The Flag in the Wind
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So here we are at the end of another year, and in the period which my good friend Peter Wright terms "The Daft Days"; politics will be quiet, but we know that the politicians will be easing out things they do not wish to be examined too closely! We hope we don’t miss them!

However, due to time constraints, the Flag will be somewhat shorter over the next few weeks; I will be doing it on 3rd January, and 10th January, but a wee bit in advance, then Allison will be doing it on 17th January and Richard on 24th January, as I will be sunning myself in the Caribbean. (Well Richard is there at the moment, lucky dog!)

THANK YOU FOR THE FISH

Unless I have got it completely wrong, the Scottish White Fish fleet is getting an 80% cut in their quotas, which will help save the fleet ten years hence, and the Dutch, Danes and French have had their quotas increased; as the Scottish fleet uses a mesh size of 120mm, and the others use 60mm, enabling them to catch smaller, ie younger, fish, that does not look like conservation to me! It seems a bit rough of the kind Commissioners to give the Danes 23 days a month at sea, and the Scots 9 days; the Danes have already been guilty of hoovering up young fish, and were given 6000 tonnes of haddock from our quota last year, by the ineptitude of Rhona Brankin. This was not for human consumption, but for pig food; no wonder the bacon sometimes tastes fishy.

The Scottish Parliament had a Fisheries Minister at one stage, John Home Robertson, and he blithely acquiesced in the transfer of 6000 square miles of traditional Scottish fishing waters to England; he was given the Kirkcaldy heist, but not for that, and fishing was added to the portfolio of Rhona Brankin, who had plenty of other things to do. In the fullness of time, when Henry McLeish fell on his sword, Jack McConnell awarded the fishing portfolio to Ross Finnie, who had Agriculture and Water , so as he already had Water, he might as well have the fishes that swam in it, or not, as the case might be! Jack McConnell said that they would fight the cuts, which he has signally failed to do, not seeing fishing as something he is particularly interested in; in this regard, is it not somewhat curious to see that Jack’s constituency Labour Party is still getting large dollops of money from the Iron and Steel Trades Federation, although there is no steel industry in Scotland? Maybe the fishermen should send him a fry.

One point which Alex Salmond brought up was that Elliot Morley, the UK Fisheries Minister, who is the BRITISH SPOKESMAN, said in the House of Commons that the package was a "betrayal"; before you think of how brave he was, he said that on 14 July 1992, speaking against a Tory deal that was twice as generous as the one he has now agreed to!

The fishermen are now saying that they will have to go to sea and fish illegally, or face total bankruptcy, and it is up to the government to say whether it is going to prosecute them or not; Britain seems to abide by the rules that the other countries ignore, so perhaps it is time for a wee bit of backbone. The French were fined for refusing to allow British beef to be imported, and they kept it out for years, long after they were ordered to accept it; then when they were fined £100,000 a day, they said OK, and paid nothing, although their illegal ban had cost British agriculture £330 million a year. Another thing I find strange; a Tory government gave away Scotland’s fishing rights, but didn’t give away the oil and gas rights, and yet fish move around and are renewable, whereas oil and gas do not move and are not renewable. Westminster logic, or is oil more important to England than fish?

Just an idle thought; I am sure that I don’t eat any more fish than I did 30 years ago, and the fish and chip shops which were a feature on nearly every corner when I was young have largely disappeared, to be replaced by Indian and Chinese takeaways. I am reasonably sure that fish shops per se are much scarcer than they were, so where is all the fish going? One possible answer, apart from the Danish bacon, is that in grocery distribution warehouses, the fastest moving products are pet foods, so it looks as if the British predeliction for pets is helping to decimate stocks.

However, now that a lot of things are going to have to change due to the enlargement of the European Community, with 10 new member states, we should be pushing for them to re-open the Common Fisheries Policy; putting it brutally, Scotland with her own seat at the European table could demand a 200 mile limit for our own fishermen. And we would police this ourselves. But Scotland has to go for it by voting SNP.

A DELECTABLE SPAT

The dispute between Helen Liddell, Secretary of State for Scotland, and Andrew Neil, publisher of the Scotsman has me totally confused, not as to what it is all about, but as to whose side to take!

The story so far; Mrs Liddell has been getting very negative coverage in the Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh local paper, the Evening News; so she had a dossier made up of all these bad stories, summoned Andrew Neil, publisher of the Scotsman, to her office in London, slapped it down in front of him, demanding "What are you going to do about this?", or the Ministerial equivalent. So what did Mr Neil do? Did he apologise, grovel to the Mighty Nell, and promise not to do it again? No, he printed the whole lot in the Scotsman, and rebutted it point by point! She had complained about some readers’ letters, which led Holy Andrew to say he was defending the freedom of expression (hypocrite), and she complained that the Scotsman had said Mrs Liddell had called Alex Salmond "The toast of Baghdad", which seemed a mite illogical, as she had said this. There was a lot more, particularly about her being underemployed, and on a slow news day, the Scotsman devoted two whole pages to the story.

What was seized upon by more than one person was that as Mrs Liddell had the time and the staff to make a dossier of complaints about the press, then that very fact itself was proof positive that neither she nor her staff had very much to do, a view which the Flag has expressed more than once. It also seemed rather unwise to attack the publishers, as they have the printing presses and the distribution, so it looks rather as if Mrs Liddell has never heard the maxim - if you’re in a hole stop digging.

Anyway it’s a strange aspect that she is complaining about publicity; her fellow Scottish MPs are corrosively jealous of the fact that the MSPs are getting all the publicity, and now that Mrs Liddell has declared that there will no reduction in the number of MSPs, although 13 of the Westminster MPs will be shown the door, her Westminster colleagues like her even less; it must have been one of them who advised her to tackle the Scotsman. While I hold no brief for Mrs Liddell, I must say that the Scotsman printed a very bad picture of her, which I felt was demeaning; no woman likes to be thought ugly, and the nasty picture was nasty.

FOOT IN THE MOUTH NOTES

The general consensus is that he got it half right.

I must be missing something.

Lord Steel of Aikwood, currently Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, is retiring at the next election; he believes that as the Presiding Officers in the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Irish Assembly are also Lords, then all Presiding Officers should be members of the House of Lords.

"Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord, that struts and stares and a’ that

Tho’hundreds worship at his word, he’s but a coof for a’that."

Over the next decade, motorway traffic jams and gridlocked town centres will become the norm; we don’t know if our government has joined-up thinking..

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who was the Tory Defence Secretary who made the decision, still wonders why he was not re-elected in Edinburgh Pentlands in 1997.

A selection of items from the SNP Daily News over the past week, somewhat truncated (good pretentious word that) due to the fact that the Parliament is on holiday.

Kenny MacAskill MSP today said British Airways - whose motto is 'to be the undisputed leader in world travel' - has no more right to call itself Britain's national carrier than Ryanair or Lufthansa. Publishing a paper showing that BA fly to fewer foreign destinations than a low cost carrier such as Ryanair and no more routes than other national carriers such as Lufthansa and KLM, the Shadow Transport and Tourism Minister, said, "How can British Airways claim to be our national carrier? Their position as a so-called national carrier gives them preferential treatment from the Government and kudos from the public. In return Scotland is getting very little and BA don't even have a main operating base in Scotland". Mr MacAskill also said after a review, the airline cut Scottish flights but improved flights from London." North East MSP Mr Brian Adam agreed with the paper saying, "BA's treatment of Aberdeen has been appalling. They recently pulled six routes from the city and it appears that all they are interested in is links to London. Aberdeen needs and deserves better. British Airways should rename themselves London Airways, they have failed to give equal representation to Scotland's airports and passengers and they have failed to push for direct Scottish services."

Edinburgh candidate criticises Provost over 'eurozone'
Mon 23 Dec 02

The SNP's Edinburgh Central Spokesperson Kevin Pringle today criticised the Capital's Lord Provost, Cllr Eric Milligan, for his negative reply to the SNP proposals to establish an Edinburgh City Centre 'eurozone' during the Christmas and New Year celebrations. In October, Mr Pringle wrote to a range of civic bodies and financial institutions in Edinburgh, including the Provost, proposing their eurozone idea for the whole of Edinburgh's city centre. The idea modelled on the Welsh town of Llangollen's July festival, was dismissed by the Provost who said, "A similar exercise in Edinburgh would present practical problems." Commenting, Mr Pringle said, "We need to use any and every means available to promote Edinburgh as a world class and cost-effective place for tourists to visit. A 'eurozone' during the festive period would make European tourism cheaper in Edinburgh, and generate a huge amount of positive publicity for the City across the rest of Europe. Tourism in Edinburgh is facing big problems. The number of overseas visitors to the City dropped by 60,000 last year, or 6.6%. An Edinburgh 'eurozone' would help to make it clear that Scotland's Capital is open to Europe and open for business - but Eric Milligan doesn't seem to think that it's his job to promote the City in this way. The SNP will continue to campaign for this positive idea - and Eric Milligan won't be able to stop it, by no longer being a councillor after next May."

McConnell "running scared" of TV debates
Sun 22 Dec 02

The SNP today accused the First Minister of "running scared" of leadership debates at next year's Scottish Parliament election. Commenting on reports that Jack McConnell is to avoid televised debates with John Swinney, SNP election coordinator Nicola Sturgeon MSP said, " Our polling tells us that Jack McConnell is a liability for Labour. It's no surprise that they don't seem to want to put him up for televised debates. And it's no wonder they're running scared of debating the issues. Nearly six years after Labour came to power, our patients still need a better health service, our children better education and all of us need less crime. Scotland is being run by a party who have consistently let us down on all these issues, who are more focused on sleaze than making our country everything it could be. As for what this says about Jack McConnell, he's just feart to debate his record or his policies."

MP backs Action for Blind campaign
Sat 21 Dec 02

Perth SNP MP Annabelle Ewing is supporting a national campaign by Action for Blind People to improve equality for blind and partially sighted people. The 'Work, Rest and Play' campaign was recently launched at the House of Commons and will run throughout 2003. It is the first campaign launched by Action for Blind People, the third largest charity for blind and partially sighted people in the UK. By the end of 2003 the 'Work, Rest and Play' campaign will have challenged many organisations to make opportunities available to visually impaired people.

It emerged today that former First Minister Henry McLeish went back on his pledge not to accept a £30,000 pay-off from Westminster barely a month after resigning as First Minister. Mr McLeish told Parliament he would not apply for the re-settlement grant he was entitled to after standing down as an MP, saying "I put on record that I will not take financial advantage of the situation.'' The news emerged in the Report of the Scottish Parliament's Standards Committee which was published today and included a letter to Mr McLeish from Caroline Stockton, the Westminster payroll manager, confirming he had applied for the money on 10 December 2001 – he had resigned on 8 November. The Committee earlier this week strongly rebuked Mr McLeish for his actions, but found that he had not breached the Holyrood code of conduct.

SNP Shadow Local Government Minister, Tricia Marwick MSP, today accused Labour members of the Local Government Committee of inventing reasons to vote against her Proportional Representation Bill for Local Government Elections. The Stage 1 report from the Local Government Committee is published today and shows that it took the casting vote of the Convener to reject the general principles of the Bill. Mrs Marwick said, "This is a very tightly drawn bill which has one purpose - to introduce Proportional Representation in the form of a single transferable vote for local government elections. During my time in this Parliament, I have never seen Labour committee members inventing so many reasons for objecting to a Bill"

Salmond to meet Birds Eye chair following ad
Thu 19 Dec 02

Following his objections to an advert placed in the Scottish Sun yesterday by Birds Eye - which was regarded by constituents as insensitive in the midst of the fishing crisis, in apparently seeking to profit from the European Commission's proposals to close Scottish fishing waters - Banff & Buchan MP, Alex Salmond, has had a very useful and amicable telephone discussion with the Chairman of Birds Eye Walls, Mr James Hill. Mr Salmond and Mr Hill agreed to meet in the New Year, and discuss how they can work together to help promote the Scottish fishing industry. Mr Salmond said that "meantime I understand that the advert will not reappear in its current form, and I am sure that we can now work together on a positive and constructive basis."

Dundee SNP have sought assurances over the future of the sub-Post Office in Victoria Road in the city. The Post Office recently shut, leaving local residents facing a hike up the Hilltown or into the General Post Office at Ward Road. Commenting, Shona Robison MSP said, "This matter was brought to my attention by the local SNP candidate, Tom Dempsey. I have since been in touch with managers of the Post Office in Edinburgh who are negotiating with people interested in taking over the Post Office. Hopefully a solution to this should be found early in the New Year."

Aberdeen Labour humiliated as opposition make changes
Thu 19 Dec 02

Aberdeen's Labour councillors have been hit by a series of humiliating defeats following a full meeting of the council. Although Labour is still the largest group on the council they are no longer the ruling party and opposition cllrs ensured a raft of measures were introduced by the Council. The Labour Group were forced to withdraw a decision on sending the Lord Provost abroad with a friend, at taxpayers' expense because they knew it would be defeated, and give up its inbuilt majorities on council committees. Opposition parties combined to insist on a new political balance reflecting all the parties' relative strengths in the full council. Labour now holds eight seats to the Opposition's nine on seven committees and can be defeated if the other councillors combine. The Councils controversial free council newspaper is also to be scrapped following moves from the SNP Group on Aberdeen Council who said the city council's 'Bon Accord' was unread and that the £100,000 annual cost could be better spent elsewhere. SNP group leader Kevin Stewart proposed the city council stopped production of the paper, as soon as it is contractually possible and the move was passed by 23 to 20 votes by a full meeting of councillors. Cllr Stewart said, "The reason I'm moving this is because the Bon Accord goes largely unread and mostly goes straight from letter-box to bin."

SCOT WIT
Enjoy a Scottish Joke every week and listen to it as well