MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on in Scotland.
Never on a Sunday
IT REALLY is Around Scotland this week. As I write, I am watching a storm roll across the port of Stornoway, Lewis, the main town in the largest of the Western Isles.
If you've not been here or don't know where it is, you'll still be familar with it as the most north-westerly point of reference on the BBC weather map. There is plenty of weather up here.
One of the things not moving today as a result of the spring gale is the lifeline ferry, the Isle of Lewis. It is tied tightly to the terminal and may not sail at all.
With luck, the crew, which is unionised by RMT, of course, will brave the storm, get the delayed travellers to their destination and literally bring home the bacon and all the other vital supplies for the island. Lifeline is not a loose term wrongly applied in this case.
They might have to wait till Saturday if sea conditions stay wild. One thing is for sure, though. They won't be sailing on Sunday.
That's not a weather issue, and it's not a union issue either. Sunday sailings go from the mainland to other islands and RMT does a good job of making sure pay and conditions are protected, whatever days the crew are on rota.
In fact, the "ban" on sailing on a Sunday to Stornoway has no legal or commercial basis at all. Quite the opposite. It positively damages the prospects of an already marginal island economy. It is a bizarre imperative largely determined by a very vocal minority of hard-line presbyterians.
Signs of a thaw in their reactionary hegemony are welcome. The council actually used to chain up the swings in the kids' playground on a Saturday night and unlock them again on Monday. Happily, that no longer goes on.
In the last few years, the ayatollahs on the licensing board have had to admit there is no legal basis to stop pubs serving customers on Sunday.
A Sunday air service was introduced. And a ferry linking the largest islands began to run on Sundays last year. All good for locals and good for tourists.
The predicted thunderbolts have not yet struck.
For many years now, progressive campaigners have tried to get the state-owned ferry company Caledonian Macbrayne to run the essential service from the mainland to Lewis on Sundays.
The Calmac board meeting on Wednesday March 26 is expected to discuss the issue again. Campaigners are hopeful that, this time, as a result of their efforts, a Sunday ferry will be on the autumn schedule which is due to be announced.
If the Calmac board members do bite the bullet this week and put a Sunday ferry on their schedule in the autumn, it will signal the end of at least one "age of cant" and superstition in one small corner of the world.
Inspirational words from Mr Benn
I WAS delighted to go along last week to the Scottish Parliament to hear an address by Tony Benn.
Even more enjoyable than the formal occasion was the public meeting later in a packed committee room. Everyone in the building - staff and MSPs, as well as us lefties from outside - seemed to have made it their business to go to hear the veteran socialist.
Even in his eighties and despite his occasionally fluffed hearing, Benn remains a sparkling public performer and debater. One of his themes was praise for teachers of all kinds - the people who illuminate for us the otherwise darkened landscapes around us and especially the paths to come.
Enlightenment is a key element of the old slogan "agitate, educate, organise," Benn argued. He modestly characterised himself as "an untrained teaching assistant" in this pursuit.
Despite his modesty, we, his friends, know - and his enemies grudgingly admit - that Benn's narrative of socialism and democracy is inspirational stuff.
So, I was perhaps even more delighted the day before to learn that one of my own kids, at 17, had gone along off his own bat and without even mentioning it to me to hear Benn doing a similar job of inspiration at a public event in the Aye Write! Glasgow book festival.
I am sure that Tony Benn would have been just as pleased.
The facts tell the story
ON the eve of the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, the Guardian published an article What is the real death toll in Iraq? analysing the various estimates. It is worth looking at.
The number of people who have died as a result of the invasion could be over a million by some counts, using well-founded research methods by independent investigators.
Even the most conservative estimate the Iraq Body Count indicates that approaching 100,000 people have died a result of the war. But the killing continues.
I am proud to have been among the organisers of the big anti-war demo in Glasgow on February 15 2003. It may have been the biggest political demo ever in Scotland. Maybe up to 100,000 people turned out that day. Maybe more. Estimates vary. Imagine if we'd killed them all. Or the million more in London.
Stop the war.
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