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How soon is now?

Oct 30

Posted by James in Holyrood, Westminster | 9 Comments

Now clockThe interminable debate about British Summer Time and the alternatives to it comes around as regularly as the time switch itself. The arguments about milking cows in the dark and the gruesome early morning demises of school children contend every year with the vision of Britain as a European-style evening paradise, with people effortlessly enjoying glasses of rosé at outside tables – and with those same school children felled on their way home.

Like most non-ideological political questions, the essentialist arguments are undermined by history, a history which goes back beyond Ben Franklin. As recently as a century ago there was no such thing as British Summer Time at all. We just took what the clocks gave us, until the need to save coal forced the Government’s hand during World War 1, in a way that rhymes with the 10:10 campaign’s energy-saving support for change. The Second World War saw more movement in the same direction, with the summers on Double Summer Time, and the winters, confusing, on British Summer Time.

Side note of irony on that: the Daily Mail currently lambasts “Berlin Time“, presumably because it implies some sinister German plot to harmonise our clocks as well as our currencies, yet (to put it into the only language they understand) Churchill defeated Hitler with British clocks all set to “Berlin Time”.

Even the news today that Tim Yeo, consistently one of the most interesting Conservative MPs, is proposing separate timezones for Scotland and the rest isn’t really news – he made the same call in 2007. Still, you’d have to assume this is an argument the SNP would be instinctively sympathetic to. For one thing, it would add a little more division from the rest of the UK. For another, if both sides really do want different times, the alternative is Scotland that makes decisions for the English on their timezone, which is surely against the ethos of self-determination.

Attempting to step back a little, some things we do are necessarily synchronised or “clock-dependent”, and some not. Whatever our timezone, we can only ever watch the same football match live at the same time. No amount of political wrangling will change that. However, all other things being equal, the time at which a farmer gets up to milk the cows isn’t “clock-dependent”. In fact, if you milk cows at the same hour on the clock it’ll surely be pretty disruptive for the herd when the clocks change in either direction? Not that I know the first thing about farming.

As you may know, I’m about to step out of formal politics for a while to get into business, and I intend to follow the daylight myself. My productive hours are later in the day, and why I’d set the alarm in the depths of winter to get up in the blackness of the night, goodness only knows. It’s a luxury of self-employment, for sure, but if I lived in the Highlands I’d be arguing for schools and workplaces to follow the daylight too as far as possible – recognising that many people will always continue to have to work shifts, not just those employed by essential 24-hour operations.

Surely, aside from those jobs that require shifts, working hours are just synchronised for convenience, not because everyone has to be at their desk by 9 and away by 5 (does that still apply to anyone?). Would it not be easier if we treated those standard hours as a guideline for the working day, not a uniformity to be ruthlessly imposed?

We’re supposedly part of a single European market that spans a wide range of time differences, so why do people living in Lerwick have to get up at the same time as those living in Hawick, or Chiswick, or even Wick? Local employers and councils being more responsive to their latitude seems a better option than the disruption of different time zones, and also a better option than the endless bickering which unnecessarily sets up the interests of the Highlands and the Home Counties as in conflict.

Beyond that, and leaving aside the safety arguments for now, the argument as currently fought is primarily a matter of preference, not principle. Are you a lark who loves to get up for a run round the park? You’ll prefer the current arrangement, replete with light mornings. Are you an owl who doesn’t know what on earth to do with a morning hour but who loves to the social evening time? Then, like me, for all those clock-dependent activities, your instinct will probably be for DBST. But wouldn’t it be better not to have to argue about it?

Priorities, priorities…

Oct 6

Posted by Malc in Parties, Westminster | 44 Comments

Cameron: Running a pro-Union campaign? Or just running?

So, the big three UK parties have had their conferences, ending in each case with the big set-piece event: the speech from the all-conquering leader.  Leadership speeches at conferences are big events, setting out the priorities of the respective parties for the coming year.  Bookies take bets on what will feature (then stop taking them as soon as parts of the speech are leaked).  If an issue makes it into the speech, chances are that is what you’ll be hearing about from that leader continuously until the following year’s conference.  If an issue doesn’t make it, then its importance has been relegated, the leader not considering it a priority.

This year, obviously, the economy continues to play a large role in leadership speeches – indeed it was the focus of them.  How to encourage growth, how to improve the fortunes of the economy, how to secure its recovery.  All very important indeed – you can’t argue that the economy deserves its position as an issue of top importance to political parties.

What’s interesting – from a Scottish perspective – is that between the three leadership speeches, Scotland was mentioned only THREE times.  Nick Clegg mentioned us only once, saying we need: “An economy for everyone: In Scotland, Wales, in every part of the United Kingdom.”  Laudable sentiments I guess.  David Cameron only mentioned Scotland in the context of our armed forces, and not specifically just ours: “In Afghanistan today, there are men and women fighting for Britain as bravely as any in our history. They come from across our country: England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland.”  Ed Miliband also mentioned Scotland just the once, but not the country.  Nope, he was taking a pop at Fred Goodwin in running RBS.  Three leadership speeches, and Scotland mentioned twice – and then, only to emphasise that the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister recognised that they were parts of the UK.

And what of this Union that each of these leaders have pledged to defend?  Nothing.  Sure, each of them mentioned the word union, but it was in relation to Trades Union, and if David Cameron’s pledge is to defend that kind of union, then I think I’ve walked into some kind of parallel universe.

Its funny – the day before his big speech, David Cameron announced on “Scottish night”(?) at the Conservative Party Conference that he had “one core belief” about Scotland – that the Conservatives “were a party of the Union”.  Yet the following day, those sentiments did not appear anywhere in his set piece speech.  In an interview with a Scottish political journalist, Ed Miliband said we have a “shared history” and a “shared common bond” with the UK and that “devolution had made the Union stronger”.  But then he couldn’t remember the name of one of Scottish Labour’s leadership candidates (emphasising just how important that “common bond” between Scotland and the rest of the UK is, since he hadn’t bothered being briefed on it) and also didn’t mention either Scotland or the Union in his speech.

Look, I know party leaders will claim everything is important to them, and their speeches are limited in time, and thus they can’t fit everything they might want to into them.  But for parties who recognise the threat to the Union posed by the SNP, and who are gearing up to defend that same Union, it seems to me just a little strange that neither merits mention in a 45 minute keynote address to party delegates.  You can be sure that this slight will not have gone unnoticed by the SNP – and Alex Salmond will likely draw attention to this fact in his own conference speech in a couple of weeks.

The point is – are the UK leaders really serious about their defence of the Union?  Because the evidence from their conference speeches suggests that defending the Union doesn’t rate highly upon their agenda.  If they are going to win a referendum on the issue, that’s going to have to change.

This post isn’t supposed to be negative.  What I’m trying to say is that the debate needs to be happening at the top levels.  The parties need to engage with the issue of independence – and argue the merits of their case.  Ignoring the issue won’t make it go away.  And as much as I’d be happy with the outcome should the pro-Union campaign continue to falter, I’d much rather the argument was won after a positive debate.

Holyrood’s finest hour?

Oct 4

Posted by The Burd in Holyrood, Society, Westminster | 13 Comments

It’s time for the Scottish Parliament to show its mettle.

Tomorrow, Holyrood will debate welfare reform.  Hopefully, the Scottish Government will lay its delayed Legislative Consent Motion (LCM) before the Parliament and everyone will agree to the highly unusual step of appointing three scrutiny committees for the process, one lead and two secondary ones.  This will enable evidence to be laid and heard from the widest possible range of contributors and allow Holyrood to determine whether and how it allows Westminster to legislate on devolved matters contained in the legislation.

Such is the potential impact to Scotland and her people from the measures in the UK government’s welfare reform bill that nothing less will do.  If ever the SNP wanted to pick a fight with Westminster, if ever Labour wanted to return to the hallowed ground of class politics, if ever the Liberal Democrats wanted to point up differences with their English brethren, if ever the Scottish Greens wanted to champion the cause of inequality, if ever the Scottish Conservatives wanted to show that leopards can change their spots, then this issue is it.

I blogged at the ither place that “the scale of change heading down the tracks from the ConDems’ systematic dismantling of the welfare state is almost overwhelming”.  I don’t think I was over-stating the case.  For if the ConDems get their way, nary a household nor family in Scotland will be unaffected by some aspect of the bill.  And not for the good.

Everything is up for grabs and for months, voluntary organisations have been trying and largely failing to influence the process at Westminster.  The old labyrinth of benefits will go, to be replaced by a universal credit.  No bad thing in itself, for everyone has been crying out for fairness, transparency and simplicity in the benefits systems for years.  But it is the application of conditionality, time limits and sanctions for not taking up work or work-related activity – with no exception allowed – and the cutting of income and raising of threshholds making benefits harder to access that will cause increased complexity and real problems for claimants.  Though these measures will, of course, slake the thirst of the right wing media which has helped pave the way for public acceptance of these changes with its damaging, inaccurate and misleading denunciations of people on benefits as workshy fraudsters.  But anyone losing their job – and over two hundred thousand people in Scotland have in recent months – will be affected.

Families with disabled children will be particularly hard hit from changes, as will cancer sufferers and those with complex and longterm mental health problems.  Housing benefit changes appear to benefit no-one.  Lone parents, kinship carers, unemployed young people, people unemployed for more than a year, people seriously injured in an accident, young carers, children, women reaching retirement age, people with multiple and complex disabilities, people with mild and moderate learning disabilities, homeless people, war veterans with health problems, large families, separated parents, families with a young baby and low income families in work – all might find themselves worse off.

This matters because if tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Scots are made poorer and more vulnerable as a result of benefit changes, the pressure on services like health, social work, education, housing – and on charities that work with vulnerable people – will rise, at a time when funding for such services is being stretched and cut.  Real hardship could result.

Moreover, the bill cuts across whole swathes of devolved issues and even interferes with the independence of Scots family law, through the child maintenance reforms.  The devolution of certain parts of the welfare state, including council tax benefit, parts of the social fund and the new benefit Personal Independence Payments for disabled people, will create additional work for the Scottish Government and potentially add new burdens to the public and voluntary sector, without, of course, Westminster providing appropriate funding to help smooth the way.

And everything that involves a concession or a benefit-related discount or access, such as fuel poverty measures, or is in fact, a devolved benefit, as free school meals and clothing grant vouchers are, will require to be reformed, again creating additional work for the Scottish Government and where new regulations are required, for the Scottish Parliament too.

To date, the Conservatives have not been listening:  concerns about the impact of measures and attempts to amend provisions have been ignored.  The shape of the bill has changed little since its introduction in the Spring, with the Conservatives aided and abetted in their selective deafness by the Liberal Democrats.  At committee stage in the House of Commons, scarcely a murmur never mind a protest could be heard from Lib Dem members:  that will be the civilising influence at work again, then.

And the political point is this:  Scotland did not vote for this UK Government.  These changes are being imposed with missionary zeal on a population which did not ask for them, and would not want them if it had a choice.

Changing the shape and impact of the bill’s measures is proving impossible through the front door, so it’s time to try the back.  Holyrood can do something here.  It can do its best to change the worst aspects of the bill in which it has a devolved interest.  If it was feeling particularly brave, it could try to stop the bill in its tracks and refuse to consent to allow Westminster to legislate on the matters that properly belong to its jurisdiction.

Wednesday signals the start of the process that might end in an unprecedented denouement and a constitutional crisis:  already many voluntary sector organisations are calling on MSPs to refuse the LCM.  No one knows what might happen if Holyrood said no thank you, not this time.  But that is for the end of the process.  In the meantime, the Scottish Parliament must devote all its available energes and resources to poring over every aspect of this bill, so it can make an informed decision.  Time is short – the bill is now at its Lords stages, which the UK Government has also gerrymandered by creating a grand committee which makes it harder to amend the bill, and will be done and dusted by Christmas – and minds must focus.

It’s time for Holyrood to show the Scottish people what it is made of.  It’s time for the parties to lay aside childish things and act in concert, in the public good.  It’s time to abandon tribal loyalties and politics.  Work together, create a consensus, speak up and speak out.  Then stand together and stand up for Scotland.

Holyrood, your country needs you:  this could be your finest hour.

 

 

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Read Ed? – We should show leader’s conference speeches on prime time

Sep 28

Posted by Jeff in Democracy, Westminster | 18 Comments

Yesterday evening and tonight, football fans all across Europe will have settled down with their cans of beer, pizza boxes, team colours on and watched the people they support deliver hopefully their best performance of the season. Games are played at a convenient 7:45pm and the only barrier to entry is typically having Sky Sports and an interest in football.

However, for the world of politics, despite the lack of barriers, there is no prime time equivalent.

Ed Miliband delivered his set piece speech yesterday early afternoon, arguably his most important of the year. The speech itself had been heavily trailed such that those lucky enough to see it live largely knew what was coming. So, not many people will dig out the footage and watch it in its entirety and certainly very few people, if any, will call in pizza, get their friends round and have a few beers on the go for the occasion.

Most people, probably myself included, will learn of Ed’s speech through the prism of the television and newspaper media. I’m certainly not going to give in to the Labour leader’s game of kiss-chase to see what was said, as it was said, for the same reasons for why I wouldn’t watch games of football in the evening if they had been played during that day.

I believe this is a terrible shame.

The expenses scandal, the tuition fees issue, the too-centralised party structures and so on has resulted in a public regard for politics being stuck in a rut. There is too little access to the decision-makers of parties these days and, even when they do appear on our screens, it is often to deliver well rehearsed lines that have had their life spun out of them. Who can forget let alone forgive Robotic Ed’s delivery of the same line over and over again?

Well, here was a chance for Ed to show that he has some life about him, to cut out the middle man and tell us all something from the heart, with passion, in the hope that we’d sit up and take notice. Hope that we’d fall a little bit in love with Politics again. Just a little bit.

Alas, Ed went with the media-friendly option of remaining largely anonymous to the UK and deprived us of getting to know him a bit more.

The Telegraph can’t say Barcelona didn’t score a goal when they actually did, but it can say Ed Miliband missed an opportunity with his speech when he actually delivered a barnstormer, because barely anyone is going to tune in and watch the delivery to check.

The thing is, Labour even know this is the case. Ed Miliband has been talking for months about how he needs to stand up against the old broken ways of the mainstream media and stand up for Britain and yet here is providing advanced copies to journalists and delivering speeches to their timelines. Furthermore, Sadiq Khan MP told a Fringe event “many of you will wake up tomorrow and be disappointed by the coverage Ed gets”, which makes it all the more bizarre that the message isn’t sent to us directly.

It’s not for me to say how political parties should run their affairs but imagine David Cameron or Alex Salmond or Nick Clegg or Ed Miliband taking to the lectern in the evening and noone knowing what they are about to say, nothing has been leaked to the press. The speech is delivered to sizeable television audiences and a packed to the rafters conference hall. The public discusses the content from sofas in the evening and, who knows, maybe even the next day at work with colleagues. Meanwhile delegates at the Conference celebrate the end of a hard day and head into the hotel bar or local pub, swiftly followed by the party leader, also done for the day, who is welcomed with rapturous applause before he or she does the rounds talking with party members from the top of the tree to the bottom in a scene of general bonhomie.

You can keep your Man Utd vs Basles or your Celtic vs Udineses, that’s your Theatre of Dreams right there, that’s a political Paradise as far as I can see.

So come on, let’s bring back great political speeches. Let’s not just leave it all to Obama. A good place to start is bringing a bit of theatre to proceedings, or even just showing some of them on TV.

Anyway, I might as well go off and watch the end of the Man Utd game now, there’s precious little else on after all…

We all live in a nuclear submarine

Sep 11

Posted by James in Defence, Holyrood, Westminster | 31 Comments

Astute before launchThe SNP are an anti-nuclear party, we’re always told. For instance, they’re notionally against civilian nuclear, although Jim Mather was happy in the last session to back an extension of their life in the last session. And opposition to Trident is billed as almost their second touchstone of policy, after the Holy Grail itself. In fact, some have told me that independence is primarily essential because there’s no other way to get Trident out of Scotland’s waters.

So what about nuclear-powered submarines? The Navy’s Clyde base is now expected to be home to 11 of the new reactor-tastic Astute class of sub, up from 5. As Rob Edwards reports today, the safety risks from these subs are growing as the cuts bite. Surely the SNP would be against this move?

In fact, their submission (word doc) to the UK Government’s defence review states “The decision to base the UK Astute class submarines at HMNB Clyde is a welcome one and is likely to see a significant increase in the number of personnel based there. The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting this through consideration of devolved consequences and a partnership approach to planning for example in terms of health and education.”

Seriously? This is about jobs? Each boat has less than a hundred crew, and supposedly costs around £1.3bn, but if you don’t think there are many more hidden costs there I expect you also believe the final cost of an additional Forth road bridge will be just £1.6bn. That’s a job creation scheme? We could have insulated every single home in Scotland for less money than one of these white elephants.

What’s worse, although they’re currently only holding conventional weapons, Lee Willett at the Royal United Services Institute thinks Astute might be the British military’s fallback Trident launch platform of choice. As he puts it, “Thus, it is reasonable to assume that Astute is big enough to carry strategic weapons if required, with the only changes to the hull coming in the form of the modular payloads. Perhaps Astute was designed with this eventuality in mind?“ Either way, SNP Ministers are laying out the welcome mat and apparently not asking any questions.

Obviously you’d expect a Green comment, as the only other anti-nuclear party at Holyrood, and here’s what Patrick had to say:

“The majority of anti-nuclear and anti-war Scots will be shocked to discover that the SNP are making the case on the quiet for more nuclear submarines to come to the Clyde, despite years of posturing in the opposite direction. SNP Ministers are yet again pretending you can have your cake while also eating it, just as they have done on RAF bases. There’s no credible way to combine a nuclear unionism – for the supposed jobs – with an anti-war nationalism designed to keep the activists happy. The truth is that nuclear submarines are exactly as inefficient at creating jobs as they are for defending Scotland, and it’s time the SNP started speaking with one voice on this issue.”

But more alarming for SNP Ministers will be the way the charge against their position has been led by one of their own – Stephen Maxwell, a former vice-chair of the SNP, who Rob quotes as saying: “On its current direction of evolution, SNP’s defence policy threatens to match the level of incoherence already evident in UK policy”, and that his own party’s policy “is clearly inconsistent with its declared policy of making Scotland nuclear-free” and “seriously compromising” the case for independence. That’s despite the official quote in Rob’s story again making that case – that independence is partly about a nuclear-free Scotland.

I bet there’ll be others at Holyrood thinking the same thing, even if most backbenchers are still afraid to speak out against the leadership. The joke is unavoidable – Alex Salmond’s got where he is today with some astute decision-making, but this looks anything but.