Four years ago, when Andy Abraham was picked to represent the UK at Eurovision, I checked through the records and discovered that, at the age of 43, he was by some distance the oldest ever person to sing for the UK (leaving aside backing vocalists). That seemed fairly incredible given that many other countries have routinely spanned the age spectrum. Well, Andy can stop feeling self-conscious now, because his record is about to be broken by the small matter of thirty-three years. I don't think that's a bad thing at all - it's not hard to imagine someone like Tom Jones going down a storm at Eurovision. But is Engelbert Humperdinck the right choice of older singer? Ah hae ma doots. He seems to have been picked mainly because, decades after his heyday, he still has a residual following in approximately six European countries. Much the same can be said of Lutheranism.
This is the second year in a row that the BBC have dispensed with the previous tradition of giving the viewing public some say over the UK entry. I've been trying to pin down what it is that bothers me about that. It certainly isn't that it lessens the chance of a good result - the public repeatedly demonstrated themselves perfectly capable of making idiotic decisions in the national selection, most notably by picking Jemini rather than Emily Reed in 2003, and Scooch rather than Cyndi in 2007. But I think what the old system did was give 'us' some kind of ownership over 'our' entry. Obviously as a Scottish nationalist, it's a bit difficult to get enthused by anything with a UK label on it, but at least having watched and voted in the national selection I could nevertheless just about feel 'represented' by the UK entry. Whatever song is dreamt up for Humperdinck (and given the nature of what he does, it can only have a niche appeal at best) is bound to feel like an alien body. I'll have no more stake in it than the French or Icelandic entries (which are both crackers, incidentally) and I'm not even sure whether I'll be particularly cheering it on.
If there really must be an internal selection, the approach being taken is entirely the wrong way round. The first step is to find an absolutely killer song, and then it doesn't matter whether the performer is well-known or not, as long as they can sing it well - the vast majority of Eurovision winners are unknowns. Admittedly there's no harm in a singer whose name carries a bit of a 'wow' factor...but to look for that and come up with a man whose last Top 40 hit was in 1972? It's hard to escape the conclusion that they were getting a bit desperate, rather like Jock Brown was when he said to himself "if I play my cards right here, I could bring Jozef Venglos to Celtic".
Lastly, I'll just make my customary point at this time of year - this is now the twenty-fourth year in succession that there has been no Scottish involvement in the UK Eurovision entry. France and Cyprus have both been represented by Scots more recently than the UK has.
The union dividend in action.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Friday, March 2, 2012
Blow for Cameron's 'jam tomorrow' deception as public demands up-front Devo Max vote
There's a new Ipsos-Mori poll out that doesn't offer much solace for the Prime Minister and others who think that two referendum questions would be simply too much for the poor befuddled Scottish electorate to cope with...
59% want an additional Devo Max question
37% want an independence-only referendum
Arguably by floating the extremely vague idea of more powers further down the line, Cameron has simply increased support for an explicit Devo Max question. The notion that independence is a matter for the Scottish people to decide, but anything short of that is a matter entirely for a British Prime Minister's whim or for discussions in a smoke-filled room, was never likely to attract much sympathy.
59% want an additional Devo Max question
37% want an independence-only referendum
Arguably by floating the extremely vague idea of more powers further down the line, Cameron has simply increased support for an explicit Devo Max question. The notion that independence is a matter for the Scottish people to decide, but anything short of that is a matter entirely for a British Prime Minister's whim or for discussions in a smoke-filled room, was never likely to attract much sympathy.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
The EU must stop accepting a 'this far and no farther' commitment to democracy as good enough
Although it's caused little more than a ripple, the announcement from the Spanish foreign minister that his country would have "nothing to say" about Scottish independence could scarcely be more significant. Since the late 1980s, the SNP has countered scaremongering about "isolation" with the promise that Scotland would remain firmly inside the European family after independence, and indeed would be a much less half-hearted participant in EU affairs than the UK has been. The latter point has become an even easier sell since David Cameron's petulant and pointless veto of a European treaty at the end of last year. But of course the success of the strategy has always hinged on the public's faith that an independent Scotland could freely choose to remain within the EU, and unionist parties have naturally been keen from the start to find ways of undermining that faith. The SNP's impeccable pro-European credentials would be of little use if enough doubt could be sowed about just how welcome an independent Scotland would actually be in the club. And the favourite piece of unionist scaremongering down the years? That Spain would veto our EU membership, on the grounds that it would encourage "separatism" in two of its own autonomous regions, Catalonia and the Basque Country. A Foreign Office source gently whispered that idea into the ears of a few journalists just last month, and with a typical display of the "Westminster is God" mindset, the London media lapped it up and earnestly reported it as if it was a direct quote from the Spanish government!
But it really doesn't matter what is said from now on - we have an authoritative statement from Spain, which can be used as an all-purpose response whenever this hoary old myth is raised. At a stroke, there can be no more room for doubt in the minds of the Scottish public that we can choose a European future. The mechanics of securing EU membership may still be open to debate, as indeed is the very desirability of full membership as opposed to the EU-lite option of staying within the single market via EFTA and the EEA. But the old unionist fantasy of Scotland being 'punished' by the civilised world for its confounded impudence, and set adrift in the North Atlantic without food, shelter or warmth, is now dead for ever.
So great news for us - but spare a thought for the Catalans and the Basques. Spain's pragmatic promotion of the idea that there are no parallels between its own regions and Scotland is essentially based on a piece of sophistry, ie. that 'separatism' is somehow consistent with the UK's constitutional doctrine, but not with Spain's. OK, the UK may not have a written constitution that explicitly states that the unity of the nation is "indissoluble", but the now universally-accepted principle that Scotland can choose its own destiny is a relatively new one. It came about as UK Prime Ministers from Harold Wilson onwards simply accepted the realities of a modern, democratised world that had moved on from colonialism. Whether Spain realises it or not, it's simply playing catch-up on this, rather than defending a timeless and quintessentially Spanish constitutional principle.
After all, what message does a constitutional provision that the nation is 'indissoluble' send to Catalan or Basque nationalists? Basically, that constitutional nationalism is a literal impossibility, and ultimately that non-constitutional methods are the only way of achieving what ought to be perfectly legitimate democratic objectives. It's the rough equivalent of Article 6 of the old Soviet constitution, which made clear that voters could choose absolutely any party they wanted, as long as that party was the Communist Party. The EU has long since moved on from the days where it would even flirt with the idea of admitting a one-party state (although Franco's Spain did apply to join the Common Market), so why on earth does it tolerate a member state which arrogantly tells people that the future of their own nation isn't a matter for them, and has been settled for all time by the text of the constitution? It presumably boils down to the fact that nobody in Brussels has been forced to confront this issue yet. But a short, sharp shock may be coming for the EU from the direction of Barcelona, and once it happens the rules of the game will surely have to change. In future, it must be a condition of EU membership that states adhere to all democratic principles, not just the easy ones. Nobody would deny that accepting the right of 'sub-national peoples' to decide their own future is a hard thing for large states such as Spain to do - but without that acceptance, democracy is a sham.
I'll leave you with a picture I took in Catalonia about eighteen months ago - if you look closely you'll see the word "Independencia" lovingly scrawled along the side of the pier. You don't see things like that at Ardrossan Harbour!
But it really doesn't matter what is said from now on - we have an authoritative statement from Spain, which can be used as an all-purpose response whenever this hoary old myth is raised. At a stroke, there can be no more room for doubt in the minds of the Scottish public that we can choose a European future. The mechanics of securing EU membership may still be open to debate, as indeed is the very desirability of full membership as opposed to the EU-lite option of staying within the single market via EFTA and the EEA. But the old unionist fantasy of Scotland being 'punished' by the civilised world for its confounded impudence, and set adrift in the North Atlantic without food, shelter or warmth, is now dead for ever.
So great news for us - but spare a thought for the Catalans and the Basques. Spain's pragmatic promotion of the idea that there are no parallels between its own regions and Scotland is essentially based on a piece of sophistry, ie. that 'separatism' is somehow consistent with the UK's constitutional doctrine, but not with Spain's. OK, the UK may not have a written constitution that explicitly states that the unity of the nation is "indissoluble", but the now universally-accepted principle that Scotland can choose its own destiny is a relatively new one. It came about as UK Prime Ministers from Harold Wilson onwards simply accepted the realities of a modern, democratised world that had moved on from colonialism. Whether Spain realises it or not, it's simply playing catch-up on this, rather than defending a timeless and quintessentially Spanish constitutional principle.
After all, what message does a constitutional provision that the nation is 'indissoluble' send to Catalan or Basque nationalists? Basically, that constitutional nationalism is a literal impossibility, and ultimately that non-constitutional methods are the only way of achieving what ought to be perfectly legitimate democratic objectives. It's the rough equivalent of Article 6 of the old Soviet constitution, which made clear that voters could choose absolutely any party they wanted, as long as that party was the Communist Party. The EU has long since moved on from the days where it would even flirt with the idea of admitting a one-party state (although Franco's Spain did apply to join the Common Market), so why on earth does it tolerate a member state which arrogantly tells people that the future of their own nation isn't a matter for them, and has been settled for all time by the text of the constitution? It presumably boils down to the fact that nobody in Brussels has been forced to confront this issue yet. But a short, sharp shock may be coming for the EU from the direction of Barcelona, and once it happens the rules of the game will surely have to change. In future, it must be a condition of EU membership that states adhere to all democratic principles, not just the easy ones. Nobody would deny that accepting the right of 'sub-national peoples' to decide their own future is a hard thing for large states such as Spain to do - but without that acceptance, democracy is a sham.
I'll leave you with a picture I took in Catalonia about eighteen months ago - if you look closely you'll see the word "Independencia" lovingly scrawled along the side of the pier. You don't see things like that at Ardrossan Harbour!
Monday, February 27, 2012
Admin, aka 'I can't believe he's not suspended from the PLP'
I was just idly looking at Tom Harris' Twitter page (it's one of my main sources of material, after all), and who do you think was listed in the "similar to Tom Harris" section?
David Drew
Denis MacShane
Eric Joyce
I hope I'm not building up David Drew too much by saying that Admin must be chuffed with that little lot.
That said, I'm delighted to spot that I do actually agree with Tom about something (other than the virtues of Doctor Who, that is) - he's absolutely right that fixed five-year parliamentary terms are an abomination. Fixed terms are a good idea in theory, but only if the term in question is four years at most. Australia has parliaments that last a maximum of three years, and I can't say I've noticed the sun falling out of the sky Down Under.
David Drew
Denis MacShane
Eric Joyce
I hope I'm not building up David Drew too much by saying that Admin must be chuffed with that little lot.
That said, I'm delighted to spot that I do actually agree with Tom about something (other than the virtues of Doctor Who, that is) - he's absolutely right that fixed five-year parliamentary terms are an abomination. Fixed terms are a good idea in theory, but only if the term in question is four years at most. Australia has parliaments that last a maximum of three years, and I can't say I've noticed the sun falling out of the sky Down Under.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
The Scot Goes Pop interview : meet the man who wants to abolish democracy
On Friday night I was feeling a bit fed up, so when the right-wing PB hordes started interrogating me about my views on inheritance tax, I decided not to spoon-feed them, which produced some fascinating results. As I've mused on this blog a number of times, wealthy people who characterise taxation as "theft" or "force" seem to be blissfully unaware of how the "force" of the state actually legitimises their own wealth in the first place. Inheritance law is a classic example of that, because it legitimises wealth that hasn't been earned. So when someone on PB trotted out the standard moan about people not working for their benefits, I asked him if he felt equally angry about millionaire Tory cabinet ministers who in many cases hadn't worked for the bulk of their wealth.
Apparently by simply pointing out that inherited wealth could be used in a variety of other productive ways by the state, just as benefit money could hypothetically be used in other ways, I was directly advocating a 100% rate of inheritance tax. They were so sure on this point that when I asked them for the slightest scrap of evidence that I had proposed a 100% inheritance tax, one of them asked me (in all apparent seriousness) if I was drunk. Earlier, the same delightful chap had informed me of the fearsome consequences of expressing such views -
"Until about half an hour ago it was possible to think that you might just have an adult and coherent case for Scottish Nationalism which you were just bad at putting across. Now it isn't."
And here was another gem on a similar theme -
"James, your posts on this thread read as if they are written by a bitter and envious person. They seem to be just jealous bile. I'm sure you've more to offer this site."
So isn't it interesting how expressing what are perfectly mainstream left-of-centre views about the source of wealth renders you the equivalent of a non-adult, someone who can be safely ignored until he 'grows up'? It set me thinking about the acres of barking mad right-wing opinions on PB that none of these people ever pounce on in the same way, which presumably means that they regard such views as perfectly normal and 'mature'.
Yesterday, I decided to conduct a little experiment. I asked one of the more far-out members of the right-wing PB fraternity a series of questions, and just let his answers speak for themselves. It was notable that there were only two brief suggestions from other posters that there might just possibly be something a touch peculiar about the views I elicited. Among the highlights : democracy should be abolished, there is a 30% chance of the Republic of Ireland seeing sense and rejoining the United Kingdom by 2050, and non-home owners should be barred from sitting on juries. Enjoy...
Me : As a matter of interest, HD2, how do you think women's suffrage is panning out so far?
HD2 : Badly, on balance, but inevitable given what they achieved in WW1.
Home ownership should be a precondition of being able to vote.
Failing that, paying income tax.
No stake, no vote.
Simples.
Me : OK, so universal suffrage is regrettable.
Question 2. Should we bring back corporal punishment for adult criminals?
HD2 : Obviously.
For all criminals, of whatever age (criminal consent being 10: about right, IMO, with consideration for lowering it, in line with everything else that regards such children as consumers and responsive to sexualisation via adverts. I think that's profoundly wrong, but it's where we are today, sadly) and prison should be both educational and unpleasant, with no tariff discounts and consecutive, not concurrent, sentences the norm.
Once you've been (re)educated and/or trained, and cleaned of drugs, THEN you get the sort of typical prison cell we provide today, so that you can have a good chance of a job on release.
I have no problem with prisoners being used as cheap labour on (ideally outdoor, so publicly-visible) mundane works, either.
Next?
Me : Question 3. Given your belief that authority should derive from "genes not jeans", do you believe it was a historic error to move away from the tried-and-tested principle of absolute monarchy?
HD2 : No, but a large Parliament made up of those with a hereditary right to sit there (with periodic new blood and tidying (no, not sure how!)) as the layer under the Monarch and with an elected Parliament which had dominance, stood us well through several hundred years of wars, peace, good and bad times.
We'll never know what advice and recommendations QE2 has made to the 12 PMs she's had serve under her, but I'm sure they all found her advice sound and helpful (at least in retrospect).
My ideal today would be an electorate who produced the policies for the Govt to follow, with Whitehall producing and publishing the basic factual background, Politicians formulating alternative options, based on those facts and The People making the choices through routine referenda.
The Party system would end, politicians might serve for various periods and in various areas of governance, whilst the electorate would not be universal but confined to those with a decent education, a job which meant they paid tax, and probably with some form of multiplier to their choice if they paid higher-rate taxes, employed others or owned their own home. And they'd need to be 21 to vote, 35 to stand for public office and 45 for Westminster.
Total, wild, guess - that'd be around 30-40% of the current adult population, and for them, participation in, say, 75% of all plebiscites held in any one year would be required.
There'd need to be some way of allowing the remaining 60-70% to be represented, too, mind, possibly by having them vote, as now, for a lower chamber, but that would be purely advisory (ie, in the pre-referendum and legislation stages).
A second option might be to make the second chamber elected by universal suffrage, but have advisory and consultative powers only, with the Upper Chamber (elected as I've suggested) being the legislative body and their electorate being, in effect, the back-benchers of today.
The proportions don't matter - what does is devolving power (which is based on knowledge) totally away from Westminster and MPs (even more - Parties) and moving it to people, and not on a 'once-in-five-years' manifesto, but on an ongoing, rolling, issue by issue basis.
Me : Thankyou for that comprehensive answer.
Question 4. Should a man have the legal right to discipline his wife?
HD2 : Sorry that last answer was so long!
This one's much shorter: No.
Me : Thankyou.
Question 5. Should ignorant members of the lower classes be barred from sitting on juries if one of their genetic betters is in the dock?
HD2 : Can I split that in two?
Ignorant people should not sit on juries, period. The definition of ignorant is somewhat problematic, but might be 'those over 30 who own their own home and pay tax'. Since that might be seen to exclude women (not at all my intention) then we'd better add 'and wives/husbands of such people' too.
A wider point - I think there's a case for particularly complex (fraud?) cases to be heard before a jury of those who have some accountancy training, whilst most trials seem to take weeks or even months when a few days is nearer the requirement.
Lawyers get paid more if they explore every avenue and seek to bury the truth under a mountain of 'facts': that's got to be curbed.
Say a panel looks at a case, decides on a range of criteria how important and complex the issues are, and then allocate a maximum of 5, 10, or 20 days for the case. It's then up to the lawyers and Judge to divide that time up between them.
1800 - trials last a few hours, juries decide in minutes.
1900 - murder trials 2-3 days, jury out for an hour or two.
2000 - many trials 5 days +, more 'popular' trials over a month and juries out for 2-4 days considering their verdict.
That's just Legal Aid cash for hot air.
1900-1960 seems about right: currently it's absurd.
Me : Many thanks.
Question 6. Are you optimistic that the people of the Republic of Ireland will freely choose to rejoin the United Kingdom in our lifetimes, and if so, what are the reasons for your optimism?
HD2 : I'd put the chances as 70:30 against (ie by 2050), but 75:25 in favour by 2200.
Why?
Because the EU is going to form the USoE and that's anathema to the entire Anglo-Saxon mind-set.
Eire has much more in common with Washington than Berlin and Paris, and as the memories of 1916 fade and QE2 is recognised as a worthy sovereign (Charles will be too, when the time comes) who Irish people can accept as Head of State (ie they rejoin the Commonwealth).
I can then envisage a federal 'British Isles' as a part of a wider, 'English-Speaking Union' trading block, forming triad with a protectionist USoE, an Islamic World, and an Oriental World.
Not sure where Russia fits into that, mind (I'd suggest USoE, if forced, but suspect it'll be an outsider, just as 'Spanish World', and 'African World' will be others).
Me : Thankyou.
Question 7. Do you believe it would be appropriate to introduce a cultural assimilation programme in UK schools to stamp out regional differences such as accents, dialects, allegiances to sub-national flags and anthems, etc.?
HD2 : Good question.
No. Individuality is what makes us a successful species and makes us successful as individuals, and as collections and groupings of those individuals.
Trying to create 'coffee-coloured people by the score' is what got us into this poly-cultural mess.
A wider point, if I may? Integration of minds and peoples is essential for a unified State: I'm sure we were going in the opposite direction under Bliar/Brown, and I'm unsure where we're going now. Scrapping/pruning/watering-down the EOC, Equality legislation in general, and, somehow, making schools more racially even (I know, the US experience makes this a daft idea) is A Good Thing.
Maybe area-wide selective/specialist schools is the way forward, such that bright pupils of all colours are in one, outstanding sports and artistically-talented pupils in another (etc) rather than having selection based on post-code (as now)?
Edit: I remember visiting the Dome in 2000 and being shocked to see a primary school there along with use where all but one pupils was non-white and being at Uni (early 70's) with a group of people from NI: the degree of segregation between Catholic and Protestant children was total (and agreed by all of them to be wrong and making sectarian violence both possible and much worse).
Me : Thanks again.
Question 8. What, if anything, did fascism get right?
HD2 : It unified and united a disparate, defeated and despairing people, giving them a unity of purpose and a self-belief that stood them ion good stead long after WW2 and all its horrors.
I'm not enough of a detailed student of that period of history to know much more - Mussolini's 'trains running on time' being more propaganda than reality, I believe.
I've a profound disbelief in great orators as national leaders, particularly if their necessary self-belief becomes 'I'm The Chosen One' delusion.
Two things, James:
One, I've greatly enjoyed our exchanges this afternoon and I hope some others have, too.
Two, why the sudden series of questions? Made me think a bit and formulate some ideas, which is always a good thing to do.
And on that happy note, I must now drive 30 miles to do a Mystery Shop at a Specsavers, pretending to want contact lenses (hard, since I don't wear glasses!).
Have a great afternoon- it's really Spring-like here, with the first hawthorn blossoms just out and my (VERY late-planted) daffodils now coming out too.
Bye - and thanks for the fish, James!
To be fair, he pleasantly surprised me with his answer about the disciplining of wives, but the most frightening bit was when he innocently described my suggestion of cultural assimilation in schools as a "good question"!
* * *
I was a bit miffed to discover that I forgot about the Irish Eurovision selection last night, because that probably means I've missed out on the chance to vote in a national final this year for the first time in...well, a long time. After the rip-roaring success of last year, the BBC are once again going for an internal selection, with the latest rumour being that a reformed Atomic Kitten will be getting the nod.
Apparently by simply pointing out that inherited wealth could be used in a variety of other productive ways by the state, just as benefit money could hypothetically be used in other ways, I was directly advocating a 100% rate of inheritance tax. They were so sure on this point that when I asked them for the slightest scrap of evidence that I had proposed a 100% inheritance tax, one of them asked me (in all apparent seriousness) if I was drunk. Earlier, the same delightful chap had informed me of the fearsome consequences of expressing such views -
"Until about half an hour ago it was possible to think that you might just have an adult and coherent case for Scottish Nationalism which you were just bad at putting across. Now it isn't."
And here was another gem on a similar theme -
"James, your posts on this thread read as if they are written by a bitter and envious person. They seem to be just jealous bile. I'm sure you've more to offer this site."
So isn't it interesting how expressing what are perfectly mainstream left-of-centre views about the source of wealth renders you the equivalent of a non-adult, someone who can be safely ignored until he 'grows up'? It set me thinking about the acres of barking mad right-wing opinions on PB that none of these people ever pounce on in the same way, which presumably means that they regard such views as perfectly normal and 'mature'.
Yesterday, I decided to conduct a little experiment. I asked one of the more far-out members of the right-wing PB fraternity a series of questions, and just let his answers speak for themselves. It was notable that there were only two brief suggestions from other posters that there might just possibly be something a touch peculiar about the views I elicited. Among the highlights : democracy should be abolished, there is a 30% chance of the Republic of Ireland seeing sense and rejoining the United Kingdom by 2050, and non-home owners should be barred from sitting on juries. Enjoy...
Me : As a matter of interest, HD2, how do you think women's suffrage is panning out so far?
HD2 : Badly, on balance, but inevitable given what they achieved in WW1.
Home ownership should be a precondition of being able to vote.
Failing that, paying income tax.
No stake, no vote.
Simples.
Me : OK, so universal suffrage is regrettable.
Question 2. Should we bring back corporal punishment for adult criminals?
HD2 : Obviously.
For all criminals, of whatever age (criminal consent being 10: about right, IMO, with consideration for lowering it, in line with everything else that regards such children as consumers and responsive to sexualisation via adverts. I think that's profoundly wrong, but it's where we are today, sadly) and prison should be both educational and unpleasant, with no tariff discounts and consecutive, not concurrent, sentences the norm.
Once you've been (re)educated and/or trained, and cleaned of drugs, THEN you get the sort of typical prison cell we provide today, so that you can have a good chance of a job on release.
I have no problem with prisoners being used as cheap labour on (ideally outdoor, so publicly-visible) mundane works, either.
Next?
Me : Question 3. Given your belief that authority should derive from "genes not jeans", do you believe it was a historic error to move away from the tried-and-tested principle of absolute monarchy?
HD2 : No, but a large Parliament made up of those with a hereditary right to sit there (with periodic new blood and tidying (no, not sure how!)) as the layer under the Monarch and with an elected Parliament which had dominance, stood us well through several hundred years of wars, peace, good and bad times.
We'll never know what advice and recommendations QE2 has made to the 12 PMs she's had serve under her, but I'm sure they all found her advice sound and helpful (at least in retrospect).
My ideal today would be an electorate who produced the policies for the Govt to follow, with Whitehall producing and publishing the basic factual background, Politicians formulating alternative options, based on those facts and The People making the choices through routine referenda.
The Party system would end, politicians might serve for various periods and in various areas of governance, whilst the electorate would not be universal but confined to those with a decent education, a job which meant they paid tax, and probably with some form of multiplier to their choice if they paid higher-rate taxes, employed others or owned their own home. And they'd need to be 21 to vote, 35 to stand for public office and 45 for Westminster.
Total, wild, guess - that'd be around 30-40% of the current adult population, and for them, participation in, say, 75% of all plebiscites held in any one year would be required.
There'd need to be some way of allowing the remaining 60-70% to be represented, too, mind, possibly by having them vote, as now, for a lower chamber, but that would be purely advisory (ie, in the pre-referendum and legislation stages).
A second option might be to make the second chamber elected by universal suffrage, but have advisory and consultative powers only, with the Upper Chamber (elected as I've suggested) being the legislative body and their electorate being, in effect, the back-benchers of today.
The proportions don't matter - what does is devolving power (which is based on knowledge) totally away from Westminster and MPs (even more - Parties) and moving it to people, and not on a 'once-in-five-years' manifesto, but on an ongoing, rolling, issue by issue basis.
Me : Thankyou for that comprehensive answer.
Question 4. Should a man have the legal right to discipline his wife?
HD2 : Sorry that last answer was so long!
This one's much shorter: No.
Me : Thankyou.
Question 5. Should ignorant members of the lower classes be barred from sitting on juries if one of their genetic betters is in the dock?
HD2 : Can I split that in two?
Ignorant people should not sit on juries, period. The definition of ignorant is somewhat problematic, but might be 'those over 30 who own their own home and pay tax'. Since that might be seen to exclude women (not at all my intention) then we'd better add 'and wives/husbands of such people' too.
A wider point - I think there's a case for particularly complex (fraud?) cases to be heard before a jury of those who have some accountancy training, whilst most trials seem to take weeks or even months when a few days is nearer the requirement.
Lawyers get paid more if they explore every avenue and seek to bury the truth under a mountain of 'facts': that's got to be curbed.
Say a panel looks at a case, decides on a range of criteria how important and complex the issues are, and then allocate a maximum of 5, 10, or 20 days for the case. It's then up to the lawyers and Judge to divide that time up between them.
1800 - trials last a few hours, juries decide in minutes.
1900 - murder trials 2-3 days, jury out for an hour or two.
2000 - many trials 5 days +, more 'popular' trials over a month and juries out for 2-4 days considering their verdict.
That's just Legal Aid cash for hot air.
1900-1960 seems about right: currently it's absurd.
Me : Many thanks.
Question 6. Are you optimistic that the people of the Republic of Ireland will freely choose to rejoin the United Kingdom in our lifetimes, and if so, what are the reasons for your optimism?
HD2 : I'd put the chances as 70:30 against (ie by 2050), but 75:25 in favour by 2200.
Why?
Because the EU is going to form the USoE and that's anathema to the entire Anglo-Saxon mind-set.
Eire has much more in common with Washington than Berlin and Paris, and as the memories of 1916 fade and QE2 is recognised as a worthy sovereign (Charles will be too, when the time comes) who Irish people can accept as Head of State (ie they rejoin the Commonwealth).
I can then envisage a federal 'British Isles' as a part of a wider, 'English-Speaking Union' trading block, forming triad with a protectionist USoE, an Islamic World, and an Oriental World.
Not sure where Russia fits into that, mind (I'd suggest USoE, if forced, but suspect it'll be an outsider, just as 'Spanish World', and 'African World' will be others).
Me : Thankyou.
Question 7. Do you believe it would be appropriate to introduce a cultural assimilation programme in UK schools to stamp out regional differences such as accents, dialects, allegiances to sub-national flags and anthems, etc.?
HD2 : Good question.
No. Individuality is what makes us a successful species and makes us successful as individuals, and as collections and groupings of those individuals.
Trying to create 'coffee-coloured people by the score' is what got us into this poly-cultural mess.
A wider point, if I may? Integration of minds and peoples is essential for a unified State: I'm sure we were going in the opposite direction under Bliar/Brown, and I'm unsure where we're going now. Scrapping/pruning/watering-down the EOC, Equality legislation in general, and, somehow, making schools more racially even (I know, the US experience makes this a daft idea) is A Good Thing.
Maybe area-wide selective/specialist schools is the way forward, such that bright pupils of all colours are in one, outstanding sports and artistically-talented pupils in another (etc) rather than having selection based on post-code (as now)?
Edit: I remember visiting the Dome in 2000 and being shocked to see a primary school there along with use where all but one pupils was non-white and being at Uni (early 70's) with a group of people from NI: the degree of segregation between Catholic and Protestant children was total (and agreed by all of them to be wrong and making sectarian violence both possible and much worse).
Me : Thanks again.
Question 8. What, if anything, did fascism get right?
HD2 : It unified and united a disparate, defeated and despairing people, giving them a unity of purpose and a self-belief that stood them ion good stead long after WW2 and all its horrors.
I'm not enough of a detailed student of that period of history to know much more - Mussolini's 'trains running on time' being more propaganda than reality, I believe.
I've a profound disbelief in great orators as national leaders, particularly if their necessary self-belief becomes 'I'm The Chosen One' delusion.
Two things, James:
One, I've greatly enjoyed our exchanges this afternoon and I hope some others have, too.
Two, why the sudden series of questions? Made me think a bit and formulate some ideas, which is always a good thing to do.
And on that happy note, I must now drive 30 miles to do a Mystery Shop at a Specsavers, pretending to want contact lenses (hard, since I don't wear glasses!).
Have a great afternoon- it's really Spring-like here, with the first hawthorn blossoms just out and my (VERY late-planted) daffodils now coming out too.
Bye - and thanks for the fish, James!
To be fair, he pleasantly surprised me with his answer about the disciplining of wives, but the most frightening bit was when he innocently described my suggestion of cultural assimilation in schools as a "good question"!
* * *
I was a bit miffed to discover that I forgot about the Irish Eurovision selection last night, because that probably means I've missed out on the chance to vote in a national final this year for the first time in...well, a long time. After the rip-roaring success of last year, the BBC are once again going for an internal selection, with the latest rumour being that a reformed Atomic Kitten will be getting the nod.
Friday, February 24, 2012
This isn't just any consultation response, this is a quality unionist consultation response
Just when you think you've seen it all. It appears Michael Moore has given up hope of manipulating the raw numbers in the UK government's referendum 'consultation', and is instead trying a different tack, if this tweet from Torcuil Crichton (approvingly retweeted by @Admin4TheYoonYoon) is anything to go by...
"Moore says consultation will be judged on qualitative responses - strength of arguments - not quantity. Code for cybernats need not apply."
Hmmm. Perhaps this novel principle could also extend to the referendum itself - ie. quality of votes counts for more than quantity.
Code for Yes voters need not apply.
"Moore says consultation will be judged on qualitative responses - strength of arguments - not quantity. Code for cybernats need not apply."
Hmmm. Perhaps this novel principle could also extend to the referendum itself - ie. quality of votes counts for more than quantity.
Code for Yes voters need not apply.
Monday, February 20, 2012
The Tory bully-boys win again : after brief outbreak of common sense, Scotland rejoins the Holocaust as one of only two banned topics on Political Betting
Yes, I know this is murderously hard to keep track of. Last Sunday, we were led to believe that Scottish posts had been subject to an utterly random near-blanket ban on PB. On Tuesday, we were told that it had only ever been intended as a ban for a single thread on Sunday - although that explanation had the distinct feel of a retrospective reinterpretation about it. This morning, however, the writing was on the wall again as a succession of hard-right, Jock-bashing members of the PB Tory Herd returned to their relentless "something must be done, Mike" efforts to squeeze the life out of yet another dissenting group. Note : as you read the following comments, you might be forgiven for not picking up on the fact that the subject of Scotland was actually introduced to the thread by a Labour poster...
SeanT : "So this thread went offtopic and on to Scotland by comment TWO.
I appreciate that it wasn't a Nit Wot Dunnit, but really, guys. pb is like a favourite local pub that's suddenly been taken over by transsexuals.
The regulars are squeezed into the corner while the hairy freaks with their pre-op manboobs dance and jiggle to Barbara Streisand Goes Techno next to the bar billiards.
Can't you get your own place? Really? Or maybe book a room at the back of the boozer, it's called pb2.
Thanks."
Marquee Mark : "Sorry, OGH, I don't press the contribute button so it can be James Kelly's own personal Nit echo-chamber.
It's been great as a site for the past six years I've known it. Probably my favourite meeting place on the web. But its delightful balance of immediate flags for interesting news, insight, whimsy, humour and occasional invective has been lost in recent weeks.
I know the formidable effort you have put into it. But I suppose all good things come to an end. I hope I'm wrong and that it can be rebooted and that balance refound.
But cheerio. I'm out of here."
Slackbladder : "Second post in and it's already hijacked by Scotttish stuff...I'll come back in the next thread.
I really can't be arsed anymore."
RodWarner : "Morning - Scotland again? Goodbye..."
But of course we could rely on PB's right-leaning Liberal Democrat proprietor Mike Smithson to demonstrate his neutrality and independence from his site's Tory Herd by standing firm against such pathetically unsubtle attempts to blackmail him into selectively censoring an ideologically undesirable group of posters, couldn't we?
Oh, don't be daft. Right on cue, we had this announcement at 12.07pm -
"From tonight, unless there is a specific post, discussions on the Scottish referendum shall take place on the NightHawks thread. If posters want to continue during the daytime they will be directed there."
To adapt the old joke about Gwynfor Evans' hunger strike, Marquee Mark barely had to forego his PB lunch before getting the bully-boy website of his dreams back. Admittedly, it's a somewhat more carefully-worded ban this time, but it does still mean that "the Scottish referendum" will, along with the Holocaust, be one of only two banned topics on the majority of threads - absolutely every other off-topic discussion under the sun (cheese, the Zapatista rebels, Katie Price, and above all else 'Ed Miliband is crap') will remain perfectly OK, regardless of the theoretical subject of the thread. And will other Scottish/SNP topics not directly related to the referendum still be allowed? I suspect we won't have long to wait to find out, as the newly-back-in-harness Stuart Dickson isn't the sort to be cowed from posting about whatever he feels like posting about. Unless of course Smithson bans him altogether yet again, which wouldn't entirely surprise me, given the somewhat capricious set of rulings we've seen over the last eight days.
And, as I observed the last time the ban was imposed, this could easily amount (depending on how the rule is enforced by moderators) to a constructive ban on all pro-SNP posts on all threads other than "Nighthawks". Supporters of every other political party in the entire world will not be subject to such a ban. Which makes it all the more gloriously ironic that just before censorship was re-imposed, the ever-delightful Plato was amusing herself by chortling away at my 'paranoia' for writing on this blog about an anti-SNP moderation policy at PB.
She then of course instantly 'liked' the decision to impose a ban. You just couldn't make it up - and luckily with Plato you don't have to.
UPDATE : After the PB poster AlanBrooke made the observation that "lots of people like the idea of free speech until they see what it looks like", I added this comment -
"Not a bit of it, Alan. We've established today that the Tory Herd love free speech. For themselves. Free, unchallenged, undiluted by dissenting voices, unionist Tory free speech."
SeanT : "So this thread went offtopic and on to Scotland by comment TWO.
I appreciate that it wasn't a Nit Wot Dunnit, but really, guys. pb is like a favourite local pub that's suddenly been taken over by transsexuals.
The regulars are squeezed into the corner while the hairy freaks with their pre-op manboobs dance and jiggle to Barbara Streisand Goes Techno next to the bar billiards.
Can't you get your own place? Really? Or maybe book a room at the back of the boozer, it's called pb2.
Thanks."
Marquee Mark : "Sorry, OGH, I don't press the contribute button so it can be James Kelly's own personal Nit echo-chamber.
It's been great as a site for the past six years I've known it. Probably my favourite meeting place on the web. But its delightful balance of immediate flags for interesting news, insight, whimsy, humour and occasional invective has been lost in recent weeks.
I know the formidable effort you have put into it. But I suppose all good things come to an end. I hope I'm wrong and that it can be rebooted and that balance refound.
But cheerio. I'm out of here."
Slackbladder : "Second post in and it's already hijacked by Scotttish stuff...I'll come back in the next thread.
I really can't be arsed anymore."
RodWarner : "Morning - Scotland again? Goodbye..."
But of course we could rely on PB's right-leaning Liberal Democrat proprietor Mike Smithson to demonstrate his neutrality and independence from his site's Tory Herd by standing firm against such pathetically unsubtle attempts to blackmail him into selectively censoring an ideologically undesirable group of posters, couldn't we?
Oh, don't be daft. Right on cue, we had this announcement at 12.07pm -
"From tonight, unless there is a specific post, discussions on the Scottish referendum shall take place on the NightHawks thread. If posters want to continue during the daytime they will be directed there."
To adapt the old joke about Gwynfor Evans' hunger strike, Marquee Mark barely had to forego his PB lunch before getting the bully-boy website of his dreams back. Admittedly, it's a somewhat more carefully-worded ban this time, but it does still mean that "the Scottish referendum" will, along with the Holocaust, be one of only two banned topics on the majority of threads - absolutely every other off-topic discussion under the sun (cheese, the Zapatista rebels, Katie Price, and above all else 'Ed Miliband is crap') will remain perfectly OK, regardless of the theoretical subject of the thread. And will other Scottish/SNP topics not directly related to the referendum still be allowed? I suspect we won't have long to wait to find out, as the newly-back-in-harness Stuart Dickson isn't the sort to be cowed from posting about whatever he feels like posting about. Unless of course Smithson bans him altogether yet again, which wouldn't entirely surprise me, given the somewhat capricious set of rulings we've seen over the last eight days.
And, as I observed the last time the ban was imposed, this could easily amount (depending on how the rule is enforced by moderators) to a constructive ban on all pro-SNP posts on all threads other than "Nighthawks". Supporters of every other political party in the entire world will not be subject to such a ban. Which makes it all the more gloriously ironic that just before censorship was re-imposed, the ever-delightful Plato was amusing herself by chortling away at my 'paranoia' for writing on this blog about an anti-SNP moderation policy at PB.
She then of course instantly 'liked' the decision to impose a ban. You just couldn't make it up - and luckily with Plato you don't have to.
UPDATE : After the PB poster AlanBrooke made the observation that "lots of people like the idea of free speech until they see what it looks like", I added this comment -
"Not a bit of it, Alan. We've established today that the Tory Herd love free speech. For themselves. Free, unchallenged, undiluted by dissenting voices, unionist Tory free speech."
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Telegraph demands that no more powers be passed to a non-existent body
A typically restrained Telegraph editorial of the "no appeasement to the separatist animals" variety prompted me to leave the following comment -
"The Prime Minister must not give more powers to the Scottish Assembly."
Dear God. There is no body in existence called "the Scottish Assembly". I don't know how anyone can take an editorial seriously after that headline.
"We applaud the commitment that the Prime Minister brings to promoting the cause of the Union. There is nothing in it for him either personally or politically"
Apart from the North Sea oil revenues, the loss of international clout from being PM of a shrunken country, and the headache of where to put Trident once it's removed from Scotland? Yes, apart from those things there's nothing in it for him politically.
"But David Cameron is passionate about maintaining the union between Scotland and England, for no other reason than that he thinks it is in the best interests of both countries to continue with the arrangement that has enriched both for more than 300 years. "
For no other reason than that, the North Sea oil revenues, the loss of international clout from being PM of a shrunken country, and the headache of where to put Trident once it's removed from Scotland. Yup, just the four reasons.
"Mr Salmond’s poll ratings have dipped slightly"
But the SNP's haven't. As for Salmond's personal rating, he's still got a frightening distance to travel before he falls as far as Cameron's UK-wide rating, let alone the PM's rating in Scotland.
* * *
What a difference a week makes at Political Betting. Last Sunday, it appeared that all comments relating to Scotland had been arbitrarily banned from the site, except for the rare occasions when a thread specifically related to Scotland. By Tuesday, the ban had been lifted, and then later in the week the site owner Mike Smithson made the cryptic comment that "contrary to the impression given, no Scottish posters are banned". That contradicted what we had all assumed to be an indefinite ban on the SNP's "King Over The Water" Stuart Dickson, so I wrote to Stuart to check if he was aware that he was no longer banned. It was the first he'd heard of it, so he emailed Mike Smithson to seek clarification. I've no idea what the response was, but the net result is that Stuart is now back in harness for the first time since 2010, to the evident delight of the usual suspects -
"I see Stuart Dickinson coming back has cured the nitteration of all threads issue. much."
My heart bleeds for them.
"The Prime Minister must not give more powers to the Scottish Assembly."
Dear God. There is no body in existence called "the Scottish Assembly". I don't know how anyone can take an editorial seriously after that headline.
"We applaud the commitment that the Prime Minister brings to promoting the cause of the Union. There is nothing in it for him either personally or politically"
Apart from the North Sea oil revenues, the loss of international clout from being PM of a shrunken country, and the headache of where to put Trident once it's removed from Scotland? Yes, apart from those things there's nothing in it for him politically.
"But David Cameron is passionate about maintaining the union between Scotland and England, for no other reason than that he thinks it is in the best interests of both countries to continue with the arrangement that has enriched both for more than 300 years. "
For no other reason than that, the North Sea oil revenues, the loss of international clout from being PM of a shrunken country, and the headache of where to put Trident once it's removed from Scotland. Yup, just the four reasons.
"Mr Salmond’s poll ratings have dipped slightly"
But the SNP's haven't. As for Salmond's personal rating, he's still got a frightening distance to travel before he falls as far as Cameron's UK-wide rating, let alone the PM's rating in Scotland.
* * *
What a difference a week makes at Political Betting. Last Sunday, it appeared that all comments relating to Scotland had been arbitrarily banned from the site, except for the rare occasions when a thread specifically related to Scotland. By Tuesday, the ban had been lifted, and then later in the week the site owner Mike Smithson made the cryptic comment that "contrary to the impression given, no Scottish posters are banned". That contradicted what we had all assumed to be an indefinite ban on the SNP's "King Over The Water" Stuart Dickson, so I wrote to Stuart to check if he was aware that he was no longer banned. It was the first he'd heard of it, so he emailed Mike Smithson to seek clarification. I've no idea what the response was, but the net result is that Stuart is now back in harness for the first time since 2010, to the evident delight of the usual suspects -
"I see Stuart Dickinson coming back has cured the nitteration of all threads issue. much."
My heart bleeds for them.
Friday, February 17, 2012
All the questions are for the British Nationalists now
So, where to begin with David Cameron's "positive case for the union"? There's a lot of agreement that it's preferable that he has at last switched to a positive tone (albeit this led him to some truly fantastical claims about the magical properties of "my love, our home, this United Kingdom", which I may come onto later), but I do hope he and his followers realise that this new strategy is for life, not just for Christmas. He can't bail out when the going gets tough and revert to his comfort-zone of chortling to himself and his Old Etonian chums that an independent Scotland would be "flying...by the seat of your pants!!!!", because that would directly contradict his admission yesterday that Scotland could easily make its own way in the world. Perhaps even tougher for Tory foot-soldiers will be to stop casting doubts on the suitability of Scottish politicians for the position of Prime Minister, because those objections directly contradict Cameron's high-flown rhetoric about Scots leading in the UK. Gordon Brown was the elephant in the room during that passage of the speech - you know, the "one-eyed Scottish idiot".
Another problem is that, as John Curtice has pointed out, although it was a positive case for the union, it was the wrong positive case. The message was not "here is my vision for Scotland's future as a country" - it was "Scotland is not your country, Britain is our country, and by crikey it's fab, please don't take it away from us". He was unambiguously casting himself as a British nationalist, and defining a No vote to independence as a vote for British nationalism. That seems a mildly crazy thing to do, given that most Scots are Scottish nationalists with either a large or a small 'n'. I can't help but wonder if his advisers have been influenced by the effect a positive articulation of Canadian nationalism had in the 1995 Quebec referendum. If so, it's a classic case of learning the wrong lesson from history. A Scottish journalist who attended the flag-waving 'Rally for Canada' a few days before polling day in '95 (I think it may even have been Kenny Farquharson) pointed out at the time how hard it was to imagine an equivalent Union Jack-waving rally in a Scottish referendum having anything other than a counter-productive effect. It's not that there isn't any background attachment to Britishness in Scotland, but our own notion of Britishness is rather loose and multi-national in nature, and entirely alien from the one-dimensional nationalism Cameron is advancing, which is really a kind of 'Greater England nationalism', or 'the-state-London-is-capital-city-of nationalism'. It's not actually true that Scottish independence would rob Cameron of his Greater England "home", as he claims - but that home would certainly be diminished in his eyes. A shrunk landmass, a shrunk population, shrunk clout in international institutions. In short, independence would impair the projection of London power - and nothing can be more alarming to a Greater England nationalist than that. That's what he was getting at when he talked about the 'loss of something very special'. In particular, he gave the game away by placing so much emphasis on Britain's status as a member of bodies like the UN Security Council. No-one is under any illusions that an independent Scotland would have such a status, so it's hard to escape the conclusion that what we're being asked to worry about here is the (frankly very slim) possibility that the remainder of the UK might lose its status as well after Scottish independence. In truth, this isn't an argument about Scotland at all - it's a squeal of pain from a London politician about what he stands to lose.
Besides which, Cameron's promotion of British nationalism as a 'nobler nationalism' was absurdly contradictory. With one breath he insisted it didn't need to base itself on "ancient myths, blood-soaked memories and opposition to others", and with the next he started wittering on about the defeat of Hitler and the Battle of Waterloo! And how precisely does all the inspiring talk about 'solidarity' and 'stronger together, weaker apart' square with his isolationism in Europe? Faced with such irreconcilable contradictions, we can again only conclude that this is really about London's Little Empire, and preserving its sovereign reach.
The reality is that the 'special' things that people in Scotland truly value about Britishness are not contingent on the existence of a British nation state. Indeed, the social union across these islands may well be enhanced once we have jettisoned the resentment-fuelling straightjacket of a political union that works in the interests of one 'partner' more than another.
Of course, the other key feature of the speech was the rabbit out of the hat about the potential for further devolution if Scotland votes No to independence. Depending on whether Cameron actually means a word of it, this could either be characterised as the Douglas-Home Deception Strategy or as the Top Secret Devo Plus Plan, because apparently we're not entitled to know any details about it until after the referendum. Certainly Cameron's efforts to convince us that this isn't a repeat of the Douglas-Home wheeze from 1979 were totally unconvincing. He asked us to reflect on his record in delivering the Scotland Bill, but there's one slight snag with that - it was in fact the coalition agreement that delivered the Scotland Bill. All the mood music before the 2010 election was that a Tory government would kick Calman into the long grass, and there can be little doubt that's exactly what would have happened if the Tories had won a majority in their own right. The personal record Scots will actually be reflecting on is Cameron's failure to respect the SNP's overwhelming mandate from last May to negotiate extra powers in addition to those currently in the Scotland Bill.
But even if we were naive enough to take these incredibly vague hints of jam tomorrow seriously, Cameron has just got himself into a bit of a bind. At the heart of the unionist strategy until now has been the constant demand that the SNP must answer a series of detailed questions (almost all of them already answered umpteen times) about what independence will look like. But at a stroke, we're now in a position where we have infinitely more clarity about the effect of a Yes vote than we do about the effect of a No vote. There are an endless series of questions that need to be put to Cameron about how powers will be divided between Westminster and Holyrood under the Top Secret Devo Plus Plan that will supposedly be triggered by a No vote in the referendum - and incredibly he seems to think an adequate response is that the Scottish people don't have a right to know until after they vote for it. It's no use arguing that the referendum is about independence and not enhanced devolution - he has explicitly linked the two issues himself by including the prospect of delivering the Top Secret Devo Plus Plan in his list of reasons why people should vote No. There's no way back - from this point on, all the hard questions on detail are for the Brit Nats.
A few other miscellaneous points from Cameron's speech...
"I am a classic case.
My father’s father was a Cameron.
My mother’s mother was a Llewellyn.
I was born and have always lived in England."
A great many things can be reasonably said about a multi-millionaire Old Etonian Prime Minister who is a direct descendant of William IV and is married to a baronet's daughter, but I'm not sure "classic case" is one of them.
"Scottish pilots helped us to free Libya from tyranny and prevented a failed pariah state festering on Europe’s Southern border…"
But Danish pilots helped even more. Denmark, let's not forget, is an independent country with roughly the same population size as Scotland. It is also in the enviable position of deciding for itself which international military adventures it wants to get involved in, and which it doesn't. An independent Scotland might well have freely chosen to assist in Libya - I strongly suspect we wouldn't have touched the Bush/Blair invasion of Iraq with a barge-pole.
"We’re safer, not just because of the expertise and bravery our armed forces to which Scotland makes an immense contribution…
…but also because of our policing expertise and security services respected the world over.
When a bomb went off at Glasgow Airport the full resources of the UK state went into running down every lead."
Would it be terribly insensitive of me to point out that if only we had been decoupled from Britain's slavishly pro-Bush foreign policy, that bomb in Glasgow Airport would probably never have gone off in the first place?
"…but a common system, rules and currency which has helped to make us the 7th largest economy in the world."
Down from 4th just a few years ago, David. Do you think he'll finally be too embarrassed to parrot that rather desperate line when the ranking is 14th?
"One issue that is very close to my heart is aid.
And this is an issue where Scottish people have a huge influence...through the UK, Scotland has global reach."
It's hard to escape the conclusion that he's suggesting that Scots care more about overseas aid than others in the UK - but if so, it's difficult to see what difference we can possibly be making given that this isn't a government Scotland elected. The logical conclusion to draw is that the combined overseas aid budget of Scotland and the remainder of the UK would increase after independence, because a Scottish state would accord it a higher priority, and the UK government would carry on much as before.
"I believe in real devolution and want to make devolution work better.
I want a Scotland where more people own their own homes.
Where more people keep more of their money."
Another part of the speech that makes me deeply suspicious about the Top Secret Devo Plus Plan. This is thoroughbred Thatcherite language - she also used to regularly talk about 'real' devolution in place of, well, real devolution. Thanks all the same, Dave, but the kind of devolution we're looking for isn't a play on words.
Another problem is that, as John Curtice has pointed out, although it was a positive case for the union, it was the wrong positive case. The message was not "here is my vision for Scotland's future as a country" - it was "Scotland is not your country, Britain is our country, and by crikey it's fab, please don't take it away from us". He was unambiguously casting himself as a British nationalist, and defining a No vote to independence as a vote for British nationalism. That seems a mildly crazy thing to do, given that most Scots are Scottish nationalists with either a large or a small 'n'. I can't help but wonder if his advisers have been influenced by the effect a positive articulation of Canadian nationalism had in the 1995 Quebec referendum. If so, it's a classic case of learning the wrong lesson from history. A Scottish journalist who attended the flag-waving 'Rally for Canada' a few days before polling day in '95 (I think it may even have been Kenny Farquharson) pointed out at the time how hard it was to imagine an equivalent Union Jack-waving rally in a Scottish referendum having anything other than a counter-productive effect. It's not that there isn't any background attachment to Britishness in Scotland, but our own notion of Britishness is rather loose and multi-national in nature, and entirely alien from the one-dimensional nationalism Cameron is advancing, which is really a kind of 'Greater England nationalism', or 'the-state-London-is-capital-city-of nationalism'. It's not actually true that Scottish independence would rob Cameron of his Greater England "home", as he claims - but that home would certainly be diminished in his eyes. A shrunk landmass, a shrunk population, shrunk clout in international institutions. In short, independence would impair the projection of London power - and nothing can be more alarming to a Greater England nationalist than that. That's what he was getting at when he talked about the 'loss of something very special'. In particular, he gave the game away by placing so much emphasis on Britain's status as a member of bodies like the UN Security Council. No-one is under any illusions that an independent Scotland would have such a status, so it's hard to escape the conclusion that what we're being asked to worry about here is the (frankly very slim) possibility that the remainder of the UK might lose its status as well after Scottish independence. In truth, this isn't an argument about Scotland at all - it's a squeal of pain from a London politician about what he stands to lose.
Besides which, Cameron's promotion of British nationalism as a 'nobler nationalism' was absurdly contradictory. With one breath he insisted it didn't need to base itself on "ancient myths, blood-soaked memories and opposition to others", and with the next he started wittering on about the defeat of Hitler and the Battle of Waterloo! And how precisely does all the inspiring talk about 'solidarity' and 'stronger together, weaker apart' square with his isolationism in Europe? Faced with such irreconcilable contradictions, we can again only conclude that this is really about London's Little Empire, and preserving its sovereign reach.
The reality is that the 'special' things that people in Scotland truly value about Britishness are not contingent on the existence of a British nation state. Indeed, the social union across these islands may well be enhanced once we have jettisoned the resentment-fuelling straightjacket of a political union that works in the interests of one 'partner' more than another.
Of course, the other key feature of the speech was the rabbit out of the hat about the potential for further devolution if Scotland votes No to independence. Depending on whether Cameron actually means a word of it, this could either be characterised as the Douglas-Home Deception Strategy or as the Top Secret Devo Plus Plan, because apparently we're not entitled to know any details about it until after the referendum. Certainly Cameron's efforts to convince us that this isn't a repeat of the Douglas-Home wheeze from 1979 were totally unconvincing. He asked us to reflect on his record in delivering the Scotland Bill, but there's one slight snag with that - it was in fact the coalition agreement that delivered the Scotland Bill. All the mood music before the 2010 election was that a Tory government would kick Calman into the long grass, and there can be little doubt that's exactly what would have happened if the Tories had won a majority in their own right. The personal record Scots will actually be reflecting on is Cameron's failure to respect the SNP's overwhelming mandate from last May to negotiate extra powers in addition to those currently in the Scotland Bill.
But even if we were naive enough to take these incredibly vague hints of jam tomorrow seriously, Cameron has just got himself into a bit of a bind. At the heart of the unionist strategy until now has been the constant demand that the SNP must answer a series of detailed questions (almost all of them already answered umpteen times) about what independence will look like. But at a stroke, we're now in a position where we have infinitely more clarity about the effect of a Yes vote than we do about the effect of a No vote. There are an endless series of questions that need to be put to Cameron about how powers will be divided between Westminster and Holyrood under the Top Secret Devo Plus Plan that will supposedly be triggered by a No vote in the referendum - and incredibly he seems to think an adequate response is that the Scottish people don't have a right to know until after they vote for it. It's no use arguing that the referendum is about independence and not enhanced devolution - he has explicitly linked the two issues himself by including the prospect of delivering the Top Secret Devo Plus Plan in his list of reasons why people should vote No. There's no way back - from this point on, all the hard questions on detail are for the Brit Nats.
A few other miscellaneous points from Cameron's speech...
"I am a classic case.
My father’s father was a Cameron.
My mother’s mother was a Llewellyn.
I was born and have always lived in England."
A great many things can be reasonably said about a multi-millionaire Old Etonian Prime Minister who is a direct descendant of William IV and is married to a baronet's daughter, but I'm not sure "classic case" is one of them.
"Scottish pilots helped us to free Libya from tyranny and prevented a failed pariah state festering on Europe’s Southern border…"
But Danish pilots helped even more. Denmark, let's not forget, is an independent country with roughly the same population size as Scotland. It is also in the enviable position of deciding for itself which international military adventures it wants to get involved in, and which it doesn't. An independent Scotland might well have freely chosen to assist in Libya - I strongly suspect we wouldn't have touched the Bush/Blair invasion of Iraq with a barge-pole.
"We’re safer, not just because of the expertise and bravery our armed forces to which Scotland makes an immense contribution…
…but also because of our policing expertise and security services respected the world over.
When a bomb went off at Glasgow Airport the full resources of the UK state went into running down every lead."
Would it be terribly insensitive of me to point out that if only we had been decoupled from Britain's slavishly pro-Bush foreign policy, that bomb in Glasgow Airport would probably never have gone off in the first place?
"…but a common system, rules and currency which has helped to make us the 7th largest economy in the world."
Down from 4th just a few years ago, David. Do you think he'll finally be too embarrassed to parrot that rather desperate line when the ranking is 14th?
"One issue that is very close to my heart is aid.
And this is an issue where Scottish people have a huge influence...through the UK, Scotland has global reach."
It's hard to escape the conclusion that he's suggesting that Scots care more about overseas aid than others in the UK - but if so, it's difficult to see what difference we can possibly be making given that this isn't a government Scotland elected. The logical conclusion to draw is that the combined overseas aid budget of Scotland and the remainder of the UK would increase after independence, because a Scottish state would accord it a higher priority, and the UK government would carry on much as before.
"I believe in real devolution and want to make devolution work better.
I want a Scotland where more people own their own homes.
Where more people keep more of their money."
Another part of the speech that makes me deeply suspicious about the Top Secret Devo Plus Plan. This is thoroughbred Thatcherite language - she also used to regularly talk about 'real' devolution in place of, well, real devolution. Thanks all the same, Dave, but the kind of devolution we're looking for isn't a play on words.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
For the attention of George Robertson : a cut-out-and-keep guide to the difference between Cybernattery and fair comment
Not too long before Tom Harris made his infamous Downfall video about Joan McAlpine (which with delicious irony triggered his own downfall rather than hers), the two parliamentarians had an exchange on Twitter about 'Cybernats'. I can't recall the exact words used, but basically Joan was pointing out that there were just as many online unionists making abusive comments about the SNP, which led to a typical Harris Harrumph as he said something like this : "Oh yes, Joan. The problem here is too many unionists being horrid to the SNP on the internet. Dear God." The fact that the observation was intended to be sarcastic didn't make it any the less true - the abuse from one side of the divide is no more or less of a problem than abuse from the other side.
It reminded me of an interview John Major gave on daytime television as Prime Minister, when he defended his party's obsession with "pro-Labour bias" at the BBC. The interviewer pointed out to him that there had been a poll showing that the public felt that the BBC were in fact biased towards the Tories. Major laughed, and said with an air of incredulity "well, I'd be interested to see the poll". But of course the poll existed, was a serious one, and reflected what people really thought. The Tories had made the mistake of buying into their own mythology, and couldn't believe that the public at large were capable of seeing beyond it. So it is now with the unionist parties and the 'Cybernat' mythology - what the public actually see on online forums is unacceptable language being used by all sides of the political debate, not just one.
So George Robertson is whistling in the wind with his latest rant about Cybernats, although what leapt out at me more was the paragraph in which he gave examples of the 'vile language' that had been used about him, which represented a brazen attempt to lump together lots of genuinely abusive language with quite a bit of absolutely fair comment, and to paint it all as being one and the same thing. For George's benefit, here is a cut-out-and-keep guide to the difference. An important disclaimer : the observations that potentially belong in the 'fair comment' category are of course still very blunt and derisively expressed, and wouldn't wisely be uttered by a representative of the SNP itself. But of course they weren't - and neither George nor anyone else knows whether they were even made by card-carrying members of the SNP. And to answer your question, George, that's why comments on online forums aren't usually disowned by political parties - they were never 'owned' by those parties in the first place.
'Robertson is an idiotic, pompous traitor to Scotland and the Scots' - ABUSIVE.
'the vermin who inhabit the House of Lords' - ABUSIVE.
'establishment lackey' - Derisive, but hardly an unusual use of language, and with a serious point to make.
'Westminster traitor-jock-Lords' - ABUSIVE.
'keep his Westminster polished nose out of Scottish politics' - A bit rude, but if Robertson can't cope with this on an online forum he's in the wrong trade.
'two-faced liars and deceivers' - ABUSIVE.
'unelected hypocrite' - Well, Robertson certainly is unelected, and it's scarcely beyond the pale (outside the confines of parliament) to accuse a politician of hypocrisy. It's probably better to say someone is 'being hypocritical' rather than directly calling them a 'hypocrite', but there's a potentially legitimate point here, rather than a mindless insult. Borderline.
'American puppet' - FAIR COMMENT. For heaven's sake, George, you were one of Tony Blair's Defence Secretaries - that's practically the dictionary definition of 'American puppet'.
'inbred arthritic Labrador attempting to complete the Total Wipeout course' - Highly abusive, but special dispensation for also being extremely funny.
'Lord Gormless' - Abusive, but most seven-year-olds have to put up with playground taunts far worse than that.
'yoos Unionist trash' - ABUSIVE.
It reminded me of an interview John Major gave on daytime television as Prime Minister, when he defended his party's obsession with "pro-Labour bias" at the BBC. The interviewer pointed out to him that there had been a poll showing that the public felt that the BBC were in fact biased towards the Tories. Major laughed, and said with an air of incredulity "well, I'd be interested to see the poll". But of course the poll existed, was a serious one, and reflected what people really thought. The Tories had made the mistake of buying into their own mythology, and couldn't believe that the public at large were capable of seeing beyond it. So it is now with the unionist parties and the 'Cybernat' mythology - what the public actually see on online forums is unacceptable language being used by all sides of the political debate, not just one.
So George Robertson is whistling in the wind with his latest rant about Cybernats, although what leapt out at me more was the paragraph in which he gave examples of the 'vile language' that had been used about him, which represented a brazen attempt to lump together lots of genuinely abusive language with quite a bit of absolutely fair comment, and to paint it all as being one and the same thing. For George's benefit, here is a cut-out-and-keep guide to the difference. An important disclaimer : the observations that potentially belong in the 'fair comment' category are of course still very blunt and derisively expressed, and wouldn't wisely be uttered by a representative of the SNP itself. But of course they weren't - and neither George nor anyone else knows whether they were even made by card-carrying members of the SNP. And to answer your question, George, that's why comments on online forums aren't usually disowned by political parties - they were never 'owned' by those parties in the first place.
'Robertson is an idiotic, pompous traitor to Scotland and the Scots' - ABUSIVE.
'the vermin who inhabit the House of Lords' - ABUSIVE.
'establishment lackey' - Derisive, but hardly an unusual use of language, and with a serious point to make.
'Westminster traitor-jock-Lords' - ABUSIVE.
'keep his Westminster polished nose out of Scottish politics' - A bit rude, but if Robertson can't cope with this on an online forum he's in the wrong trade.
'two-faced liars and deceivers' - ABUSIVE.
'unelected hypocrite' - Well, Robertson certainly is unelected, and it's scarcely beyond the pale (outside the confines of parliament) to accuse a politician of hypocrisy. It's probably better to say someone is 'being hypocritical' rather than directly calling them a 'hypocrite', but there's a potentially legitimate point here, rather than a mindless insult. Borderline.
'American puppet' - FAIR COMMENT. For heaven's sake, George, you were one of Tony Blair's Defence Secretaries - that's practically the dictionary definition of 'American puppet'.
'inbred arthritic Labrador attempting to complete the Total Wipeout course' - Highly abusive, but special dispensation for also being extremely funny.
'Lord Gormless' - Abusive, but most seven-year-olds have to put up with playground taunts far worse than that.
'yoos Unionist trash' - ABUSIVE.
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