broadcaster that has yet to come to terms with devolution - and how that problem may be about to get much, much worse if the proposal to turn BBC2 into a 'network-only' channel goes through (it would, by definition, mean the demise of Newsnight Scotland and a considerable amount of Gaelic-language programming). The piece also includes the new titbit of information (or if it had been previously revealed I wasn't aware of it) that the producers of Question Time withdrew an invitation for an SNP representative to take part in the first edition of the show after the Holyrood election, because the party was unable to put forward Salmond or Sturgeon and offered the Education Secretary Mike Russell instead. I trust no TV interviewer will ever again have the gall to ask about the SNP being a "one-man band" after that little revelation!

Just by coincidence, my attention was drawn to a forum thread the other day (because someone linked to here from it) discussing the merits of the Scottish Six idea. One of the arguments against it was that countries with highly decentralised political systems such as the USA and Australia nevertheless have nationwide network TV news programmes, just as the UK does. That's quite true, but it's still a red herring. The US and Australia both have fully federal systems, which means that network news programmes will generally focus on what the federal government is up to, and will only deal with state-level matters if it's of genuine nationwide relevance or interest. Otherwise, people have to go to their local media for coverage of domestic state issues. But under the UK system of asymmetric devolution, 'national' broadcasters have a ready-made excuse for endlessly focussing on domestic English affairs - namely that those matters remain the province of the UK government, and therefore must be of interest to a UK-wide audience. Even when they aren't.

The revival of a Grand old tradition : procedural devolution in place of real devolution

One of the much-loved comic traditions of the pre-devolution constitutional debate was that whenever the pressure for self-government was at its strongest, the die-in-a-ditch unionists would always respond by saying - "I know! Let's beef up the Scottish Grand Committee instead!" Incredible though it may seem, Labour's sole proposal for reform in the face of a huge SNP advance at the February 1974 election was to allow the Grand Committee to meet in Scotland very occasionally. It wasn't until the early 1980s that the proposal was actually brought into effect by the Thatcher government - by that point, of course, the boot was on the other foot and it was the Tories who were the constitutional obstructionists. Another decade later, and seemingly mystified that the impossible-to-please Jocks hadn't been bought off by two appearances a year in Edinburgh by a powerless Westminster committee, the Tories sighed and reluctantly handed over the family silver - a few more meetings per year in Scotland (although the extra ones were outside Edinburgh to avoid the unlikely impression taking hold that this was some kind of Scottish Parliament), question times in the Committee with Scottish Office ministers, plus (gasp) adjournment debates. Did the joyous multitudes spontaneously take to the streets to chant the names of "The Liberators", John Major and Ian Lang? Er, not exactly. By 1995, in a state of panic about the seeming inevitability of devolution under a Labour government, Michael Forsyth had one last try by chucking in occasional Grand Committee question times with the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers.

The reason the arch-unionists always went down the same route was because 'administrative devolution' had been long since granted in the shape of the Scottish Office, so the only bone left to throw at public opinion short of genuine legislative/executive devolution was this peculiar brand of 'procedural devolution' - a few fragmented bits of the shell of self-government without any of the substance. Now, you might have thought we'd seen the last of these silly cosmetic exercises after the Grand Committee was mothballed a few years on from devolution, but not a bit of it. The Scotsman reports today that the old unionist instinct has taken hold once again, and Labour MPs have responded to the pressure for substantial new powers for Holyrood by suggesting a revival of the Grand Committee instead -

"Kilmarnock Labour MP Cathy Jamieson, one of those pushing for it to be reconvened, said: "It would be a wonderful opportunity to bring the work of MPs closer to Scottish voters and help show that what happens in Westminster is important to them too.""

Hmmm. Before Cathy gets too carried away with the wonderfulness of the opportunity, she might want to reflect on the fact that, even at the height of the Tories' tinkering in the mid-90s, a poll was published showing that just 2% of the electorate were even aware of the committee's existence. I'm guessing that the figure might be quite a bit lower than that now.

But let's not be unduly churlish - the chance to watch Jimmy Hood lead an adjournment debate in Dalbeattie Town Hall is, I'm sure, one that few of us will be able to resist.

Middle East peace can't be won by all take and no give

I despair of Benedict Brogan. He claims today in the Telegraph that President Obama's new stance on the Middle East peace process constitutes a "giveaway" to the Palestinians that would leave Israel "where it was before the Arab world tried to drive the Jews into the sea". But let's look at what Obama is and isn't actually saying. He suggests that a Palestinian state should be broadly based on the pre-1967 boundaries, but with land-swaps to square the circle of the enormous, illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. He excludes the question of East Jerusalem altogether, even though it has an overwhelmingly Palestinian population, and like the West Bank was ruled by Jordan before 1967. He also leaves open the possibility that the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war will have to give up the right of return to their homes in what is now Israel. So if all that constitutes a "giveaway", it rather begs the question of what on earth Brogan would see as a just peace. A Palestinian state consisting of just Gaza, and the rump of the West Bank that will be left once the prime swathes of land confiscated by Israeli settlers are ripped out? That wouldn't be so much a "giveaway", as a legitimisation of Israel's slow-motion "takeaway" over the last few decades.

Not even the most moderate of Palestinian negotiators would ever accept such a settlement, so what Brogan is offering is a prescription for ongoing conflict. How that will assist Israel's long-term security is something of a mystery.

A plea to London journalists : stop tormenting us with these impossible questions

As a public service, I thought I'd try to assist yet another befuddled journalist - this time Stephen Moss of the Guardian - with his list of fiendishly difficult questions about the independence referendum...

"I dislike nationalist politics and hope the Scots give a resounding no to the question of seceding from the union. That vote will be fraught with difficulty. Who will be the electorate?"

The people of Scotland.

"Will it just be the 5.2 million people in Scotland, which includes half a million people born in England and plenty from elsewhere?"

Yes.

"Or will it include the 800,000 born in Scotland but living in England..?"

No.

"Who has the right to rule on the question of statehood?"

The residents of the territory in question, in line with the long-established principle of self-determination.

"Do people in the rest of the UK have the right to vote on whether Scotland should leave the union?"

No. See above.

"And if Scotland wants to leave, why not Wales or Cornwall or Northumbria?"

Absolutely, if they want to. But not if they don't.

"And what if the Orkneys and Shetlands want to express their own very different identities?"

They should be allowed to. Although I might have had more faith in your knowledge of those different identities if you hadn't made the classic schoolboy/weatherman error of referring to them as "the Orkneys" and "the Shetlands".

"A Breton or a Bavarian is every bit as proud of his or her regional identity as a Scot. Should they be given the right to secede?"

Yes, if they want to. I'm starting to feel like I'm repeating myself here.

"Should Basques and Catalans leave Spain?"

If they want to. (*Suppresses yawn*)

"Should the political absurdity that is Belgium break up?"

If either Wallonia or Flanders (or both) vote to become independent, then yes. If not, no.

Streuth, that was exhausting. After a grilling like that, explaining the Hegelian dialectic is going to be a walk in the park.

The fundamental reality

I may have had a small grumble the other day about Professor James Mitchell's lack of linguistic precision over the future of the "United Kingdom", but I certainly don't have any quibbles about his latest superb article for the Scotsman, in which he explains how pretty much all of the constitutional 'fundamentalists' are now to be found on the unionist side of the fence -

"Adding to this inhibition has been the tendency to try to re-build barriers that the electorate have smashed down again and again. The idea of unionism vs nationalism implies an alliance between Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats against the SNP. It is not unusual for an emerging political party to be treated as some kind of upstart and marginalised by more established parties but at some points the SNP's opponents will look around the Holyrood chamber and realize who the electorate deems marginal.

The most striking case is to be found in the Liberal Democrats, a party that was once more sophisticated than most in its understanding of the complexities of constitutional politics. Over forty years ago the Scottish Liberal Party passed a resolution demanding that "Scotland now have direct representation at all levels of the (European] Community". Few parties have managed to squander such a rich constitutional inheritance as the Liberal Democrats."

That, in a nutshell, is what was so wrong with Willie Rennie declaring within hours of becoming Lib Dem leader that there is a consensus "between the parties" for the Calman proposals as they stand. It was clinging to the comfort of the old days when the SNP could be safely ignored as the 'odd ones out' and you could still have your "consensus" without them. But how does that work now that the 'odd ones out' have an absolute majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament? And, in any case, where do the Greens and Margo fit in to all this? It seems to me that the only real question is whether what we are seeing from Rennie and others is just a temporary phase as they struggle to adjust to the new political environment, or whether they really do intend to remain in this state of obstructionist denial for the full five-year term.

Has Senator Menendez heard the good news yet?

The reappointment of Kenny MacAskill as Justice Secretary for a second term was fully expected, but no less symbolically important for all that. One of the (many) things that had depressed me over the last year as I contemplated the prospect of the SNP losing the election was that some of our "friends" on the other side of the Atlantic might misinterpret it as a vindication of their rather colourful critique (if I can dignify it with such a term) of the decision to release Megrahi. But I needn't have worried. The Scottish government's renewed and enhanced mandate, Kenny MacAskill's own comfortable re-election in Edinburgh East, and Alex Salmond's vote of confidence in his Justice Secretary all send a powerful message to presumptuous US politicians and officials like Robert Menendez and Robert Mueller - assuming these most insular of men ever find out about any of it. I had thought of tipping Menendez the wink via Twitter, but by the look of his account his tweets are probably written by a staffer!

* * *

The parliamentary vote to formally re-elect Alex Salmond as First Minister on Wednesday reminded me of what seems to be a major flaw in the rules. One of the most important principles is that a fresh general election must be called if a First Minister isn't chosen within a month - this is to ensure that a stalemate parliament where no administration can possibly command sufficient support is quickly put out of its misery. But the rules fail to achieve that for one simple reason - abstentions aren't taken into account when determining what constitutes a majority. That doesn't matter if, as on this occasion, there is only one candidate - those members who want to express their lack of confidence in the candidate can simply vote against rather than abstain. But as soon as more than one candidate is validly nominated, a problem kicks in - there's no provision in the rules to vote down all of them, so long as the very modest quorum is reached. If, for example, Conservative and Liberal Democrat MSPs had decided four years ago that they weren't prepared to accept either Alex Salmond or Jack McConnell as First Minister, how could they have voted both down in the final ballot? They couldn't, even though there would have been a natural majority against both candidates.

Of course, in those circumstances an incoming government would probably have been swiftly defeated in a vote of confidence. But in theory the same First Minister could then have been re-elected on a minority vote, and the whole circular process could have carried on and on. Surely there's an obvious way round this problem - if the most popular candidate for FM doesn't have an absolute majority, he or she should then be subjected to an additional affirmative ballot, just to check that the majority of parliamentarians are at least prepared to tolerate the incoming administration. Cumbersome, admittedly, but it could potentially save a lot of grief in the long run.