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A Niceway To Die

Aug 13

Posted by Dom in Democracy, Economy, Environment, Equality, Health, Ideology, Parties | 5 Comments

 

The ’Niceway Code’ is not just about appeasing cyclists – it is typical of a government increasingly tokenistic and out touch with the challenges it faces.

The Scottish Government recently launched a campaign to improve Scotland’s road safety record called ‘The Niceway Code’. You may have missed this due to the fact that it only has a budget of 500,000 pounds and it is so appallingly lame that Transport Minister Keith Brown’s department seem faintly embarrassed about the whole thing.

The campaign aims to reduce the number of road deaths by asking road users to be nice to one another, which is surprising in that the law already compels people to be nice to and not kill one another on the roads.

The fact that the campaign does not even remind motorists or their legal obligations (and in some cases directly contradicts what road markings tell cyclists to do as shown in the picture below) has incensed active and sustainable transport groups. One Holyrood insider even talked of how an panel of interest groups were left dumbfounded when Keith Brown’s team revealed their grand strategy for preventing death and injury on the nation’s streets. The Scottish Government’s own statistics show that 1 in 14 road deaths each year are cyclists, and only in a tiny minority of cases have the cyclists committed even minor infringements to the highway code.

Don’t go left, even though that’s where the cycle lane is.

The SNP seem to want to keep everyone happy, which is why they seem to view cyclists and cycling as an interest group and not as a genuine means of tackling some of the endemic transport and urban problems of contemporary Scotland. They will happily commit three BILLION pounds to doubling the A9 from Perth to Inverness but cannot muster the couple of million pounds it would require to radically reshape Scotland’s urban and suburban spaces to make them more liveable.

Cycling is not just about lycra and weekend hobbyists – harnessed properly it can create safer streets for children and families in particular, cut air pollution and help meet Scotland’s climate goals. It can save the government and taxpayers money, cut health bills and reduce the strain on public transport networks without extra subsidies. If even a crumb of that three billion were spent on redesigning towns and cities to make them more people-friendly the SNP would be a world leader, but for the time being they’ve just got everyone sniggering into the back of their hand. And I’m being nice.

 

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This is what fear looks like

Aug 7

Posted by James in Constitution, Holyrood, Parties, Westminster | 30 Comments

EXIT LABOURThere’s been a lot of Holyrood-bubble drama around LabourForIndy recently. Who’s that in their photos? When did you join Labour? Is it even real? It might seem like the phoniest of wars, but it’s happening for a reason.

Fear. Specifically Labour fear.

As I’ve said before, if the referendum is to be won, it’ll be won from the left and centre-left. By next September let’s assume 75% of 2011 SNP voters will probably back independence. Die-hard capital-N nationalists, some fairly left-wing, some to the right. They make up about 30-33% of the electorate, and therefore 60-66% of the Yes vote required.

Add in a good slice of Greens and Socialists – not a huge number, although some SNP folk say Patrick Harvie’s messages are persuading voters who are neither nationalist nor Green – plus a fragment of Lib Dems frustrated by the absence of federalism from the ballot, and Yes is still short about a sixth of the vote. That sixth can only come from Labour voters plus increased turnout from the working class ex-Labour abstainers (or lifetime abstainers), the very people for whom Westminster has done next to nothing for generations.

Hence the fuss. LabourForIndy as an organisation may not (yet?) be that substantial, but Labour voters for independence are where the referendum can be won. And there are lots of them already. Take the May Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times, the most recent one up on UK Polling Report, which gives crossbreaks on voting intention and referendum intention.

The results for Q3 there (which should say “constituency”, not region) show that 41% of the undecided are Labour voters. Fewer than 50% of Labour’s supporters from 2011 backed Westminster rule, and 14% are voting Yes. If representative, that’s almost 90,000 people, perhaps seven or eight percent of the total Yes vote required (assuming a turnout of between 2.25m and 2.5m next year). And the Labour-backing referendum-undecideds are twice as many again.

If those undecided Labour voters break for Yes, they can ensure the referendum is won – probably no-one else can – and Labour is right to be afraid of this situation, because it threatens their position in three ways.

First, independence, and the Labour voters supporting it, jeopardises their chances of getting back into power at a UK level. Although Westminster elections aren’t commonly close enough for the Scottish block to make any difference (other than imposing Blairite reforms on the rest of the UK), it might well happen next time given the state of the polls. They want the buffer provided by right-wing MPs like Tom Harris. Pure self interest: they want him and his ilk to keep being sent to Westminster to help prop up future Labour administrations there.

Second, and this is where they should see opportunities rather than threats, it makes a return to office at Holyrood even less likely. Losing a referendum on which they have staked everything would be a massive blow to their institutional power and their credibility, especially when it’ll be clear so many of their own supporters have ignored their advice in favour of, ironically, the prospect of a Labour-led government for an independent Scotland. It’s not just their supporters and members, either. Why wouldn’t some potential Scottish Labour Ministers feel the same? One former senior Labour Minister told a friend he was privately in favour of independence so long as “the bloody Nats don’t get to run it” (no, it wasn’t Henry).

Finally, and perhaps most intriguingly, it’s an ideological threat. Labour have redefined their primary purpose as defence of the Union, in large part as self-interest. Like Scottish Lib Dem MPs, they’re amongst its main institutional beneficiaries. It’s also partly because they haven’t any other ideas. Ask yourself: what else do Labour at Holyrood want to achieve? Can you name a single radical thing? I can’t, and I follow politics pretty closely.

There’s no principled basis for boxing themselves in like this. Unless a party is established with a constitutional purpose at its heart, like the SNP, their supporters are likely to disagree on whether Holyrood or Westminster is best able to get them to their other political objectives. A third of Greens at conference regularly vote against independence, although none yet seem to want to work with the Tories as part of Better Together. It’s normal. I’m not scared by it, in the way Labour are terrified of Labour voters for independence. Rather than social justice or even Blairite aspiration, Labour have become obsessed with one arbitrary answer to this tactical question – will our objectives be better met at Westminster or at Holyrood? It’s a fragile new base to have chosen.

Their response to this trend not only threatens Labour’s future shots at governance, therefore, it also weakens their power over their voters too. That Labour Yes vote is likely to be centre-left types who find the SNP too economically right-wing, people who’ve stuck with Labour so far but who are increasingly desperate to be shot of a Tory-led Westminster. When they watch the Labour leadership line up with Tories and Lib Dems over the next year to ensure Scotland remains run by the bedroom taxing, fracking, poor-hating, immigrant-abusing Westminster they increasingly loathe, the risk has to be that that sight will put them off Labour too, and that those Labour voters for Yes will become SNP, Green or Socialist voters for Yes. I can’t be the only person who’s gone off Labour and off Westminster essentially in parallel.

It’s too late for them ever to win me back, but Labour didn’t need to be in this mess, especially if they’d put forward a credible “more powers” offer. Now, though, even as someone who still wants to see a better Labour Party, I now can’t see a way out of the uncomfortable corner they’ve painted themselves into. The harder they try to retain their grip, the weaker their position becomes. No wonder they’re afraid.

Land reform for football

Aug 4

Posted by James in Holyrood, Sport | Comments off

ParsMatchReportI24012012As per the Greens’ 2011 manifesto, Alison Johnstone MSP is proposing that football fans get first refusal when their clubs come up for sale. Teams aren’t just a business like any other: they’re often a cornerstone of their community, and they exist only because of their fans. Football’s not a competitive market for fans – barring the odd glory-hunter and the occasional refugee from a particularly mismanaged club.

And fan ownership works elsewhere, with some of the world’s most successful clubs run by their supporters, including Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, São Paulo. Not to mention Stirling Albion, Clyde, Clydebank, Motherwell, etc. It’s practically compulsory in Germany, and it is actually compulsory in Turkey and Sweden.

How could any other owner have the same kind of commitment to the long-term interest of a club? Are fans going to sell their clubs’ traditional homes and move to a new stadium out by the ringroad? Are they going to get spectacularly into debt for one season’s glory? (actually, perhaps, on the latter – everyone gets carried away from time to time)

And even where the fans don’t yet own a club, just having this right puts them in a much stronger position and changes the relationship. You can’t ignore their wishes when you may have to sell to them. It’s not a magic bullet, though. Sometimes clubs will fall out of fan ownership, perhaps temporarily. And it doesn’t stop owners selling grounds for flats and short-term profit, although this would: if it’s good enough for Old Trafford…

And, pleasingly, Scotland on Sunday got a warm quote from SNP Ministers about the idea. They’ll shortly be consulting on the Community Empowerment and Renewal Bill, to which this would be an amendment, and they said:

“We expect to hear the views of people from across the country and the parliament. We want to enhance the role of supporters’ trusts in football and already fund Supporters Direct Scotland.”

Sounds like this might just happen. And it’s surely time. The national game is currently dysfunctional at a club level and at a international level. Rangers, Hearts, Dunfermline: all three have hit the buffers just since the 2011 election. Just this week, though, it was agreed that fans’ group Pars United would take over Dunfermline.

Meanwhile, Foundation of Hearts are still in contention to take over at Tynecastle. Everyone I know in Edinburgh who cares about football wants to see their bid succeed: wouldn’t it be better if they had a right of first refusal at a fair price? As the Evening News put it this week:

“A unique opportunity to make their own history stands within the grasp of those fantastic 
supporters. For decades, football fans around the world have talked about the dream of owning the club that they love and taking control of their own destiny. Right now, as a result of several factors coming together, the opportunity exists to make that dream a reality here in Edinburgh. After years of feeling powerless, subject to the whim of a feckless foreign owner, the fans could actually take control of the third best supported team in Scotland.”

They list Hearts’ achievements on the pitch (and the sacrifices made during World War One), and conclude:

“A takeover by the fans would stand alongside those achievements in the annals of the club.”

Quite right. Without wishing to sound too Bolshevik, no more Romanovs!

Disclosure: I’m helping Alison with this campaign and I wrote the press release

On the reporting of data.

Aug 2

Posted by James in Economy, Media | Comments off

Good solid data is loved by the political and media classes, unless of course it points in the wrong direction. Then it’s an outlier, within the margin of error, set with an inappropriate baseline, or perhaps even the wrong thing to measure at all.

But very little data is neutral, nor neutrally reported. Each sort tends to have a skew built into it, some of which are well worth analysing.

Daily Mail FPHouse prices. A rise in house prices is overwhelmingly regarded as a win by the media, not just the Daily Mail. And if you have a buy-to-let portfolio it is, or indeed if you’re planning to sell your house and run a beach bar in Goa for your retirement. If, however, you don’t own a home but would like to, or have a small home and need a larger one, it’s bad news. I don’t own a home, but maybe I’d like to at some point, so rises are bad news for me. I think they’re also bad news for the economy and society, too: they give to the haves and increase division.

Inflation. Lower inflation is universally regarded as good news, which it is for pensioners on a fixed income, or people with substantial savings. But if you have substantial debts, they’re great. You want £10,000 back from me? Some inflation’s great, because the real value of that debt is now markedly lower. Hyperinflation along the Weimar model is clearly bad news, but for as long as we’re stuck with capitalism, very low inflation is certainly economically divisive.

Unemployment. Insofar as jobless rates are still much reported on, and given the caveat that the official figures are only those people still tenacious enough to navigate a Kafka-esque benefits system, reductions are regarded as good news. Which I would agree they are, of course. But if you’re a rapacious big business in need of desperate jobseekers, moderately higher unemployment is in your interests. A rare example where the standard reporting frame doesn’t follow the class interests of the employers.

Net immigration. All three parties who’ve run Westminster of late support bringing this number down, as part of their ultra-subtle Cosy Up To Farage strategy. I have entirely different concerns, including a desire to live in a more culturally diverse and economically successful country, and I see a decline in this rate as bad news. As the Telegraph itself put it, “because of immigration to the UK, British taxes are lower, spending is higher and the deficit is smaller. So, just for fun, let me ask the question again. Immigrants: don’t you just love ‘em?” Yes, yes I do.

Stock market movements. More tangential for most people, but rises are always described as positive. Personally, I’d love to see shares in polluting industries collapse, but that may be a minority position. Still, the reporting is even weaker here. Back in the old days, when British interest rates were still allowed to vary, you’d regularly see “Interest rate cut boosts markets” in the media. Er, no. If you’re in the City, you’re looking for the best return for your clients, or more accurately for yourself. So if interest rates fall, the balance of profitability between shares and bonds/currency tips in favour of shares. So share prices go up. It doesn’t tell you anything about the real economy whatsoever.

Anyone got any other glaring examples?

What it would have taken for me to be against independence.

Aug 1

Posted by James in Constitution, Parties | 25 Comments

Neil KinnockI keep telling people I’m a non-nationalist for independence, but they don’t believe me. It’s true, though. I never grew up dreaming of independence, nor was it something that I particularly thought about when I first started getting into politics.

My political obsessions were much as they are now: social and economic justice, civil liberties, decarbonising our economy and protecting biodiversity, plus radical political reform.

Over the period I’ve been politically aware, I’ve lived under two eye-wateringly hard-right Tory administrations, one with Lib Dem help, separated by a period of centre-right New Labour rule (your definition of left and right may vary from mine, of course). Each of these governments was unpleasant at its core, although each one achieved at least one good thing. No, really.

Thatcher set up Channel Four: I do think that’s it for her merit column. Tony Blair brought in devolution, a limited minimum wage, and Freedom of Information. Cameron abolished Labour’s plans for ID cards and for a third runway at Heathrow. Major and Blair should share credit for moves to peace in Northern Ireland. Beyond that I’m drawing a blank. You can add you “what have the Romans ever done for us?” comments below.

Anyway, before 1994 my party politics were pretty simple, if naive. You could choose Labour or the Tories, so I thought, and that was an easy choice. Years of Tory rule would come to an end one day, and then it’d all be okay. My Labour vote in 1992 was therefore uncritical and optimistic, and I even remember exactly how depressed Basildon made me. Then the election of Tony Blair as Labour leader in 1994 radicalised me, electorally. It was obvious from the leadership campaign that he was not going to lead a Labour Party of the sort I’d waited for. I also remember being baffled by those who got disappointed after 1997: he did what he said he would do, broadly, and it bore little relation to the Labour values I remembered. I got my disappointment in early.

So over my political life I’ve seen the three largest parties at Westminster all have a go at power. They’ve left us with hereditary peers still in place, and hardly a whisper of opposition to the idea of a hereditary head of state. Fair voting is further off than ever, largely thanks to the Lib Dems’ unforgivable decision to push for a referendum on a non-proportional voting system. The economy is still built on exploitation and increasing inequality, and it’s still reliant on gas and coal and nukes. Endless road-building and airport expansion are supported by all three parties too (with the Tories desperately looking for a way to do a u-turn on Heathrow). Tuition fees get raised, asylum seekers get demonised, nuclear weapons get retained, and stuff gets privatised: these things are true whichever one of the three wins. All three parties claim the mantle of civil liberties in opposition, and all three have assaulted civil liberties in office like a pack of thugs in a back street. About the only place where Westminster has led at all, relative to Holyrood, is on LGBT rights.

They’ve all three failed, and there’s no-one left to wait for. No knight on a white charger, no principled and admirable opposition. Not even Neil Kinnock. Miliband and Balls are signed up to the “there are problems with immigration” agenda, to austerity, and to the current electoral pseudo-democracy. The left in most parts of the UK is stuck with Labour as merely the lesser evil, playing their part in a depressing politics-as-showbiz charade, where the voters who get pandered to by all three are the editors of the middle-market papers and those in swing seats who read them and fear foreigners: hence Ministers sending vans emblazoned with the old NF slogan “Go Home” to drive around ethnic minority areas. It’s fusty, archaic, unreformable, corrupt, racist, nepotistic, and cynical.

This experience gradually ground down my faith that Westminster could be somewhere things changed. Sure, the Greens got Caroline Lucas elected, which is a massive breakthrough, but I’m too impatient to wait a generation for change.

And that’s when I realised I wanted shot of it all. I knew that there wasn’t a single decision on any issue I cared about that I trusted that hulking façade of democracy to make. And I became absolutely certain that independence was necessary. It was the only way to get Westminster out of my life forever. Not for some great love of the SNP (they share some of the policies objected to above) or because independence will be perfect – although Holyrood’s procedures and elections are centuries ahead of Westminster practice.

If nothing else, because it’ll be a shakeup, a chance to bring power closer to the people and a chance to break the corrupt links between the UK parties and big business. And because there’s no alternative waiting in the wings, no real Labour government of the sort I dreamt about in the early 1990s. If Neil Kinnock had won, I might never have even considered wanting Scottish independence.