With 4 months to go Westminster has blinked...

The subtle change in the narrative was almost imperceptible. The new weasel words sounded just the same as the old weasel words emanating from the unelected chamber of the privileged.

But it was there. Undeniably it was there. And all of a sudden the genie has been released from his bottle.

The House of Lords was finger-wagging about how Scottish MPs would not be permitted to take part in matters relating to the post-referendum independence settlement.

Just step back for a moment and consider that again. The Lords considering scenarios following a Yes vote on September 18th.

This is completely and utterly epoch-making. The narrative has changed irreversibly.

The Lords go on to point out other matters of legality between the point of a Yes vote and the preferred date of independence, 24th March 2016. Further to that they stress that the rUK government would have no obligation to meet that timetable if it was not in the rUK's interests to complete negotiations by that date.

Wow! This is sensational stuff.

OK, you may say that it is dry, procedural, yawn-inducing nonsense which as Angus MacNeil MP rightly points out is offered up by an, "undemocratic anachronism stuffed to the gunnels with over 800 peers of the realm who answer to no electors and are often there because of privilege or patronage."

But the key point here is that the undemocratic anachronism has seen something of the writing on the wall and realises that it is the organ of state that has to start considering the implications. Westminster blinked first.

This is the UK's upper house openly discussing the terms of what will or will not be acceptable should the "unthinkable" happen.

Westminster inflicts more T-O-R-T-U-R-E

As I say, the genie's been well and truly released from his bottle.

Let's go back barely 6 months. Last Christmas could you have imagined Parliament discussing procedural matters following a Yes vote before a single ballot has even been printed? Not on your life.

But why? Is it because the House of Lords is a reasonable and democratic institution which always attempts to seek out the considered wills of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom? Is it hell!

Or have they got the wind up? Was that secet poll result so damning that there was no alternative other than to consider the distasteful concept of a split?

We may never know the true answer to that but it is, at the same time, interesting to note that this unelected chamber is keen to extinguish the mandate of elected Scottish members of the House of Commons.

Angus MacNeil again, "To be lectured by them about timetables and for democratic processes is something that could only happen in Westminster.

"It will be elected representatives who will lead Scotland's transition to independence – not some elite club whose members can still turn up for just half an hour's work and get a £300 daily allowance."

But whether or not the Lords actually have the right to rule, advise, pontificate, finger-wag or otherwise it is not what they actually do that matters, it is that they have done anything at all that marks the sea-change. In one fell swoop they have recognised, without really realising what they have done, that the game's up and the clock is now ticking towards 10pm on September 18th. I'll be on Rose Street. Where will you be?

As for political dynamite this week, David Cameron's visit to Scotland to tell us all how lucky we are and Dougie Alexander's intervention to tell us all how lucky we are – completely consigned to the back-burner when we have the lawmakers of the Lords stumbling into this minefield all by themsleves.

An almost imperceptible shift but it's done now and they can't go back from here. The genie's out and he will cause mischief.


P.S. I had to chuckle at the BBC News website's reporting on the House of Lords matter when they stated that, "This would prevent MPs who represent Scottish seats negotiating for the rest of the UK on the terms of independence, scrutinising the UK's negotiating team or ratifying a resulting agreement, the committee argued. Those affected would include politicians such as Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury."

Aye, not past next May though!

We Don't Need No Education 2014

For many, if not most, politicians and political commentators south of the border Scotland has been more likely to feature as a source of annoyance than anything else. The most prevalent opinion has been that the Scots are at worst a bunch of scroungers or at best simply ungrateful for the largesse of the Union generally and England specifically. Now that the referendum is just over the horizon the chattering classes south of the border are prepared to resort to any lengths to put the kybosh on this whole independence thingummy.

Alex Salmond has been acutely aware that we Scots needed a bit of education on what our status is in the Union and what our status would be if we would go our own way. He didn’t rush for the first available date and instead chose to stick to his declared guns for the plebiscite as promised. He was aware that we needed education as to the benefits of freedom of choice in setting our own policy goals in an international context. He was aware that we needed education as to the true potential of our industry and resources to be able to raise funds for the nation through taxation. He was aware that we needed education in the opportunities afforded to small nations in the modern world.

However Alex dared not use this “E” word as that might very well have come across as condescending. And if there is one thing we Scots cannot abide it is condescension! Instead he had to lead us down a path where we witness by the evidence of our own eyes and ears the possibilities and certainties that many Scots cannot yet even imagine.

Unfortunately Alex can't help absolutely everybody

So why is education such a key aspect? Well firstly those very opinions of what Scots actually are, permeating from England about us all being ungrateful scroungers may be dismissed with one hand but if this type of propaganda is repeated often enough it can leave a stain or even a scar on the psyche in terms of how we view ourselves. Secondly, this is reinforced by our local Unionist politicians telling us how essential it is to preserve the Union as we wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of lasting five minutes out there. Anyway, where would we go? The EU wouldn’t want us and nobody would want to bail us out when we fall flat on our faces. These slurs against the competence and self-respect of our very being needed to be addressed, dissected and put to bed once and for all to be replaced by new positive reinforcements of who we are and what we are capable of.

Let’s look at the different aspects of our education in understanding ourselves. We need to be clear, regarding our status, that the vast majority of the population of the Union treats us as second-class citizens. The English are not intrinsically a bad bunch and I think that we all know that. However they are finding a nascent sense of Englishness with the Cross of St George and all that. They look at us with some sense of indulgence as one would for an errant young nephew who really just will not learn. As long as the SNP were in a minority at Holyrood this was all well and good. Now, all of a sudden, this errant young nephew has been left a rather large inheritance and everyone in the family wants to tell him how to invest it or, even better, become his trustee until he is old enough to understand how to spend it wisely. Let’s make no mistake here; we are nobody’s nephew. We are full partners in a Treaty of Union which is as valid today as it was 304 years when it was formalised. Under international law the treaty is a live instrument and the partners are at liberty to revise it as and when they see fit. We are not locked into this Union and we are at liberty to challenge our status without a trustee or guardian insisting upon our conduct.

Scotland is currently little more than a bit-part player in the world of international affairs. For better or for worse we are often characterised as that bunch who let the Libyan bomber go free. How that affair is read depends upon where you are rooted. Hawks might say that we are a soft-touch whilst those with a more all-embracing nature might say that we are compassionate. Quite frankly this is an irrelevance. We are being judged on something that was decided from a point of law. There was no pay-off, there was no dividend, there was no back-scratching done. But as the government in Westminster was less than willing to be frank or in any way clear on the matter we had to stride the international stage as a government with no Foreign Ministry. Westminster made no attempt to assist in that and it was a perfect opportunity for London Labour to try to leave Edinburgh high and dry.

That we were able to get any message across at all was remarkable in itself. The SNP has a highly professional team of front bench talent in Holyrood and as we saw accusing fingers pointed at Kenny Macaskill and Alex Salmond from the hawks in the US and from within the Union a valiant and tidy rear-guard action was fought. Some were convinced that this issue might come back to bite the SNP but the results of last week of the 2011 poll are proof that this has become a non-issue for most Scots. Nonetheless we need to see for ourselves how the impressions and misrepresentations of others can affect our international persona. Our ability to present ourselves on the international stage is not helped by the status quo at Westminster but we need to demonstrate this for all to see on the domestic front.

We Scots have been some of the greatest innovators in science and commerce in the history of the modern world. This goes back to one key issue — education. We were the first country to offer universal education to everyone regardless of class or position. This great advantage was readily seized upon by the British Empire in its time as we were the most numerate society of the age, so the fact that the administrators and managers in the colonies were predominantly Scots was no coincidence. When the Industrial Revolution came along Scotland, as well as supplying many of the ideas and processes, embraced the new age with vigour and foresight. The great industries of the Central Belt were forged from Scottish iron and steel smelted on Scottish coal. Times have changed since the great days of the Industrial Revolution and the heavy industries have died or declined to a vestigial level compared to their pomp. But we tend to forget that New Lanark is still in the essential travel guide for Japanese tourist coming to the UK. We may have forgotten a great deal of our industrial background but they want to come and see where it all started from their point of view in the crucible of sustainable, compassionate industry.

But what of our current industry? Some would scoff about whisky, picture postcards and shortbread but let’s not get sidetracked. The whisky industry as it stands today is a massive contributor to the Exchequer. The taxes, duty and excise raised by Scotch whisky are the envy of many countries in Europe. This is a massive shot in the arm to Scotland’s input to London’s tax pot. Or is it? Well actually no, generally it is London itself that inputs the whisky numbers as the companies that own the distilleries are registered in London so therefore it is English whisky funds.

Oh well never mind, the oil and gas sector contributes billions and that does certainly come from Scotland doesn’t it? Well no, actually it doesn’t. The energy sector is also mostly London based. For all the endeavour that goes on in the North Sea and for all the roles that Aberdeen, Peterhead and Shetland play it is once more London’s input.

So that’s two of the major industries in the UK economy almost exclusively operating in Scotland but with their financial returns reflected as English. No wonder we would feel inadequate if we imagined that the best of our industries were being tallied in the big bean count as our own but we still came out so poorly. We need this financial obfuscation to be cleared up and complete transparency to reign.

“But Scotland is too wee and too poor to survive on its own.” If I had a pound for every time I have heard that in my lifetime I would be very well off thank you very much indeed. This is a lie peddled by those who have no coherent argument beyond the nonsense they are fed by the Unionists. For the past 21 years I have lived in Tallinn, Estonia which is a country of less than 1.4 million inhabitants. Now if that’s not a country that was too wee and poor to go it alone then I do not know what is. When I first visited Estonia in December 1992 I found a tatty little country lacking for most of the things that we take for granted but the one thing in no short supply was self-respect. The country had only shaken of Soviet rule 16 months earlier and was finding its way but the people were optimistic. The undercurrent of enthusiasm and the can-do attitude of people I met prompted me to settle in Tallinn for a short spell in March 1993 but that short spell has now become, as I say, 21 years. I am not going to try to convince anyone that Estonia is some kind of heaven on earth but what I will say in the clearest terms is that when I settled in Tallinn there were so many things that we simply accept as part and parcel of modern living that were unavailable. I recall having a dinner party in 1993 and I ended up having to visit eight different food shops before I had all the ingredients for a relatively simple menu. When I put fuel into my car I always had a nagging fear that there might be dirt in the petrol which could block the fuel system — it happened to me more than once and it happened to others frequently but we learned which pumps to avoid. These are two simple aspects of everyday living that we take for granted in that one will find food in the shops and one will be able to use the fuel that one buys without fear of breakdown. These are only exceedingly minor issues but this is just an illustration of what the population of Tallinn and other cities, towns and villages of Estonia had to put up with on a day-to-day basis for some considerable time.

But it wasn’t just Estonia. It was Latvia and Lithuania as well. It was Slovenia. It was Slovakia. These are all now full members of the EU and four of them are in the Eurozone as well. These countries had none of our advantages and yet they have all claimed their place in the New Europe with enthusiasm and pride. And lest we forget Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo and the Czech Republic. All of these far less fortunate than Scotland but none too wee or too poor. OK, not all of these are perfect societies yet but they have chosen to be apart from something else that was no longer fit for purpose and to invest their effort in being what is their essence.

For us Scots to take on-board all of the above overnight is nigh on impossible. We needed time to catch our breath and to make some form of understanding of what we have achieved so far and what that means for our future. This is where the education process started. We needed to know who we are, what we are, what we have as our right, where we are going, who we are going with and who we are going to meet. We need to know why we are going there and what we will receive in return. We need to know how we are going to get there. The question of when we can go needed to be carefully weighed up against all these whats, whys, wheres, whos and hows. At the juncture that we understood the reasons then we would know that it was time. That is the education that we needed.

It was completely disingenuous for the supporters of the Union to insist that a referendum must be held at the very earliest moment. Did David Cameron put every campaign pledge into action in the first 90 days of his Prime Ministership? Don’t be daft. Indeed David Cameron’s own jibes on the Scottish “never-endum” can be leveled back at himself with his 2015 General Election bribe of an EU in-out vote. One of the key Tory manifesto pledges which appealed to Middle England's blue-rinse brigade in 2010 was the raising of the Inheritance Tax threshold to £1 million "in this Parliament" but that has gone south like a lot of other promises. A lot of effort has been put into "sexy" policies which 

deflect from austerity but the net dividend is that at a local level the Tories are seeing mass desertion of their traditional pack-mule pensioner envelope-stuffer, cum leafleter, cum canvasser.

Alex Salmond and the SNP clearly stated again and again ad infitum that the referendum would be called in the second half of the new Parliament. The pledge was clear and unambiguous. The promise was kept. Naturally.

I have confidence in Alex Salmond and the SNP; I know where we are going. I feel it is my duty to share with as many others as possible in finding that same route so that we might all know exactly why we are on it. And I am so looking forward to the thrill of the journey. A one-way family ticket please.

Split Personalities AKA the Politics of Deceit

For me the critical thing to emerge from the referendum preamble is the entirely schizophrenic nature of the so-called major political parties – how they represent themselves to a UK-wide audience and then how they offer a completely altered image in Scotland.

The Conservative Party really doesn’t try very hard at all in Scotland as they know that the less said the less collateral damage caused. They realise that popping up north of the border is counter-productive and David Cameron himself is running scared when it comes to the matter of debate with Alex Salmond. “But it’s a matter for the people of Scotland” smiles Cameron refusing to be drawn into the debate but then spreading bad faith wherever he ventures and denigrating the Yes campaign at every turn.

The Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported on December 31^st that "Great Britain is extremely interested in the support of Russia, as holder of the G8 presidency, in two vital areas in 2014: the Afghan pull-out and the Scottish independence referendum." The Russian journalist added that although the referendum might "look like a UK domestic matter", it had, according to his UK Government source, the potential to "send shockwaves across the whole of Europe". The Sunday Herald published an article about this on January 12^th. This story has been attacked by BT supporters as unsubstantiated but the BBC News website referenced the story on January 19^th and there has been no official denial from London. Taking into account many other reports of UK diplomats being tasked to drum up support for the Union abroad to the detriment of the Yes campaign then we have to consider that Itar-Tass is accurate – David Cameron is more inclined to connive off the record on Scotland with Vladimir Putin than he is to debate on the record with Alex Salmond.

But of course it is Alex Salmond's conduct that is microscopically examined and condemned by all and sundry. The Unionist bloc smile and say of the Itar-Tass report, "It didn't happen..."

Shocking!

The LibDems posture with an amazing degree of arrogance on the Scottish stage which is pretty amusing for a party that will, in all likelihood, finish 5^th in Scotland in the May Euros. Danny Alexander pretends to be an economic colossus when in reality he might have just, possibly, been an adequate Scottish Secretary. He was promoted way beyond his pay grade very early in the life of the ConDem government. He seems to be an affable enough chap but let’s not mistake geniality for competence.

Michael Moore has been seen off with Alistair Carmichael now as the third Scottish Secretary of this government and on the basis that you can only stretch a limited number of MPs in so many directions he would seem to be the last one for the time being. That’s fine. He’s a gift. Bob Smith's a genuinely nice bloke but he's recently had to face up to health issues so I doubt that there will be any role for him.

But as a party they pretend to still be relevant in Scotland when that ship has long since sailed. In the UK context they are fumbling from one mess to the next but in Scotland they are this bullish group, not discernible in any way, shape or form, from their Tory sugar daddies.

However the Tories and their coalition pets are a mere appetizer on this menu of political schizophrenia.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Labour Party.

Ed Miliband and his acolytes pitch themselves to England as a progressive liberal party of the centre but in truth they are barely discernible from the Conservatives. The so-called Bedroom Tax, a staggering assault on the poorest in society, was not opposed by Labour and, in fact, many Labour MPs did not even turn up for the vote at Westminster. This is the party that promises to follow the Conservative line on benefit caps. This is the party that will now not rule out an in-out referendum on EU membership because the Tories have promised to have one. This is the party that pledges to continue George Osborne’s austerity rout.

Move north and cross the border into Scotland and we have the same Ed Miliband telling the party faithful that Labour will outflank the SNP as the true party of social democracy. Make up your mind Ed. Are you going to punish the most vulnerable in society or are you going to be their saviour? Or are you really going to offer this split personality model of Labour and hope that nobody notices? The tame media have never been too quick to pounce on Labour’s inherent hypocrisies so the party might believe that they can get off with this one for a while.

At the end of April Alex Massie writing in The Spectator described Miliband as some sort of PG Wodehouse composite character and arrived at the conclusion that he is, “Clever enough in a droopy kind of way but, ultimately, a gawd-help-us kind of fellow.”

A couple of gawd-help-us kind of fellows

Ed, we’ve noticed.

Massie continues, “I dare say Miliband’s belief that Scottish independence would be a bad idea – for Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom – is sincere. That this belief is in his own narrow, strategic, sectarian interest is beside the point. And, sure, we all know that Labour-minded voters in western and central Scotland are a vital constituency in the referendum campaign.

“But I rather approve of Miliband’s simpering, no, thunderous warning that an independent Scotland might be the kind of rogue state in which taxes were cut. I’d like to believe in it a little more than I do. Time – and hard learning – might bring us to that point but not before an awful lot of expensive mistakes had been made.”

Massie goes on to point out that, “Miliband’s position is spectacularly incoherent.”

What Ed fails to highlight is that the specific tax cuts being considered are in the corporate realm – to make business more competitive and to help create jobs. Does anyone in Luxembourg or Ireland or Estonia agree that lowering corporate tax rates is somehow defining of a rogue state? If that would be the definition then Estonia is the rogue state to end all rogue states with 0% Corporate Tax! To quote dear Margaret Curran, “Drivel!”

Ed, we’ve noticed.

Labour claims to be the party that offers answers to all the ills of the UK. The ills that have been heaped on the country by cruel, uncaring governments. But in the past half century there has been coalition government for 4 years, Tory rule for 22 and Labour themselves have had the longest run at power with 24 years in charge. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling trashed the economy. That’s the same Alastair Darling that leads Better Together, that’s the same Gordon Brown who last week came north to preach on pensions. Are we so stupid as to be duped by these people? Again? The same people who claim to have all the answers in Opposition have held the reins of power for the longest period of anyone in the last half century and have spectacularly failed to deliver... anything!

Ed, we’ve noticed.

This is the party that at a local government level is delighted to form coalitions with the Conservatives just to keep the SNP out.

Ed, we’ve noticed.

Spot the difference - answers on a postcard please

The schizophrenia within the Labour Party is tilting towards certifiable insanity.

The level of deceit from Labour is abject and utterly craven.

Let me affirm here and now. We are not that stupid. We have noticed.

The parties of Westminster have blurred into differing shades of the same basic colour. There is nothing to define them as any one being different from the other. Yet in Scotland they claim an entirely different reality. Enough.

Let Them Eat Electric Cars...

Some have forgotten how Philip Hammond was spared his blushes back in October 2011 when he was remarkably chucked up a level to MoD. But let's look back to that shall we not?

In a remarkable twist of fate Philip Hammond as Transport Secretary had his “Marie-Antoinette moment” almost completely ignored by the mass media and before you can catch breath he is promoted to Defence Secretary. Outstanding luck for another of the Tory grey men.

As reported by Auto Express Hammond was speaking at the launch of a privately funded network of electric charge points and said, “You can’t force people out of their cars or place drivers on the naughty step, as our predecessors did.”

I’ll let the motoring mag take up the story here: When Auto Express suggested prohibitive fuel prices appeared to be doing exactly that, he shirked responsibility and instead blamed oil suppliers: “The increase in fuel prices is a function of global oil prices, it’s not driven by policy.”

Motorists pay 80 pence in tax for every litre of petrol they buy, according to the AA, meaning almost 60 per cent of your fuel bill goes straight to the Treasury.

When Auto Express asked Hammond what the Government intended to do to help reduce fuel prices, he suggested that motorists switch to electric cars. “People should look to new technologies. Electric cars are very cheap to run and allow motorists to drive guilt free.”

Let them eat cake, eh?

Hammond and M-A share a lot

What next? Replace the army with ICBMs? They are very cheap to run compared to several divisions of infantry, cavalry and armour after all and will allow us to defend ourselves guilt free. How about embracing defence as part of the Big Society. Armed militias raised on a county by county basis. Oh, hold on a moment, that was where the old model started and that went wrong according to the bean counters. Local regiments so that the provinces actually feel that defence is inclusive and relevant to them? Nah, not this time.

Or even better, the UK government can contract out defence entirely. Give the contract to the highest bidder. Hammond can complete the work of Dr. Fox by handing the keys of the MOD to the Pentagon.

Philip Hammond is a huge accident waiting to happen and we should all be very afraid. If ever there was a case of someone being promoted way beyond his pay grade it is Hammond but this is merely indicative of the paucity of talent inhabiting the Tory benches at Westminster. Even with the GlibDumbs padding out the Cabinet the Tories still cannot cobble together a front bench that comes across as anything other than confused, angry and pompous. I thought the Labour administration was limited in the last Parliament but these jokers take the biscuit.

Or should that be cake?

Fear and Loathing in Tallinn

Taking part in a debate on the implications of Scottish independence for the British Isles last Wednesday at Tallinn University’s International Relations Society I was struck by two things.

Firstly the promised filming of the event was cancelled on the night of the event, as there was a serving diplomat participating. She was declared as being there on a personal basis and therefore it would be “unfair” to record her participation. More likely it would be embarrassing to record what in fact did ensue on behalf of the Union. But, as a tactic, salting the battlefield BEFORE hostilities commence is classically effective!

Secondly the main speaker for the Union ultimately didn’t really try to win the argument on matters of independence but instead went down the George Robertson route of calamity, although admittedly in a more coherent manner, by suggesting that the renaissance of the nation state in a potentially fragmenting Western Europe becoming reminiscent to the preamble to WWI was somehow a threat to world peace and therefore playing into Vladimir Putin’s hands in his plan for global domination. Utter tripe, but at least a better constructed bucket of utter tripe than George Robertson’s.

Scottish Independence likely to cause Europe-wide outbreak of trench warfare 

Once our speaker had laid the fear on the room he then played to the nationalities present and hinted that Scottish independence would be bad for Estonia and all the other brave wee nations of Eastern Europe who deserved their freedom as they really knew what subservience was – Scotland after all has always enjoyed “freedom” and any claim to the contrary is paranoid nonsense.

Then after making a great noise about the Yes campaign’s insistence on “playing the man not the ball” by “dissing” characters in Better Together he launched into a shouted attack on Alex Salmond and the Putin affair. Never mind that I had predicted this as our Unionist friend writes a blog which has recently been based around fear of Putin and I had printed the text of the Salmond interview in readiness. Our neutral moderator ruled that an intervention or redirect on the subject would not be permitted as I had already made my case to the audience. Really?

Plainly and simply, our Unionist friend pandered to a young, primarily Estonian and European ex-pat audience with images of Russian intervention as some imagined corollary to Scottish independence. No attempt to win the debate on the issues at the outset but only to influence the room with lowest common denominator spreading of trepidation. Oh dear.

But back to our diplomat. She was willing to “confirm” many facts and appeal to reason in a very diplomatic way but then she denied two undeniables – or at least one matter that’s pretty much up in the air and one that’s utterly incontrovertible through it's unambiguous public declaration by a leading UK Cabinet minister.

The first was the case of the Itar-Tass story at the end of December which was eventually reported widely in January, that Downing Street had expressed serious concerns about the “shockwaves” Scottish independence would send through Europe. Apparently it never happened according to “No” and was just a Russian story. Although I see some vague references to the possibility of a denial I still seek an outright and attributed disavowal from No. 10. Can anyone assist? I can’t find it.

The second denied undeniable was on currency union and the assertion that Philip Hammond’s, “You can't go into any negotiation with things that are non-negotiable,” wasn’t relevant. The Osborne-Alexander-Balls Pact was trotted out verbatim even though I pointed out that Hammond and the  other unnamed, but widely cited, cabinet minister had already supplanted that argument. No, not relevant. Oh dear.

But never let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh?

I shall be writing to the diplomat concerned for clarification on the points raised as I think that we are all due clear answers if a serving staffer of the FCO tells us that we didn’t really see what we know we saw…