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CAMPAIGNING FOR SCOTLAND
(Owned, Edited and Printed in Scotland since November 1926)
Compiled by Jim Lynch
[Issue 40 - 9 March 2001]

HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN

Well, they are for those of us in the SNP, as the System Three Opinion Poll has once again shown an increase in support for the Party; the latest figures are:

The BBC, christened correctly by the late Oliver Brown as the Anglosaxophone, did not mention the poll on "Good Morning Scotland", apparently made a passing reference to it on the One O'clock News, and ignored it on News Drive. When a colleague phoned the BBC in Glasgow to enquire as to when the poll would be broadcast she was told it had been done, if she hadn’t heard it, too bad, it would not be covered again, and then had the phone hung up on her. It looks as if good news for Scotland is bad news for the BBC, or is it just jealousy because the Herald is owned by SMG, who also own STV and Grampian?

Be that as it may (to coin a phrase) what the poll does show is that support for the SNP is consistently rising, and when the voting figures are translated into seats, the SNP becomes the largest party with 52 seats to Labour’s 48 making them even more of a minority party; in the same poll, 29% thought that Labour had kept their promises on health and education, while 61% thought they had not, and 29% thought they had kept their promise on taxation while 58% did not. The don’t knows were 10% on the first question and 13% on the second, this has probably more to do with memory loss, as people were unable to recall which particular Tory Party had made the promises.

At this stage, and looking at the above figures we are sure that Mrs Helen Liddell is right when she regards the Tory Party as the real enemy of Labour and that her effort is to be concentrated on them. Any thoughts that she is just trying to stitch up George Foulkes by leaving him to fight the SNP are unworthy.

GONE WESTMINSTER

There is also better news for the SNP in the voting intentions for Westminster, where the Election day will be announced as soon as the Government can sideline Foot and Mouth disease. These figures are as follows:

What the two polls show is that the Scottish electorate is sophisticated in that it does different things for Holyrood and Westminster. My simplistic opinion has always been that the Scottish voters do not expect the Tories ever to get into power in Scotland, so they feel free to vote as they want; however in Westminster terms, as Scotland has voted solidly anti-Tory for twenty years, and we had a Tory government for eighteen of these years, you can’t trust the English!

It was amusing the way that the press reported John Swinney’s speech at the Glasgow National Council last weekend; they reported, with bated breath that "Swinney had conceded the Election!". What John had done, perfectly correctly, was point out that as the SNP could not win a Westminster Election, being as how there are 635 seats, and only 72 are in Scotland, and that as the Tories are a basket case, then Labour would romp home in England. In consequence, voting Labour in Scotland to keep the Tories out was nonsensical, and Mrs Helen Liddell’s attempts to talk this up were scrupulously dishonest. As a matter of record, people voting Labour in SNP seats like Perth and Kinross and North Tayside were doing their best to let the Tories win these seats back, so that stands Mrs Liddell’s lies on their collective head, in a mixed metaphorical way. 

THE ENGLISH BUDGET

Well, that was the Budget that was. It will no doubt take a few days and the reading and re reading of the figures for all the implications to sink in, but the immediate reaction heard in the street is that the Betting levy has been abolished! As far as perception goes, perhaps I move in the wrong circle, but then as the Budget was aimed at the punter, Gordon Brown has achieved his objective.

I was trying to work out the great benefit of lifting the portion of income taxed at 10%; my calculations are as follows;

New band of income taxed at 10% 1880 10% thereof 188.00

Old band of income taxed at 10% 1520 10% thereof 152.00

Net gain for year 36.00

That means every taxpayer will be better off by 69.23 pence per week; such generosity almost exceeds the 75 pence pensioners received last year, but not quite. The official announcement of course, merely repeats what the Chancellor told us in November, thus giving him another opportunity to recycle a policy; it is reminiscent of the Blue Peter TV Show, and the catchphrase "Here’s one we made earlier". Pensioners already knew the good news about this year’s £5, having been given it in time for the Anniesland by election, and every pensioner has also been officially notified by the DSS of their new pension entitlement, so that bit has to be pure, or impure, electioneering.

As we pointed out in the Opinion Poll item, the people have noticed that Labour have not delivered on health education and taxation, and that their 28 tax rises since they came to power have added the equivalent of 9p on the basic rate of income tax; we must hand it to the Chancellor (he’ll take it anyway) that he is an expert at the smoke and mirrors concept. 6p on cigarettes, no increase on booze. 2p per litre off petrol, we’ve heard that one , too, the above named betting tax, as a lot of betting is now going offshore; what a guy for making a virtue of necessity. I particularly like his cheek in announcing again abolishing road fund licences for tractors; no farmer ever gets a road fund licence for a tractor!

And another little sting in the tail for Scotland; Mr Brown has announced increased money for English health and education, which means that spending will rise faster in England than in Scotland. Under the Barnett formula, this means less money for Scotland. One thing we have to keep firmly in mind; the Scottish Parliament gets a block grant from Westminster, after Mrs Helen Liddell takes her cut, and only decides how to allocate the cash, not how much there is. Come to think of it, what does Mrs Liddell do with the millions she removes from the block grant?

STRONG NEW POLICIES

The Scottish National Party held their Spring National Council at Hampden Park in Glasgow last weekend; as it was to be used as a General Election launch, the Council lasted two days, and was open to press and TV. It was a well attended event, and was marked by a wide range of policy statements and speeches from John Swinney, Roseanna Cunningham, Alex Salmond and Winnie Ewing, all laying the groundwork for the General Election due on 3 May, foot and mouth permitting. Well, the General Election is not due on 3 May, or is not necessary, as the unwritten constitution of the United Kingdom states, in so far as unwritten constitutions can state anything, that Parliaments have a five year term, and it is not yet four years since Labour came to power. What we do know is that the first priority of every government is to get itself re elected, and that is exactly what Mr Blair is doing.

One respected political commentator expressed the view that the Government would go in May, as they could not manufacture another giveaway Budget, and waiting until October would dissipate the effect of this one. ( I thought they were quite good at dissipation.) 

The Council was held before the results of the System Three Opinion Poll were published, but John Swinney pointed out in his speech that in the 25 local authority by elections held since May 1999, the SNP had taken 28.5% of all votes, compared with 22.4% for Labour , 18.2% for the Tories and 14.4% for LibDems; this was a consistent trend, and the SNP had taken seats from Labour in Fife, Falkirk and South Lanarkshire (Mrs Liddell added the F... in the last one! ) 

John highlighted how Labour made much of rubbishing other parties’ policies, and then adopting them, and in particular over the last few weeks they had given a commitment to establish drugs courts, abolish Scottish Homes, reform the enterprise network, reform the Schools inspectorate and appoint a children’s commissioner. All these items were SNP policies, pooh poohed by Labour, and now adopted by them; John reminded us that Labour also rubbished Independence, so who knows what they will do next, and that Labour are not motivated by principle but by political expediency (All right, I put the last bit in).

In his speech, John also commented on how lost Tony Blair was without Peter Mandelson; Mr Blair had been in Glasgow the previous week, and did not make one mention of Scotland, and we had had the London Health Secretary, the London Education Secretary and the London Home Office Secretary all launching initiatives that had no relevance to Scotland; John reckoned Tony needed Peter Mandelson to be there to say "Tony, you’re in Glasgow; that’s in Scotland!"

The main point, also emphasised by Roseanna Cunningham, was that the SNP Stands for Scotland, and that every SNP MP would go to Westminster to put the case for Scotland, in every possible way, and that they were dedicated to that.

MADAME ECOSSE DIT

I did not hear the speech by Dr Winnie Ewing, MSP, President of the Party, but I was surprised at press reports that she "Shocked delegates" by referring to Saint Donald Dewar; surprised, as politics is a rough old game, and I would have thought SNP members would know that. Winnie’s comment was not directed at the late Donald Dewar as such but at the Labour Party in general, who have given Donald Dewar the Princess Diana treatment. (Remember her?) When Donald Dewar was alive , Lorraine Davidson, his former spin doctor and now the political editor of the Scottish Mirror, said "Leadership, dynamism and vision are three qualities Donald Dewar is lacking. The man for so long seen as Labour’s biggest electoral asset is now being viewed by many of his own colleagues as a liability." That was his friends.

At the Anniesland By Election, Labour cynically and shamelessly exploited the memory of Donald Dewar in their campaign; they kept their candidates away from press and TV, and punted Donald as hard as they could. On the day of the Election, their poodle, the Daily Record had the headline "Do it for Donald"

Winnie did not say anything offensive, as she was referring to the poor housing conditions in Anniesland, which had faithfully voted Labour and still had Drumchapel, but she told the truth, which Labour hacks find offensive.

WHEN THE BOAT COMES IN

The arrival this week of 150 fishing boats in the Firth of Forth was a notable event, and a historic one; we have had the Tall Ships, and now we have had the Small Ships. However, the Tall Ships were all about the romance of sailing, and harking back to days of sail, and the Small Ships are about the survival of fishing. Fishing is a hard, unromantic, dangerous, and unrelenting business, and the Scottish Fishing Industry has suffered at the hands of Westminster, who regard it as of little account. From the very outset, as Britain tried to get into what was then the Common Market, fishing was a worthless pawn, to be sacrificed in the game, and the London attitude has not changed.

It is 25 years since Iceland decided that its fishing grounds were to be kept for its own use, and fought the Cod War with Britain, and today Iceland has a thriving fishing industry; we have seen the stocks of fish in the North Sea pillaged, our quotas slashed, and industrial fishing allowed. Since the advent of the Scottish Parliament things are not any better; we did have a Fisheries Minister, John Home Robertson, who blithely accepted the transfer of 6000 square miles of traditional Scottish fishing waters to England, and did not feel it worthy of comment; he was given the Kirkcaldy heist, and then Henry McLeish did not feel it necessary to appoint another Fisheries Minister. He tacked it as an add on to the portfolio of Rhona Brankin, whose proper title I cannot remember; her first attempt was to acquiesce in the transfer of 6000 tonnes of our haddock quota to Denmark, not for food , but for industrial fishing! The next time you eat bacon, and you think it tastes slightly fishy, you can be assured it’s from a Danish pig, fed on Scotland’s haddock quota!

The fishing boats had arrived in the Forth because now that areas of the North Sea were barred to them to conserve cod stocks , the areas where they could fish were also the breeding grounds for haddock, and they catch tonnes and tonnes of immature haddock, which have to be thrown back; the fish are dead, and therefore do not grow into mature haddock, thus creating even more problems. The fishermen have invested money in their boats, it is their livelihood, and their survival is vital; they are food producers. What they were asking was for compensation to tie up their boats, so that the cod stocks can recover, and when the stocks recover there would still be a fishing industry. The industry needed the short term tie up scheme now, so that the fishermen could survive until the cod stocks recovered, a time scale of less than three months. The point was well made that when the herring fishing industry was told it could fish for herring again it was too late; the industry was no longer there, and the white fishing fleet could suffer the same fate.

The Scottish Executive, who at this stage were unwilling to act as a government, rejected the fishermen’s Mayday; on a subsequent vote, the Scottish Parliament overturned the Executive’s decision on the casting vote of the Presiding Officer, Sir David Steel. It is now the will of Parliament that there must be a tie up scheme, and we await the Executive’s response. The amendment , moved by Richard Lochhead, SNP MSP, and Shadow Fisheries Minister called on the Scottish Government to "provide financial support to our fishermen during the 12 week closure period in the form of an immediate compensated tie up scheme and other suitable measures".

This was the first Parliamentary defeat for the Government.

ALL MONEY BUT NO ACTION

What on earth is going on at the Ministry of Social Justice? Well, we didn’t really know we had one, but now we know that this has to do with housing; Fiona Hyslop, Shadow Minister for Social Justice, asked Jackie Baillie, Minister for Social Justice, what percentage of the 2000/01 New Housing Partnership had been spent? Answer there was, as follows: The New Housing Partnerships Budget for 2000/01 amounts to £114.5 million, and £23.5 million has been carried forward from last year; it is anticipated that £70 million will be spent in this financial year, and arrangements to carry forward resources into next year will be announced in due course. The reason given is that councils are consulting with tenants, so they cannot spend the money!

Fiona Hyslop pointed out that there were record levels of homelessness, and thousands of householders living in cold and damp housing; the incompetence of first Wendy Alexander and now Jackie Baillie has blocked the renovation of 3500 houses, or the installation of central in 28000 homes. So , they haven’t spent the money available, housing is still in crisis and there’s money in the bank, and will they make sure that the cash is carried forward and spent on housing? We ask the last part as governments are notorious for building up underspends and then frittering them away on more politically advantageous projects; just think, the issue arose because Fiona asked about the rough sleepers initiative and was told that only 48% of the budget had been spent. Significance? Rough sleepers are not kindly regarded by the public as a whole, as they are perceived as having only themselves to blame; oh and they haven’t got votes as they don’t have homes!

NEW SPOKESPEOPLE

Sounds like a name for a pop group, but in fact it is a list of Westminster candidates who have been appointed by John Swinney, SNP leader, in the run up to the General Election. The gibe has been made by the Labour Party that our Westminster candidates are unknowns, and this was responded to by Roseanna Cunningham at National Council who noted that Labour have a large number of unknown MPs, and that in general, few people could name their constituency MP, if they were Labour, but everyone in an SNP constituency would know their MP. When you think of it, who had heard of Frank Roy, until he insulted the Irish Consul General, the Irish Prime Minister (I know the correct word but I can’t spell it) his constituents and the people of Scotland in general; apart from the members of the Cabinet, who form a disproportionately large number, I doubt if the average member of the public could name five. The visceral hatred which the London Labour MPs have for their Holyrood counterparts is also well known, as the latter are getting all the publicity.

The appointments are as follows:

FOOT IN THE MOUTH NOTES

George Foulkes, Helen Liddell’s deputy, has been attacking the SNP’s voting record in the House of Commons; he said that the SNP had only participated in 16% of votes, and that the SNP leader, John Swinney had only achieved 13%. Labour’s 56 MPs had managed to cast 58% of their votes.

The SNP does not vote on English issues, which now comprise the bulk of the divisions. Oh, and Henry McLeish only managed 4%; maybe George should have checked with him before he opened his mouth, but George is playing with the big boys, or girls.

SNP leader, John Swinney, says he is becoming used to First Minister’s Question Time.

He looks forward to the day when it will become Answer Time.

An enquiry has been launched in Glasgow about allegations that a head teacher has falsified the school roll by recording ghost pupils to secure extra funding.

How appalling, that a teacher should manipulate figures to improve her school; how appalling that it should be necessary after four years of Education, Education, Education.

Brian Wilson, MP, is now the Foreign Office Minister responsible for promoting devolution, used to be one of the geatest opponents of it. His job at the Foreign Office is to help the devolved assemblies to communicate with the wider world, and he now says devolution is wonderful.

Cash, cash changes everything.

The Labour Party has an ethical policy on arms sales, supports human rights, and has banned the use of anti personnel land mines by British troops.

The Labour Party Pension Fund has 34721 shares in BAE Systems, which sells arms, land mines, etc, etc, etc.

The BBC has appointed John Boothman as acting editor for Newsnight Scotland for the duration of the election; the BBC has a long tradition of political neutrality.

Mr Boothman is the partner of Susan Deacon, Health Minister.

I liked the quote from Michael Foot in an interview in the Observer, which contrasts sharply with New Labour. He was speaking at the 1983 General Election" We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with iniative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose here on earth, and if you ask me about these insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their iniative, I would answer, To hell with them. The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do".

DATES IN HISTORY

9 March 1876
Scots-born Alexander Graham Bell patented the first telephone literally hours before a similar patent was lodged by American Elisha Gray. The first actual coherent message was transmitted the next day from one room to the next at 5 Exeter Place, Boston, Massachussetts, USA when Bell spoke to his assistant, Thomas Watson, saying "Come here, Watson, I want you."

10 March 560
St Kessog, Irish missionary in the Lennox and south of Perthshire was killed. His name was once used as a battle-cry in Scotland.

14 March 1952
The first TV programme to be broadcast in Scotland showed the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society performing the Duke of Edinburgh Reel. They were celebrating the opening of Kirk o Shotts station in Lanarkshire.

THE REBELS CEILIDH SONG BOOK

THE FLOWER OF SCOTLAND

Oh Flower of Scotland
When will we see your like again
That fought and died for your own wee hill and glen
And stood against them - proud Edward's armies
And sent them homeward to think again.

The hills are bare now
And autumn leaves lie think and still,
And land has been lost now that those so dearly held
That stood against them - proud Edward's armies
And sent them home to think again.

Those days are past now
And in the past they must remain.
But we can still rise now and be the nation again
That stood against them - proud Edward's armies
And sent them homeward to think again.

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
for other poems, stories, sayings and words in the Scots language

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. 15
[Clicking on the picture will bring up a life size version which you can copy to your desktop or print out]