The "youth" edition of Question Time last night

I watched a little of the "youth" edition of Question Time last night.

The youthful Edinburgh audience was almost totally white - I saw one person who looked mixed-race but otherwise it was monocultural.

And yet the lefty commentary on Twitter was strangely silent on this fact.

When Question Time was broadcast from Lincoln recently the audience was also completely white, and there was no end to sneering and jeering among the right-on Twitter commentariat.  It was as if everything anybody said was invalidated because the audience was not "vibrant" or "diverse".  Why the double standards I wonder?

Is it because the left is over-reliant on Scottish constituencies to ensure a Labour government, and so cannot risk offending the Scottish white working class?

Is it because the left has declared war on the English rural shires, and vibrant diversity is one of the weapons they are using to destroy community cohesiveness and shut down any debate on social change (because anyone who questions vibrant diversity must be a racist)?

Is it because the SNP's often-asserted claims that Scotland is a vibrantly diverse community is in fact a sham, and that covert silencing of non-"Scottish" voices has been under way for some time (as claimed by Nigel Farage on his recent fact-finding mission to an Edinburgh pub)?

And why, I wonder, was there no attempt by Jonathan Portes and his former civil servant colleagues to rub the face of Alex Salmond in a specially-prepared Caledonian version of vibrant diversity?

Alex Salmond interviewed by Sarah Montague

I listened to Alex Salmond interviewed by Sarah Montague on the Today programme this morning.  As a unionist (both big and small U) I hope Scotland stays within the United Kingdom.  However this will not happen without intelligent arguments from the pro-union politicians.

The answer to the "the case is unarguable" is to develop coherent arguments, not this silly yah-boo response from Ann McGuire MP - unfortunately Anne McGuire and her party are failing to argue effectively against the SNP (as anyone who has watched the Scottish Parliament debates on the Parliament Channel can testify). 

Emily Thornberry MP is being disingenuous here.  The EU is a bully, and like most bullies they will back down when confronted.  If Alex Salmond were to be successful in winning a Yes to the independence referendum then he is quite right to suggest that all sorts of backstairs deals, secret huddles, and clandestine arrangements would ensue - this would be quite separate from the public posturing for public consumption.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sundar Katwala seems unaware that in tests of public opinion in Scotland a majority would favour leaving the EU.

Psychological over-compensation

A report issued today shows that over 65% of adults in Scotland are obese.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0040/00402630.pdf

Is it possible that a poor personal self-image among obese individuals in Scotland is leading to psychological over-compensation in terms of national self-aggrandisement, thus fuelling support for the SNP?

I suppose you would have to do a study on whether SNP party members tend to be more obese than members of other parties in Scotland.

"Reactionary and divisive"

Ed Miliband has attacked the SNP's policy of nationalism from an intellectual standpoint.  It is about time someone challenged Alex Salmond to defend nationalism as a political philosophy.  Ed Miliband called the SNP "reactionary and divisive".

Nationalism has been discredited in western Europe since the 1940s.

SNP consultation paper on a referendum for Scottish independence

Above:  this year we are trying a vegetarian haggis (bought from Sainsburys) plus a bottle of Bells whisky.

Today is Burns Night - an annual celebration of the life and work of the poet Robert Burns.

This year the day has been hijacked by the Scottish National Party who have chosen to use today to launch the SNP consultation paper on a referendum for Scottish independence (they supposedly plan to hold the actual referendum on the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn 1314 although it is not clear they will be allowed to affiliate a historic anniversary for electoral purposes, especially as it would mean holding the election on a Sunday).

Therefore I think it is important for ordinary people throughout the United Kingdom to reclaim Burns Night from the SNP - great artists and poets are the inheritance of all humanity should not be retrospectively co-opted into nationalist programmes.

Probably any referendum will just be confined to Scotland, and people in the rest of the United Kingdom will not be involved (not even people who were born in Scotland).

However the ordinary people in the rest of the United Kingdom can go over the heads of the SNP and talk directly (via Facebook, blogs, Twitter etc) to the ordinary people of Scotland.

Therefore as someone who is entirely English my Burns Night message to the people of Scotland is: don't leave us.  Stay with us in the United Kingdom.  Let us continue to share our common island home and (I sincerely hope) share our common Parliament at Westminster.

Alex Salmond interviewed on Newsnight

Have just watched Alex Salmond interviewed on Newsnight by Jeremy Paxman.

Why is this person so popular in Scotland?  It is inexplicable.  Or perhaps he is not popular, the other party leaders were so dire they made him look good (all the other main parties now have new leaders so perhaps the position will change).

Throughout the interview he was sarcastic and flippant and said "Jeremy" in almost every single sentence - presumably an attempt to patronise.

John Bell is a "useful fool"

Very biased pro-independence Thought For The Day broadcast on Radio 4 this morning.  John Bell from the Iona Community told us (in very thinly veiled language) that the SNP's political programme was "holy", which suggests John Bell is a "useful fool" (in the Lenin sense).  There seems to be an unusual and unhealthy link between religion and the SNP, with Alex Salmond claiming divine endorsement for his policies (which lets him off the hook of having to justify them on rational grounds).

What is unacceptable is that the BBC should allow this sort of thing to go out in the middle of a referendum campaign (presumably they are going to balance this with a pro-Unionist Thought For The Day?).

How can they use another country's currency?

Above:  statue of Ariel (from The Tempest) on top of a cupola at the Bank of England.

Earlier today I watched Andrew Neil's Sunday Politics which discussed what currency an independent Scotland might use.  The SNP insists they will use the Pound Sterling ("Sterling is a convertable currency and we would be using it" said an MSP interviewed on the programme - I didn't catch his name).  But how can they use another country's currency?  What are the mechanics whereby notes and coins are going to find their way into Scottish banks and cash points?  Are they going to buy pounds from the Bank of England?  If so, presumably they will have to pay for them in gold?

Or will they have their own version of the Pound (the "Poond" as suggested in yesterday's Guardian), print their own banknotes and fix the value to the Pound Sterling?  This will presumably cause them a lot of problems as Alex Salmond's administration is a big spender.  A PWC report in 2009 said that the public sector in Scotland was 50% of GDP - what will the credit rating agencies make of all this?

The SNP's strategy is to steer discussion away from issues such as the currency and focus on the process of the referendum.  For instance there is currently a lot of sidestepping about when they are going to talk to the Westminster government about the legality and fairness of the way the referendum will be run.  If there are to be extra questions on the referendum paper then surely a question on the currency must be a priority?

Joan McAlpine will be Chairing the Committee on Un-Scottish Activities

I watched the Parliament Channel while waiting for Dateline London to come on.  It was a session from the Scottish Parliament.  And there was Joan McAlpine in the notorious incident where she says people who do not agree with the SNP are "anti-Scottish".

Presumably if Scotland does become independent Joan McAlpine will be Chairing the Committee on Un-Scottish Activities.

However, the incident does identify one flaw in the SNP - Alex Salmond does not have complete control of his party and various individuals are liable to make embarrasing off-message remarks.

How many of these remarks will be necessary to bring his party down - the number is not great.

John Swinney just huffed and puffed

At lunchtime I watched the BBC's Andrew Neil interview MSP John Swinney about the Scottish referendum.

John Swinney was unable to answer any of the questions put to him.

It was a pathetic performance.

So far the SNP ministers have just had deferential local media to deal with.  To have someone of the stature of Andrew Neil actually in the Edinburgh parliament building asking them hard questions is an entirely new development.  John Swinney just huffed and puffed.

The referendum campaign is going to last until "autumn" 2014.  It will be a bruising experience for the SNP, and one they may not survive in the long run (unless they get their policies seriously sorted out).  One thousand days of squirming and trying to change the subject is going to make them look ridiculous.

Alex Salmond's contemptuous rejection of David Cameron's offer of a referendum within eighteen months may prove to have been a miscalculation.

The referendum campaign has begun in earnest

Above:  Alex Salmond is supposedly Scotland's most popular politician, but to my eyes he appears pompous and very slightly camp.  His party have appropriated the Scottish flag as their emblem, although this is clearly an improper use of the saltire.  Because Scotland is such a small world politically, it is difficult for a critical press to operate - "difficult" journalists tend to get frozen out.

It would appear that David Cameron set a trap for the SNP and Alex Salmond walked right into it.


By making an issue of the timing of a referendum, David Cameron has provoked the nationalists into announcing (in a way that brooks no argument) that the plebiscite will be in the last quarter of 2014. Now that the date has been announced the referendum campaign has begun in earnest, and all the areas that the SNP has so far preferred not to discuss (border arrangements, Euro membership, debt allocations etc) are going to come under intense scrutiny. The length of the campaign is also likely to count against the SNP as there are a number of contradictions in the independence argument that they are now obliged to address in some detail.

The date of the referendum, the number of questions to be asked, the electorate that will qualify to vote, and the electoral monitoring authority are all areas that are now being prised from Alex Salmond’s grasp.

To look at these in turn:

Although a late date for the referendum is supposed to be to the SNP’s advantage this is not necessarily so. The “arc of prosperity” (central to SNP economic policy) is not likely to return any time soon, and a longer campaign is going to tell more heavily on the nationalists than on the unionists. Also, by provoking the SNP on an issue of relatively minor importance David Cameron has made Alex Salmond appear obdurate and unreasonable.

The number of questions on the referendum paper is a crucial element, and it is by no means certain that Alex Salmond will get more than a simple Yes or No question. Although the SNP won a mandate for a referendum on independence, they do not have a mandate to ask additional questions. And if more questions are to be added, why just one additional question on “Devo Max”? Why not ask whether an independent Scotland should join the Euro, or become a republic, or indeed whether the new country should remain in the EU (since in the last poll on the subject a majority of Scottish people wanted to leave the EU)? Alex Salmond says that the wording of the question needs to be decided “in Scotland” but this is not entirely correct. The Coalition government has a legal duty of care to ensure that the referendum is carried out fairly and democratically. Alex Salmond cannot complain that Westminster has this duty of care as the “reserved power” over constitutional issues was in the Devolution settlement of 1997 which Alex Salmond himself campaigned for. If Westminster failed to exercise a proper duty of care then they would be open to legal challenge and the referendum itself could be declared by the courts as invalid. So it is very far from certain whether the SNP are going to get their way over the wording.

On the issue of whether 16 and 17 year-olds should be given a vote in the referendum, this appears (to my eyes) as a blatant attempt at gerrymandering and may well backfire on Alex Salmond if he insists of the point. In any case, young people do not tend to vote. And if the point if conceded that the electorate should be widened, why not also include people born in Scotland who now live elsewhere?

The issue of whether the referendum should be monitored by the Electoral Commission or not is another area where public opinion is surely going to favour the status quo (the alternative would be to risk Scotland looking like a banana republic where dodgy electoral fixes take place).

50% of Scottish people want to leave

At the Conference of the Scottish National Party, held last weekend, SNP leader Alex Salmond said:  "In my heart, in my head, I think Scotland will become an independent country within the European community" (by 2016).

However in an ICM poll commissioned by the Guardian newspaper 21st-23rd October 2011 only 39% of Scottish people want to stay in the European Union whereas 50% of Scottish people want to leave.

I have searched on Google but Alex Salmond does not seem to have been questioned on this major problem with the SNP's pre-eminent foreign policy objective (upon which all their other policies depend).

Why isn't Alex Salmond being challenged on the fanciful statements he is making?  Has the media in Scotland become cowed into submission? (he has the reputation of being a bully).  Are all the Opposition MSPs incompetent or ineffectual?

Even from hundreds of miles away I can spot this man is a clown!

The ICM research (see page 10) http://www.icmresearch.com/1/files/2011/10/OmGuardian-BPC-oct11a.pdf

PS for the record although I am English I regard both England and Scotland as my collective country and I am not happy that a gang of political chancers, peddling a discredited philosophy of nationalism, is proposing to walk off with part of it.

Alex Salmond, First Minister of the Scottish Executive, sees himself as a messianic leader

Full article:  http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/god_s_legacy_will_help_us_to_independence_says_salmond_1_1921986

It seems that Alex Salmond, First Minister of the Scottish Executive, sees himself as a messianic leader granted divine authority for his political programme.

The last political leader to make this claim was Tony Blair (also a Scottish person).

Historically, the "divine right of kings" was introduced into the informal constitution by James VI of Scotland (who became James I of England when the kingdoms were united under one monarch).  This divine right malarky led in turn to the Civil War.  Ultimately the issue was settled by cutting the head off Charles I - after which the divine right claim went very quiet.

Will Alex Salmond be apologising

It was announced on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 this morning that the credit rating agency Moodys has downgraded the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Will Alex Salmond be making a statement about this downgrade?

Will Alex Salmond be apologising for his role in this fiasco since it was his incessent blethering and boasting about the strength and power of the Edinburgh-based financial institution that contributed to the hubris of the Royal Bank of Scotland in taking reckless decisions, believing that they were truly the masters of the universe that Alex Salmond made them out to be?

Will Alex Salmond be commenting on the widely held belief that in this matter he has behaved like a donnert sumph?

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/revealed-salmond-s-support-for-goodwin-over-disastrous-rbs-deal-1.1046662

Scottish Studies debate on the Parliament Channel

This morning, despite the sunny weather, I watched the Scottish Studies debate on the Parliament Channel.

I only meant to watch a little, while I had a cup of tea, but I ended up watching over an hour.

It seemed a classic Orwellian exercise ("He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future").

The language used by the SNP is interesting.  They maintain a headline commitment to mutliculturalism and diversity, while at the same time appearing to include coded messages that imply the opposite.  The Labour MSPs didn't really know how to respond to this (there was no meaningful contribution from the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats).

For instance, MSP Rob Gibson loudly proclaimed "Our proudly mongrel nation" but did so with a smirk, as if it was just a tool he was using.

MSP John Finnie talked about "the sacrifice of the indigenous people at Culloden".  Later he talked about "the British suppression of the natives of Skye".  This use of emotive and tendentious language rather undermined the claims the SNP were making that the new "Scottish Studies" would be impartial. 

MSP Paul Wheelhouse seemed to feel an obligation to mention his "Scottish ancestry".  But if Scottish people are "proudly mongrel" how can they have a coherent ancestry?  No-one seemed to notice this inconsistency.

The summing up by Education Minister Michael Russell included a rabble-rousing list of "let's talk about..." (but he didn't talk about any of the things he listed).  He also made frequent references to a number of fictional works (novels and films), which seemed to be a flimsy intellectual basis on which to base an education policy.  His closing sentence, shouted to the assembly, was "Let's show enthusiasm for where we came from" - but if they are "proudly mongrel" surely they do not come from any one place?

Why did the Guardian's Scotland Correspondent Severin Carrell not ask these questions

Article in today's Guardian with Alex Salmond boasting about how well the Scottish economy is doing, with falling unemployment.

How much of the fall in unemployment is due to Scottish-domiciled unemployed people simply moving to England?  There is no analysis of this or an acknowledgement that it might be a possibility, even though the peripheral areas of the British Isles have routinely exported their unemployed to the south-east of England.  And if the Scottish economy is doing so astoundingly well why are we not seeing economic migration from all over the EU to this tartan nirvana? (possibly they might be put off by the 20% rise in racist attacks in Scotland that has coincided with the SNP's rise to power).

Why did the Guardian's Scotland Correspondent Severin Carrell not ask these questions instead of just printing the SNP press release verbatim?

Shoddy journalism I'm afraid, and not the first time where Scotland is concerned.

New bill in the Scottish parliament to amalgamate the police services in Scotland

Alex Salmond has announced a new bill in the Scottish parliament to amalgamate the police services in Scotland into one super-force.

The effect this will have will be to siphon police resources away from rural areas into urban areas (where there is most crime).  This raises serious questions about who the police will be accountable to.  They certainly will not be accountable to local communities.

It makes you wonder what responsibility we have to ensure that ordinary people in the devolved administrations are not oppressed by sectional interests establishing a regional hegemony.  We have a national policy in the United Kingdom of devolving powers down to the smallest decision-making communities.  It would be ironic if this policy was to meet a "big-state" bottleneck in Edinburgh.

Presumably individuals in Scotland can appeal to the Supreme Court to review or overturn unjust laws.

The riots couldn't happen in Scottish cities

Unusual comments on the Today programme this morning (BBC Radio 4).  Scottish people interviewed in Glasgow were saying that the riots couldn't happen in Scottish cities because "we're better than that".  Presumably this sense of national superiority has been created by Alex Salmond's recent discriminatory comments about the riots.

However roughly a million people born in Scotland are currently living in England, and I would guess most of those will be located in the major cities.  I have not seen any breakdown of arrests by ethnic origin, but is Alex Salmond trying to tell us that none of the rioters were born in Scotland?  Presumably the Scottish government is a public body governed by United Kingdom law and Alex Salmond has a statutory duty under the 2010 Equality Act to refrain from making discriminatory comments on the basis of national origin?

Portillo on Salmond on BBC2

Michael Portillo's documentary on Scottish Nationalist leader Alex Salmond, broadcast last night on BBC2, was almost entirely empty of any real insights, analysis or explanations.

I was no wiser after the programme than I was before.

For instance, when addressing Alex Salmond's motivation in adopting nationalism as his chosen political philosophy Michael Portillo showed us a view of Linlithgow Palace and thought "perhaps" Alex Salmond had been affected by some kind of affinity with Mary Queen of Scots.  This is crass, lazy and misleading.  Why didn't he simply ASK Alex Salmond what his motivation was?

Michael Portillo attempted a Kitty Kelly deconstruction of the Alex Salmond biography by assembling various people who have known the Scottish nationalist over the years.  But there were not enough of them to make the exercise credible.  And they didn't really say anything revealing.

In the sequences when we saw Michael Portillo actually talking to Alex Salmond they simply exchanged Westminster-type joshing comments.

You can see it:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0116snp/Portillo_on_Salmond/

Self-determination

Over the weekend the media has been full of coverage of the success of the Scottish National Party in the elections in Scotland. It is puzzling that no interviewer has so far challenged SNP leader Alex Salmond to justify nationalism as an intellectual philosophy.  As nationalism, even in its most benign form, is a political cult of selfishness he will find it hard to do this (I am using the word "cult" as I do not think nationalism can have any rational economic or social basis).  Nationalism is always a mask for hatred, and it should be possible to record examples of this hatred and ask Alex Salmond to explain himself. Aldhus Huxley wrote:  "As well as hate, the other passion behind the theory and practice of nationalism is vanity.  The collective vanity manifested by each individual member of a group which he regards as superior to other groups and whose superiority he feels in himself.  Both hate and vanity are combined with, and derive an added strength from, that lust for sociability whose indugence yields such enormous psychological dividends to the individual of a gregorious species... hate is the actual or potential complement of vanity." Also, it is not clear how far self-determination is intended to go.  Is Alex Salmond willing to concede that some geographical areas of "Scotland" might want to remain in the United Kingdom? (for instance the border areas voted either Tory or Labour last Thursday, and Orkney and Shetland are not keen on the SNP).  Is Alex Salmond going to deny communities within Scotland the right to self-determination he is insisting on for the SNP? And if some Scottish counties and islands do not want to follow the SNP into a separate entity, will we see the creation of a "British Scotland" along the lines of Northern Ireland? The other question that comes to mind is the position of Scottish people living in the rest of the United Kingdom.  Are they going to be allowed a vote in deciding the future of their "homeland".  What is the intended criteria for this franchise?