Around Scotland - Tuesday 24 February 2009

(Tuesday 24 February 2009)

Could Labour's future rest on the devolution commission? MALCOLM BURNS reports.

THIS Friday is the deadline for responses to the second round of consultation by the Calman Commission on Scottish devolution.

The nine broad questions of the initial consultation last summer have multiplied into a veritable catechism of 49 questions in Calman's interim report published in December.

You'll get the flavour from the first four, which deal with "principles":

Q1. Should any changes in devolution presume a continued common UK legal and political citizenship?

Q2. Are the UK's constitutional arrangements sufficiently flexible to allow devolved interests to be taken properly into account when they impact on reserved matters?

Q3. Is the commission right in concluding that, when changes in powers or finance are considered which might allow the Scottish Parliament to serve the people of Scotland better, they should not run the risk of significantly undermining the economic aspect of the Union?

Q4. Should there be scope for much greater differences in social provision and in consequence greater reliance on Scottish tax resources? Alternatively, should devolution be in the context of a common social citizenship across the UK and, if so, should the elements of that citizenship be articulated in some way?

See what I mean about catechism? But these are not simplistic rote questions of faith with prescribed answers. Try answering them yourself.

Calman's remit obviously precluded consideration of independence, but the commission has been grappling seriously with the complex issues before it and in this it compares favourably with the still vacuous "national conversation" of the SNP government.

A wide range of organisations and individuals have engaged with the commission and Calman has been commendably open in publishing evidence at www.commissiononscottishdevolution.org.uk already. I hope to see the next round of submissions online shortly.

The responses of the main opposition parties to Calman's interim report will be especially interesting to read. These will effectively frame the political scope of the debate on enhanced powers for the Scottish Parliament within which Calman's conclusions will be finally published later this year.

There's lots of scope for the politicians to get their knickers in a twist. Labour in particular needs to deliver an inspiring response to Calman so that, in turn, Calman's final report will go far beyond the status quo in terms of the powers and funding of the Holyrood Parliament and its relationship with Westminster.

It is well known that a significant number of the Scottish Labour MPs have little love for the devolved parliament. Ironically enough, it is the Westminster government which will have to deliver on Calman - and the stakes are high.

If Labour heads into the British general election next year wearing its Union Jack underpants outside its trousers having stymied any radical recommendations from Calman, it can only expect a drubbing from a disappointed Scottish electorate.

This would virtually guarantee an already likely Tory victory, leaving a Cameron government to deliver whatever was left of the Calman consensus and Alex Salmond waiting in the wings for a referendum opportunity to capitalise on what he might reasonably expect will be increasing Scottish disaffection with the Union.

Scotland's slump just getting worse

LAST week, Labour's Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy announced that Jobcentres in Scotland would be taking on hundreds of new staff over the next 18 months to help newly unemployed Scots.

This reverses the programme of closures of Jobcentres and indicates that a deep recession is being planned for.

The Scottish unemployment and GDP figures show why.

Latest figures reveal that unemployment in Scotland rose by 11,000 in the three months to December, to reach 137,000 in total. The UK figure was just short of 2 million.

Scottish GDP, which had fallen by 0.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2008, will almost certainly have fallen even further in the last quarter of the year.

Closures and job loss announcements continue to pile up.

There's a lot of talk about whether this will be the worst recession, depression or slump in history. If it's anything like as bad the Thatcher recession of the early 1980s, it's going to be disastrous.

When I left school in 1976 I was 16 and there were a million unemployed in Britain. I took the opportunity of going to university the following year precisely because there were no jobs, reasoning that the recession would be over by the time I left uni, I'd have a degree and it would be easier to find work.

By the time I'd graduated, Thatcher had just about quadrupled unemployment and there were no jobs at all. Grim times.

The Tory strategy was actually designed to destroy jobs and job security as part of the attack on labour and particularly trade union strength.

Millions of people's lives were turned upside down by that cruel attack. Many hundreds of thousands never recovered. And our society is still suffering through the deliberate policies of privatisation, inequality and insecurity created by Thatcher.

Many of these, under the guise of a flexible, globalised labour market, were adopted by Tony Blair and are still being perpetrated by Gordon Brown.

We need a proper alternative to the dogmatic right-wing orthodoxies which both Tories and new Labour have espoused and which have so clearly failed. And the worse the recession, the more we will need it.

Left brains trust sets out to solve our woes

THE economic news in Scotland is as grim as everywhere else but problems, especially crises of capitalism, always present opportunities.

An opportunity to unite the Scottish left clearly exists in the current situation. This weekend, there are two chances to be part of that movement.

The first, promoted by the newly formed Scottish Labour Representation Committee, will take place on Saturday at Glasgow Caledonian University. It will be chaired by Kevin Lindsay of rail union ASLEF and speakers will include John McDonnell MP, Rozanne Foyer of Unite T&G and Vince Mills of the Scottish Labour Campaign for Socialism.

The Scottish LRC aims to bring together socialists on the Labour and non-Labour left, including within trade unions. The meeting will launch a six-point Scottish People's Charter demanding a fair economy for a fairer society, more and better jobs, decent homes for all, retained and improved public services, fairness and justice and a secure, sustainable future for all.

The charter's provisions will include ownership and control of the main banks - a once controversial idea now largely accepted by virtually everyone but the British government - the creation of 250,000 new publicly owned homes over the next five years, public ownership of public services and utilities, a halt to war and no Trident replacement, investment in green technology and debt cancellation for the world's poor.

This effectively forms an already widely supported left-wing agenda around which a broad-based campaign for a better future could be built.

And, on Sunday, there is a Morning Star conference at the Scottish TUC Centre in Glasgow around the theme The Economic Crisis: Who's to fix it?

Speakers will include Katy Clark MP, Professor Prem Sikka, STUC economist Stephen Boyd, Jackson Cullinane of Unite, SNP MSP John Wilson, Richard Leonard of GMB, the Scottish Socialist Party's Colin Fox and Simon Steel of the Communist Party of Britain. STUC general council member Liz Elkind will be in the chair.

If that weekend double whammy of a brains trust can't deliver a left alternative to the crisis, what could?

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Around Scotland - Tuesday 17 February 2009

(Tuesday 17 February 2009)
MALCOLM BURNS reports on the SNP's decision to ditch local income tax.

DUMPING the local income tax was the smartest thing SNP Finance Secretary John Swinney did last week. As the tide of opposition to his flawed local income tax proposal lapped around Swinney's feet in the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday, he finally abandoned the Canute-like attempt to command it and accepted the inevitable.

Without parliamentary support to proceed and with most of civic Scotland including unions and business hostile to the plan, replacement of the "hated" council tax by a "fairer" local income tax was jettisoned.

Swinney's promise to reintroduce the plan in the next parliament is a meaningless gesture. The policy is dead.

Although the announcement was unexpected - it was made during a statement on the current local government funding allocation - it perhaps should not have come as a total surprise.

The SNP local income tax plan was bad policy. Neither local nor fair, in fact it would have been a centrally imposed tax cut which would have cost hundreds of millions of pounds and many thousands of jobs. In a word, disastrous, particularly as we head into a deep recession.

Reform of local government finance is always a political minefield. Famously, it was the poll tax as replacement for the rates which did for Margaret Thatcher.

In much the same way, the local income tax which was designed to capitalise on the unpopularity of council tax had become a self-inflicted policy disaster which the SNP could really only drop sooner or later.

* The abandonment of LIT followed the budget crisis of the previous weeks, when Swinney lost and then eventually won votes on his budget in Holyrood. I should think the finance secretary will be glad to be away from the parliament on its half-term break this week.

IN RESPONSE to the dropping of the local income tax, Labour leader Iain Gray ripped up the SNP manifesto, saying it was the day that the credibility of Alex Salmond's government had died.

Gray had a reasonable point as he reeled off the list of key election promises which have been broken - paying off student debt, a grant for first-time buyers, smaller class sizes, nursery teachers for every child and a replacement for private finance initiative/public-private partnership.

With the scrapping of the "hated" council tax now gone, all that remains of the SNP's key manifesto pledges is the referendum on independence, which is still planned for 2011.

A bit of political knockabout is fair enough - and Gray is doing better at this as Labour leader than some may have expected - but Labour should perhaps be a little circumspect.

Voters have not forgotten which party was the author of student debt. Meanwhile, Gray's shadow finance spokesman Andy Kerr perversely remains a vocal champion of the costly and unpopular PFI schemes he prosecuted enthusiastically while in office and which did so much damage to Labour's credibility.

Not only that but Labour too lacks a coherent alternative to the council tax.

THE actual financial settlement for Scotland's local authorities announced - or, rather, imposed - in the same speech by Finance Secretary John Swinney was all but hidden beneath the smoke, flames and debris of the local income tax crash.

Local government union UNISON warns the deal will inevitably mean staffing cuts and that services to the public will be lost this year, with even more damaging threats for next year.

A large chunk of the money from the Scottish government has been ringfenced to pay for the continuing council tax freeze and can't be used to deliver services. This is somewhat ironic, given that the SNP had claimed to have removed ring-fencing in its concordat with local government.

Meanwhile, the SNP budget deal with the Tories to cut business rates will mean less money for local councils.

With the council tax freeze effectively mandated by central government, there is now virtually no autonomous source of revenue for local councils. This means there is precious little local democratic control or accountability either.

Will reshuffle get the national conversation started?

ALEX Salmond's first government reshuffle since coming to power in May 2007 was announced last week.

It only involved deputy ministers and not the cabinet but included preferment for some of the SNP's best known names - Alex Neil, Roseanna Cunningham and Mike Russell.

Promoted from his environment minister job, former SNP chief executive Russell takes on a new role as constitution minister and is charged with strategic planning for an independence referendum in 2011.

Russell will also be expected to spark up the SNP's dismal "national conversation" and to lead the government's challenge to the Calman Commission on Scottish devolution.

Calman has been doing serious, almost literally sterling, work on the future funding and powers of the Scottish Parliament and has engaged with many civic partners as well as all the opposition parties, while the national conversation has languished ever since it was launched with a fanfare in August 2007.

Stew not worth heating

IN ADDITION to his constitution and referendum role, new SNP Constitution Minister Mike Russell inherits the culture brief from Linda Fabiani, who had the misfortune of letting the Creative Scotland Bill slip through her fingers and crash to the floor of the parliament last year.

That was a cock-up for sure, but it is unfair to blame Fabiani for the whole Creative Scotland mess. The costly and misconceived munging together of the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen was promoted by the previous Labour-led administration and has been the subject of criticism ever since.

Following these years of chaos and criticism, a five-page "high-level document looking at articulating roles and responsibilities," also known as a "core script" - I'm not kidding - for Creative Scotland was published by the government on February 5.

Fag packets have often been put to better use. It essentially rehashes the decade-old Department for Culture, Media and Sport "creative industries" policy that was once but no longer punted by new Labour culture ministers down south.

When Russell picks up the cold Creative Scotland stew from the floor, he will have to decide whether it really is worth heating up again.

Doing our bit for Palestine

IT IS good to be able to report that people around Scotland are mobilising to support the people of Gaza.

The Scottish government is to give over £400,000 to aid projects in Gaza through its International Development Fund. This cash will be channelled through agencies like Oxfam and Medical Aid for Palestinians.

As the Star reported last week, Scottish students have been involved in occupations to get universities, including Glasgow, Edinburgh and Strathclyde, to boycott Israeli firms and support Palestinian universities.

Strathclyde University promised to end a contract for water with Israeli-owned company Eden Spring.

A Scottish Convoy to Gaza lorry with provisions including essential medical supplies headed for Heathrow last week after send-offs from Glasgow City Council and by MSPs at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh - visit www.edinburghdirectaid.org for more information.

And Palestine will be one of the major themes of the Stop the War Scottish Coalition conference, which takes place this Saturday at Glasgow University, details at www.stopwar.org.uk.

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Around Scotland - Tuesday 10 February 2009

(Tuesday 10 February 2009)

MALCOLM BURNS explores how Scotland could lead the field on emissions.

THE Scottish Climate Change Bill currently before parliament was described as "genuinely world-leading" by Friends of the Earth Scotland when it was announced in December.

Chief executive Duncan McLaren's praise was echoed by WWF Scotland director Richard Dixon, who labelled it "the best piece of climate-change legislation proposed anywhere in the world."

The Bill sets targets for a 50 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and a cut of 80 per cent by 2050 and it includes international aviation and shipping within its targets, as well as emissions from all six greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide.

These proposals go considerably further than actions planned by the British or other governments.

So, why were "eco-warriors" McLaren and Dixon talking to a Holyrood committee last week arguing for the Bill to provide even stronger targets and more powers to combat climate change?

They were giving evidence to the transport infrastructure and climate change committee as part of a team from Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, a coalition of environment, faith and development organisations which also includes Oxfam and UNISON Scotland.

This year is a critical one for action on climate change, with global deal negotiations due to take place in Copenhagen in December.

Stop Climate Chaos believes that, if the Scottish Climate Change Bill were sharpened up, it could lead the world by example at Copenhagen, as well as setting Scotland on the path of a green economic revival.

So, the coalition is calling on the Scottish government to use the Bill to act now for a cut in carbon emissions and not delay serious reductions until 2020.

The five key planks of the Stop Climate Chaos Scotland campaign are:

• A framework to achieve at least an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050
• Statutory annual emission reductions of at least 3 per cent year-on-year from the start, not just from 2020
• Include all emissions in the targets, including those from international aviation and shipping, from the very start
• Enact a Scottish climate change commission in the primary legislation, to be established immediately.
• A statutory limit of 20 per cent on the proportion of emissions reduction effort that can be met through the purchase of international credits so that at least 80 per cent of the effort to cut emissions takes place in Scotland.

According to coalition member Judith Robertson, head of Oxfam Scotland, "government commitments for domestic action on climate change have the potential to make a real difference and show leadership to the rest of the world but annual emission reductions of at least 3 per cent year-on-year need to kick in right from the start."

You can read more about the Scottish campaign to save the world (genuinely!) at www.stopclimatechaos.org/scotland and see the transport infrastructure and climate change committee deliberations at www.scottish.parliament.uk
 

Glaring representation gap at the Scottish Parliament

I DIDN'T know Bashir Ahmad, the SNP list MSP for Glasgow, who has died aged 68.

Hundreds of people attended his funeral at Glasgow's Central Mosque on Saturday, including many of Scotland's political leaders. By all accounts and the tributes paid to him, he was a good and decent person.

Ahmad became the first and so far only Asian or Muslim member of the Scottish Parliament on his election in 2007. His death leaves the Scottish Parliament where it stood for its first eight years, with no representation from the Asian or Muslim communities in Scotland. It is looking unlikely that this will be put right this side of the next Holyrood election in 2011.

A list MSP who dies or leaves parliament is replaced automatically by another member from the their party's regional list. The next name on the SNP Glasgow list in the 2007 election was Ann McLaughlin.

Although the SNP has said there has been no discussion about who would take Ahmad's place, McLaughlin is described by SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon as "my favourite blogger ... definitely unmissable."

Scotland too often assumes that its parliament is diverse, perhaps just because it has a higher proportion of women members than Westminster - though still not parity with men.

However, it could well be described as "hideously white," to borrow Greg Dyke's famous description of the BBC hierarchy.

Meanwhile, Labour's Mohammad Sarwar, the first Muslim elected to Westminster, remains the only Scottish Muslim or Asian MP.

He has announced that he will retire at the next election. His son Anas was selected last year to be Labour candidate in Glasgow Central at the next Westminster election.

It would be a grand thing for sure to see a young black Scottish woman Communist MP or MSP rising to challenge the middle-aged white men in suits who still dominate our parliamentary debates.

In reality, it's up to and entirely possible for the political parties to select candidates for winnable seats who can represent all of Scotland's diverse communities.

Looks like there's still a way to go yet

THE Sunday Herald claims Scotland is on a knife edge, breathlessly citing Systems 3 poll findings that 38 per cent of Scots support independence compared to 40 per cent who do not.

The rest were don't knows.

This result is one of the higher pro-independence figures recorded. Support for independence has rarely hit the 40 per cent mark in any poll. Earlier last week, a YouGov poll gave a figure of 31 per cent for those who would vote Yes in an independence referendum, against 55 per cent who would vote No.

Looks like there's still some way to go, Alex.

Bringing you the best cultural events

YOU know this column likes to bring you the best of culture, high and low, from around Scotland.

How better to spend an evening than in the historic Glasgow Citizen's Theatre at a production of Willy Russell's classic play Educating Rita?

The Citizens show features none other than Coronation Street's Jim MacDonald - properly known as actor Charles Lawson - in one of the lead roles as university lecturer Frank.

It runs from February 11 until March 3. Visit www.citz.co.uk for more details.

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Around Scotland - Tuesday 3 February 2009

Tuesday 03 February 2009

 MALCOLM BURNS picks through last week's Scottish budget. 

Budget chumps

SO, who has won out of the great Scottish budget debacle in the Holyrood parliament last week? No-one, really. We are all losers.

The SNP looks like getting its budget passed within the next couple of weeks. The relatively insignificant issues which led to Wednesday's 64-64 voting tie, resulting in the presiding officer's casting vote for status quo and therefore against John Swinney's 2009 Budget Bill, look to have been solved in a sudden cross-party outbreak of harmony, sweetness and light.

The one thing it proved is that all of the parties in Scotland are terrified of an election right now. They all looked over the precipice and none of them fancied the jump.

I don't think this is just because the voters would be thoroughly peeved at having to brave the weather and go to the polls in gloomy February or blustery March, though we certainly would be.

None of the parties is ready for an election anyway and all fear that they might be squeezed for various reasons.

And, on top of that, none of them can really expect plaudits for their budget positions.

The biggest budget chumps are the Lib Dems, who yet again played an atrocious hand. Their dismal situation is of their own making.

Who would propose an £800 million reduction in public spending in the face of a recession? Yet that's what leader Tavish Scott's flagship 2p tax cut proposal would have meant.

The Lib Dems stuck to that till the budget fell, then immediately recanted and now apparently will support the same Swinney budget - in return for a pledge by SNP First Minister Alex Salmond to support borrowing powers for the Scottish Parliament.

Quite apart from the fact that these are almost contradictory demands, it's also the case that Salmond can't deliver such powers. The Scottish Parliament is not allowed under most circumstances to do any borrowing and changing that situation is a matter for Westminster.

Anyway, it's hard to imagine that the First Minister, who heads a party committed to Scottish independence, would find it too much trouble to support increased borrowing powers. He already does.

Green MSP Patrick Harvie dumped the budget by holding out for a mere 11 million quid in guarantees for a home insulation programme, out of a budget of £33 billion.

Labour leader Iain Gray has been a lot more canny, in contrast to last year when, as shadow finance minister, he was the budget chump for abstaining. At least Labour is now arguing that the budget should be about jobs and the economy, stupid. It looks as though Gray may actually have won something out of the SNP in the shape of a few million extra for apprenticeships, though this is still chickenfeed in contrast to the overall budget.

But the real loser is all of us.

Swinney's budget continues the council tax freeze and the public-sector "efficiency savings" target which he increased to 2 per cent last year. These led to below-inflation pay rises for the public sector and real cuts in many vital front-line council services last year.

There are even harder times ahead in the public sector in Scotland. The cuts will get worse as a result of the SNP budget which all the parties are now conspiring to pass.

It is exactly the wrong tack to take in a recession.

Trouble with tax breaks

SNP economic priorities are illustrated by its tax breaks for business.

Finance Minister John Swinney's budgets have included a small business bonus scheme, which provides up to 100 per cent relief on rates for small firms. But the STUC has highlighted this measure as "a waste of public money."

It argues that these tax cuts for small businesses are not tied to any job-related investment and points out that the scheme is so scattergun in scope that the bonus is even available to MSPs.

STUC economist Stephen Boyd says: "This money could have been used to either target assistance at companies genuinely struggling in the downturn or, preferably, have been used to establish a Scottish investment bank."

What about the hippos?

THE Fife new town of Glenrothes was accused of having the most dismal town centre in Scotland last week.
It's a bit unfair being patronised by a group of self-appointed civic guardians such as Prospect magazine, purveyor of the "Plook on a Plinth" award.

Like many people, I sometimes find new town roundabouts quite hard to navigate. I have several times lost my way to the Kingdom Centre and Rothes Halls complex, which effectively forms the town centre in Glenrothes.

But I suspect that the only evidence that the critics have was gathered driving through the town. Most people I know from Glenrothes think it's fine.

The last time I managed to find the Rothes Halls, there was a really quirky exhibition on there by Canadian artist and photographer Sylvia Grace Borda.

Called Holiday in Glenrothes, it showed some unusual and far from dismal aspects of community life and architecture including the town's happy concrete hippos and its wide range of social housing.

If you manage to find your way there this month, you can see another photo exhibition in the Rothes Hall which traces the progress of the new town from its beginnings at Woodside Village over 60 years ago.
Visit www.rotheshalls.org.uk for more details.

Brown's dangerous pledge

GORDON Brown's foolish and dangerous pledge of "British jobs for British workers" has given an opportunity for the nasties to emerge from the woodwork.

I hear from comrades selling the Star at the regular Saturday stall in the centre of Glasgow that a few BNP thugs were out promoting racist filth.

Star seller Tommy Morrison said: "Clearly, they are trying to exploit any hostility to foreign workers from the Lindsey refinery dispute down south, when of course the issue is employers using the EU free market to increase exploitation."

We have to keep that message coming across loud and clear.
And I'm glad to report that the fascists got a sherricking from the Star sellers and the other progressive stalls.

50 essential reads

CONGRATULATIONS to the Scottish Left Review magazine on reaching its 50th issue.

It's an essential read for all comrades interested in Scottish political issues.

If you don't subscribe already, you can do so online at www.scottishleftreview.org and help SLR towards its century.

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Glasgow conference hears of EU threat to union rights

Published in the Morning Star

(Monday 02 February 2009)

by MALCOLM BURNS

THE neoliberal policies of the European Union pose a threat to trade union rights, world development and economic recovery, a conference in Glasgow heard on Sunday.

Speaking at the Scottish Campaign Against Euro Federalism conference, leading campaigner Brian Denny condemned the hypocrisy of the EU for opposing "protectionism" as an evil when it comes to workers' rights but promoting it for bankers and big business.

"We have to combat the media spin that the Lindsey oil refinery strikes are about hatred of foreign workers," Denny said.

"We have to explain what is really happening and expose what lies behind it. Under the European Court of Justice laws, labour is a commodity like a tin of beans - and with no more rights than a tin of beans."

UNISON NEC member Jane Carolan argued that it was a damning indictment that the European Central Bank had so far said nothing about the economic crisis.

"The TUC needs to wake up to the fact that there's no such thing as a 'social Europe' - it's always been a dream," she said.

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