To anyone not familiar with that rectorial candidate at Glasgow I mentioned, can I suggest this interview with Hardeep Singh Kohli.
Damnit, but this isn't going to be frivolous either. There's a rally happening on Saturday at 2pm in George Square, and I encourage anyone in or near Glasgow to come along, as well as to spread the word.
Scotland United Against Terror – Rally against Terror Sat 7th July
After the atrocious attack on Glasgow Airport on Saturday 30th June, communities across Scotland will stand united against the scourge of terrorism in all forms.
Show your support and take a stand against terror at George Square on Saturday 7th July 2.00pm. A significant day as it will be the 2nd year anniversary of the London Tube bombings and one week anniversary of the attacks on Glasgow Airport.
We will be remembering all the victims of terror and standing shoulder to shoulder with members of all faith communities, church leaders, trade unions, the Scottish Executive and the people of Scotland.
At a time when there are those who wish to divide us we must come together to show that there is only one division; the terrorists and everyone else – people of faith, non-faith, of all colours, races and genders.
Many thanks,
Bashir Ahmad MSP
Just a wee personal life-related update. After my abortive stint down south I am now returning to university education here in the fair west end of Glasgow. I've just accepted an offer of a place on Glasgow University's MSc in Political Communication, starting this September. Yes, it's a Masters in hackery. The department has a specialty in the growing political use of the internet and the option courses are pretty heavily slanted towards good old international relations. I'll be studying part-time over two years. Hopefully it should be fun. And it means I'll have yet another university to add to my list.
And this LJ is now going to return to being a personal LJ, and a friends-only one as well. If you want to read it, you need to join LJ. My political rants will be finding themselves another hosting place, and you are all most welcome to subscribe to the RSS feed if you so desire.
Now Poland is arguing that they should have more votes and MEPs in Europe. These are population-weighted. Their Prime Minister (probably the most right-wing head-of-government of a large EU country now that Berlusconi has been forcibly retired) points out that their population would be much higher if the Germans hadn't killed so many of them in the Second World War and therefore they should have the votes they would have had anyway.
Yes, really.
I'm not even going to debate the claim. I imagine Ireland would do that for me, as without the effects of British occupation their population would currently be between two and three times what it currently is.
Instead I can't help thinking back to 1945 and one of the bits of World War II they really don't make a point of teaching in schools.
The aftermath of the First World War (i.e. the Second) turned general opinion against imposing harsh financial reparations on the defeated power. So Poland received land. Great tracts of eastern Germany - that had been German since The Crusades - were given to Poland. The fifteen million German inhabitants were, to put it bluntly, ethnically cleansed, with the full support of the Allies.
Yes, fifteen million civilians. It was post-war, so we weren't necessarily applying the same moral standards to decision-making that we do now.
Germany only stopped making political claim to the land in the 1970s when Chancellor Brandt attempted reconciliation with eastern Europe. Although there are occasionally still murmurings in German political discourse about the people who were forced from their homes - and now their descendants - receiving adequate compensation, Germany has realised that it needed move on. Someone needs to teach the Polish Prime Minister the same lesson.
Well, it's been an interesting couple of days in politics. (No, that sentence is not oxymoronic.) Tony Blair looks like formalising his relationship of inferiority to George Bush and effectively going to work for him as Middle East envoy. The political anorak and stirrer in me wonders whether this would qualify him for US citizenship in a couple of years. Throw in a bit of bipartisan co-operation on a constitutional amendment and we might have Blair vs Schwarzenegger 2012. He's still young by US political standards, and who said it was the presidency of Europe he wanted? Unlikely, I know, but fun to laugh about.
Also, Gordon Brown has screwed the Lib Dems by offering them power that they really can't refuse. But have. It was floating around Politicalbetting.com that he might do this, but frankly I didn't think he had the balls, no matter how many middle England voters it might impress. Ming for Foreign Secretary or even Charlie Kennedy for Scottish Secretary to fight off the rabid nationalist hordes had been talked about, but Ashdown for Northern Ireland was a real masterstroke. Non-anoraks might have missed that Ashdown has spent most of the past ten years effectively running Bosnia with the United Nations. There is basically no one else in the world more qualified for the job of mediating in Northern Ireland. Also remember that one of Tony Blair's first political nominations was as Conservative Chris Patten to be one of the UK's two European Commissioners (later Neil Kinnock and Peter Mandelson). I imagine Brown will now be scouring the crossbenches (independents) in the House of Lords looking for someone high-profile to appoint to a cabinet position, or perhaps Leader of the House, without requiring them to join the Labour party.
Next, Nicola Sturgeon has ruled out the Scottish NHS throwing money at a private sector set up to compete with it, there is to be a long overdue review of MSPs expenses, and today we're getting an extremely ambitious Climate Change strategy outlined in the party.
Last night, Gordon Brown announced that he wanted to raise education spending to 10% of GDP, and ensure that all schools had a 'partner university'. Nice idea in principle, but can you imagine the hierarchy that is going to create amongst secondary schools??? Oh wait, I forgot, the comprehensive system is long dead.
And lastly, Salman Rushdie has criticised Islam. Get over it. He's from an Islamic family, culture and general background. He's precisely the kind of person who should be criticising Islam, just as we in the west have the obligation to criticise the background from which we have come.
Watching Question Time last night was quite an insight into the Labour party. Chirpy Hazel Blears who I've just realised reminds me of my S2 English teacher clubbing people with her handbag and unashamedly northern [English] Jon Cruddas just clubbing people. Personally, if I was living in England I would be backing Cruddas, but from my partisan and tactically-motivated Scottish position I have to prefer Blears or Benn.
( And surprise surprise, Iraq was mentioned. )
And am I the only person who is reminded of a hissing cobra by Alan Johnson?
![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/ankangryg.gif){kind=small}
crankyI agree with the action, though not the puritanical reason. I just think it looks stupid: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/america
Geekery electoralism alert.
One of the new oddities that are coming out about the Scottish Parliament are the regional, proportional representation votes. These tend not to get collected on a constituency-by-constituency basis until a fairly long time afterwards. However, some are being declared by the individual councils and alba.org.uk is publishing these as they happen.
Strangely, three rural northern constituencies that are all safe Lib Dem seats - West Aberdeenshire & Kincardine; Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross; and Ross, Skye & Inverness West (Charles Kennedy's old seat) - all voted SNP on the regional vote. Well, strictly, they voted "Alex Salmond for First Minister (SNP)", but that's pretty much the same. Thousands upon thousands of voters in just those three seats must have voted Lib Dem locally and SNP nationally.
I wonder what those voters think about the Lib Dems very mature ruling out of any kind of coalition deal?
Some of my SNP friends despise Iain MacWhirter, columnist and BBC Scotland political correspondent, for being a "Unionist". Personally I think he has been offering the most intelligent and accurate political analysis on everything other than the constitution for the past ten years.
Here's his comments on the new SNP minority government - which I'm reasonably sure he didn't vote for - for example.
Back in one of my first IR tutorials, Prof Wilkinson gave a brief background to the department. He mentioned that one of the advantages of being 'International Relations' rather than 'Politics' was that no one had to learn about Scottish local government. Surprisingly enough I wasn't actually offended then, but now I'm enthralled.
The big news story is the Scottish Executive, and Alex Salmond to be elected First Minister of a minority government on Wednesday. But there's a revolution happening in town halls across Scotland - in particular the central belt. Proportional representation annihilated majorities that parties had held in many places for thirty or forty years. Now coalitions are being formed at the local level, where the Lib Dems tend to be more willing to play ball with the SNP.
And let me just say, councils matter. Pretty much everything that the Scottish Parliament is responsible for, excepting health, is delivered through local councils. They run the schools (and the PFIs), co-ordinate the transport networks, charge the council tax and deliver the front-line services we all think of as 'the government'. Glasgow City Council alone has an annual budget of £2.1bn. Before the election, the SNP only had control of Falkirk, one of the smaller of the 32 councils.
So what's happening? Well, the only mainland authorities that returned majority parties were Glasgow and North Lanarkshire (both Labour). In Glasgow they were actually so surprised by the scale of the opposition (all 22 SNP candidates got elected) that the SNP group doesn't actually have offices, or phones, or desks yet. But outside, the local authority map is turning yellow.
SNP-led coalitions are being finalised in Renfrewshire, East Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire, West Lothian, East Lothian, Perth & Kinross and Dundee. Angus, East Dunbartonshire, West Dunbartonshire and Falkirk are likely to go SNP when deals are done. Possibly Clackmannan too. We're junior partners to Independents in Highlands and Argyll & Bute, will possibly carve up Fife in a partnership-of-roughly-equals with the Lib Dems, and will likely be junior partners in Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen, and maybe Dumfries and Borders councils too.
In short, there are going to be very few parts of mainland Scotland left without the SNP in power.
Dust is settling. I slept off the last few days in a way only I really can. Well, and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
wyrds as well.
I just want to tell the story of Friday morning. Not having slept all night Angus and I were watching the TV in my flat as regional results were starting to come in and pile proportional representation seats on to the SNP. Brian Taylor ambled on to the TV and said that the SNP had just won five in the South of Scotland region. The fifth SNP candidate was Aileen Campbell, who had also run first-past-the-post in Clydesdale, so I phoned her to congratulate her.
Cue bleary answering of the phone. I'd called from my landline so she had no idea who was calling. I said congratulations. She said "what for?" So I told her.
The screaming stopped after a little while.
The battle is over and with most of the votes counted it looks like we've made it just slightly ahead on votes, but distribution of seats remains to be seen. After seventy-four years of elections, to finally (maybe) win means a lot.
Here in Glasgow we put up 22 council candidates and it looks like we've got every single one elected. It's been fantastic. I now have a Green, a Lib Dem and a Nationalist representing me in addition to the Labour. Labour will hold overall control of Glasgow, but not by much. It is a cliche to say there are some places where parties take their rule for granted, but having seen the faces of the Labour councillors today I've begun to accept it.
Ok, we didn't take Glasgow Kelvin first past the post. Sadly, the support we have outside the immediate area of Glasgow hasn't been duplicated in the city itself. But here's a list for you:
Kilmarnock
Gordon
Stirling
Cunninghame North
Livingston
Falkirk West
Dundee West
Western Isles
Central Fife
Glasgow Govan
Update - Edinburgh East & Musselburgh on a 13% swing!
Update II - Argyll & Bute from the Lib Dems!!!
Now look at that and say that the SNP can't take Labour on in their heartlands and win.
It's time.
The hotornot.com of Scottish Parliamentary candidates - SexyMSP.com.
One last post on these elections. Labour have made a tactical mistake in throwing all their effort against the idea of independence. They basically had three options for strategy. They could attack the SNP and rely on votes returning to them by default; they could run on a bold policy agenda for the next four years; they could run on their record with an attack on the SNP only being on the problem of risk. They went for the first in practice, despite the occasional attempts by Jack McConnell to get heard with his education plan on the second. The thing is though, their attacks just don't seem to be working because people have got the message that they can vote for the SNP and subsequently against independence if they so want. McConnell's £1.2bn for education and raising of the leaving age to 18 is barely get a look in and anyway begs the question of why they haven't done that in the eight years they've been in power. I'm just glad they didn't run on their record. They could have lied about that and people would have believed them.
Oh, and on the economics of independence, Labour keep talking about £11bn deficit for the independent Scotland and have convinced 60% of Scots that taxes would have to go up if we became independent in order to cover the "black hole". That is based on a report, produced annually by the Treasury, that works out how much tax is raised in different parts of the UK and where money is spent. The biggest flaw in it though is the non-allocation of oil revenue to Scotland. Labour, journalists and lots of critics point out that that is £9bn and would therefore leave a £2bn deficit. Therefore apparently the cost of independence is £2bn. The UK deficit last year was over £30bn. Based on share of population and Labour's own figures, Scotland is no more in deficit than the UK as a whole.
And as just one example of the flawed nature of that report (well, it's not like the government has any reason to bias it, is it???), Scotland apparently contributes just £2.5bn in corporation tax to the UK exchequer. Just one Scottish company - The Royal Bank of Scotland - alone pays more than that.
Last night was Scotland's (Big) Party at ABC on Sauchiehall Street. Quite a nice night and good to see a venue filled with (mostly young) SNP supporters for Sandi Thom's gig. We also had a couple of actors from TV shows I don't watch and a final thank you from Nicola Sturgeon at the end, billed as "the sexiest woman in Scottish politics". Poor Annabel Goldie. Fortunately her first words were "don't worry, I'm not going to sing".
Anyway, campaigning continues apace, and there are two leaders' debates in this last week. One tomorrow on the BBC and one on Tuesday on STV. The first debate at the start of the campaign a month ago was probably a score draw between Jack McConnell and Alex Salmond with Nicol Stephen flopping and Annabel Goldie impressing but for the fact that she's a Tory. I saw Jack McConnell on Newsnight a couple of nights ago though and he looked like a man who was broken and had given up. If he does that in these last two debates which will likely be watched by at least a hundred thousand voters each, plus press followup, Labour will get utterly hammered on Thursday. It's still all to play for, but this match is racing towards the 90 minutes and there isn't going to be any extra time.
So, the Tories aren't going to back anyone in a coalition, even in a lesser-of-two-evils way. This is officially interesting.
Update - The Lib Dems might end up abstaining rather than backing a Lib-Lab extension now too. I think SNP-Green is now officially my predicted outcome of this election.
The Scotland Act requires that the Parliament elects a First Minister (and therefore Executive) within 28 days of the election. The Parliament has 129 members so to be safe you obviously need the backing of parties totalling 65 MSPs. However, and this is a very critical point, to be elected you only need to have a majority of those voting. If the Tories are going to abstain in a choice between Jack McConnell and Alex Salmond, that reduces the 129 voters to about 111 or so. 56 becomes the new magic number. If the Greens hold on to their 7 and we in the SNP do as well as we're polling, that figure would be reached. Ok, so there wouldn't be a chance of an independence referendum, and that is something that saddens me deeply, but the chances are we'd be able to get more powers at least, and we'd be able to string out the line that the Lib Dems blocked the choice of the Scottish people. Let Nicol Stephen stick to his principles against an independence referendum from the opposition benches rather than his comfortable spot as Deputy First Minister.
SNP-Green minority government anyone???
So, elections. This will come as a surprise to probably no one - I am voting SNP. ( Reasons... )...and last, but by absolutely no means least an independence referendum.
While it galls me a bit to say this, remember you can vote SNP without and then vote against independence in the referendum if you want. The SNP is the only one of the four main parties that allow a referendum to let the people decide. Not one other party is willing to countenance the idea. Not mentioning any names, but it's hardly "liberal" or "democratic", is it???
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