Around Scotland - Monday 29 September 2008

(Monday 29 September 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on in Scotland.

SNP set for hangover

A campaign is brewing against one of the Scottish government's high-profile policies. It could well cause the SNP to wake up with a pretty sore head.

Health Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been touting the idea of increasing the age limit for buying alcohol in off licences to 21.

The proposal is part of the Scottish government's consultation "Changing Scotland's relationship with alcohol." Sturgeon's cynical ploy has grabbed a lot of headlines, largely because it tallies with the media agenda of demonising young people - always in hordes, always binge-drinking, always lager louts, always someone else's kids.

But Scottish young people themselves aren't by and large the hopeless, violent drunks which the legislation and the tabloids seek to portray.

The ones I know are somewhat offended at their vilification in this way. They can have sex and get married at 16. They can vote and go to war at 18. Why should they be banned until 21 from pursuing a normal legal adult activity as though they were infants?

The evidence that proves that they should not was presented to the Scottish Parliament's public petitions committee last week. It was produced by young people themselves.

The Coalition Against Raising the Drinking Age in Scotland (CARDAS) is made up of local and national youth and student representative organisations in Scotland including NUS Scotland, many local student associations and the Scottish Youth Parliament.

Its response to the government consultation proposals is a rational, intelligent and, yes, sober statement of why the under-21 ban would be unfair and wrong. The Scottish government ignores the wisdom of these youth organisations at its peril.

It would, I reckon, provoke a mighty campaign of opposition which is bubbling under at the moment. The SNP would then stand to lose the advantage that it has so far enjoyed among younger voters, who have been vilified and marginalised by Labour in power for many years.

Visit www.cardas.org.uk for a sober take on the drinking age.

Anger of the workers

THE local government pay dispute in Scotland is about to move from the large set-piece battles of national all-out one-day strikes to the closer hand-to-hand combat of selective action.

Last week, 150,000 council workers again walked out on strike for a day in pursuit of their fair-pay award.

This second day of action by UNISON, Unite and GMB unions was as solid as the first in August and demonstrated anger and unity in equally large measure among members.

Unless the council employers body CoSLA comes up with a better offer than 2.5 per cent in the next few days, the dispute will now shift into a new phase as the three unions kick off a co-ordinated campaign of selective strike actions across Scotland beginning on Monday October 6.

The strength of feeling that the strikes have already demonstrated might have surprised some people.

The leaders of CoSLA certainly had more to chew on at their meeting on Friday then they had expected when they last met in July.

Even the unions themselves probably didn't expect to proceed quite so far together in this historic unity. But it is not so surprising.

The second one-day strike came about because CoSLA failed to live up to the promise that it made following the first. It pledged to meet the unions to "reach a settlement which takes account of the soaring cost of living."

The result of that meeting was an insult.

CoSLA agreed to make a one-year deal instead of the three-year straightjacket that it had initially sought to impose. But, as UNISON Scottish secretary Matt Smith points out, there was "not a penny more on the table." The offer remained at 2.5 per cent.

Underpaid, ignored and insulted to boot. It's no wonder that people are angry.

Stormy waters ahead for employers

THE fury of public-sector workers in Scotland is not confined to local government.

Civil Service union PCS is beginning a ballot of its 270,000 members across the UK on further strike action against the 2 per cent pay cap imposed by Gordon Brown which has been imitated by the Scottish government in Holyrood.

Successful strike action last week by PCS civil servants in several sectors where the Scottish government is imposing the 2 per cent cap over three years will now be followed up with a work to rule for all seven areas in dispute - the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency, Registers of Scotland, Scottish Courts Service, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscals Service, SportScotland and the National Museums of Scotland.

PCS Scottish secretary Eddie Reilly has warned the Scottish government that, "unless they resolve these disputes, they are locking themselves into three years of industrial unrest with their own Scottish workforce."

Meanwhile, at Scottish Water, where the management has unilaterally imposed a 2.4 per cent pay award, UNISON members are also moving towards industrial action.

Scottish Water has enjoyed a successful partnership agreement with the union for six years. The non-departmental public body's pay policy is nominally independent of government. However, the hard-faced tactic of imposing a half-inflation pay increase looks remarkably familiar. UNISON has now terminated the partnership agreement.

There are stormy waters ahead.

Miami Five campaign ups pace

THIS year marks 10 years since the Miami Five were arrested for attempting to prevent terrorist attacks against Cuba.

As the Scottish Cuba Solidarity Campaign (SCSC) takes to to the streets to protest against this injustice over the next week, it will be joined by the wives of two of the men.

Olag Salaneuva, wife of Rene, and Adriana Perez, wife of Gerardo, have both been denied visas to visit their husbands nine times and have not seen them for eight and 10 years respectively.

Olga and Adriana will be visiting the Scottish Parliament with SCSC on Thursday October 9 for a number of meetings designed to help break the media silence on the five. They will then join a picket of the US consulate at 3 Regent Terrace, Edinburgh, from 4-6pm.

SCSC will be out campaigning to build support for these events, with a street stall from 11am this Saturday October 4 in Glasgow's Buchanan Street. Put the dates in your diary and get out to support the campaign for justice for the Miami Five in Glasgow or Edinburgh or both if you can.

Don't forget to book your tickets for the Comedy Night for Cuba at the Stand, 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow on Wednesday October 22. Doors open 7.30pm and tickets cost £7/£5. Phone (0141) 221-2359 or email scottishcuba@yahoo.co.uk for details and tickets.

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Oh my Gord

Seumas Milne: Whether Brown survives, Labour has already changed | Comment is free | The Guardian: "Even more than New Labour, the Conservative party has championed City deregulation and unfettered markets. Tory shadow chancellor George Osborne really did say last week 'no one takes pleasure from people making money out of the misery of others, but that is a function of capitalist markets'."

Around Scotland - Tuesday 23 September 2008

(Tuesday 23 September 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on in Scotland.

Here come the gnomes

Well, well. The gnomes of Edinburgh are gathering to put in a counter-bid for the Bank of Scotland.

Last week, it was effectively handed to Lloyds TSB along with the Halifax bank by Prime Minister Gordon Brown after short-selling "spivs" drove parent company HBOS to the brink of collapse.

The unlikely figure who is fronting this initiative, one time left-wing firebrand and now SNP MSP Alex Neil, claims that a team of "banking elders" can save the Bank of Scotland for the Scots.

Along with entrepreneur Jim Spowart, who set up HBOS direct-banking subsidiary Intelligent Finance, the people to whom Neil will be talking this week include former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Sir George Mathewson, merchant banker Sir Angus Grossart and ex-Bank of Scotland boss Sir Peter Burt.

You'll remember these three Scottish banking knights from previous lives.

Burt was chief executive of the Bank of Scotland on whose watch it was originally taken over by - or euphemistically "merged with" - the Halifax in 2001. This ended whatever independence the bank, founded in 1695 and the first ever to issue paper money, had left within the modern global economy and saw the HQ shift to Halifax.

Grossart was hired only a week ago by First Minister Alex Salmond and Finance Minister John Swinney to be a star leader for their private finance pig in a poke Scottish Futures Trust.

Mathewson was the man Margaret Thatcher put in as a safe pair of hands to take charge of the Scottish Development Agency during the Tories' relentless assault on Scottish industry in the 1980s.

He presided over a rapid, state-funded increase in foreign ownership of Scottish assets. After that, he joined the Royal Bank of Scotland, eventually leading it to become the fifth biggest bank in the world via the acquisition of the NatWest, among others.

Only this week, Mathewson has been defending the practice of short selling, in which his present companies engage.

According to the Sunday Herald, this group of Edinburgh gnomes "already has access to major supporters in the Middle East and Asia who are well disposed to Scotland's financial community."

This is a thought that fills me with as much confidence as the list of Scottish banking knights, I have to say.

I'd like to know how handing over control of a major institution like the Bank of Scotland to Middle Eastern and Asian financial interests is meant to guarantee its "independence" any more than the Brown plan to hand it over with HBOS to Lloyds TSB.

But hey, ain't Scottish capitalism wonderful?

SNP displays true colours

THE global crisis of capitalism - we can write that phrase with full justification today - reveals many truths.

One of them is the right-wing nature of the SNP government, whose leader is a former Royal Bank of Scotland chief economist.

I too am keen on saving banking jobs for Scotland, but its haste to put the foxes in charge of the hen-coop characterises the SNP government in Scotland as much as it has new Labour in Britain under Blair and Brown.

The fact that the SNP has been successful at presenting itself to Labour's left is Labour's fault for being right wing more than the nationalists' for being socialist.

Global capital needs to be faced down not fawned over in this crisis. The Labour government still has the state power to address that at UK level and beyond, something which the SNP can never do at Scottish level, with independence or not, no matter how many bankers it is pals with.

New Gaelic TV station (if you can receive it)

THE brand new Gaelic TV channel which launched on Friday night has been "set up to fail." That's the view of one of its directors, the former Labour MSP Alasdair Morrison. It's hard to disagree.

My family of lefties and Gaels settled down on Friday night to welcome in the new BBC Alba channel, which was hosted on BBC2 Scotland for its first hour and a half.

The opening celebratory concert was not my cup of tea, but entertaining enough. Eilbheas, a comedy drama set in 1977 about the ghost of the late Elvis Presley taking a young, mixed-up Gaelic punk rocker under his porky wing, was witty, funny, bold and included lots of cinematic and pop culture references. Not bad at all.

The station promises a wide range of programmes broadcast between 5pm and midnight each day, far more than previously scheduled for the traditional channels. And all in Gaelic.

So, what's the problem? Why should it fail? On Friday night's free-to-air taster showing, the new channel would stand up with the competition from the multitude of other less mainstream channels available. It could form a focal point in the continued revival of Gaelic language and culture, much as S4C has in Wales.

But S4C occupies the Channel 4 slot on free-to-air TV in Wales. In comparison, the BBC will not be broadcasting BBC Alba on analogue TV at all and it will not even be available on Freeview.

Viewers will be restricted to a paid-for Sky satellite channel or the less widely used satellite competitor to Freeview called Freesat - and I am buggered if I am paying Rupert Murdoch, so this means buying another, different set-top box and a satellite dish as well.

This restriction has been justified on the basis of an analysis of the public service value of BBC Alba by the BBC trustee in Scotland.

Who is that? Step forward Sir Jeremy Peat, another former chief economist of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Peat argues that the notional £4 million cost of putting BBC Alba on Freeview, where people will see it, is not justified. Instead, the new channel must prove that it can attract a wider audience than the 60,000 Gaelic speakers in Scotland through the backwater of an obscure Sky channel and the barely used Freesat.

It's clear what Morrison means. And the campaign to get BBC Alba on Freeview now starts here.

Top highlight of BBC Alba

ONE of the highlights of Eilbheas on BBC Alba, for me at least, was the fictional punk band in a Hebridean garage playing a cover of Union Jack, a song that I co-wrote about 30 years ago for The Rong, a real Stornoway punk band.

"Union Jack, thalla's cac!" they trilled angrily. Loosely translated, this means: "Union Jack, go to fuck!" Well, we were young.

The spirit was less nationalistic than republican and anti-imperialist and just loud, really. You can hear the original at www.myspace.com/saddayweleftthecroft and judge for yourselves.
Anyway, if and when it arrives, the massive BBC royalties cheque that I'm expecting from Eilbheas will be donated to the strike fund in the Scottish local government pay dispute.

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Launch day for new Gaelic channel

BBC NEWS | Scotland:
Page last updated at 07:32 GMT, Friday, 19 September 2008 08:32 UK

The new Gaelic television channel BBC Alba - a collaboration between MG Alba and the BBC - is to begin screening on satellite.

Socialism for the rich

Richard Adams: The Federal Reserve and US Treasury's new policy is "too much, too late" | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk:

Gore Vidal once noted, the US government prefers that "public money go not to the people but to big business. The result is a unique society in which we have free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich."

Surprise. Masters of Universe in Wanker shock

Oliver James: A psychological diagnosis of the banking crisis | Business | The Guardian:

"They had high levels of depersonalisation (feeling detached from one's surroundings) and a staggering two-thirds were depressed. There were similarly high levels of anxiety and sleeplessness.

The more they earned, the more likely they were to have these problems.

Twice daily, they consumed both alcohol and an illegal substance (mostly cocaine).

For relaxation, they chose solitary pursuits: jogging, masturbation and fishing were common."

Around Scotland - Tuesday 16 September 2008

(Tuesday 16 September 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on in Scotland.

Left in the fight

Bill Butler and Cathy Jamieson did rather better in the Scottish Labour leadership election with members and affiliates than the headline votes published in the media suggest.

In plain terms, the left candidates got just under half the popular vote.

Butler took 45.1 per cent of ordinary members' votes and 48.4 per cent of those in affiliates - unions and socialist societies. He only got 26 per cent of the parliamentary section.

Jamieson took 42.5 per cent of members' votes and actually won the affiliates section with 51.5 per cent. She got 32.4 per cent in the parliamentary section. Jamieson's figures are for the second-round run-off against Iain Gray.

I said last week about both Jamieson and Butler that, win lose or draw, they would demonstrate large support in the grass roots. In particular, I thought that Butler's vote in the deputy leader ballot would indicate whether the left in the party is still in fighting shape.

A member of the Campaign for Socialism, he campaigned on the basis of the Scottish Trade Unions for Labour Workplace Agenda and called for the railways to be taken back into public ownership.

Butler's platform secured the support of 45 per cent of ordinary party members and 48 per cent of affiliated members. Given that the membership haemorrhage that Labour has suffered over the last decade consisted mainly of disaffected socialists, this result is pretty remarkable.

As the need for Labour to change and box to the left of the SNP becomes ever more apparent, we will see how the left in the party can build on this support.

What do you think?

I HAD the interesting experience last week of representing the views of Scottish trade unionists in favour of further devolution to a former unionist minister.

Indeed, Lord Jamie Lindsay is a former junior to arch-Thatcherite Michael Forsyth when he was Scottish secretary in the dark days before the 1997 election.

Now part of the Calman commission on Scottish devolution, Lindsay was enthusiastically chairing a discussion group at a Glasgow event, the first in the commission's tour around Scotland to take views from organisations and individuals about extended powers for the Scottish Parliament.

History moves in odd ways. Today, the Tories are working through the Calman commission for increased powers to a parliament that they bitterly opposed.

After Glasgow, the commission's roadshow itinerary is as follows: Dumfries on September 25, Berwick-upon-Tweed on October 3, Inverness on October 28, Dundee on October 29, Stornoway on October 31 and Ayr on November 12.

You can register to attend these events as an individual or on behalf of an organisation via the commission's website at www.commissiononscottishdevolution.org.uk

The more representative the views that the commission hears, the better. Calman and the Scottish government's curiously quiet pro-independence "national conversation" now form the parameters of the political debate over Scotland's future.

Open debate is good, but, in my view, it will take a recalled constitutional convention as proposed by the Scottish TUC to create a new settlement.

* To hone your ideas for engaging in the debate over Scotland's future, whether via the Calman commission or the national conversation or elsewhere, why not take part in the Scottish Morning Star autumn conference?

The subject is New Powers for Scotland's Parliament - New Power for the People? Speakers include MSPs Bill Butler, Elaine Smith and Bill Kidd, Colin Fox, Rozanne Foyer and Dave Moxham.

Registration is £4/£1 - just turn up on the day - and the conference takes place at the STUC centre, 333 Woodlands Rd, Glasgow at 11am on Sunday October 5 2008.

Lipstick on a PFI pig

JOHN Swinney's ill-fated, not to say doomed, Scottish Futures Trust was presented to the Scottish people last week with scant detail and all the indications of a rehash of the private finance intitiative that it was meant to replace.

The non-profit distributing model that Swinney hoped would lead us all to believe that PFI had been replaced has been discredited.

The "coup" of hiring merchant banker Sir Angus Grossart to lead a £17 million quango to run the trust simply underlines the fact - this is little more than PFI dressed up in a slightly different form.

The cartoon in the Herald hit the nail on the head.

Swinney is shown applying lipstick to a PFI pig.

Get ready for more pay strikes

WAVES of strikes upon a rising tide of anger at real wage cuts are now hitting home against public pay policy at all levels. Next week will see yet more strike action by Scottish public-sector workers.

The target of 2 per cent imposed by Gordon Brown has been imitated and implemented by the Scottish government and by Scotland's local authorities, with pay offers which fall far below the increasing cost of living.

PCS civil servants will again be on strike on Tuesday September 23. Union members in the Scottish Courts Service, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal's Service, Sportscotland and the National Museums of Scotland are the latest to strike in the ongoing campaign against Scottish ministers' 2 per cent pay cap, which saw thousands of members in the Scottish government and Registers of Scotland take part in two strikes earlier in the summer.

Their local government colleagues in UNISON, Unite and GMB will take to the streets in a 24-hour stoppage during a day of action on Wednesday September 24.

This follows a similar protest last month against a three-year 2.5 per cent deal which brought the employers' body CoSLA to the negotiating table. CoSLA indicated that it would offer a new deal which would take the recent rises in inflation into account. They came up with a one-year 2.5 per cent deal.

When inflation is rising at 5 per cent, these are not pay offers. They are pay cuts. No wonder public-sector workers are angry - and resolute.

Communist women history

NEIL Rafeek was a quiet, unassuming but determined social historian who died tragically young last year after many years of ill health.

His academic legacy is a meticulously researched history, Communist Women in Scotland - Red Clydeside from the Russian Revolution to the End of the Soviet Union.

The book was launched last week at the University of Strathclyde, where Neil was the first person to gain a PhD in oral history.

The book is published by IB Tauris (www.ibtauris.com). It's a fascinating book and, if academic prices appear daunting, it is always a good idea to ask your local library to order a copy. Neil would have approved of that.

Show us what you're made of

DURING the Scottish Labour leadership campaign, all the candidates endorsed a windfall tax on energy companies and they all pledged support for local government workers going on strike to secure fair pay.

I now fully expect new leader Iain Gray and his new deputy Johann Lamont to make an early call to Downing Street to say that their mandate from Scotland is to support a windfall tax on the big businesses which have profited from high oil prices but which have not yet been asked to take their share of the pain.

I also fully expect to see them out on September 24 supporting 150,000 UNISON, Unite and GMB members in Scottish councils on their second one-day strike for a pay offer of more than 2.5 per cent.

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John McDonnell MP: It's like watching the crew having a punch up on the deck of the Titanic

John McDonnell MP: Another World Is Possible:

"Its Like Watching the Crew having a Punch up on the Deck of the Titanic.

Commenting on Labour Leadership debacle, Labour MP John McDonnell said:

Most Labour Party members are looking on aghast as the Blairites and Brownites fight an irrelevant turf war. Its like watching the crew having a punch up on the deck of the Titanic. Without a single policy difference between them they are willing to destroy a Labour Government. I challenge both of them to publish a policy programme to put before our members for support and lets test the views of our supporters on the way forward for Labour.

Of course we are up for a leadership election at any time but our task is to ensure that we use any leadership talk or actual election as a platform for our policies and to demonstrate to our supporters and the country at large that there are socialists within the Labour Party that are willing to stand up for them as this recession hits our community."

Around Scotland - Tuesday 9 September 2008

(Tuesday 9 September 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on in Scotland.

Local income tax ploy?

THE minority SNP government presented us with its legislative programme for the next year as the Scottish Parliament opened last week.

Most attention has been paid to the merits and demerits of the plan for a "fairer" local income tax to replaces the "hated" council tax.

As far as I can see, there are three main problems with this - the replacement's not particularly fair, it's certainly not local and it would cost Scotland a fortune.

Even if the UK Department of Work and Pensions can be forced to allocate Scotland's £400 million of council tax benefit to the Scottish Parliament, as it implacably refuses to do, the proposed local income tax will still leave a shortfall of hundreds of millions of pounds in the budget for funding local government in Scotland. After the freeze, the cuts.

No-one believes that the SNP tax is "local." The rate would be set nationally, probably at 3 per cent. And the tax wouldn't even be collected locally by councils, but putatively by the Inland Revenue according to some as yet unknown and uncosted method which the Scottish government hopes will transpire.

In fact, it would virtually eliminate local taxation altogether and undermine the last vestiges of local democracy.

The fairness claim is also a con. You could devise a local income tax which was fairer than council tax, but this one isn't. What is so fair about a tax which shifts the burden from property owners to workers and, in particular, the much-vaunted "hard-working families" that politicians usually love so much?

In short, the SNP local income tax proposal is almost as half-baked as John Swinney's disastrous plan for a Scottish Futures Trust, which has already unravelled so much it hasn't even made it onto the legislative programme.

As the partisan vote on Wendy Alexander's punishment over funding fibs showed, the SNP government is a minority administration and it simply doesn't have support for key elements of its programme.

Could it be that SNP First Minister Alex Salmond isn't really serious about getting the flawed local income tax proposal on the statute book, but really just wants to claim that Labour opposed the abolition of the "hated" council tax?

The end is in sight

THE polls close on the Scottish Labour leadership election today and the result is due on Saturday.

All the candidates have made much of the idea that whoever wins will have a mandate from the whole party. The way that the votes have stacked up will show that this is not quite the case.

The votes in the parliamentary section will largely go to the Establishment candidates for leader and deputy, Iain Gray and Johann Lamont.

The MPs and MSPs were mostly gutted and backboned by new Labour HQ before they were allowed to get seats. Sadly, their votes each count as much as hundreds of ordinary members.

The interesting thing, though, will be how the constituencies and affiliates have voted.

Look out for the proportion who have voted for Cathy Jamieson and Bill Butler. Win, lose or draw, I think that they will demonstrate large support at the grass roots.

I think that Butler has done well in his deputy leadership campaign and his vote, in particular, will indicate whether the left in the party is still in fighting shape.

Staff keep up pressure

UNISON, Unite and GMB unions representing workers for West Dunbartonshire Council are calling on the whole community to support a lobby of the special council meeting tomorrow.

Party political control of West Dunbartonshire has been volatile, to say the least. The unions and community groups hope to persuade the warring factions to see some sense and reverse a decision which damages the council's own workers, their families and communities.

The unions are justifiably angry about a controversial SNP motion agreed during a council meeting last month, despite a demonstration outside the chamber by hundreds of workers and local people.

Effectively, the council voted to withdraw thousands of pounds due in back payments to low-paid women workers, cut public holidays for workers by a third and renege on other terms of an already tough single-status employment deal passed on a Labour motion only three months before.

The unions and community groups want the council to think again.

The lobby of councillors takes place tomorrow from 1pm at Garshake council offices, Dumbarton, before the council meeting at 2pm.

Let's kick the scum out

THE fascist BNP is putting up a candidate for the Glasgow Baillieston council ward. That's the seat vacated by the SNP as a result of John Mason's victory in Glasgow East.

Whether Labour or SNP win the by-election on Thursday September 18, I hope and expect that the citizens of Glasgow will give the traditional hostile reception to the odious BNP candidate Charlie Baillie wherever and whenever he appears.

Already, the Glasgow Campaign To Welcome Refugees has mobilised activists to put out Unite Against Fascism leaflets and public-sector union UNISON is throwing its weight behind the anti-fascist action.

Let's kick this scum out of Scotland.

Last whimper of 'Wendygate'

THE Scottish Parliament came back from the summer recess last week, not with a bang but a couple of whimpers.

One less-than-fizzy firework was the government's legislative programme, some of which is OK, some rubbish and some already doomed because of parliamentary arithmetic.

The other whimpering sound was the vote held over from the last session on whether Wendy Alexander  should spend a day in the parliamentary can for fibbing about donations to her hilarious non-election campaign for leader of the Labour MSPs just a year ago.

I would have voted to suspend Alexander for a day. As far as I can see, the rules were broken and she was responsible. Yeah, I know, I'm Mr Probity. But she should count herself lucky.

In many jobs, the level of mendacity shown by the Alexander campaign team would have been sufficient for the sack, not just a rap over the knuckles. The lower paid you are, the more likely the sack would be. We should all be so lucky.

Alexander's campaign manager Jackie Baillie bleats that her former leader has "paid a very high price."

Boo hoo.

The Labour Party has paid an enormous price for the casual hubris displayed by Alexander and Gordon Brown in co-ordinating shoo-ins instead of democratic elections for leadership positions.
It is paying an enormous price for the casual fraud, perpetrated by its leaders on its members, of seeking donations from business people, hoping to keep them hidden and then spuriously claiming that everything was above board when they were rumbled.

Anyway, that sideshow is hopefully now over. Move along folks, there's nothing much to see here any more except a partisan display of the voting strengths and weaknesses in the Scottish Parliament.

Labour lined up to get Alexander off the hook. The SNP dutifully lined up on the other side. The Tories all sided with Labour, probably on the basis that they know how it feels to be caught with your hand in the till. The Lib Dems apparently took the notion that this was a free vote seriously and split 50-50.

The way to grow old

IT'S always a pleasure to be in the company of Tony Benn. As he ages, he seems to get more optimistic but no less radical, which is a good way to grow old.

I caught up with him last week at a meeting with trade unionists in the STUC Centre in Glasgow before he headed off to appear in one of his perennially sold-out stage shows, this time at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre.

As he pointed out to the gathering at the STUC, it was the show which had sold out, not the performer.

Popular socialism indeed. Encore.

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Around Scotland - Monday 1 September 2008

(Monday 1 September 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on in Scotland.

Disgrace of poverty

THE World Health Organisation published a report on the "social determinants of health" last week. The subject was the focus of a definitive three-year investigation by a commission of eminent policy-makers, academics, former heads of state and former ministers of health.

The killer fact used by the WHO as its main news hook was this - a boy born in the Glasgow's Calton district in the impoverished East End will live, on average, 28 years less than a boy born in the plush suburb of Lenzie just a few miles away. And, with an average life expectancy of just 53, the Calton citizen can expect 10 years less life than even the average in India.

Now, we all knew that in Scotland already. Anyone who has been to the Calton and to Lenzie would be able to see it in plain view. The report is no less shocking for this.

What is more shocking is that, having known this, we have collectively failed to address the roots of poverty and ill health even in a rich country.

The WHO survey is a shaming indictment on decades of Labour government in the city where I live and of the current Labour government in Westminster. True, there has been lots of work done to tackle health inequalities, especially in Glasgow, where the problem has been most persistent. There are healthy eating projects and well-man clinics and, of course, there is the smoking ban. So there should be and I applaud all of that. But these are almost literally sticking plasters on a gaping wound.

As our society grows richer but increasingly unequal, the poorest are less healthy. That fact is the one that we have to address.

But the WHO report isn't just about Scotland, though it chose us for its headline-grabbing press release. It supports the view held by socialists and progressives all over the world. Poor health is caused by poverty and by inequality. Rich countries with highly unequal societies like the United States have poorer health than many poorer countries, the most obvious comparison being Cuba.

The WHO has set out the problem in stark terms. Inequality breeds unhealthy societies. This conclusion is supported by a huge body of evidence from across the globe.

Based on this compelling evidence, the commission makes three overarching recommendations to tackle the "corrosive effects of inequality of life chances."

Improve daily living conditions, including the circumstances in which people are born, grow, live, work and age.

Tackle the inequitable distribution of power, money and resources - the structural drivers of those conditions - globally, nationally and locally.

Acknowledge that there is a problem and ensure that health inequity is measured, within countries and globally, as a vital platform for action.

This is a revolutionary manifesto. The second point alone demands a massive transformation of the social relations on our planet if we are to provide a reasonable life for all. I'm up for that. Starting with Glasgow.

View the report at www.who.int/social_determinants
 

Theft once more

THE cruellest of landlords responsible for the Highland clearances was the Countess of Sutherland. The name and title are reviled by my compatriots to this day. Her descendant the seventh duke has just decided to screw us for more.

Coming in at 357 in the 2008 Sunday Times rich list with a fortune of £230 million in land and art, Eton-educated Francis Egerton is looking to liquidise two of his assets for a cool £100 million and we are expected to pay him off.

Diana and Actaeon, a painting by Titian from the 1550s, is being offered "to the nation" at the knockdown price of £50 million. This is supposedly a third of its estimated "market value." A second painting, Diana and Callisto, will follow at the same price if we stump up for the first.

The pictures have been part of the Bridgewater Loan, which is "valued" at £1 billion, at the National Gallery in Edinburgh, where director John Leighton is now creaming his jeans with excitement at the prospect of having the pictures permanently.

Apparently, the Scottish government is looking favourably at purchasing the two Titians for the nation. This is the government which refuses to step in and fund a decent living wage for cleaners, classroom assistants, coastguards and other public servants who have been on strike for better pay.

Why should we pay off the Duke of Sutherland with £100 million and tell the school janitors to make do with 2.5 per cent? I say that the nation should have the paintings by right, without compensation to the descendant of a family which stole the land from the people and has lived well off the ill-gotten gains ever since. Nationalise the Duke's paintings and his land and let him eat cake like the rest of us.

STUC in the community

COMMUNITIES will be a strong theme linking two important conferences at the STUC Centre at the end of the week. The STUC communities Conference and its trades union councils annual conference are taking place in tandem on Friday September 5 and Saturday September 6 respectively.

The trades union councils are the grass roots voice of the STUC, making the link within local communities and their annual conference remains a key part of the STUC policy agenda.

The Communities Conference will focus on local regeneration and seek to separate the fact from the fiction. You can see the agenda at http://tinyurl.com/5sept08

Further details and registration for these conferences are available from the STUC on (0141) 337-8100 or by emailing lsanderson@stuc.org.uk

IT'S still a while away, but the Scottish Cuba Solidarity Campaign is having a comedy night on Wednesday October 22 at the Stand in Glasgow. Tickets are £7/£5 available from SCSC. The last time the Stand hosted a similar event it was a great night, so the campaign hopes for another success this time. Book your tickets now by emailing scottishcuba@yahoo.co.uk

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