Around Scotland - Tuesday 31 March 2009

(Tuesday 31 March 2009)

Malcolm Burns

Ditch the stupidity

I WENT to see the Age Of Stupid climate change documentary at Glasgow Film Theatre last week. As a movie, it's better than Al Gore's award-winning Powerpoint presentation An Inconvenient Truth, but it is really as a piece of propaganda that Age Of Stupid works.

I wasn't taken with many of the real-life characters whose stories make up the narrative elements of the film, like Piers, the credulous and somewhat posh organic Devon farmer who has turned wind farm entrepreneur only to be foiled by a Nimby campaign.

But I keep thinking about the basic facts which are clear throughout the movie.

In Europe, the average carbon footprint - the amount of greenhouse gas we are each responsible for creating - is about 10 tons per year. In the US it is nearly twice that.

But unless the average for the whole world is reduced to just one ton each per year within the next couple of decades, we run the risk of climate catastrophe.

This week, I've been calculating my carbon footprint after seeing Age Of Stupid, to find that I generate between seven and eight tons per year.

I'm glad that it worked out less than the average - I only made one short-haul return flight in the last year - I don't drive much, I walk to work and the kids walk to school, we don't eat much red meat and we recycle lots of things - but our household still generates seven or eight times as much greenhouse gas than we should. And as a society, as a species, we are still in the age of stupid.

We really do need to take action. Just cutting down on flights and eating less red meat isn't going to cut it.

It will take a massive sustained change in the way we exploit and share the world's resources.

The Copenhagen summit in December needs to establish stringent targets and then these have to be met, unlike Kyoto or Rio.

And to do that, we need to challenge big oil, and big capital. We can't do that as individuals in a free market - it really will take mass political action for democratic ownership and control of the commanding heights of the world economy.

The G20 demo in London was about combining the themes of jobs, justice and climate change. If enough of us are not stupid then we can perhaps be optimistic as well as worried.

Low pay and equal pay in Glasgow

GLASGOW Council leader Steven Purcell announced a living wage of £7 an hour for his city at the Labour Conference in Dundee just a couple of weeks ago.

The idea seemed so good to party leader Iain Gray that he nicked it as a Labour campaign for NHS workers in Scotland last week. Well and good.

The living wage is not a new idea, of course, having been established in London under mayor Ken Livingstone.

Anti-poverty campaigners in Scotland including the Poverty Alliance and trade unions have been developing the idea in Scotland for some time.

Though Purcell could be uncharitably viewed as trying to get his name associated with the idea first, his initiative is worthy of support - as long as the city council really does get suppliers, not to mention all of its own "arm's length" companies, such as Culture and Sport Glasgow, to follow suit and pay a living wage.

Seven pounds is little enough for an hour's work and, as a society, we can and should pay people enough to have a decent life.

The shine of the living wage idea would reflect more brightly on Councillor Purcell if Glasgow City Council would settle its outstanding equal pay claims.

This would not only improve the lot of hundreds of women workers but would be a massive step towards ending the disgrace of discriminatory pay that councils around Scotland have been responsible for.

Glasgow and councils across Scotland have been spending a fortune on lawyers in tribunals where tens of thousands of equal pay claims are being contested.

Last week, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) Scotland decided to launch an investigation into whether Glasgow City Council's pay and grading arrangements provide equal pay for classroom assistants.

If not, the council will have been acting unlawfully.

This is the first time the EHRC Scotland has used its investigatory powers. The step was welcomed by UNISON and the GMB which organise the predominantly female workers involved.

UNISON's Glasgow branch convener Mike Kirby said: "Classroom assistants are a hidden army of talented and dedicated workers whose value is often overlooked. We trust the investigation will help us to deliver the wages they deserve."

And GMB Scotland officer Alex McLuckie said: "Glasgow should now do the sensible thing by paying what they owe their women employees."

Land for the people - Knoydart celebrates

LAST week the 100 people of Knoydart on the west coast of Scotland began celebrations of the 10th anniversary of their community land buyout.

It was literally a landmark event in highland history.

For centuries, private landlords have run the highland estates, to the great cost and often exile of the people.

Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, the crofting and land reform movements were accompanied by daring land raids - direct action, occupations and work-ins no less heroic and important than any factory strike.

The last land raid in Scotland was by the "seven men of Knoydart" in 1948, who claimed their land from notorious absentee owner Lord Brocket.

The courts ruled against them and sadly the then Labour government failed to back them.

Half a century later, the 1997 Labour government and then the Scottish Parliament at last put in place legislation and a funding framework which allowed community land buyouts.

The Knoydart Foundation was set up in 1997, put together a partnership and funding with the aid of Highland Council, the John Muir Trust and others and bought the 17,000-acre estate in March 1999 for £750,000.

The land is now owned by its people and the venture so far is a great success, with new houses, a forest trust, a renovated hydro-electric system, more tourism and, crucially, more people - including children.

Perhaps the best aspect of the Knoydart buyout is that it is not unique.

Indeed, the list of community land buyouts now tops 100 and includes Assynt in 1993, Borve and Anishader, Skye, in 1993, Eigg in 1997, Knoydart in 1999, Gigha in 2002, North Harris in 2003, Assynt Foundation in 2005, Seaforth Estate, Harris, in 2005, Galson, Lewis, in 2006 and South Uist Estates in 2006.

It is never easy to take democratic control of the land, but it is possible.

Dundee workers do it their way

AT the beginning of March, the 12 employees of Dundee packaging company Prisme were told that the business was bust and they were out of a job. There wasn't even any money for redundancy.

They occupied the factory and then decided to try and take over the business and run it as a co-operative.

Three weeks later, it looks as though they may have a chance of succeeding.

The workers have been assisted by Dundee North law centre in taking action to secure their redundancy money which is still outstanding.

But as the workers took action, they became convinced they could run the business themselves.

The new co-operative venture, called Discovery Packaging and Design, has won support from the city's Business Gateway. The workers have secured promises to keep equipment formerly leased to Prisme and have worked out a business plan which would save at least some of the jobs, despite the loss of some customers after Prisme went bust.

"Prisme treated us like second-class citizens and wanted to wash their hands of us," David Taylor told the Big Issue in Scotland magazine during the sit-in.

"We were not prepared to accept this. We're not militant people - just little people who refused to be little anymore. We stood up for what we believe in and we are all proud of that."

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J'accuse 2

Ian Bell in Sunday Herald on why there will not be a real, open and honest inquiry in the iraq war...

"Logic says that a real investigation into war and occupation would lead, necessarily, to criminal proceedings. This country has certain treaty obligations. England retains, more or less, a tradition of common law. We say we adhere to international codes over such things - don't laugh - as torture. Were there to be a real inquiry into Iraq, some people would be locked up.

And who would be first among the equally guilty? Who would be nabbed as prime architect, ringleader, chief conspirator? Cast aside the deceit, take the foreign secretary and the rest at their weasel words, and a single possibility remains: Blair would have to do time.

That is not, or is not intended to be, melodramatic. International law is less clear-cut than some of us would like, but there is precious little ambiguity over war crimes. Those of us who were writing about illegality even when Hans Blix and his weapons inspectors were being hustled from Iraq were not posturing. Saddam was not preparing an attack against the United Kingdom; no UN mandate existed; no-one's sovereignty was at stake. Those are the legal grounds for war. They did not pertain."

yep... and J'accuse 2...

"The last time I accused Tony Blair of war crimes, a reader involved me in an excellent - but oddly depressing - joke. This person took me at my word (for once) and wrote to the chief constable of Strathclyde to say that certain serious accusations had been made in a newspaper concerning a prime minister, and what did the polis propose to do about it?

As usual, I can't lay hands on the letter. The point was sound, nevertheless. Forget the Brown government and all the investigations that will never take place. There is prima facie - six months in a law faculty, eh? - evidence of crimes against humanity. There is, moreover, a growing body of fact and anecdote suggesting the abuse of office, conscious deceit and conspiracy. None of that is a joke.

But still I wait, as you may have guessed, for the good cops of the Strathclyde force to take me into custody for accusing a certain Mr Blair of murder...

...come and get me, copper. J'accuse."

From Havana to Glasgow

(Saturday 21 March 2009)

Malcolm Burns

Interview: Catching up with Cuban women's activists Carolina Amador Perez and Gilda Chacon Bravo

Comrades: Gilda Chacon (left) and Carolina Amador enjoying spring sunshine in Glasgow's George Square

"IT'S always cold in Aberdeen," I tell Carolina Amador Perez and Gilda Chacon Bravo on a sunny and mild March day in Glasgow.

"Yes, we arrived there on a very cold night, but in the middle of this cold we had a very warm welcome and a great meeting," Chacon assures me.

Amador is international relations officer of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) and Chacon represents the international department of the Cuban Workers' Confederation (CTC).

This self-styled "mixed delegation" of two leaders from the women's and trade union movements in Cuba is on the Scottish leg of a month-long whistle-stop tour around Britain to celebrate International Women's Day - and the first half-century of the triumph of the 1959 Cuban revolution.

I catch Amador and Chacon for a bite of lunch with Kath Campbell of Scottish Cuba Solidarity.

Amador surprises us with some figures on the gains that have been made by Cuban women since the revolution.

Around 43 per cent of parliamentarians in Cuba are female, she tells us.

Campbell and I can't help remarking that Scottish women and the more progressive males would give their right arm to have that state of affairs here - our Scottish Parliament only has 35 per cent of women now, having peaked at 39 per cent in 2003-7, while the corresponding figure in Westminster is a mere 20 per cent.

The pair also inform us that women now make up 46 per cent of the total labour force in Cuba, up from less than 8 per cent in the 1950s.

"This is a gain we have made in Cuba," says Amador.

"Before the revolution, the only work for women was as domestic cleaners or in workshops making clothes, and a few nurses."

There is high female participation in sectors like education, health and justice, with women comprising an absolute majority of professional and technical workers, researchers, doctors, university professors and more than 70 per cent of judges and lawyers.

"The situation now, for Cuban women and Cuban society, is a result of an education process which has transformed the cultural tradition based on discrimination of women. It has changed the roles and perceptions of both females and males in Cuban society," says Amador.

I observe that successful attempts to improve gender equality in Britain have often produced legal changes such as the vote or equal pay laws, but in reality society is still not transformed.

There's a 14 per cent pay gap 30 years after the Equal Pay Act and we still have a gendered society with very macho mentalities.

Has that been altered in Cuba, I wonder. Presumably, they still have macho men?

"It is true that in some Cuban families, the traditional roles of women are reproduced," Carolina replies. "The women take care of children or they do the domestic tasks at home.

"But it is not like that in most families, because there has been a transformation in relations between couples and between fathers and children. Since we passed the Family Code in 1975, the Cuban family itself has been able to have a revolution."

Chacon adds that the FMC has just held its eighth congress, which considered a strengthening of the Family Code. It discussed a renewed focus on social inclusion and diversity and how to push for more efficient action by legal bodies dealing with family issues and cases of violence against women.

"The revolutionary gains for women are part of the gains of unions too," Chacon argues, "because it was about working women.

"One of the most important gains for women was to provide them with opportunity. In Cuba, there are a lot of pluses but the most important thing ... is the opportunity that you can give the person to develop herself, in the way she wants to be developed and to realise her aspirations in society."

As our discussion turns to the international situation, Amador and Chacon explain that they desire solidarity with their nation which is based on respect for self-determination.

Could the arrival of a new president produce the desired effect in the US?

"In my personal opinion, Cuba is not a priority for the Obama administration," says Amador. "They have a lot of problems with the global economic crisis, since the US is the most affected country. As Fidel Castro said, Obama now already knows what it means to be president of America and its empire."

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Around Scotland - Tuesday 17 March 2009

(Tuesday 17 March 2009)

Malcolm Burns

Time for manufacturing summit is now

SNP Enterprise Minister Jim Mather has agreed to hold a summit with "stakeholders" including trade unions on the future of manufacturing industry in Scotland.

The summit can't come soon enough for trade unions.

The latest evidence suggests that Scottish manufacturing is suffering badly as we head deeper into recession.

On Monday, unions and management at NCR Dundee began a 90-day consultation over the proposed closure of the company's plant at Gourdie, which makes bank cash machines. No-one holds out any hope of saving the plant or the 250 jobs which will also disappear.

NCR will retain about 450 jobs in the city, mainly in the important area of research and development. However, the Gourdie plant's closure marks the end of over six decades of manufacturing by the company in Dundee.

US multinational NCR - formerly called National Cash Register and known locally as The Cash - began its operation in the city in 1947. The company is blaming the closure on the global recession, especially in the financial sector which provides the factory with its main market.

But it is worth noting that NCR has other cash machine manufacturing plants in Hungary, India and China which are not being closed and which are likely to pick up any orders in a future economic upturn.

"A devastating blow for the workforce in Dundee and another nail in the coffin for manufacturing in Scotland," was the judgement of Unite regional officer Fiona Farmer.

"The concern is that these skills will go and, when the credit crunch is finally over, there will be no opportunity to resurrect this factory."

The Gourdie site is subject of a planning application, involving NCR which owns it, for a business, leisure and retail park with an Asda store, offices and a 100-bedroom hotel.

The knock-on effect of the closure decision announced last week was felt in Dundee almost immediately as local supplier Texol went out of business with the loss of 41 jobs, on top of 20 who were made redundant in January.

The NCR story reflects the current crisis faced by Scottish industry. Manufacturing accounts for 200,000 jobs in defence, chemicals, petroleum, mechanical engineering, transport, print and publishing and food and drinks. But the authoritative Fraser of Allander Institute has recently forecast that up to 20,000 of these jobs could be lost by 2012.

Unite's Scottish secretary John Quigley has called for a manufacturing summit to be brought forward urgently.

"We must work together," Quigley argues, "to develop a strategy that can help stimulate domestic and external demand to aid economic recovery and keep people in employment during this difficult period.

"This must include awarding contracts and targeting investment in defence, energy, construction, universities and further education institutions, transport and infrastructure."

How could anyone disagree? Apart, perhaps, from Labour's UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson.

Along with the campaign by public-service unions such as UNISON to fight local government cuts and the CWU's heroic bid to keep the Royal Mail wholly in public hands, it looks as if the unions are well in tune with the demands of the People's Charter www.thecitizen.org.uk launched down south last week and in Scotland the week before.

The crisis is growing. It's time to bring the economic arguments for intervention and democratic control to our governments both north and south of the border.

Voluntary sector a soft target for cuts

"REDUNDANCIES are now occurring on almost a weekly basis in the sector and it is typically the lowest paid, providing services to the most vulnerable who are affected."

That's the reality in Scotland's "soft target" community and voluntary sector, according to Simon McFarlane of UNISON Scotland. And he argues that it has been exacerbated by the SNP's council tax freeze, which is restricting funding via local authorities.

UNISON, Unite and the Scottish TUC have linked up with Community Care Providers Scotland and the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations to hold a rally and lobby of MSPs today in support of their joint petition for fair funding for the nation's voluntary sector.

The petition urges the Scottish government to "demonstrate support for the voluntary sector by agreeing a national framework for public-service contracts based on our 2007 pact to ... ensure equitable wages and conditions between front-line voluntary sector workers delivering public services and public-sector workers and to help deliver five-year funded contracts." The parliament's petitions committee will hear evidence from the voluntary sector representatives this afternoon.

"The message to parliament is clear - our community and voluntary service members can no longer be expected to subsidise the provision of public services through poverty wages and inferior conditions," says McFarlane.

Smith hits nail on head

IT WAS great to see Labour's Elaine Smith back in the Scottish Parliament last week after being off ill for a bit. She made a typically acute contribution in a debate on the right to buy social housing last Thursday.

"It is blatantly obvious that the market is not a device that can adjust to social need, which means that the state must supply housing," said Smith. This should be done not through "third parties at a distance, but through supporting local authorities to build houses."

Picking up on a point made by STUC general secretary Grahame Smith in his recent Morning Star article on housing (March 5), the Coatbridge and Chryston MSP supported the view that the Scottish government could massively boost the economy by initiating the "building of houses with no right to buy."

And it seems that all such arguments on the economy now lead to the People's Charter. The Scottish version of the Charter demands, among other things, "decent homes for all - 250,000 new publicly owned homes in Scotland over the next five years" as well as a stop to repossessions and control of rents.

As Smith said, "All socialists should support that call."

Jock Nicolson book launch

I'M looking forward to the first publication from new imprint Praxis Press. A Turbulent Life, the autobiography of Jock Nicolson, is due for release this week.

Nicolson was a leading activist in the National Union of Railwaymen, a Communist organiser who worked with Willie Gallacher in Fife and a tenants' leader in the famous 1950s St Pancras rent strikes.

The official book launch will take place at The Town House, Cadzow Street, Hamilton, on Thursday March 26 at 7pm, chaired on behalf of Praxis Press by labour historian Professor John Foster.

Phil McGarry, Scottish and Northern Ireland organiser for RMT, former Morning Star Scottish correspondent Andrew Clark and Dr Rob Duncan from the Scottish Labour History Society will share their memories and view on Nicolson's life and times.

A Turbulent Life, a paperback priced £8.99, is being distributed by Unity Books, 72 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 7DA. Check out www.unitybooks.org.uk or call (0141) 204-1611 for more information.

Cuban tour

THE Women in Cuba tour reached Scotland this week. Celebrating Cuba's 1959 revolution and offering an opportunity to see what this has meant for Cuban women, Carolina Amador Perez from the Federation of Cuban Women and Gilda Chacon Bravo of the Cuban Trade Union Centre are speaking at a number of meetings in Scotland.

On Wednesday, the pair will be addressing the cross-party group on Cuba in the Scottish Parliament at 5.30pm and on Thursday a meeting will be held in Lecture Room 5, Appleton Tower, Crichton St, Edinburgh University at 7pm.

Find out more from Scottish Cuba Solidarity Campaign via scottishcuba@yahoo.co.uk or (0141) 221-2359.

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good news...

RUNRIG | The Official Site
13/03/2009

"Malcolm
We are delighted to inform you that Malcolm is now recovering well. Doctors and hospital staff are delighted with his progress and today he has been up and about briefly. He will continue to undergo further tests to determine what, if any, further treatment is required.
We would like to take this opportunity of thanking you for your kind thoughts and messages of support – they are of great encouragement to Malcolm’s family at this time."

Around Scotland - Wednesday 11 March 2009

(Wednesday 11 March 2009)

Unions get a voice

Malcolm Burns on how Scottish Labour is setting an example for others.

I'M not a great fan of big set-piece conference speeches, but Scottish Labour leader Ian Gray made a serious and thoughtful contribution at his party's weekend conference in Dundee.

There was a bit of ritual nationalist-bashing which some people found inspiring - to me, this stuff always sounds furious but signifies nothing.

However, I was particularly pleased that, among the four independent experts he announced to help with the four draft policy documents which will form the basis of Labour's next Scottish manifesto, STUC assistant secretary Stephen Boyd will be advising on economic issues.

It is a welcome step to bring progressive trade union thinking into Labour's economic policy-making, at least in Scotland. Labour down south should certainly be paying attention.

Boyd's appointment by Gray contrasts with Alex Salmond's choice for chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers - Sir George Mathewson, the short-selling banker and tax-avoiding Cayman resident who rails against employment protection laws.

The four draft policy documents which were presented at Dundee can be downloaded from Scottish Labour's website (www.scottishlabour.org.uk/what_we_believe) under the heading Ideas For A Fairer Scotland.

Even as a working title this is an improvement on the 2007 manifesto, which was tragically called Forward, Not Back.

Boyd will work with the Labour Party group considering the document on a "prosperous and sustainable Scotland." The draft is long on developing skills and employability but pretty short on job creation.

The latter will be most urgently needed after the storm of recession has demolished employment around Scotland.

The great PFI rip-off

What rip-offs the private finance initiative and its alter ego public-private partnership really are.

UNISON Lothian health branch has discovered that the private contractors which run car parking at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary are going to make something like £170,000 because of reductions to VAT.

Neither the main contractor Consort not its subcontractor Meteor had a clause which covered the recalibration of parking machines to take account of changes in VAT.

They are now billing a whopping £70,000 to change the machines to a 15 per cent rate and they will charge the same again to put the level back to 17.5 per cent when the rate reverts next year.

And that's not all. Since December, people parking at the hospital have been paying 17.5 per cent in VAT instead of 15 per cent while the machines were not yet recalibrated. As a result, the greedy contractors have scooped £29,000 already, just for doing nothing.

Lothian health branch chairman Tam Waterson says: "It is exactly this kind of contractual inflexibility and profiteering at the expense of our NHS which UNISON has campaigned against from the first days of PFI."

UNISON is supporting Labour MSP Paul Martin's private members Bill to make car parking charges illegal in all NHS sites. What remains diplomatically unsaid is that, if Labour hadn't introduced the charges in the first place, then there would be no requirement to abolish them.

Through gritted teeth

THE co-operation which seems to be breaking out between the UK and Scottish governments on funding the proposed new Forth road bridge is as tense as the bundled wires which now hold the old one up in such a fragile manner.

The UK government has offered a package worth £1 billion to help fund the new Forth crossing. Labour Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy MP (pictured) describes this as "grown-up politics achieving grown-up results."

SNP Finance Secretary John Swinney called the meeting to discuss the initiative as "useful and constructive."

So far, so mature.

However, each side of the Westminster-Holyrood divide is clearly anxious to be seen as more co-operative than the other and therefore hopes to be able to portray the other side as hopelessly unco-operative.

The temptation for each to draw daggers is likely to prove irresistible.

Write on at Glasgow fest

GLASGOW'S Aye Write! book festival is in full flow this week. One of the best aspects is the way in which it engages even the youngest of readers.

Our Sean, who is six, and Elizabeth, 10, are big fans of the Beano and the Dandy. The likes of Desperate Dan, Dennis the Menace and what Sean calls the "Bash Road Kids" are heroes.

So both were thrilled and completely captivated at an illustrated presentation at Aye Write! based on the newly published History Of The Beano by Morris Heggie, former editor of the Dandy, and Euan Kerr, editor of Beano Max.

The kids queued up to get their copy of the huge and beautifully produced volume signed by both authors.

A very special bonus was a fast pencil drawing of Minnie the Minx on the flyleaf by Jim Petrie, who was the cartoon anti-heroine's artist for over 30 years.

Sean has found a new career path. We thought he wanted to be a train driver, but he's been bowled over by the colourful tradition of the DC Thomson comics.

Now he says he wants to be a cartoon artist on the Beano and Dandy and to revive The Magic, a sibling title aimed at the younger reader which was started in 1939 but fell victim to the wartime paper shortage.

As long as you're in the union, son, we will be proud.

THE Aye Write! book festival is based in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, and runs until Sunday.

Highlights include a session on Wednesday night to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Spanish civil war and celebrate Scotland's 500 International Brigade volunteers.

Daniel Gray, whose book Homage to Caledonia has recently been published to acclaim, will discuss the war with Chris Dolan, author of An Anarchist's Story: The Life Of Ethel Macdonald.

Macdonald was an embedded reporter from Motherwell known as The Scots Scarlet Pimpernel. Also on the panel will be Mike Arnott of Dundee TUC and the International Brigade Memorial Trust and the session will be chaired by Willy Maley, whose late father John was a brigader.

Find out more of what's on on the web at www.ayewrite.com

"YOU can't privatise or deregulate your way out of a recession."
So Gordon Brown said on Friday at the Scottish Labour conference in Dundee. And that is true. But you can certainly privatise and deregulate your way into one.

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Hope you'll be ok, my friend

BBC NEWS | Scotland | Highlands and Islands | Runrig guitarist Jones collapses:

"Malcolm Jones, guitarist with the band Runrig, is seriously ill in hospital after collapsing at Waverley rail station in Edinburgh on Sunday."

Malcolm Jones joined the band in 1978

Around Scotland - Wednesday 04 March 2009

(Wednesday 04 March 2009)

MALCOLM BURNS explains the SNP shift on an independence vote.

SCOTTISH National Party Finance Secretary John Swinney signalled last week that the SNP minority government was drawing back from its aim of an independence-or-bust referendum by 2011.

The referendum is the only SNP major manifesto commitment from 2007 left which has not yet been dumped.

But now, independence is just one of five options that Swinney (left) has set out for Holyrood. The list also includes what he calls "enhanced devolution" and "devolution max."

Swinney's shift is another example of the SNP's recognition of electoral reality. Just as with its costly local income tax proposals it dumped suddenly a couple of weeks ago, the SNP simply does not have enough votes in parliament to be able to deliver a Bill allowing a pure independence referendum.

It is interesting that Swinney's announcement was ostensibly made as part of the SNP government's failing "National Conversation." The National Conversation website now tells us: "The Scottish government is committed to bringing forward a referendum Bill in 2010, offering the options of enhanced devolution and independence."

However, this multioption move is effectively a government engagement with the Calman Commission on Scottish devolution, which was set up by opposition parties last year.

The suggestion of a devolution max option is a clear attempt to woo MSPs, particularly from the Liberal Democrats, to support an SNP referendum Bill next year which would otherwise have no chance of being passed at Holyrood.

So what would Swinney's options mean? The options are:

• Full fiscal autonomy in an independent Scotland
• A position of devolution max - full fiscal autonomy within the UK
• Creating enhanced devolution
• Assigning revenues to the Scottish Parliament
• Continuing with or marginally changing the current framework.

Apart from the independence option, they are broadly similar to the concepts being discussed by the Calman Commission on Scottish Devolution.

Calman's interim report suggested that a mix of funding options may be appropriate, including a new needs-based assessment for a block grant, some assigned taxes, some tax-raising powers, including the possibility of varying the basic rate by more than 3p and levying this on higher rates and other income, plus some limited borrowing powers.

Under the current framework, the Scottish Parliament has power to vary the basic rate of tax by 3p but has never exercised that option and is never likely to.

"Assigned revenues" means that the budget available would be determined by amount of revenue collected in Scotland. However, there would be no power to alter taxes and no block grant. Enhanced devolution would allow the Scottish Parliament power to set some taxes and to undertake some limited borrowing.

"Full fiscal autonomy within the UK" would mean taxes were set in Scotland and a percentage of revenue paid to Westminster for defence and foreign affairs.

And, of course, with independence, there would be full revenue-raising and borrowing powers and monetary policy would be determined in Scotland - and we would end up rich like Norway, according to Alex Salmond, or bankrupt like Iceland, according to Jim Murphy.

Anyway, the bottom line as of now is that it looks like there may well be no referendum at all.

Prudential borrowing call

THE Scottish Labour Party's formal embrace of borrowing powers for the Holyrood parliament is welcome.

The step was part of Labour's response last week to the Calman Commission on Scottish devolution's interim report.

It is now almost certain that this will be one of the recommendations which Calman will make in a final report, due in September.

Even the limited power for prudential borrowing is likely to mean that the days of rip-off PFI and PPP schemes to fund public projects should be numbered.

STUC delegation heads to Palestine

I WISH all the best to the group of 11 senior trade unionists who left Scotland for the West Bank on Saturday.

The STUC delegation will meet representatives from the Israeli trade union federation Histadrut and will hold talks with the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) in the occupied territories to investigate the merits of supporting a boycott, disinvestment and sanctions against the state of Israel until it complies with international law and agreed human rights principles.

The delegation will report to the 2009 congress in Perth next month, when the STUC will have a chance to take a decision on the issue.

The STUC has a long and proud record of engagement in the Palestinian situation. Three years ago, Scottish unions facilitated a historic meeting when representatives of Histadrut and the PGFTU addressed a session of the STUC congress in Dundee.

I understand that there is a possibility of another such engagement in Perth next month - if the PGFTU representatives are actually allowed to travel by the Israeli state.

I don't think the STUC delegation is scheduled to visit Gaza. That's possibly a good thing, since they might bump into some pretty disreputable and dangerous characters out there - war criminal Tony Blair was on a fleeting visit to Gaza on Sunday.

It has often been observed that irony is dead, but I think it may actually be extremely nauseous. I certainly had to grab the sick bag when Blair called for the lifting of the Israeli blockade on Gaza with that sanctimonious grimace.

Of course the blockade should be lifted. But among many other atrocious outcomes for many people in many lands, Blair's actions following September 11 2001 strengthened the hand of their Israeli oppressors and have directly led to the crisis the Palestinians now face.

Just plain old right-wing

IT'S a well-known fact that Chancellor Alistair Darling, who actually comes from a posh Edinburgh family, was in his youth a paper-seller of a distinctly Trotty variety.

This has given rise to the waggish suggestion among old Labour hands that Darling's current actions may be starting to fulfil the promise of long ago.

Four of the top 200 monopolies nationalised and only 196 to go?

Sadly, I fear not. Darling made the short leap from being objectively right-wing to being just plain old right-wing a long time ago and has no intention of actually putting even the banks he has already paid for with our money under anything like democratic control. Heaven forfend.

Scottish CND strategy day

AS I'M at the Labour conference in Dundee, I will miss the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's strategy day on Saturday.

Among those developing SCND's strategic priorities and sharing campaigning skills will be John Ainslie, Isobel Lindsay, Morag Balfour and Arthur West. Training workshops will include political lobbying, use of new technology, street work and organising events.

The strategy day takes place at Renfield St Stephen's on Bath Street in Glasgow from 10.30am on Saturday March 7. Check out www.banthebomb.org for details.

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Britain facing unprecedented crisis, warns leading left-wing economist

Published in the Morning Star

(Monday 02 March 2009)

Picture: (from left) Professor Prem Sikka, Rozanne Foyer and Katy Clark MP

THE economic crisis facing the people of Britain is unprecedented, the Scottish Morning Star spring conference in Glasgow heard on Sunday.

Essex University Professor Prem Sikka told delegates that never before have individual corporations been able to bankrupt whole countries, writes Malcolm Burns in Glasgow.

Professor Sikka said the time had come to "democratise control" of the economy.

"We should rescue the retail side of the banks, nationalise them and turn them into mutuals and co-operatives," he said.

"Employees should vote on executive remuneration. Will they really allow fat-cat salaries?

"We should have a maximum wage for directors of perhaps 10 times the median wage in the company. And there should be progressive taxation."

Labour MP Katy Clark pointed out "ordinary people are now talking the language of the left.

"But we need to talk the language of ordinary people to connect with them and give a lead," she said. "We need to get out and show that socialist ideas have the solution."

Scottish National Party MSP John Wilson said that, although he was not speaking for the minority Scottish goverment, he was prepared to speak to it and raise socialist ideas.

"The actions of ministers like Mandelson privatising Royal Mail show that they don't recognise that the capitalist system has failed us," he said.

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Uniting resistance

Published in the Morning Star

(Monday 02 March 2009)

Pic: John McDonnell MP addressing launch of People's Charter at Scottish LRC inaugural meeting. Also in pic, seated from left: Rozanne Foyer, Vince Mills and Kevin Lindsay.

MALCOLM BURNS sees Scotland start to fight back against attacks on workers.

A NEW Scottish People's Charter aimed at focusing left-wing resistance was launched on Saturday at the inaugural meeting of the Scottish Labour Representation Committee (SLRC) in Glasgow.

The meeting heard a call from Labour MP John McDonnell (pictured) to unite around the charter in a campaign against new Labour's "toxic mix of policies."

A wide range of activists from unions, community-based campaigns and from within and outside the Labour Party backed the initiative to launch the LRC in Scotland.

The meeting also welcomed the charter as a campaigning manifesto around which to build resistance in the face of attacks on the working class in the deepening recession.

Unite union organiser Rozanne Foyer told the meeting: "The SLRC is a much-needed step which will bring together a vibrant mixture of left-leaning CLP delegates, socialist campaigners and grass-roots trade unionists to support a broad range of progressive campaigns and develop a robust socialist policy agenda fit for our 21st century devolved democracy.

"The Scottish People's Charter is a manifesto around which we can galvanise working people at this time.

"It already has the formal support of the United Left grouping of Unite. Our role has to be to get out there and build support for the charter in our unions, in our party and in our communities."

Mr McDonnell said the left needed to move beyond representation to resistance.

"We have a shared understanding of what is happening to us as a class," he said.

He added that the latest British unemployment figure was 1.9 million but, with thousands of Department for Work and Pensions staff laid off, there were literally not enough civil servants to count the rising numbers signing on.

"I believe the real number of people unemployed will reach three million by the end of the year, whether or not the government figures show it," he warned.

The very specific nature of this recession has had a very specific set of causes, said Mr McDonnell.

"The cause of the recession has been a toxic mix of policies by this government.

"Anti-trade union policies provided the opportunity for employers to force down wages by privatisation and offshoring and straightforward brutality.

"Everyone needs a roof over their heads, but the government has prevented councils from building housing and the private sector forced prices up and people had to borrow.

"The People's Charter takes this toxic mix of policies one by one and says: Here are the solutions."

SLRC secretary Vince Mills told the meeting their purpose was not to "argue about how many left factions could dance on the pinhead of a new party.

"The Scottish left has been debilitated, divided and confused for a lot of reasons," he said.

"But in the face of the current crisis of capitalism, the SLRC and the People's Charter provide the opportunity for progressive forces to come together and resist the attack."

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