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CAMPAIGNING FOR SCOTLAND
(Owned, Edited and Printed in Scotland since November 1926)
Promoting all that is best in Scottish Nationalism and all that is best in Scotland.

Compiled by Jim Lynch
[Issue 59 - 20th July 2001]

GREMLINS!

Any early readers of last week’s Flag in the Wind, must have been totally confused when they got to "The Sinking Flagship"; somehow I managed to screw up the text and parts of the final paragraph appeared in the second one. It had to do with some changes I had made to the text and things like this keep happening; it has something to do with my software which changes font size in the middle of sentences without any attempt by myself.

One of these days I will master this programme - I even went on a course for it before I retired - but in the meantime, please accept my apologies. I think that in a previous existence my software was a supermarket trolley and has never got over it.

BARNETT SQUEEZE IS REAL

On Thursday 19th July 2001, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Andrew Smith, admitted that the Barnett Formula was a convergence formula, and that it was about getting Scottish and Welsh spending down, rather than responding to any special needs. Pete Wishart, MP for Tayside North said "The Chief Secretary gave the answer that the English backbench MPs wanted to hear, but forgot that the Scots and the Welsh were listening. The cat is now out of the bag, and by the look on Gordon Brown’s face when he made his admission, the Chancellor was none too happy with the unexpected candour of his deputy."

Labour have consistently denied that Scottish spending will be cut by £2 billion over the next three years, but the comment by Mr Smith shows that the SNP have been right all along. Pete asked for time to debate the issue, but the Leader of the House refused to allow this.

WENDY THE MOTORMOUTH

On General Election night, as I watched TV from my hospital bed, I was absolutely astonished at the accusation by Wendy Alexander, the New Labour Minister for Enterprise and Life Long Learning, if she ever gets round to it, that the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the First Minister, Henry McLeish had voted against the minimum wage in the House of Commons.

I have subsequently checked my recollection on the Minimum Wage, and the SNP members supported it at the substantive vote on the Second Reading, indeed Alastair Morgan was a member of the Trade and Industry Committee which helped to steer the legislation through.

So how did Ms Alexander come to make this astonishing accusation? Well, she did say in an exchange with Nicola Sturgeon that John Swinney had voted against the minimum wage; her reasoning, and public comment was that he had voted against it because he was not present at the vote on the Third Reading. We accept her accusation, because neither Mr Blair nor Mr McLeish were there for the vote, so by her smart logic they must have voted against also. We think that Gordon Brown and Robin Cook were missing as well.

Other than that, did Ms Alexander tell a lie, or is she just guilty of opening her mouth before her brain got into gear?

SELECTED COMMITTEES

This week saw Tony Blair suffer his first defeat in the House of Commons since he became Prime Minister in 1997; as with most gaffes, Mr Blair brought it on himself. The membership of the Select Committees was decided by the Whip’s Office, from nominations received, but it is unclear whether all the members applied, were nominated, or just put on by the Chief Whip. Certainly what caused all the fuss was that two Committee Chairpersons (to be politically correct) were knocked off the Committees because they were awkward. They were Gwyneth Dunwoody of the Transport Committee, and Donald Anderson of the Foreign Affairs Committee; Mrs Dunwoody had been very critical of the Government’s plans for the London Underground, and Mr Anderson had given Robin Cook a hard time over the Government’s "ethical" foreign policy, which did not really exist.

In any event, there was a stushie in the House of Commons, and it was agreed that the voting on committee membership would be free, ie not subjected to a whip, and every MP could vote as he or she pleased; the result was a resounding defeat for the Government position. The score was: for the Government 232, against the Government 301; as there is a Government majority in the House of Commons of 167 this was quite a turn up for the books. Some of the MPs had described it as the "Peasants’ Revolt", but quite frankly one finds it difficult to think of the Right Honourable Michael Ancram, and sundry other Right Honourables of whatever party, as Peasants.

Whatever, the situation is back to square one, and more "nominations" will require to be made; one can rest assured that Mrs Dunwoody and Mr Anderson will resume their posts as Committee Chairpersons. Now while the Select Committees are supposed to have a role to play in scrutinising legislation, particularly in the case of an Executive with a large majority, they have no teeth; they can make comments, reports and recommendations till the cows come home, and the Government will just take note. In this, the Scottish Parliament is streets ahead, specifically to avoid the pitfalls in the Westminster system.

As part of the service, we have the record of voting for the Select Committees, and there are surprisingly few Scottish Labour MPs who went against the Government wishes; slavishly with the Government were of course, the payroll vote, who while nominally "free" know which side their bread is buttered on. This lot included Douglas Alexander and Des Browne, who are both junior Ministers, or something, and Eric Joyce, of Falkirk West, Bill Tynan of Hamilton South and John Robertson of Anniesland, all fairly new MPs who want to impress. There are probably a few other new ones but I do not recognise their names, and am prepared that after five years I will still not recognise their names; the three named were all elected at by elections. Not many rebels north of the border, only eight Labour that I can identify; the Chief Whip will know who they are.

The SNP were only offered one committee place, on the Catering Committee, but 52 MPs voted for Alex Salmond to go on the Treasury Committee, which the Government rejected; the Liberals have also used their position to deny us a place on the Select Committees. We cannot blame them for not wanting Alex on the Treasury Committee; he might know what he is talking about and this would show the others up

THE BROTHERS GRIMM

Although there was an enquiry conducted by Sir Anthony Hammond which found no evidence of wrongdoing by Mandelson, it now appears that there was a memo from Jonathan Powell, Mr Blair’s chief of staff, telling Mr Mandelson to approach the Hindujas and get the money from them for the Faith Zone of the Dome. They had promised to give £3 million to underwrite the Faith Zone, but of course this was not related in any way to their requests for a British passport; the fact that the passport applications were fast tracked was sheer coincidence. This was the crowd refused passports by the Tories, because of their highly questionnable activities.

The £3 million promised donation turned out to be only £1 million, and they also asked for free tickets to the Dome, some 20000 of them; this in itself changed the rules for donation, and the Dome (us) had to fork out VAT on these tickets. The final figure for the donation was only £365000. Verily indeed, as the Hindujas were much more accustomed to receiving bribes rather than giving them; they are feeling aggrieved at the moment as the Indian government will not let them buy stakes in Air India while they are facing prosecution for their involvement in a 1986 arms scandal.

THE HUSH PUPPY STRIKES BACK

To the consternation of their many critics, the Tory MPs in the House of Commons have done something sensible, but as usual we don’t think that they have done what they meant to do. For weeks now, Michael Portillo has been leading the field, and he has now been eliminated; it seems as if the Tories in Westminster - the 19 MSPs in Edinburgh did not have a vote - have finally got wise to the fact that opinion polls around the country showed that Kenneth Clarke was the most popular, so they plumped for him (no pun intended.) For a while it looked as if they were about to do what Labour did when it became a choice between Dennis Healey and I think, Tony Benn - they voted for Michael Foot, a good principled man, whom they ruined, and spent eighteen years in the wilderness. There is no equivalent of Michael Foot in the Tory Party, but you get the drift.

Clarke is a good old fashioned political bruiser, and whereas William Hague was always able to best Tony Blair at Prime Minister’s Question Time, he was never able to capitalise on this; Clarke has the gravitas, the experience and the killer instinct. His very refusal to try to become a slim, trendy, non smoking role model is an assertion in itself.

However, we must be cautious about anything which gives our opponents cause for rejoicing; up to now we have been happy to see the Tories a write off, as it removed the Scottish fear of a Tory Government in Westminster, although that did not do us a lot of good in the General Election! With Clarke in charge, and although the votes in the country will not be in until September, it looks at this stage as if the rank and file Tories will go for him, the Tory fortunes could change for the better, and give Labour back a bogeyman. Despite Labour’s big majority, we have to remember that in 1992 John Major got half a million votes more than Blair got in 1997, and Blair had a landslide; in 2001, Blair’s vote dropped by almost 3 million from 1997, and the Tory vote by a million and a quarter. Strange how they turn people off.

SYNOPSIS

Helen Liddell was under fire at the first Scottish Question Time since the General Election; she was unable to name one country with higher fuel duty than the UK, she was silent in the damage it was doing to rural business, and wouldn’t say how many manufacturing jobs had been lost in Scotland since New Labour came to power. SNP Westminster Parliamentary Leader, Alex Salmond put in succinctly "Helen Liddell must be taking lessons from her new best friend, Henry McLeish, since she failed to answer a single question. With performances like this no wonder New Labour hauled Mrs Liddell off the election programmes in Scotland."

Mike Weir MP for Angus has raised the question of Equitable Life pensions in the House of Commons; he wants the Government to take action before other pension companies start slashing their bonuses.

Nicola Sturgeon MSP is going to press ahead with a members bill to stop tobacco advertising in Scotland if the government fails to deliver a UK ban.

Irene McGugan MSP has hit out at FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s call for a British Olympic football team; she said that after Independence we will be competing in the Olympics as a nation on its own accord.

John Swinney MSP has underlined his committment to restoring the link between pensions and earnings; he said that the number of pensioners living in absolute poverty is up 2% since 1997 (Households below 50% median income). "The current generation of pensioners have been contributing to society all their working lives and should benefit from the country’s wealth" he concluded.

Shadow small business minister, Duncan Hamilton MSP has called for the extension across Scotland of a rates relief scheme to help businesses in the Borders and Dumfries & Galloway recover from the foot and mouth epidemic. The current scheme across Scotland is for rates relief on properties of less than £12000, whereas it is £50000 in the Borders and Dumfries & Galloway; Mr Hamilton says that not one firm in Argyll & Bute has been awarded a hardship relief grant.

John Swinney has launched a campaign to force the Government to scrap its plans to tighten the incapacity benefit system; he said that the plan to make disabled people sit three year tests would harass the most vulnerable people in Scotland. He said existing assessments already weed out fraudsters.

Nicola Sturgeon has urged a task force set up after the announcement of 1000 job losses on the Clyde to focus its energies on preventing any compulsory redundancies and retaining the skills of the work force; she said the loss of the jobs would be "asset stripping" and leave the companies concerned without skilled people to work on future orders.

Kenny MacAskill has called for more government action to halt job losses in manufacturing industry; the most recent figures show that the total number of people in employment has fallen by 10000 in the last three months, and that Scotland’s economic growth is only half that of the UK.

A joint approach by Angus Robertson, MP for Moray, and Adam Price, a Plaid Cymru MP, has called for the voting age to be reduced to 16; they point out that if people can get married at 16, then they could also be trusted to vote.

Fiona McLeod, shadow deputy environment minister, has tabled a series of parliamentary questions on the nuclear accident at Chapelcross power station near Annan, Dumfriesshire; earlier this week, BNFL was forced to admit that 24 nuclear fuel rods had fallen 80 feet into a disposal chute, and that 12 were still missing. Nuclear energy is a matter reserved to Westminster, but we have to live with it..

IT’S AN ILL WIND

I managed to escape from my wife the other day and bought a book out of James Thin’s; I have a houseful of books, most unread, but am always on the lookout for more! Anyway, this particular one is called "All the First Minister’s Men", by a journalist, David Black, and is about the fiasco surrounding the building of the Holyrood Parliament. I haven’t got very far with it, but it is fascinating, and certainly documents where the blame lies; anyone who believes that London should be allowed to manage Scotland’s affairs just needs to think about this scandal. Westminster decided where the Parliament would be built, without consulting MSPs, because they were not elected then; the Labour Party then twisted the Liberal Democrat arms to have them homologate it, and as costs soared, as was inevitable, London said the Scots had to pay for it. Good colonial management, and in addition their pet poodle the Daily Record gets to denigrate the Parliament.

And as the Parliament building goes on and on, another little tale emerges; a film is being made of the whole project, and this is going to cost us at least a cool half a million quid. The film, entitled "The Gathering Place" is being made by Labour Luvvie Kirsty Wark, through her company Wark, Clements & Co, and so far they have received £467000 in funds from the Lottery and the BBC licence fee; an extra £120000 of licence money is now being given. Ms Wark, who was also one of the judges for the design of the Parliament was a neighbour of the late Donald Dewar; she is listed as one of the most influential women in Scotland and she and her husband are both millionaires. The longer the building takes, the more money will be required for the film; strange that the Parliament, which already has its own broadcasting unit, and produced a very successful "Caledonian Trilogy" video, could not have done this for themselves, as it is to be a television documentary.

However, we are perhaps entitled to ask who made the decision to spend all this public money? Was it the Parliament, the Executive, the Westminster Cabinet, or the Labour Party, and how is this all going to be paid for at the end of the day? Or is it pertinent to ask how a film about the Parliament qualifies for Lottery money?

One other little quirk to emerge is that a commercial company has been commissioned to source new art works for hanging on the walls of the Parliament; no costs are being given for this service, but we can be assured it will not be cheap. Did the Finance Minister by any chance abolish the quango called the Scottish Arts Council, and if not what are they supposed to be doing?

AND SPEAKING OF AMERICA PART II

Our item last week "And Speaking of America " on the voting in Florida has rattled a cage or two, with one questionning the veracity of the report; another referred to the Yellow Press, but as so far we have not been taken over by Nomura, who seem to be buying everything in sight, we are not sure what this means. The basis of our article was a piece by Gregory Palast in the Observer, which can be accessed at www.GregPalast.com in which Mr Palast paid a visit to Clayton Roberts, director of the Florida Department of Elections. When he produced the documents about the elections, Mr Roberts ran away.

Elections in America, as we have been gathering from all the information thrown up by this particular one seem to have strange and inconsistent methods, state by state, and we heard about "chads" which we on this side of the Atlantic had never heard of before; we now also hear about queries on postal votes, again in Florida, and the rules differ from state to state. One thing we do find peculiar about the alleged irregularities, and that is why the Democrats did not take some kind of action and it was left to a British journalist to do the investigation; this could mean that the Democrats had similar little schemes going in other states, and people in glass houses do not throw stones.

Whatever the pros and cons of the argument, there is still dubiety being expressed about the legitimacy of Mr Bush’s election, but not it would seem in America; they have moved on.

FOOT IN THE MOUTH NOTES

If that had been a fox in this country he would have been hung!

David Mundell, a Tory MSP, went to Australia to a conference on devolution, which Tories opposed; the trip cost £8000.

According to officials, he travelled business class to avoid deep vein thrombosis; as this has only come into vogue in the last year or so, we wonder what was the previous excuse? No please don’t ask about the Tory’s story.

We referred a week or two back to the fracas in West Dunbartonshire where a motion of no confidence was passed on the Labour Group Leader when 4 of his colleagues voted against him after he had been heavily criticised by an employment tribunal; the reaction of the Labour Party was to report the 4 councillors to the Labour Party’s National Executive.

The Labour Party NEC in true democratic fashion, ignored the fact that the employment tribunal had awarded the victim of the unfair dismissal £45000; they suspended the 4 councillors for 6 months.

Cities which have taken over parking controls from the police are being accused of racking up profits by having their wardens issuing quotas of tickets.

The company which tows away illegally parked cars in Edinburgh, Bells of Richmond, has gone bankrupt; they got their instruction from Apcoa, an American company we think, which employs the Edinburgh wardens, known locally as the Blue Meanies.

The Duke of Buccleuch is selling a 1100 acre hill farm near Langholm to help him cope with the costs of foot and mouth.

The Chookiebookie, as he is known, is Britain’s largest private landowner, and you can travel from Edinburgh to Carlisle and never be off his land; it is not so long since he sold a piece of ground in Edinburgh to the city council for £1.5 million. The heart bleeds for him.

The GMB Union is cutting its contribution to the Labour Party by £1 million over the next four years in protest at the threat to its members of the further privatisation of public services.

The Labour Party will not be too worried at this action by the "brothers" as they used to be affectionately called. How may more Hinduja brothers are there now?

We commented last week on the £20 million shortfall in Tayside Health Trust.

Staff at the Trust have received a memo saying they have to stop buying stationery to help to balance the books; nice to see them being pennywise after being pound foolish.

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DATES IN HISTORY

SING A SANG AT LEAST
(compiled by Peter D Wright)

"That I for poor auld Scotland's sake
Some useful plan or book could make
Or sing a sang at least ........"

- Robert Burns

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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. 19 July 2001
[Click here to bring up the crosswords]