In a world where the sky is criss-crossed with aeroplanes carrying thousands of people bound on pleasure or business, we have become very blase about modern technology, and tend to regard launches and landings as spectator sports; when a disaster like the Columbia happens it gives us all a short sharp shock, as we realise what a fine line we all travel. The space programme uses the ultimate in technology, and in theory nothing should go wrong, as every eventuality is covered; in fact it now appears that the mission was doomed by a relatively insignificant mishap during lift-off, but fuller investigation may prove otherwise.

AND MORE CASUALTIES COMING

There are coherent arguments for and against the war, and a general feeling that the American President is determined to finish what his father started; so far attempts to link Saddam Hussein with 11th September have not come over as proven, but one of the problems may be that information cannot be publicised without compromising the source. It is also the case that the powers that be will not divulge their plans, or they would also be compromised.

So we expect active hostilities to begin later this month, and while Tony Blair will not have to face his electorate until 2005 or 2006, the devolved Parliaments could well be having an election in the middle of a war. There are two possible scenarios; one is that a stiff and determined resistance by the Iraqi forces will drag the war out and that the politicians will face growing anger as the body count rises. This will be particularly pertinent in Scotland, as the Black Watch and the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards will be in the forefront of the invasion. The other scenario, which may be just wishful thinking, is that resistance in Iraq might collapse, and our troops greeted with bouquets rather than bullets, at the downfall of a brutal, vicious and repressive regime. This may not be so fanciful, if we remember Romania and the fall of their dictator, Caesescu, who the people executed forthwith; Saddam Hussein had an election last year, in which he was the only candidate, and while he did not quite make the 100%, due no doubt to sickness preventing voting, we can be assured that those who did not vote for him have now been erased from the voters’ roll - and life.

THE SCOTTISH CONNECTION

When we came home I bought the book "A Twentieth Century Life", by Paul Henderson Scott, as I remembered his story about the Cuban crisis from the launch of his autobiography at the SNP Conference in Inverness last year. Paul was in the Diplomatic Corps and he was sent to the British Embassy in Cuba on what was the last flight to Havana for many years; his arrival there was greeted with astonishment by his diplomatic colleagues, whose concerted view was that they were stuck at the locus of a nuclear war, but he could at least have found a pretext to remain elsewhere.

I quote from the book "The immediate crisis was solved quite quickly. Kruschev agreed to remove the missiles and Kennedy to lift the naval blockade. Castro refused to admit the UN observers to report the removal of the missiles, but that did not disturb the Americans because their reconnaissance aircraft kept a constant watch on the situation. At the crucial time, however, when the missiles should have been moving to the ports, the ground became invisible from the air due to heavy cloud. We received a somewhat frantic emergency telegram. The hawks in the Pentagon were becoming impatient. Could we provide hard evidence that the Russians were complying with the agreement? This was quite simple. We knew where the missiles sites were from the American reconnaissance photographs which were very clear and detailed. I simply drove round them and saw the Russians hard at work. In places they were having problems with missile trailers in muddy fields but they were clearly doing their best. Convoys of these long sinister trailers were moving to the port of Matangas and the ships were waiting to receive them. It has been said that my report, by calming nerves in Washington, may have prevented a nuclear war."

Small world indeed; Paul Scott is a retired diplomat, Vice President of the Scottish National Party, author of numerous books, President of the Saltire Society, and was the recipient of the Scots Independent Oliver Brown Award in 2000; his autobiography is available from the Scots Independent Newspaper at £20. The Oliver Brown report is at:. www.scotsindependent.org/brown/paulh_scott.htm

A RUM DO INDEED

The distillers are being punished for profiting from the "wrongful trafficking in property confiscated by the Castro regime"; seems a bit much for empty barrels being recycled in the modern world, but obviously anything to do with Cuba is anathema. Or maybe the good old United States seems to have some sort of animus against Scotland; I was at the Highland Trade Fair in Glasgow last week, and one distributor who exports to the United States said he had been requested not to use the word "Tartan" in the description of the goods being exported , as this would lead to an additional tax being levied on the importers. This is apparently some kind of hangover from the cashmere dispute, where big American companies with interests in bananas objected to Europe importing its bananas from former colonies and protectorates; the tax was imposed but I thought that it had been resolved. Perhaps only banana republics controlled by his cronies are acceptable to George Bush.

IOLANTHE - FEBRUARY 2003

Reform of the House of Lords has been on and off the political agenda for at least 100 years; this time it was a manifesto promise by Tony Blair that there would be an elected House of Lords, and we would be rid of all this flummery and heredity. No longer would the ermine clad ranks of property owners and Anglican bishops thwart the will of the duly elected government; these noble lords were nearly all Tories anyway, and why should anyone sit in judgment merely because their forefathers were bigger thieves and cutthroats than ours. No, there would be an "Elected" not an "Elect"; so they got rid of most of the hereditary lot, or they are going at some time in the future, but have not as yet . The situation is unclear to the layman, as the House of Lords still shows that there are 679 peers; it also lists the hereditary ones who are standing for election for the 90 places on offer.

Now that the debate and voting in the House of Commons is over, the situation is still at the status quo, wherever that is! Broadly speaking, Blair changed his mind from elected to appointed peers, the Leader of the House, Robin Cook, put forward a proposal for elected peers, and when both these views were rejected, all other proposals from 80% appointed, 20% elected and numerous others were tried - and were all voted down! See what I mean about the fairies? I am unaware of how many lords and ladies there will be in the "new" House of Lords, because as sure as shooting the House of Lords is not being abolished, and that if there is still going to be a hereditary lot, the 90 standing for election, who is going to elect them, and if they are going to be elected by the current peers are they then elected for life, or if not how can there be another election when the current hereditary peers, the 679 or so, are no longer there to elect anybody.

This is almost beginning to convince me I should take a crash course in the proposals for the House of Lords, but life is too short for me to waste valuable time on this. What is self evident is that the first thing that should have been established was what kind of revising Chamber was required, and what were the logical steps to get there; this lot seem to be making it up as they go along. What I find most disturbing is that Lord Steel, currently Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament thinks that all Presiding Officers should be Lords, and that there should be a revising Chamber in our Parliament; our elected members have enough to do with the Committee system, which is far superior to the Westminster way, without loading another chamber onto them.

One final thought; as the original House of Lords was composed of those who gained the favour of whichever royal house was in power at the time, the preferred "new" House of Lords of appointees would be exactly the same, only this time it would be the Prime Minister’s appointees, including the Anglican bishops, "appointed" by the puppet Queen, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. No wonder there are no Catholic bishops allowed - they are appointed by the Pope, an office to which the Blessed Tony has not yet aspired.

THE EXECUTIVE SPLIT

Colin was writing about the importance of the next three months of this year, and one approach we need to emphasise; I quote "First, the division between Parliament and Executive must be more clearly defined. As things stand, Parliament is consistently held responsible for failings in our public service, for political crises and even, in some newspapers, for scandals arising from Labour cronyism. In reality, Parliament’s role is primarily that of overseeing. Parliament exists to hold government to account, to ask the right questions at the right times and to act as the voice of the people vis-a-vis the actions of government. For example, the cost and management of the Holyrood building project arose, not from the actions of Parliamentary officials, but from the political decisions of Labour ministers. Yet, it has been the Parliament and Scottish politics which have been blamed."

I wholeheartedly agree with these comments, and how we must split off the Parliament from the Executive; there is no doubt that the Parliament is not as popular now as it was when it was elected, but when we look at the conduct of those in power we can understand how people have become disillusioned. In the early days we had the Finance Minister, Jack McConnell, investigated by the Standards Committee over allegations that he was in the pocket of a firm of lobbyists; he walked away from that, cleared, although a reading of the report raises more questions than it answered.

Then we had votes in the Parliament on a fishing tie-up scheme re-run as the Executive lost it; there had also been a vote on the new Parliament building when it was given the go-ahead by one vote - as the Liberals chickened out again, student tuition fees deferred, rather than abolished, free care for the elderly nearly lost, Henry McLeish resigning over an expenses scandal which is not yet over, and a shambolic change to the bid for Euro 2008 which made it a non-starter. Add in the decision to scrap Peterhead Prison overturned after severe criticism and private prison projects thrown out as well, to say nothing of the fox hunting politically correct bill and the Section 2a so seriously botched by Wendy Alexander, and you can understand why people became disillusioned. I am sure I will wake up in the middle of the night with "How could I forget that?"

So, we hold the Executive to account, as John Swinney does every week, and we hammer them for their ineffectiveness and their lack of ambition; they will plead lofty ambitions and points of principle, but in effect Labour and their poodles are just Lanarkshire local government writ large, and we need shot of them.

FOOT IN THE MOUTH NOTES

Would that be Westminster City Council, or Edinburgh Council, or just general deterioration in the English language; Heaven help crossword fans.

The same stockbrokers, Cazenove, also managed to lose £400,000 of money put into a fund by the late Princess Diana for her sons to give money to charity; they apparently made bad investment decisions.

Brings to mind the old adage "How does one make a small fortune?", to which the answer is "Take a large fortune and give it to a stockbroker."

Intrigued by a headline that said "TUC to meet Prescott for fire talks."

Perhaps the juxtaposition of "Prescott" and "fire" in the same sentence could give the government a possible way out of their dilemma.

The Standards Committee of the Scottish Parliament has severely criticised the Presiding Officer, Lord Steel; the noble lord had written to all MSPs praising the business exchange scheme after the Standards Committee had produced an extremely critical report. Lord Steel only highlighted the non-critical parts of the report and his letter was "..bordering on contemptuous of the committee’s consideration of the matter."

Could this be the same Lord Steel who is the honorary president of the business exchange scheme?

SYNOPSIS

SNP Euro-MP Ian Hudghton MEP today condemned the latest attempts by the Scottish Executive parties to block EU funding for Scotland's fishing communities. A proposed resolution currently being considered by the European Parliament's Fisheries Committee had called for the EU to allocate €150 million to compensate coastal communities in the wake of December's disastrous fisheries decision. However, MEPs from both Scottish Labour and the Scottish Lib Dems have circulated amendments which seek to remove any specific demands for extra EU funding. Commenting on the moves which follow recent revelations that the Foreign Office would block any Scots bid for EU cash, Mr Hudghton said, "It beggars belief that Labour and the Lib Dems have come together to block vital European cash. The Fisheries Committee's proposed resolution demands that the EU coughs up money to help our fishing industry survive - the Labour Lib Dem alliance is more interested in pleasing Elliot Morley in London. The European Parliament - with Labour and Liberal support - passed a motion last December which acknowledged that extra EU funding would be required to help the industry. Now, just two months later, the Executive parties are backing down from that call. It is quite remarkable - there seems to be no end to the London parties' selling out of the Scots fishing industry."

David Thompson, SNP Candidate for Ross, Skye and Inverness West, is horrified that winter maintenance budget cuts of 11% are being considered by Highland Council at a time when the Highlands and Islands are facing their worst snow for some years. These cuts are being forced on Highland Council by the continual reduction in the Council's budget by the Scottish Executive. David Thompson said "On reading the papers for this Thursday's Special Council Meeting to fix the budget and set the Council Tax I noticed that the Council are considering cutting Winter Maintenance, which means snow clearing and gritting, by 11%. This is one of a range of measures they are being forced to look at to keep their budget below the Scottish Executive target and is a stark indication of just how poor their financial settlement is for next year. At a time when we are suffering the worst snow for some years it is ironic indeed that the Council have been forced into the position of considering cutting, of all things, their snow clearing budget."

Alasdair Morgan, SNP MSP for Galloway & Upper Nithsdale, has today welcomed the Royal Mail Group's customer information campaign, aimed at informing people that they can still collect pensions and benefits from Post Office branches, even after the implementation of the Government's 'credit transfer' method of payment. Starting from April 2003, the Government will commence the payment of benefits, pensions, allowances and some tax credits directly into claimants' bank accounts. Many people in rural areas of Scotland, such as Dumfries & Galloway, have expressed concern that this move would take much-needed custom away from village post offices. However, people will still have the opportunity to collect their cash at their local post office, even after the change over, and the Royal Mail Group is to make available a series of leaflets, emphasising this fact. Welcoming the campaign, Mr Morgan said, " In some instances, local sub-post offices make over one-third of their income through the payment of pensions and benefits on behalf of the government. As such, it is very important that people continue to collect their payments at local POs, even after the change over. After all, sub-post offices are often combined with the only shop in the village, and, as I have previously said, this is a case of 'use it or lose it'."

Speaking during a visit to Markinch paper manufacturers, Tullis Russell today, Shadow First Minister, John Swinney MSP, emphasised the SNP's determination to improve the growth rate of the Scottish economy – in order to reduce unemployment and increase the nation's wealth. Mr Swinney pledged that an SNP government would reduce business rates to the immediate advantage of businesses throughout Fife. Mr Swinney who was accompanied by Mid Scotland and Fife SNP MSP, Tricia Marwick tehn went on to visit Cullen Engineering in Glenrothes. Mr Swinney said, "The latest unemployment figures show that there are currently 2,344 people claiming unemployment in Central Fife - 6.9% of the local population. The situation throughout Scotland as a whole is better, but not unsimilar, and unemployment is consistently higher that in the UK as a whole. The economic growth rate in Scotland over the past five years has been 1.4% - compared to the UK rate of 2.6%. These figures tell us that the people of Fife and of Scotland are missing out as a direct result of our lower growth rate. To boost our economy an SNP government will reduce government taxation on growth. As a first step to enhancing competitiveness we will reduce business rates to a level lower than the rest of the UK."

Commenting today on the report from the Scottish Executive about Scotland's school estates and the one hundred million pound investment for schools SNP Shadow Education Minister Mr Mike Russell MSP labelled the information as 'vague' and without any urgency to protect the state of our schools. Mr Russell said, "We welcome any money for school repairs but the actual details are vague and the time scale doesn't reflect either the urgency of the situation or the fact that many of our schools are run down due to cuts by the government and Labour Local Authorities in the past. The Executive must ensure that if it does bring money forward that all refurbishment and repair takes into account the need to reduce class sizes and they can therefore get a double bonus. Finally Cathy Jamieson, on radio this morning, refused to answer key questions about the use of PFI in the first place which is all the more relevant this week following the announcement that AMEY has sold off the Glasgow schools."

Average Scots earnings are now forty pounds a week lower than the rest of the UK, SNP Shadow Economy Minister, Andrew Wilson MSP, revealed today as new earnings figures show more people than ever earning less than the average wage. Mr Wilson revealed official figures obtained from the Office of National Statistics showing that average full-time weekly earnings in Scotland now stand at just 474 pounds, compared to 514 pounds for the UK. The figures come on the same day as an independent report from Incomes Data Services (IDS) reveals that across the UK the proportion of full-time employees earning less than the average weekly wage has risen from 62.1 percent in 1997 to 64.6 percent in 2002. Both set of figures come in the wake of statistics revealing Scotland's population is ageing faster than the UK, highlighting the need for increased economic growth if a sustainable economy is to be secured. Commenting Mr Wilson said, "The average working Scot is now forty pounds a week worse off than their counterpart in the rest of the UK. That is over 2000 pounds a year. This is on top of the news that more people than ever are earning less than the average weekly wage. Far from tackling low pay, the problem is actually getting steadily worse under Labour. This is the price working Scots pay for the failed low-growth policies of Labour and Tory governments. We face a dual danger of an ageing population and historic low growth. We must now build a consensus to build a high growth economy that tackles these problems. The alternative is further wasted decades of relative economic decline and all the social problems that come with it."

Fishermen who put to sea to save the lives of colleagues on boats who find themselves in trouble, may be penalised under the draconian new 'days at sea' regulations brought in under the EU fisheries deal. SNP Shadow Fisheries Minister, Richard Lochhead MSP, has slammed the move, part of the new fisheries regime that has kicked in this weekend following the disastrous deal in Brussels struck by UK Fisheries Ministers in December. Guidelines issued to skippers stipulate that "The Fisheries Departments may also, exceptionally, exercise discretion to exempt time spent in the Cod Recovery Zones, for example where a vessel is unable to fish because of extraordinary circumstances (say a substantive breakdown, or having had to respond to a distress call.)" Mr Lochhead commented, "These regulations are a shambles and many fishermen are struggling to make sense of the guidelines which were only issues in the last few days. By stating that steaming time undertaken to answer distress calls 'may' by discarded when counting a vessel's days at sea is despicable when a guarantee should be provided. Ministers are effectively telling skippers that they can go to the rescue of other vessels in distress but there is no guarantee that time spent doing that will be discounted from their days at sea allocation. This send out the worst kind of message to the industry."

Mr Lochhead continued saying, "Instead of capitulating in Brussels, Ministers should have fought for the interests of our fishing communities. These regulations were predicted to be a shambles and unworkable and that is what they are proving to be. Scotland has been stitched up by the UK and Europe and Ministers from the Lib-Lab Government seem intent on making matters worse.

   BIRNIEBOUZLE 
James Hogg

The Dignity Of The Court

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