(Tuesday 26 August 2008)
MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on north of the border
Salmond's Freudian slip
IF FREUDIAN slips really do let the cat out of the bag, the size and shape of Alex Salmond's Thatcherite feline has been plain to see through the hessian for a long time before its inadvertent release last week.Speaking to Total Politics magazine about Scottish attitudes to Margaret Thatcher's policies, Salmond said: "We didn't mind the economic side so much. But we didn't like the social side at all."
Just to recap. Thatcher's social and economic policies were two sides of the same coin.
The social policy said that there was no such thing as society, only individuals and the devil could take the hindmost.
The economic policy created mass unemployment as a deliberate act to weaken the strength of organised labour and privatised what we all owned, at a cost that we can count now. Oh, and we didn't like any of that in Scotland. Not one little bit.
Salmond's contradictory attempt to separate the bits of Thatcherism that he likes from the bits that he doesn't just confirms his contradictory long-term strategy for an independent Scotland.
That would be to emulate Ireland's low-tax economy while promising to defend and extend popular public services like the NHS. But you just can't have the public services that Scottish people want - and English, Irish, Welsh and pretty well all people want too - on the basis of the low-tax Irish model.
Meanwhile, as a result of Salmond's boob and his frantic spinning to recover, Labour members of various parliaments have been grinning from ear to ear like Cheshire cats.
They needn't grin so soon.
Their own current and previous leaders in Downing Street welcomed Thatcher in mawkish displays of admiration. Worse still, they have pandered to big business and US warmongering in ways that Thatcher probably only dreamed of.
As a result of these policies - war, Trident, the public-sector pay freeze and tax cuts for the rich - the Labour Party is deeply unpopular and the same Blairite and Brownite MPs and MSPs could well be a disappearing species, much like the Cheshire Cat.
There is not much for them to grin about if they still continue to be out-lefted by a self-confessed fan of Thatcher's economics in Holyrood and bossed around by another in London.
When will they learn? When there are none of them left?
Striking success
LAST Wednesday's day of action by Scottish public-sector unions was a fantastic success.Despite a downpour of legendary proportions, around 150,000 workers were on strike across Scotland. The local government unions UNISON, Unite and GMB were joined by PCS civil servants in withdrawing their labour for 24 hours.
Schools, councils and government buildings were shut down across Scotland. Dozens of demonstrations and hundreds of picket lines were well supported from early morning, with over 500 rallying in Glasgow's George Square at lunchtime.
The strike was solid. If the employers were testing the mettle of the workers, they found them resolute.
The strands of the pay policy rope on which some of the lowest paid workers dangle are closely twined together. Some were put in place by the Scottish councils body CoSLA, some by the Scottish government at Holyrood and some by Mr Brown, who went to Westminster on our behalf several years ago.
Wednesday's strike certainly loosened some of the CoSLA strings. The council bosses now appear to concede that a three-year, below-inflation deal is problematic under the circumstances and have offered talks.
If the talks don't produce an acceptable settlement, look out for selective strike action in the local government dispute and possibly another 24-hour all-out stoppage. I think that it could well take some more action to break the other bonds.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Parliament is back next Monday and I hope that it will be ready to play its part in winning fair pay for public-sector workers.
Labour MSP Elaine Smith has lodged two motions, Fair play, fair pay which supports the local government workers' claim and the self-explanatory Pay up for PCS members. It's worth lobbying your MSP to get them to back both.
And there's more
LOOK out for more Civil Service industrial action, as the friction over pay wears down the Scottish government's fibre.For many people, PCS Scottish secretary Eddie Reilly made the speech of the day at Wednesday's rally in Glasgow. Straight to the point in a machine-gun-burst of short sharp words, the First Minister was his prime target.
"Once again, we have a 95 per cent turnout for our members' second strike this summer. While Salmond and Swinney call on CoSLA to return to the negotiating table to resolve the local government pay dispute, they are ignoring the plight of their own low-paid workers. Alex Salmond may think 2.5 per cent is a reasonable offer. I hear he doesn't want to meet with us. Well, I've got a message for Mr Salmond. We're coming to see you."
Meanwhile, over the weekend, PCS members in the Marine and Coastguard Agency were on a further two-day strike in their long-running campaign for fair pay.
The summer isn't over yet.
Thumbs down for 2012 GB team
I'M neither a nationalist nor an enormous fan of the beautiful game, but there's no way that I'd be up for a Great Britain football team competing in the London Olympics, as Gordon Brown has advocated.The Scottish Football Association feels the same way as, I'd imagine, do the Welsh and Irish.
I was taken with the suggestion made by football pundit and former Celtic player Murdo Macleod on the radio the other day. Why not have a home international qualifying competition? The winner can carry the Union Jack to London in 2012.
This sounds like a diplomatic solution worth investigating.
Maybe we should send Macleod to the United Nations and get some progress on other intractable issues. Oh, and Labour is still short of a candidate for Glenrothes.
THE Scottish Labour leadership contest is continuing at hustings around Scotland. For anyone keen on a flutter, the website PoliticalBetting.com has an interesting analysis here http://tinyurl.com/pbet218 suggesting that Cathy Jamieson could the best bet.
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