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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 63 - 17th August 2001]

THE SILLY SEASON

This is a dreadful time for newspapers; all these pages to be filled, and not a lot happening. I am sure that the bizarre tale about the alleged sexual offences by the Hamiltons (Neil & Christine -- ex Tory high fliers - not our own Scottish noble lot) must have been concocted by the circulation department of one of our newspapers! We are supposed to be worried by the poor health of train robber Ronnie Biggs, and to express surprise that the Queen is concerned for the health of her mother; no one has yet decided to try a headline saying the Queen was not concerned about her mother’s health.

With regard to the Queen Mother, the press must be dying to report her doing just that; nothing happening - why not a Royal Funeral - while all the time milking the story for all they can get out of it; no I am not cynical - just realistic.

THE TESTING TIME

While we congratulate the Scottish Qualifications Authority on the successful issuing of the results, on time, there are a few questions still to be answered. In the first place, up to last year there had never been anything like the confusion and mess that the SQA created; from time immemorial exam results had been being produced, without any great fuss, until an alien Tory government decided to change the examination system by turning it into a quango dominated shambles. This was compounded by an allegedly friendly Tory government, headed by Tony Blair, who adopted the proposals wholesale, and sent in Mrs Helen Liddell to batter teachers into submission over Higher Still, which she did with the assistance of their supine union. The project was handed over to Sam (a big boy did it and ran away) Galbraith, who claimed no responsibility for anything.

As a result of last year’s fiasco, all sorts of corrective action was taken by Jack McConnell, the Education Minister, and we have a successful diet this year. The cost of clearing up last year’s mess was £3 million, and it would seem that the additional cost of getting it right this year was £11 million. The SQA is supposed to be self financing, which means that it recovers all its costs from schools and colleges, and therefore the £11 million, plus last year’s £3 million are the only figures in the public domain. However, who pays all the costs of the schools and colleges? Dead right, the taxpayer, which is us (check grammar from Higher Still - is we?) So I had a wee look at the SQA website to see what the end cost to the taxpayer might be, and no figures are given for costs or revenue. Mind you, the statistical figures for last year are not in yet, but coming shortly, so we should not be unduly concerned, after all it is only August 2001.

There has to be a record somewhere in public; after all, every limited company has to lodge accounts with the Registrar at Companies House, and they can be accessed, for a fee naturally, but as we are talking about all money from the taxpayer, how is it published? I will be charitable and say I must have been looking in the wrong place, but maybe some of our bright Parliamentary researchers can point me in the right direction.

The final fly in the ointment this year, of course, was when Jack McConnell held a press conference and praised the pupils for a 7% increase in pass rates, vehemently justified it, by all accounts, only to be told later that the increase was only 1%; as 1% is the norm, one might have thought that Jack, as a former Maths teacher would have queried this anomaly, but politics might make you careless, or just hopeful.

PAST AND FUTURE IN THE POST

Two foreign journalists, one an Australian and one from the Canary Islands (no I don’t know what someone from the Canaries is called - but I suspect a Spaniard) have been talking to political, business, tourism and education leaders in Scotland on behalf of the Washington Post. The project is to produce a report to give an image of a modern dynamic and forward looking Scotland for the Washington Post which has 2.5 million readers, and also gets 90 million hits on its website every month. Really!

Apparently the idea came after Henry McLeish’s visit to the US for Tartan Day this year, and they want to do away with the romantic vision of Scotland all about tartan, shortbread and golf; as someone who doesn’t have a tartan, doesn’t eat shortbread, and doesn’t play golf, I find this slightly understandable, but your average American tourist might not agree. According to them, their image was one of closing Clydeside shipyards (not exactly old fashioned as a visit to Govan would show) and Glasgow social problems ( again they probably did not visit Sighthill) and they were amazed at how vibrant Scottish life was. They must have been looking at Encyclopaedia Britannica’s new CD Rom, which still shows us reliant on coal mining and car manufacturing, and says "It has no separate legislature. It has no sovereign executive or political power." Well, we could argue with part of that statement, but as the Britannica which was founded in Edinburgh is now based in Chicago we merely suggest they read the Washington Post.

Among the politicians they met were Henry McLeish, Jack McConnell, Angus McKay, Wendy Alexander (the kiss of death) and Sarah Boyack; oh and they let them meet Ross Finnie as well. We wonder if they also saw the "Caledonian Trilogy" video, produced by the Scottish Executive for £50000 of our money and then dumped after being shown in Washington, or maybe they were here because someone from the Washington Post saw the video.

In their meetings with business leaders they came across the attitude that the Executive were concentrating on inward investment at the expense of indigenous Scottish companies, an allegation raised often, as it is true. I saw no indication that they met the new head of VisitScotland, Phillip Riddle, probably as he was busy touring Scotland, incognito, I expect, to find problems at first hand. As far as can be seen, Mr Riddle has started off the right way, and there was no great fanfare and press conference at his inauguration, as was the case with his four day predecessor, Mr Rod Lynch, but perhaps the Scottish Tourist Board, to give them their real name, kept Wendy Alexander well away. Mr Riddle went to Peebles, New Lanark, Turnberry, Arran, Glasgow, Balloch, Spean Bridge, Ullapool, Stornoway, Inverness, Aviemore, Craigellachie, Crathes, St Cyrus, Dundee (he was impressed) Crieff and Auchterarder. He spent the two weeks seeing Scotland as a tourist - a recipient of the service; that augurs well. He missed a few places, so there will be some blanks in his wee black book, but no doubt he will get around to them; whether he will be able to do any more incognito is anybody’s guess. Hopefully he will not act like King Hussein of Jordan, who visits public departments in plain clothes to see how the ordinary citizens of Jordan are treated by his officials; the effect is sometimes spoiled by his motorcade.

VISITSCOTLAND ACT

The Scotland Act is going to have to be revised, if all the signs emanating from Edinburgh are to be believed; the Act provided that once devolution was in place then the number of Westminster MPs would be reduced from 72 to 57. As the electoral system for the Scottish Parliament is based as 1 MSP for every Westminster Parliamentary constituency, plus a top up based on the percentage of votes cast for each party, then reducing the number of Westminster members also reduces the number of directly elected MSPs to 57; the top up would also be reduced leaving a total of 102 MSPs. The committee system in the Scottish Parliament is already struggling to cope with the volume of work, so any reduction in numbers would hamstring the effectiveness of the Parliament.

It is known that Labour MPs in Westminster are unhappy with the Scottish Parliament, as they are being starved of publicity, and also having their importance and usefulness questionned, so they are not likely to be supportive of any measures to retain 129 MSPs. The Parliament was designed by the Labour Party, with the co-operation of the Liberals, and the purpose of the exercise was to see off the SNP; the system of voting was specifically designed to stop the SNP gaining overall control. The fact that it stopped the Labour Party getting outright control was not foreseen.

So there is trouble ahead; when you add to it the £1 billion that Mr McLeish has allegedly asked for to fund free care for the elderly and to pay off the Glasgow housing debt, and the rising costs of the new Parliament building you can see that the legacy of Donald Dewar was not as wonderful as planned. However, the fact is that we have a Parliament; it is far from perfect, and it has had a bad press, but it has to grow and develop. Devolution is a process, not an end in itself, irrespective of how many times you hear the phrase "The settled will of the Scottish people"; the people were asked if they wanted a Parliament or the status quo, and they voted resoundingly for a Parliament. They were not asked if they wanted Independence, but Labour gave the impression that this was what they were getting, and any disappointment stems from that.

The Executive is in trouble as well, as they now want to sell off its headquarters at Leith; these were built about six years ago at a cost of £47 million, and the Executive thinks they can get £80 million. This does not seem to be a clever idea, as the money will be spent on running costs, so they’ll sell the building, spend the money and then pay rent; not financially prudent. Added to that is the proposal for the privatisation of the security and support staff at Leith and you can see that they are selling the building and its occupants; not nice for a Scottish government to engage in exploitation, but that is policy. Lest we get too carried away with blaming the Parliament, this is the Labour Party at work, as the vast amount of money to be paid for Glasgow’s housing debt is due to Labour mismanagement as well.

HOSPITALISATION REQUIRED

Now that the whole sorry con of reducing waiting lists has been shown to be just that, the Scottish government has decided to abandon this statistic; instead they will concentrate on waiting times. So goodbye one statistic, hello another.

One of the problems with targets is that they impinge on quality; as one commentator put it "Impose targets on people and they will adapt their behaviour, not to improve their performance , but to meet your targets." What we have also seen in the National Health Service is that operations which are quicker and easier are being done, leaving the more difficult ones, purely to meet targets. This does not mean that life saving operations are sidelined, as this would be contrary to the Hippocratic oath, but doctors are pressurised by management to meet targets, and maybe a knee operation is quicker than a hip operation.

One other aspect of the Health Service which needs urgent investment is nursing. A private company called Scotnursing is opening twelve new recruitment centres, including four in England; the company has just opened headquarters and a call centre in Old Kilpatrick. It supplies nurses and carers for nursing homes, hospitals, schools , industry and the prison service, and its turnover last year was £14 million. There is nothing wrong in what they do, they are providing a service and if they weren’t they would not be growing as fast as they are; however agency nurses are paid more than NHS nurses, and over and above that the company has to make a profit. It has 300 full time staff, including those in its call centre, so that is 300 wages every week, paid for mainly by the National Health Service, plus the rent and rates of all premises plus telephones and all other occupancy costs. The entrepeneur cannot be blamed, and no finger is pointed at the aforesaid entrepeneur, but surely government should be providing all theses services, particularly as at the end of the day it is the taxpayer who foots the bill?

And just in case you think I am paranoid about privatisation, (I am) , there is a rumpus going on in England just now, as the NHS has bought a private hospital; the Heart Hospital in central London has been purchased for £27.5 million, and this will double the number of cardiac operations carried out in London. But note this, the hospital’s owners, Singapore -based Parkway Group, could not make it pay, so they sold it. Contrast this with another private hospital, HCI Clydebank, which is one of the safest places in the world to have heart surgery; they are using new techniques, and are performing operations on NHS patients, for a price of course. The difference between the two is that the Heart Hospital was an NHS hospital which was sold by the NHS, and HCI was built using over £31 million of our money, which then went bankrupt and was bought by the Abu Dhabi Medical Investment Group for buttons; why did the NHS not get the chance to snap it up, or were they forbidden to do so by the market Tory rules?

The above remind me of a quote I found on my calendar the other day; it was from Will Rogers, the American comic. He said "I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."

THERE’S MAIR FISH IN THE SEA

To complete the quotation "than ever came out of it"; I didn’t use the full quote because it would run to two lines! Anyway this does not just apply to fish, it applies to oil and gas as well. The UK Continental Shelf has so far yielded 26 billion barrels of oil and gas, and one expert , Paul Blakely of Talisman Energy estimates that there is a further 56 billion barrels still there; Mr Blakeley was addressing offshore industry leaders in Aberdeen last week.

As Shadow Minister for the Economy, Andrew Wilson, put it "New Labour and the Tories have perpetuated the myth that our natural resources such as oil will be gone tomorrow and we should not rely on them. This is because they do not want Scotland to seize the opportunities that are available for this and future generations." When we consider the untold billions of pounds paid into the Treasury from the North Sea and squandered by them over the past 30 years, the attitude of the London parties becomes even more indefensible; in the early Seventies, we put a tentative figure of £800 million a year of income from Scottish oil, to be howled down with derision by the same parties. They said that figure was pie in the sky and that we would be lucky to see even a fraction of that amount; in that event they were correct, because the greedy swine in London kept the lot, and Scotland became the only country in the world to have discovered oil and actually be worse off.

At the General Election the issue of fiscal autonomy was raised by the SNP and there was conclusive evidence that Scotland is subsidising England by around £4 billion a year; this did not seem to excite the electorate, so perhaps we need to examine our means and style of communication. Again, maybe "It’s Scotland’s Oil" should be given a re run; repetition works, as I remember one comment about Guinness, "Why do they waste all that money advertising Guinness? Everybody knows Guinness is good for you!"

Just this week, Mike Watson MSP (Yes, I know he’s a Lord, but he’s also a Dundee United supporter - like James Halliday, one of our distinguished columnists and a former Chairman of the SNP) is saying that the Scottish Parliament should levy an extra 3p in the pound on Scots to pay for all the policies we require; this is a bit rich, as we are already subsidising England are we now going to pay extra because we hand over too much to Westminster? We know that the Chancellor is opposed to the proposed tax, surely a poem in there somewhere, but that is not because he is concerned for the welfare of his fellow Scots, but because it would be playing into the hands of the SNP, who would capitalise on the anomaly of us making ourselves poorer to help the wealthy English with even more of our money. Shades of "The Ragged Trousered Philantrophists"!

MISSING THE BUS

Mr John Prescott, who may still be Deputy Prime Minister, said in 1997 "I will have failed if in five years there are not many more people using public transport and far fewer car journeys." He was absolutely right - he has failed, or not quite, as only four years have passed since that Glorious First of May; however it is extremely doubtful that in the next eight months the figures will fall dramatically. In Scotland, new vehicle registrations in 1999-2000 went up by 220000, the highest number ever recorded in any one year, and while bus and train journeys went up 4% on the previous year they were still 30% down on 10 years ago. Rail seems to be doing a lot better than buses, perhaps because people can park their cars at railway stations, and trains are not held up by other traffic. The provision of bus lanes has helped buses but frustrated car drivers, who sit in a solid line of traffic while half of the road remains empty. Edinburgh, in particular, seems to be in perpetual chaos; the clamp down on parking has led to more people using the bus, and more and more streets near a bus route becoming clogged up by cars parked by the aforesaid people. Everywhere you go there is "Traffic Calming" which has the opposite effect on drivers, Traffic Wardens are threatened every day, and are being offered "Shamanic journeying" by their bosses,Airport Parking Corporation of America, and where there are parking permits for residents Edinburgh Council have issued 8765 permits for a total of £835000, but there are only 6801 parking spaces! Motorists are just interested in journeying; maybe shamanic journeying is imagining parking spaces.

And to keep our genial editor, Kenneth Fee, happy, I should also rail against speeding cameras, which sneak up on unsuspecting motorists, even when they are stationary, the cameras, that is, not the drivers; what I would like to see is more cameras at pedestrian crossings to catch the vast numbers of drivers who go through these at red. Profound, or banal, thought - Every driver is a pedestrian, but not every pedestrian is a driver.

FOOT IN THE MOUTH NOTES

Headline in the Observer "Railtrack to cull 1000 managers."

Will they shoot them, or club them?

The government have ordered three inquiries into the Foot and Mouth epidemic, none of which are to be public inquiries.

No doubt they will eventually release the one that suits them best.

The chief of Clan MacLeod tried last year to sell the Cuillins for £10 million as he needed the money to repair the roof of Dunvegan Castle on Skye.

There was an outcry, and nobody wanted them anyway, so he has changed his tune; the nation can have the Cuillins for nothing , if we pay £6.25 million to repair the roof!

Residents in Bearsden have succeeded in a campaign to stop mobile phone company Orange building a mast near a primary school; the residents mounted a round the clock vigil at the site.

They probably co-ordinated the vigil using their mobile phones.

Last year, Tony Blair spent £418627 on travel abroad; he is now travelling to the South of France on holiday by low cost airline Ryanair, perhaps costing as little as £19 one way.

Very frugal, as he’s using his own money; an advance guard of security and office staff will be flown out beforehand. We are not being told the cost, or whether they have to go cheap as well.

There is an argument going on in Edinburgh at present to ban political posters from lamp posts during elections.

Some of us have been aware for some time that lamp posts do not normally vote.

Definition of political correctness; a state of mind normally restricted to the mouth.

 SYNOPSIS

UNEMPLOYMENT ON THE UP

Scotland has the third highest level of unemployment of the twelve nations and regions of the UK, according to Labour Market Statistics released today. Unemployment has risen in Scotland in the last month from 5.7 to 6.1 per cent. "Scotland's manufacturing industry is suffering from a technical recession while growth in the Scottish economy overall continues to lag well behind the rest of the UK, at only half the level," said shadow enterprise minister Kenny MacAskill. "Scotland's economy will continue to suffer while the UK Government sets economic policies designed for conditions in the south-east of England."

FURTHER DELAY IN NHS24 SCOTLAND

Scotland will have to wait until next spring to get its own pilot 24-hour health advice line, the government confirmed today. The move sparked a furious reaction from Nicola Sturgeon who expressed her anger that there is to be a further delay in implementing the scheme in Scotland. The SNP shadow health minister said: "The government originally promised that NHS24 would be operational by early 2000 and today we've been told that the first scheme will not be up and running until Spring 2002. It appears that as usual the Scottish Government find it very easy to make commitments but find it very difficult to actually deliver change for the people of Scotland." When it is eventually introduced in Scotland, NHS24 will put the public in contact with trained nurses who will then give them medical advice or direct them to a doctor.

PRISONERS TO SUE OVER SLOPPING OUT

Sixty prisoners at Barlinnie jail in Glasgow are preparing to sue the Scottish Executive over the regime of slopping out. They say it breaches their human rights and that they should be moved to other prisons with proper sanitation. The legal action follows a test case at the Court of Session in June in which the judge Lord Macfadyen described slopping out as "inhumane and degrading". The Scottish Prison Service is now appealing against that ruling which threatens to cause chaos in the prison system. Shadow deputy justice minister Michael Matheson has called on ministers to intervene to resolve the issue by ending slopping out in Scotland's prisons. He said: "Slopping out is degrading for the prison officers who oversee this regime and also in many cases involves remand prisoners who are still innocent in the eyes of the law."

CONTRACT WIN BRINGS TINY BOOST

One of the UK's largest personal computer companies is to switch part of its assembly base from Asia to Scotland. Tiny Computers has announced a 40m pound contract building PCs for the UK market will move from China to Prestwick in Ayrshire. Fullarton Computer Industries will take on the work in a move which it hopes will help see it through the current global downturn in the electronics market. Michael Russell greeted the plan as a boost for Scotland's hard-hit electronics sector. He said: "Although it is early days yet, hopefully this new move will represent a turnaround in the fortunes of the Scottish electronics sector." The news has come at a crucial time for Fullarton - where unions representatives had been expecting redundancies. Tiny's arrival in Scotland should also boost confidence in the manufacturing sector - now officially in recession.

ESK PRODUCTION CONTINUES AS BUYER SOUGHT

Production at Esk Frozen Foods, Montrose, is continuing as the receivers and local politicians urgently seek a rescue package that will attract a buyer. After an hour-long meeting with the receivers yesterday Angus MSP Andrew Welsh said it had become clear that if the factory was to be saved a buyer had to be found very quickly. Mr Welsh called for firm action from the Scottish Executive. "I will be asking what they can do in terms of financial assistance and finding a buyer," he said. "The announcement now that the bank have called in the receiver is yet another severe blow to the economy of Montrose, already reeling from the uncertainties surrounding Glaxo. With MP Mike Weir, he had already arranged a meeting with Henry McLeish next Thursday to discuss the Glaxo situation. "This new blow gives even greater urgency to the matter," he said. Mr Weir, SNP Westminster group spokesman on rural affairs and trade and industry, added, "If the factory cannot continue the loss of these jobs will be a severe blow to the Montrose economy. I understand that the company has many contracts with farmers in the Angus area who grow specifically for Esk Foods." Mr Welsh said they will also contact the supermarkets who deal with Esk Frozen Foods and ask for their support through difficult times.

FISHERMEN DEMAND ACTION OVER 'COD WAR' PAYOUT

North-east fishermen have backed a call to lobby the Icelandic authorities for evidence of Scottish trawlers which fished their waters over 20 years ago. Moray MP Angus Robertson, who met over 100 fishermen in Aberdeen at the weekend, said that the UK government needed to stop dragging its heels on the issue. Mr Robertson said: I'll be making an effort to make sure the DTI and the Foreign Office get involved and give every backing to these claims for compensation." To date a series of delays and caveats has thwarted efforts by fishing families to access compensation they are entitled to. Compensation is available to fishermen who can prove they fished the area before Iceland made a firm claim on their waters in the 1970s and who were subsequently made redundant. The SNP MP has received a positive indication from the justice ministry in Iceland that archives from the Icelandic coastguard may help Scottish compensation cases. Richard Lochhead, shadow fisheries minister, added: "There is no doubt hundreds of men feel they are experiencing a gross injustice, given that applicants elsewhere in the UK have successfully applied to this scheme, while many in the North-east have been snubbed."

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SCOTTISH FOOD, TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS
(if you have any suggestions on what you'd like us to include email peter@scotsindependent.org)

Dundee has been celebrating the 100th anniversary of the launch of RRS Discovery ( 21 March 1901 ) down the Tay from the yards of Alexander Stephen & Sons. Last weekend, as part of the celebrations, a fleet of Tall Ships visited Dundee. "Tall ships Dundee - Spirit of Discovery" was a great success with thousands of visitors enjoying the spectacle of the Tall Ships.

 

The focus of the celebration RRS Discovery was built by Dundee Shipbuilders Co Ltd for the Royal Geographical Society and will always be associated with the name of Scott of the Antarctic. Following her launch the Discovery sailed to New Zealand and spent two years in the Antarctic ice. She was constructed, on the lines of the famous Dundee whalers, with great thickness and strength to withstand the pack ice. After Captain Robert F Scott's expedition in 1904, Discovery saw service with the Hudson Bay Company and then became a Research Ship. She was bought by the Marintime Trust in 1978 and moved back from the Thames, London, England, to the city of her birth in 1986. Dundonians welcomed her home in great style and she is now moored permanently at Discovery Quay. The City of Dundee now proudly proclaims itself as the "City of Discovery".

 

Celebrate the launch of a great ship with a slab of Dundee Cake!

 

Dundee Cake

 

Ingredients

8 oz Flour
6 oz Caster Sugar
6 oz Butter or Margarine
4 Eggs
4 oz Currants
4 oz Raisins
4 oz Sultanas
2 oz Candied Peel
1 oz Ground Almonds
1 t Mixed Spices
1 t Baking Powder
1/2 ts Salt
1 oz Split Blanched Almonds

Set oven to 325F/Gas 3. Grease an 8 inch round cake tin and line with greaseproof paper. Cream the fat and sugar in a bowl. Sift the flour, salt and spices together. Add the baking powder to the last of the flour. Stir in the ground almonds. Add the fruit peel. Gently Mix. Put into the tin. Arrange the split almonds evenly on the top of the cake. Bake for about 2 hours. After the first hour, if the top is browning too quickly cover with greaseproof paper. Allow the cake to cool slightly in the tin before turning on to a wire rack. The cake will keep for several weeks if wrapped in kitchen foil.

See our Scottish Food, Traditions and Customs in our Features section

DATES IN HISTORY

17 August 1424
French and Scots troops under the command of John, Earl  of Buchan, and Archibald, Earl of Douglas, defeated in the Battle of Verneuil by English forces under Duke of Bedford.

 

19 August 1994
Graeme Obree, riding a home-made bike, broke the world record and became world pursuit champion over 4,000 metres in Hamar, Norway.

 

20 August 1158
St Ronald, Earl of Orkney, was killed. He was canonised in 1192.

See Dates in History in our Features Section

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

SI Prize Crossword No. SI Prize Crossword No. 2001