Work as if you live in the early days of a

Better Nation

When civil partnership was radical

Jun 27

Posted by James in Equality, Holyrood | 6 Comments

My OathJust over ten years ago, the Rainbow Parliament came to town, full of Greens, Socialists and independents. Of the new rainbow intake, just one still remains at Holyrood: Patrick Harvie. His first act, more or less the moment he’d taken the oath, was to propose legislation for civil partnerships – in fact, it was soon enough for the Herald’s cartoonist to draw Patrick with his hand in the air saying “I hereby swear my allegiance to the queens”.

The outrage was widespread, and not just from the usual suspects. Even the less reactionary parts of the media complained that this wasn’t what Greens were elected to do – surely they should just be talking about conservation or climate change? They moaned that Robin wouldn’t have done this, neglecting the fact that it had been a Green manifesto pledge, and that Robin had made the exact same arguments during the previous session.

Just three years prior to that, Scottish Ministers had been the subject of the bad-tempered Keep The Clause campaign, Brian Souter’s hateful effort to try and marginalise LGBT youngsters at school. They’d stuck to their guns, but why would anyone at Holyrood want to kick off another controversy in this area, they asked? It’s too soon. It’s not a big deal. Who cares?

Although Patrick’s Bill wasn’t successful, it did get Holyrood talking about the issue, and it helped ensure that the Scottish Parliament fully debated the issue, and voted in support of the principle, before Westminster passed legislation for the whole UK. Just a year later civil partnerships were approved UK-wide.

Today, as the Scottish Government publishes a bill to deliver equal marriage (with some flaws), supported by the leadership of all five parties at Holyrood, it’s hard to believe how radical it was just ten years ago to propose civil partnerships. This country isn’t free of prejudice or inequality, nor will it be when this bill passes, but on no other issue I care about have I seen such rapid progress. Patrick: you deserve a glass of something fizzy today.

Nigel Farage: time to choose

Jun 20

Posted by James in Democracy, Holyrood | 14 Comments

chooseLast night I happened to be in Holyrood when the Refugee Week reception was on. I spent a year working for the Scottish Refugee Council when the Scottish Parliament was first established, and it’s been an issue I’ve felt strongly about ever since. So I took a glass of wine and listened to Christina McKelvie give the welcome speech.

The section addressed to those visitors to Holyrood who were refugees, asylum seekers or immigrants was basically perfect. Just as I’ve always felt, she told them she was so proud when people choose to make Scotland their home, and proud when we’re able to provide a haven for someone whose own country isn’t safe for them any more.

The theme was heritage, an issue where I often find the tone used by SNP politicians jarring. But not last night. Once you’ve chosen to be here, she said, as time passes you become part of Scotland’s heritage too. You become a strand in our tartan. It’s a splendidly inclusive message for people who’ve arrived here.

But not everyone who comes here gets a warm welcome, she said. Cue puzzled looks. Just a few weeks ago one man got a proper heckling on the High Street. It was made very clear to him that he wasn’t welcome. He claimed it was anti-English sentiment, which came as news to one of the Cambridge-born organisers.

It wasn’t anti-Englishness, she said. It was anti-fascism. And we clapped.

There’s been a lot of pontificating about free speech from Tom Harris and the like after Farage’s visit. Incidentally, Tom thinks #disparagetheFarage was a “mob of nationalists and trots“, but he was unable to say which of these categories he thought covered Labour activist Duncan Hothersall, inventor of the excellent hashtag and one of us who encouraged folk to doorstep Farage. He’s also reluctant in that piece to accept that Patrick Harvie has a proper job title, and he thinks the objections to Farage are because UKIP want us to leave the EU. Not at all: that’s a perfectly respectable aim, even if Farage’s reasons for being anti-European are diametrically opposed to the issues that make me sometimes wonder how I’d vote on the EU. It’s his racism people primarily object to. But “free speech” is how Tom attacks the protest, as others on the right did.

There are many things wrong with that argument. Does Tom think the antifa shouldn’t turn out a counter-protest when the EDL are on the streets? Also, anyone who thinks Farage was “silenced” or doesn’t have freedom of speech clearly hasn’t seen a telly this year, and yes, he’s free to come here just as we’re free to protest his abhorrent views – but the final implication of Christina’s speech is probably the key reason I’m so proud of the people who disparaged him.

It’s this: you have to choose. If you make Nigel Farage welcome in Scotland, then Scotland will inevitably feel a less welcoming place to every refugee, every asylum seeker, every Polish or Romanian expat who’s chosen to live here, just as much of England already does. If a peaceful protest sends him packing with his tail between his legs, it tells all those people that we’re on their side, that we value their role in our communities and in our economy.

The women in glorious West African garb in the Garden Lobby last night who beamed in delight as Christina McKelvie told them they were going to be part of Scotland’s heritage one day: they will indeed be threads in Scotland’s tartan. And that simple fact means we can’t make room in the weave for UKIP’s colours.

Foolishness on e-cigs comes to Holyrood

Jun 19

Posted by James in Health, Holyrood | 3 Comments

E-cigAlex Massie’s right: attempts to clamp down on electronic cigarettes are entirely misguided, and will, if successful, lead directly to more preventable deaths. The opponents are doing Big Tobacco’s work for them – there has never been a bigger threat to tobacco consumption than e-cigarettes, vaporisers, call them what you will, at least in the West. If you’ve got the time, here’s an extraordinarily long list of scientists and others quoted on the subject. To give one example from there, here’s Professor John Britton, chair of the Royal College of Physicians’ Tobacco Advisory Group:

If all the smokers in Britain stopped smoking cigarettes and started smoking e-cigarettes we would save 5 million deaths in people who are alive today. It’s a massive potential public health prize.

So why not regulate them? Here, from the same source, are ten good reasons. And perhaps this is the clearest summary, from Professor Jean-François Etter, head of the tobacco group at the University of Geneva’s Institute of Social and Preventative Medicine:

It would be a mistake I think to regulate these products as medications, and if they were regulated as medications this would limit access to the product too much and cause many deaths. … Astonishingly, the most vocal opponents of e-cigarettes are people from the public health community, who perhaps don’t understand what is at stake, and just don’t like the product because it looks too much like a cigarette.

And now the foolishness of the “treat them as medicines” lobby has arrived at Holyrood via this motion from Stewart Maxwell MSP. He led the campaign for a ban on smoking in public places from 2003, so seeing him trying to restrict something which reduces the incidence of smoking is like watching a road safety campaigner suddenly argue against speed limits, seatbelts or airbags. His motion says the “potential health risks are unknown”, and advises people to stick to the patches and gum which have left us with almost a quarter of Scots still smoking.

Sure. We don’t know everything yet, but research is coming in, and we can also be absolutely certain about the alternative: continuing to smoke tobacco. To quote ASH, this country’s most implacable opponents of smoking (who do support regulation but also oppose a ban on the use of e-cigs in public places):

Certainly, in the absence of thorough clinical evaluation and long term population level surveillance absolute safety of such products cannot be guaranteed. By comparison, the harm from tobacco smoking – the leading cause of preventable death in the UK – is well established.

One study concludes that e-cigarettes have a low toxicity profile, are well tolerated, and are associated with only mild adverse effects.

I don’t even think they should be unavailable to children, despite the concerns about young people starting straight on e-cigs. Currently 13% of Scottish 15 year-olds smoke cigarettes: I’d rather they weren’t inhaling any tar, any particulates, any carbon monoxide, or any of the remainder of the toxic cocktail a cigarette generates. Maxwell’s motion calls for a ban on promotion to non-smokers, and that’s probably as far as I would go with him, although I’m not quite sure what that looks like.

With proper support, this could be the last generation that sees mass smoking of tobacco in this country. With a decent alternative for those already hooked, you could even make the case for pre-announcing a 2020 ban on smoking altogether (not that the Massie family would be likely to support that). One more quote, this time from Robert West, Professor of health psychology and director of tobacco studies at UCL’s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health:

We could see the end of tobacco use in the UK within five to ten years if e-cigarettes are allowed to flourish. Why would smokers continue to kill themselves if they could use e-cigarettes? Smoking tobacco is so last century.

The prize is that big. I see my friends switching from something that will very likely kill them to something which almost certainly won’t. And I wish Stewart Maxwell was on board with that.

Questions for Question Time

Jun 13

Posted by James in Elections, Media | 37 Comments

BBCQTI normally object to political hacks objecting to media bias. With the newspapers in particular, it always sounds like sailors complaining about the wind. But the BBC is a slightly special case. And Question Time is the most special case of all outside general election campaigns, because of its profile and because the balance is so easy to achieve. They don’t need every party on every panel, but over the piece the panellists they choose need to reflect the views of the public as reflected by their elected representatives.

And that varies across the UK. Tonight’s Scottish episode is significant in two ways. It’s a week before a Holyrood by-election, and the audience will be entirely 16- and 17-year-olds, to reflect the fact that young people are being enfranchised for the first time in the independence referendum.

Five parties are represented at Holyrood, and all five are standing in Aberdeen Donside, but there’s no Green on the panel. Instead we will have to tolerate both Nigel Farage and George Galloway again. Neither of them represent Scottish constituencies, and neither UKIP nor Respect have any elected representatives in Scotland. Both oppose Scottish independence, too. So, rather than a three-to-two balance in favour of the status quo, which would have been the politicians’ split if BBCQT even noticed actual Holyrood election results when considering balance, we’ll see a four-to-one split against, with just Angus Robertson the only politician speaking up for Scottish self-determination.

The Lib Dems are also being excluded, which is a mistake too. Willie Rennie or another from his group – I’d like to see Liam McArthur get a crack, for instance – have a right to be there tonight just as much as Patrick Harvie or Alison Johnstone do. A panel of six, like they have planned already, would allow them all five actual Scottish parliamentary parties plus the only ray of light in this whole fiasco: the indomitable Lesley Riddoch. She’ll be brilliant and she’ll be feisty, and she’ll help make up for the problems with the panel. But that doesn’t make this good enough.

BBCQT come to Scotland about three times a year, incidentally, and over the fourteen years since the first Holyrood election they’ve only once had a Scottish Green on: Patrick’s slot in 2011, even though Holyrood has always had Green MSPs. Do they really think Nigel Farage or George Galloway are more relevant in Scotland than the Greens? It’s perhaps time for the producers to admit they don’t give a stuff about fairness and balance on Question Time. They just want a rammy, so perhaps we should be grateful they didn’t put Nick Griffin and Melanie Phillips on.

To exclude two sane voices in the independence debate (one from each side) in favour of two wild and unrepresentative demagogues, both on the same side on this issue: that’s bizarre. To exclude two of the Holyrood parties who are contesting next week’s by-election: that’s totally unacceptable. Let the official complaints begin. Update: you can complain here.

pic from here

Would we rather the SNP be sensible or knee-jerk nationalist on welfare?

Jun 12

Posted by Dom in Constitution, Defence, Democracy, Economy, Governance, Society | Comments off

I do sometimes feel sorry for the SNP. They spend all their time being pilloried by the Scotsman and the opposition benches about not having any vision of how an independent Scotland would work, and when they do try and give a practical answer it is so willfully misconstrued that they probably wish they had done the easy thing and not bothered coming up with a more detailed insight.

The idea that Scotland and the United Kingdom might share welfare administration for a period after independence makes perfect sense. In fact, to the credit of the sections of the SNP who can be fairly absolutist about such things, it is an extremely sensible step.

Independence inevitably means the establishment of separate Scottish structures for the provision of public services in the same way that the country already enjoys control of the healthcare and education systsems. Nobody has suggested that that will not ultimately be the case.

What the Scottish Government have suggested is that welfare administration should be shared until a point is reached at which both the United Kingdom and Scottish Governments feel they can manage their own domestic affairs on home soil. So far, so sensible.

It would be the reverse of the process of German reunification, whereby an initially measured timescale was steamrollered for political reasons with unintended consequences. Whereas the integration of systems in Germany was done far too speedily, the division of something as complex as welfare in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom on the same timescale as the assumption of statehood would be irresponsible for any government to take.

But this does not change the principle of full autonomy for Scotland in the long term. The discussions of aspects such as pensions are often used as a stick to beat the very idea of an independent state, including some mischief making from the Better Together campaign about Scotland’s status as a subsidy junky, but it is at the end of the day a practical detail to be worked out.

The Forces Together campaign launched by Alistair Darling at The Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party’s conference in Stirling goes to town on this, asking how our brave troops would be paid their defence pensions if they were living in a foreign country, and whether Scotland could afford to pay them. Britain has years of experience paying military personnel resident in foreign countries for years at a time and living abroad does not exclude former personnel from being the responsibility of the British military pensions scheme, as shown by the Irish citizens who choose to fight in the British army even today.

There is a fair deal the SNP are wrong about in terms of the details of independence, but for once let us congratulate them for actually being honest and practical about how Scotland would best engineer a smooth transition which made sure that all of its citizens were well looked after.