The Flag in the Wind
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CAMPAIGNING FOR SCOTLAND
(Owned, Edited and Printed in Scotland since November 1926)
Compiled by Jim Lynch
[16 February 2001]

NATIONAL OR NOTIONAL HEALTH SERVICE?

This week we are told that twenty per cent of old people are undernourished in hospitals and homes, and in fact are being starved; not as a deliberate strategey to reduce costs, but purely because of neglect due to staff shortages. Into this equation comes Lothian University Hospitals Trust which cannot meet its budget and is going to have to cut 200 jobs. The Trust runs Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, the Western General and the Royal Sick Children’s Hospitals, and it seems they have a shortfall of £4.3 million, and the only way to reduce it is to get rid of staff.

Nicola Sturgeon, Shadow Health Minister, has written to Ms Susan Deacon, Health Minister about another clever ploy some Health Boards are using; it appears to be common practice for Health Boards across Scotland to offer patients treatment in private hospitals, not necessarily in their own area. If the patient turns down this opportunity, then he or she is removed from the waiting list! As a patient in Aberdeen could be offered a place in HCI in Clydebank, this seems a strange choice, but it gets rid of a statistic!

Now the patient is not expected to pay the costs of the treatment in the private hospital, because this will be borne by the relevant hospital trust, and which will be much more expensive than the NHS; however, this will increase the costs of the trust concerned, who could then have a budget shortfall and have to cut staff, leading to more patients having to be sent to private hospitals...........

We await the Notional answer Nicola gets.

LE ROY EST MORT......IFIED!

Well, he isn’t! Despite all the fuss, and the diplomatic incidents, Frank Roy, Labour MP for Motherwell is not contrite, or apologetic in any way. He resigned as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mrs Helen Liddell, but his letter was not phrased in a conciliatory fashion to the Irish Government, but as an aggrieved complaint because he had lost his job; perhaps also a fear that he won’t get another one!

Mr Roy, of course, compounded his misjudgement by stating publicly that the Irish Consul, Mr Dan Mulhall, had leaked a copy of his letter to the Press, a statement vehemently refuted by Mr Mulhall and the Irish Government, but still no apology from Mr Roy. This fiasco comes hard on the heels of Mr Roy being reprimanded by the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee for winning £3400 by betting on the election of the Speaker of the aforesaid House of Commons. I do not find that a grievous sin, certainly an error of judgement, and certainly not in the realms of Dr John Reid’s actions in using public money to pay Labour Party workers during the Scottish Elections; on that matter, was it not Dr Reid and Mr John Maxton who were going to sue the Parliamentary watchdog, Ms Elizabeth Filkin, who found them guilty? We can look forward with eager anticipation to that event - or perhaps not.

The other members of the Lanarkshire Mafia, Dr Reid, Mrs Helen Liddell and Mr Jack McConnell, must have had some say in the shambles; after all, Mr Roy named both John Reid and Helen Liddell in his letter to the Irish Government, and he shares an office with Jack McConnell. One would think that one of his associates, most likely his boss, Helen Liddell, would have advised him on a wiser course of action, or perhaps Mr McConnell, Scottish Minister for External Affairs, might have advised him that public order was the remit of the Scottish Government and Westminster had no authority in that area.

Aye, there’s the rub. Mr Roy has been ignored, Mr Roy was not invited, Mr Roy was PPS to the Secretary of State for Scotland and was overlooked for a function in his constituency, and the SNP leader, John Swinney, was not only invited, but was going. Hell hath no fury like a politician ignored; Mr Roy was hard put to fill in his time and justify his salary as a Westminster MP; he has even more time to make mischief now.

THE NAE LUCK MINISTER

Consider, if you will, the case of Ms Sarah Boyack, Minister for Transport in the Scottish Parliament. Last year she had to cancel a trial on road pricing on the M8 after a storm of protest, then she was castigated for allowing a Caledonian McBrayne pay dispute to escalate and severely affect the seasonal traffic to the Isles; to cap a wonderful year, during the petrol blockades in September, the Scottish Government appointed Ms Susan Deacon to go on Newsnight and put the Government’s case. Oh , I almost forgot, she also sent the Lingerbay Quarry report, after four years, back to check if there were any sites of scientific or special interest. (Sam Galbraith inherited this, and dumped the quarry).

So has 2001 started any better for Ms Boyack? Well, no, as she is now in hot water for awarding maintenance contracts for Scotland’s trunk roads to private consortia as against the local government organisations who do the job at present. It has now been established that the tendering process was severely flawed, and while Ms Boyack claims to have saved £75 million, or £200 million, depending on whose figures you read, the local authorities say she has wasted £90 million and jeopardised 3500 jobs; as my good friend Peter Wright, pointed out last week, Labour Councillors had to be removed from the Public Gallery at the Scottish Parliament , shouting that they were ashamed to be members of the Labour Party. (They’ll get over it).

There certainly seems to be a lot of doubt about the tendering process, the schedules of materials given and quoted on has been commented on, as has quality standards,

and the illogicality of all minor roads being done by the local authorities while the major routes criss crossing their areas are done by someone else; the opportunities for doubling up seem limitless, unless of course, the privateers sub contract to the local authorities. for a price, and the taxpayer gets to pay twice!

To compound Ms Boyack’s woes, the City Car Club she was a member of in Sciennes and Marchmont in Edinburgh, is being wound up due to a lack of demand; the idea was that individuals gave up their cars, and hired cars from local parking bays for up to 8 hours, thus alleviating traffic congestion. The company operating the scheme, Budget, is giving up as three quarters of the bays were not being used enough.

With Ms Boyack’s luck, perhaps having her as a member was not an unalloyed blessing.

SPIN MEISTERS PAID TO SPIN

Have you noticed how the Labour Party come over all high and mighty when they are questioned about their scandals? The Carfin saga is a case in point; because the SNP keep asking for statements from Dr John Reid, Mrs Helen Liddell and Mr Jack McConnell, Labour accuses them of dragiing the name of Scotland through the mud, using the issue as a political football (Was it no’ football that started this mess?) and in general behaving as if Labour were pure altruists not involved in politics at all! The same was true of the roads mess; while Labour muttered and grumbled, come the vote in Parliament they will all meekly fall in line. And what is the purpose of a spin meister? They are paid vast sums of public money to put the best gloss on the political decisions of the government.

And to put all this into perspective, Mrs Helen Liddell met Ministers and MSPs for an hour this week, and it was a very congenial affair, all sweetness and light, and nobody said Boo for Bertie Ahern. "And conscience doth make cowards of us all".

THE POWER DISEASE

A recent opinion poll in the wake of the Hinduja scandal has shown that almost half the electorate believe that New Labour is now perceived to be even more sleazy than the Tories. This , of course , is a consequence of Bernie Ecclestone and his £1 million donation, and Peter Mandelson and his £373000 loan from another Minister, and Peter Mandelson again with his forgotten phone call about a passport, and Keith Vaz about his intervention with the same family. In fact it seems to because New Labour is making a point of scratching the backs of the rich and famous, without looking too closely as to where the money might have come from. Tony Blair has now ordered his ministers to wage a charm war on small businesses since New Labour is perceived to being too cosy with big business; just a pity that the press report carried a picture of Keith Vaz, the big businessman’s friend.

I do not know that I could accept New Labouw as sleazier than the Tories; for many months I carried around in my wallet a quotation from doyen Nationalist and historian, James Halliday. He said "As long as humankind is subject to greed and avarice, there will always be a following for the Tory Party".

OUR RICH AND FAMOUS

Sir Sean Connery has announced that he is beating New Labour’s ban on him making donations to the Scottish National Party, by giving his normal monthly contribution - amounting to £50000 per annum in one lump sum, prior to the new laws taking effect on 16 February. Sir Sean pays taxes on all the film work he does in this country, is a Freeman of the City of Edinburgh, and was courted assiduously by the Labour Party at the time of the Referendum for a Scottish Parliament. His knighthood was the blocked by the late Donald Dewar, and while it is all right for a London bookie to give £5 million to the Tories, and for the Hinduja brothers to help finance the Dome from perhaps questionable sources, Sir Sean, a longstanding member of the SNP is barred because he does not live here ....yet.

Sir Sean Connery has been voted the greatest British film actor of all time; he is very rich and famous, and we know where the money came from.

FOOT IN THE MOUTH NOTES

The Duke of Westminster, Britain’s richest peer was due to join a consortium to take over the Dome; he then decided to keep his money (What’s new) and the Dome bidders found a new partner, Teesland, who helped turn the former Rosyth dockyard into a business park.

What is it about this vainglorious project that has financiers queueing up then running away?

It is now mid February and we await with interest the outcome of the Falkirk structure plan, due any day now..

This was promised by the Government in secret meetings at the Falkirk by election as a bribe for the withdrawal of the Falkirk FC candidate. Falkirk being a relatively small town, everybody knew about the meetings. 

The Duke of Buccleuch has sold a piece of ground on the waterfront at Granton in Edinburgh for £1.5 million; the Duke is Britain’s largest private landowner , and while the sale is going to a a private developer it will go through the city council hands first to save the Duke tax.

To them that hath, it shall be given.

According to one press report, Tesco were giving their staff a total bonus of £123 million, while ASDA were supplying their staff with thermal underwear.

The Tesco bonus was in fact staff cashing in on Save As You Earn share schemes to which the staff had paid in every month for 5 years; lest we are thought to be supportive of ASDA, we think they have reduced the heating in their stores.

Brian Souter, boss of Stagecoach, and supporter of the Scottish National Party, is now challenging BA for the Highlands and Islands routes, and says he can provide a cheaper service. Mr Souter is also in partnership with Richard Branson to run the East Coast line; this will involve substantially rebuilding the tracks.

The head of Railtrack was due to speak in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago; he did not turn up, as his plane was grounded due to fog. Thought he would have taken the train.

Regarding the accusations of sleaze, nothing is new under the sun; while prostitution is the oldest profession, politics is a close second, but prostitutes only sell their bodies.

On that happy note, we remind readers that the report of the Maxwell Inquiry is due to be published before the General Election. While we will not hold our collective breath up to the eve of poll, certain politicians, including Scottish ones, may be more apprehensive.

DATES IN HISTORY

16 February 1746
Government forces under Lord Louden attempted to capture Prince Charles Edward stewart at Moy Hall but were surprised and routed by a handful of Jacobites. The only death in the Rout of Moy was Duncan Bam MacCrimmon, Hereditory Piper to the MacLeods of Dunvegan, who took the Hanoverian side in the 45.

17 February 1997
Death of Dr David Murison, editor of The Scottish National Dictionary from 1946 to 1976. He was a former
editor of the Scots Independent.

20 February 1472
Orkney and Shetland annexed to the crown of Scotland as security for the dowry of Princess Margaret, daughter of Christian 1, King of Norway and Denmark, and wife of James 111 of Scotland.

THE REBELS CEILIDH SONG BOOK

LIBERTY

By the cross that Andrew bore,
By the sword that William wore,
By the crown our Robert swore,
We'll win our liberty.
Ca' the falcon frae the glen,
Ca' the eagle frae the ben,
ea' the lion frae his den,
Tae win our liberty.

By the man whose faith was old,
By the man they sold for gold,
By the man they'll never hold,
We'll win our liberty.
Ca' the thieves of Liddesdale,
Ca' the spears of Annandale,
Ca' the brave of Yarrow vale,
Tae win our liberty.

By the man who bends the bow,
By the man who plies the blow,
By the man who lays them low,
We'll win our liberty.
Ca' the banners frae the west,
Ca' the raven frae his nest,
Ca' the clans that dance the best
Tae win our liberty.

By the field that once was green,
By the shield of silver sheen,
By the swords in battle keen,
We'll win our liberty.
Bless the man whose faith we hold,
Bless the man in chains they sold,
Bless the man in cloth of gold,
We'll win our liberty.

See the Songbook in our features section

A KIST O FERLIES
A Keek at the Guid Scots Tung
By Peter D Wright
(Note: All words underlined in this section are RealAudio links)

See Scots Language in our Features Section

THE MONTHLY PRIZE CROSSWORD

Each month the Scots Independent Newspaper offers a prize crossword and we're now offering this online in the Flag in the Wind as well.   Should you complete the crossword by the deadline you can fax it over to the SI and the first correct one opened on the closing date will win a £10.00 book token.

SI Prize Crossword No. 14
[Clicking on the picture will bring up a life size version which you can copy to your desktop or print out]