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Don’t wrestle pigs in the mud

Apr 11

Posted by James in Constitution, Democracy | 35 Comments

Pig wrestlingAs has been widely noted, the tone of the debate about independence has gradually gone from bad to worse, and yesterday’s heavy-handed legal action against National Collective hasn’t helped at all – ironic, because their own contributions to the debate are typically smart, calmly argued, and creative in just the ways they promised from the start.

Twitter in particular has become incredibly vitriolic, with people on both sides losing the head to partisanship – notably by defending the indefensible on “their own side” or setting up inane “parody” accounts which fail to note that parody goes best with subtle humour, not dull and repetitive bludgeoning.

Sure, that might just be a bubble, and it may well all come down to the doorstep. But there are plenty of politicians on both sides using the same divisive rhetoric, and they’ll be doing it on TV and at hustings as well as on the doorsteps. And I do really think that dismissing Twitter is naive: all the major players from the parties and the campaigns are there, alongside almost all Scotland’s key journalists and enough politically engaged civilians to make a difference. It does help set the tone, and the tone stinks.

Although there are problems on both sides, it’s not that both are offering the same range of messages. Across the whole Yes side, great optimism and inspiring enthusiasm sit alongside vitriolic carping and bile from keyboard warriors. The No campaign’s style is relatively consistent, relying as it does primarily on pretending the SNP are the Yes campaign, and then picking holes in the SNP’s policy positions. They have their bampots online, but fewer of them. Conversely, they have no-one trying to set out an inspiring vision of a future United Kingdom.

Because they don’t need to. And this collective bitter tone, driven by activists on both sides, helps the No camp. All the muddy little squabbling in the letters pages or online turns more undecided voters off the debate. And, given they know what Britain looks like now and they don’t really know what an independent Scotland would look like, that boosts the No campaign. In fact, I’d be surprised if the No campaign’s internal strategy meetings couldn’t be summed up as “go round the country and whip up apathy“.

Specifically, independence polls strongest in working class areas, parts of Scotland which have been let down by the Westminster consensus, but also parts of Scotland where turnout is often lowest. If the No campaign can depress and bore enough of the electorate into abstention, they’ll win. In fact, they’ll win anyway without a change of tone.

The broad Yes side still spend too long getting down and dirty with the minutiae of policy, and all that nitty-gritty risks distracting from The Vision Thing. Whatever SNP policy may be, an independent Scotland won’t necessarily stay in NATO, or keep the pound, or go genuinely 100% renewable, or be a socialist paradise or a tax haven.

The crucial point of this vote is that, for the first time, those who live in Scotland will make all those decisions for themselves. We’re being offered a chance to ditch an unreformable Westminster and be responsible for all our own mistakes and all our own triumphs. Surely that big picture can inspire more effectively than getting into nit-picking with the other side? Because, although both sides share responsibility for the state of the debate, as a former boss of mine once pointed out, don’t wrestle pigs in the mud, because the pig will win and the pig will enjoy it.

I am National Collective

Apr 10

Posted by James in Constitution, Media | 50 Comments

Today sees the first threatened legal actions of the independence referendum campaign, with the following notice going up on National Collective’s Facebook page – their main site being down altogether. Update: you can donate to them here.

On the 9th April 2013, Lawyers-Collyer & Bristow acting on behalf of Vitol and multimillionaire and principal donor to ‘Better Together’ – Ian Taylor threatened legal action against the ‘National Collective’ claiming that it was grossly defamatory.

Aamer Anwar, Solicitor acting on our behalf stated:

“National Collective have instructed my firm to act on their behalf, they state that they will not be bullied or silenced and state that their website is offline only as a temporary measure for a few days. A detailed and robust response will be issued early next week along with further questions for the ‘Better Together Campaign’ .”

There will be no further comment until early next week.

If you wish to be advised of any further updates please contact our solicitors Aamer Anwar & Co., on 0141 429 7090 or at office@aameranwar.com www.glasgow-lawyer.co.uk

This follows the breaking by National Collective of the story of Mr Taylor’s previous entanglements, as reported by the Guardian here and the Record here.

This is a major mistake by Mr Taylor, and, if they supported his action, by Better Together. First, all National Collective appear to have done is compiled publicly available information to paint a picture of his interests. I am obviously not a lawyer, but good luck with basing a court case on that.

Second, as one wag put it on Twitter, here’s the McStreisand Effect. However much an airing this dirty laundry has already had, it’s going to get ten times more if this legal action is real (and at least a couple of times more even if they decide not to proceed).

Third, when you’re trying to win hearts and minds, as I assume the Yoonyonisht Conshpirashy still are, then clamping down on free speech is probably not the right way to go about it. It’s like a TV or radio debate – if one side starts shouting, the neutrals will assume they’ve lost the argument as well as their rag. Doubly so with what looks like attempted censorship on this scale. Incidentally, there are rumours of equivalent legal action against both Wings Scotland and “Berthan Pete” – although I believe their shared bullying manner undermines the Yes campaign, that same right of free speech applies to them.

So…

I am National Collective

Shetland phoney.

Apr 6

Posted by Dom in Constitution, Democracy, Equality, Governance, Holyrood, International, Parties | 1 Comment

If Tavish Scott is serious about Shetland’s Scandinavian heritage, he would do well to consider the advantages of an independent Holyrood.

Tavish Scott is a sort of self-styled Lord of the Isles. As a constituency MSP Shetland is most definitely his, and he seems to have a habit of seeing himself as its de facto president. He also loves going on about the islands’ Scandinavian heritage whenever distancing himself from any whiff of nationalism. Shetland needn’t be independent with Scotland because it has as much to do with Norway as it does with Edinburgh, he claims.

And fair enough perhaps . I was wandering around Scalloway this week and took a look at their shiny museum, opened by Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg last year. Likewise, Lerwick’s magnificent new arts centre would not be out of place on a quayside on the other side of the North Sea. You can sit on the beach and tune in to Norwegian local radio, and Lerwick is the only place in the British Isles to have tourist signage in Faeroese.

But it has even less to do with London than with Edinburgh. Tavish wants Shetland to assert its northerness, but not for Scotland to do so.  Now Scotland will never be a Scandinavian country, just as Shetland will never be entirely Scottish perhaps, but they both share a pervasive Northernness.

But does Tavish speak for Shetland, and if Shetland is serious about some sort of political autonomy, would it really want to be reduced to a Westminster territory? There is a phrase loved by certain Scottish liberals, home rule, which will always be inextricably linked to the establishment of the Irish state, and which is also about the last time liberalism was the hottest ticket in the burgh. Tavish can beat his drum, but considering that less than half of the electorate voted for him, his claims to be the voice of the islands are somewhat tenuous.

To quote a respected colleague, “The SNP are centralising f***ers.”.  There is a serious case to be made for Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles to be given far greater powers over their day to day existence. The council tax freeze which both of the big parties signed up to is an assault on the ability of communities to take charge of their own futures. What works well in Livingston or Ayr will not necessarily be right for Harris and Lewis.

If Tavish wants to have a genuine conversation about appropriate powers, local devolution and Scandinavianism, he should probably pick up the phone and give Patrick Harvie a call.

Blogging? I don’t have the constitution for it

Mar 28

Posted by Jeff in Constitution, Housekeeping | 2 Comments

This will be my last post as a co-editor at Better Nation. I did my best to keep myself (and hopefully others) entertained with random scribblings on Scottish Politics not to mention the distant, and occasionally dim, referendum. It is now, alas, time to pack up and move on to pastures no doubt less green and for perfectly healthy offline reasons, I may add.

I won’t be leaving any rules or regulations behind that current and future editors will have to abide by.

I can’t help be struck however that, on that last point, my view of how to leave the past behind is at odds with many within Yes Scotland. Everyone wants to leave a legacy behind them wherever they go, be it big or small, but an eternal written constitution is something else entirely. First Minister Alex Salmond is often disparagingly referred to as the ‘dear Leader’ in the North Korean mould, but setting his and his party’s views in stone for future generations is, for me, a troubling prospect. The First Minister stated back in January that he wanted the right to a house, a ban on nuclear weapons and free education to be included in a written constitution, which looks eerily like a party manifesto rather than a wider, balanced document.

There’s enough partisan bickering at the Parliament without the need for scrabbling over the chisel of a national tablet of stone. The current, lamentable SNP vs Labour bunfight over how Scotland should mitigate the Bedroom Tax should help highlight how any constitutional debate would go. Best to just not go there.

Looking at constitutions around the world they seem to be millstones around a nation’s neck or a handy way to muddy the waters of a given argument, rather than a guarantee of equality and statehood. Crazed gun nuts hide behind the U.S. Constitution to defend their supposed right to carry deadly weapons while the eye-watering death toll in that corner of the world mounts higher by the day. That same constitution, in its original form, measured a black person as equal to three fifths of a white person and, more recently, ensured Barack Obama’s healthcare proposals was one Supreme Court vote away from being against the law, despite an electoral mandate. In France, Hollande’s wildly popular 75% tax on the rich was struck down as being unconstitutional.

Scotland would not necessarily create these same elephant traps and roadblocks for itself if the wording of any such constitution was sufficiently obtuse, but then one has to ask what the point of it would be. Surely the Government and law courts of the day should be able to manage the country in line with the views of the public at that time, without the need for a constitution, or a revising Chamber or a House of Lords for that matter.

After all, what is so fantastic about our current crop of MSPs and civic leaders that require their views to be enshrined in statute for ever more?

We need to trust future generations to improve upon the current, be that on written constitutions, climate change or blogs. For the latter, I have no fears that the media (via the dead tree press or otherwise), and Better Nation in particular, has the potential to constantly improve and be even better than it has been in the recent past, whoever may be writing the content or providing the guest posts.

(Yes, that was one final hint to you, yes you dear reader, to send something in to the rest of the team for consideration).

Good luck comrades!

Leveson – a nightmare scenario for the SNP

Mar 14

Posted by Jeff in Constitution, Media | 14 Comments

A few months ago, First Minister Alex Salmond made the decision that the Scottish Government would decide how the Leveson proposals would be implemented in Scotland. No doubt with half an eye on the independence referendum, the opportunity to build a Scottish solution to a UK problem was simply too good to miss.
 
Today, given the Prime Minister has abandoned Leveson discussions with Labour and the Lib Dems, there will be a vote on Monday on whether Leveson will be underpinned by significant statutory legislation, as Miliband and Clegg prefer, or whether the press will get their own way with a Royal Charter, under Cameron’s proposals. The vote is expected to be very tight and the SNP may well hold a balance of power that it does not want.
 
Going by Evening Standard Paul Waugh’s calculations:
 
For a Royal Charter:
 
315 votes – Con + DUP + Ind
 
For statutory legislation:
 
314 votes – Lab + LD + Plaid + Green + SDLP + Alliance + Respect
 
 
As a matter of principle, the SNP does not vote on devolved matters, which Leveson patently is. However, if the six SNP MPs abstain on Monday, as they did for similar principles on the Equal Marriage vote a few months ago, then they will likely be handing David Cameron an important victory and opening the Nationalists up to charges of being Tartan Tories and helping ‘Salmond’s best buddy’ Rupert Murdoch.
 
 
It’s a bit of a nightmare lose-lose scenario, and the least worst solution is probably to vote alongside Labour and the Lib Dems, not to mention the McCanns.