The Flag in the Wind
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All the criticism of how the Parliament operated, all the beefs about the cost of the Parliament, all the snide remarks about the numpties elected to the Parliament, all of this has gone for nothing, and we are back to business as usual with the usual suspects in control. There was never any chance of the Tories, the Liberals, the Greens or Tommy the Commies lot winning control of the Parliament; the only party which could shift the Labour hegemony was the SNP. We actually managed better than last time, by taking 3 seats from Labour under the first past the post system, but the rise of the Green vote and the SSP vote knocked us out on the second vote. The Green Party’s campaign was clever; they went around brandishing cut-outs of the number 2, which was a simple message, but not one the SNP could use, as we were fighting all the constituency seats. The SSP made its gains following in the wake of Tommy the Commie, but will now be judged on their representatives.

The victory of Margo MacDonald was also expected, but it should be noted that whereas in Edinburgh South as the SNP candidate in 1999 she got 23.53% of the votes, this time she only attracted 10.22% of the votes in Lothian, despite the very high profile she enjoyed; we now wonder if she will combine her two campaign themes of the cost of the new building and tolerance zones into campaigning for work on the new Parliament building to be halted and the area turned into a prostitutes’ tolerance zone. This would please Her Majesty (Elizabeth, I mean) and the owners of the Scotsman, who are the Parliament’s next door neighbours; how appropriate.

THE LOSERS

The doctor from Bearsden, an independent, saw off Labour MSP Brian Fitzpatrick, to general cries of schadenfreude, and Shona Robison of the SNP took the Dundee East seat; this was perhaps a deal too far for John MacAllion, who was rumoured to have reached agreement with the SSP, who did not contest the seat. To put this into perspective, the SSP polled 1501 in Dundee West, and Labour had a majority of 1066 over the SNP there; who knows? Dr Richard Simpson lost Ochil to George Reid of the SNP, perhaps paying the price for calling striking firemen "fascist bastards", and Brian Adams of the SNP took Aberdeen North from Elaine Thomson of Labour.

Now we lost, Mike Russell, too far down the list in South of Scotland, a bad loss, and Andrew Wilson, also too far down the list , but he came close in Cumbernauld and Kilsyth losing by only 520 votes, another bad loss for us. Kenny Gibson lost out in Glasgow, Irene McGugan in Dundee, and Alasdair Morgan lost his Galloway seat by 99 votes, but is still in on the list. We lost Gil Paterson also from the Central Scotland list and Dorothy Grace Elder left us anyway; we also lost one Lothians list seat which had been held by Margo MacDonald.

So we now have 27, or 26, see below!

PRESIDING OFFICER

George was a Deputy Presiding Officer in the first Parliament; he was a list MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, but this time he took the Ochil seat from Labour with a majority of 296. From 1974 to 1979, George was the MP for virtually the same seat, which was then called Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire; when he lost it in 1979, he went on to work for the International Red Cross, returning to live full time in Bridge of Allan when he retired.

In many ways it is a welcome appointment, as George will bring a gravitas to the post, and be Scotland’s Ambassador to the rest of the world, but the SNP needed his experience and expertise, and this will be sorely missed within the party.

ASIANS FOR INDEPENDENCE

The votes cast were as follows :

Well done, Bashir; I first met him in 1997, just after the General Election which emptied the Tories out of Scotland, when all Headquarters staff were the guests of Asians for Independence at a lunch in Glasgow. I met him again last year at Conference, in the picture with Ian Hudghton, Kenneth Fee and myself. I understand that Bashir gave up a number of his business interests after a heart attack a year or two back, but he’ll be busier than ever now.

WHERE TO NOW?

Every time I listen to the high moral claptrap of the press, I am reminded of an incident at the Edinburgh North by-election in 1973. One of my friends was handing out poll gate slips, the ones you hand to the voters going in hoping that you might clinch their vote, when a Liberal at the same polling station said "That doesn’t do you any good, you know." My friend, Alastair Kidd, looked at him, and said "You are concerned that we do well?" So we should always remember our enemies do not criticise us so that we do better, but only because they wish us to do worse. No one in the party is calling for John Swinney’s resignation, or if so they are doing it in a cupboard somewhere.

We did have some criticism levelled by Gordon Wilson, former Convener of the SNP, about the strategy of calling for a Referendum on Independence; Gordon is a person we all like and respect, and he has been rather sidelined in the past few years because he was uttering unpalatable truths. However, while Gordon, who was always a pragmatist, did not have his sorrows to seek as SNP leader, viz - the 79 Group, Margo going off in the public huff, and the expulsion and re-admission of the Scottish Socialist Society, led by Alex Salmond, to name but a few, he did not have a Parliament with severely restricted powers sitting in Scotland, and a contest for control of that Parliament. The strategy of proving the competence of the SNP to govern in the Parliament should have given the people the confidence to go for Independence. As it was, we lost out due to the rise of the SSP and the Greens; people had two choices on the ballot paper, so they opted to use them.

When I wrote last week’s Flag I was unaware that Plaid Cymru had also suffered at the Welsh Elections, losing 5 seats out of 17, a worse result than we had; this has prompted me to wonder if indeed there was a Baghdad bounce, with people Proud to be British, as our soldiers behaved in an exemplary fashion and Britain became Great again, at least for a short time under the wings of the American eagle? There is no doubt that British troops did well in the war, and its speedy conclusion and the general welcome by the Iraqi people told its own story. Who knows - but still the other anti-war parties did well, although they were not seen as a threat to the unity of the United Kingdom.

I have only been in the SNP for 37 years, but the campaign for this election is the best I have ever seen; also as the campaign progressed, John Swinney grew in stature. We took 3 seats from Labour, lost 1 to the Tories, with a little help from their Labour friends, and there are now 9 marginals, but it was the second vote that damaged us. The party now has to rebuild internally, and I do not foresee any challenge to John Swinney until he has done a lot of the hard work that needs done; he has not yet been 3 years in post.

THE LOYAL OATH

I do not know the wording but MSPs can either take the oath of allegiance or a solemn affirmation; it could be that one refers to God, and one does not.. Perhaps it is acceptable to deny the existence of God, but not of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. As far as we can gather, in the Welsh Parliament this procedure is done in private, so no histrionics are relevant, so maybe the Scottish Parliament should do the same. Let’s face it, swearing allegiance to the Queen in this year of Our Lord 2003 is certainly a bit passe, but it gave the SSP an opportunity to cavort before the TV cameras. I also hear that the representative of the Pensioners’ Party thought that the whole business was a total waste of a day; I’m with him.

The Scotsman featured the treatment of the wife of Paul Robeson, the great American singer, who was persecuted for taking trips to the Soviet Union, but most of all denouncing racism in the United States. Paul Robeson was allowed to leave the States to visit Europe in 1958; I know that very well, as I heard him in the Caird Hall, Dundee. It was a magical evening; my seat was at the back of the stage, so most of the time he was singing with his back to the plebs who could only afford what was the cheap seats, but we were only yards away from him. I particularly remember his singing the Eriskay Love Lilt, and somewhere in the house I have a signed programme, as I queued to get his autograph.

When trying to find the exact date, the year even, I looked up his biography by Martin Bauml Duberman, but no mention of the Caird Hall, Dundee or even Scotland. I then tried the Web, and found my own words in a previous Flag! No help there; there was also a reference to him on the SSP website, but they had him down as the great American tenor, when he was a bass, so I didn’t pursue that one. I was at the concert on my own, so it must have been when my wife, at that time my girl friend, was in hospital, which makes it some time in the winter of 1958-59. How time flies, and I still listen to tapes of him, with vast enjoyment.

I must have dreamt that SMG, owners of the Herald, barred the press from their Special General Meeting when shareholders approved the sale of the paper to Gannet.

I wouldn’t let the Archbishop of Canterbury smack my children.

After the defection of the SNP second votes, perhaps this week I should be down on my knees eating humble pie, flavoured with the sauce of hubris.

The MP, whom few had ever heard of, was called Crispin Blunt, a bit of an oxymoron; he certainly wasn’t crisp’ n sharp.

SYNOPSIS

SNP CONTINUES FIGHT FOR FISHING COMMUNITIES

COMMISSION ADMITS COD PLAN "WILL RUIN FLEETS SUCH AS THE SCOTTISH FLEET"
Tues 6 Apr 03

Expressing anger on the day the European Commission published their long-term cod recovery plan, SNP Euro-MP Ian Hudghton MEP today pledged that the SNP will continue to lead the fight for Scotland's fishing communities. The pledge came after the Commission acknowledged in a press release that their proposal "will ruin fleets such as the Scottish fleet". Mr Hudghton went on to repeat SNP demands that Scotland leads the UK delegation at forthcoming fisheries talks in Brussels.

Mr Hudghton said:

"The Commission has today finally conceded that it wants to destroy the Scottish fleet - and with it centuries of tradition. Franz Fischler claims that the Scots have had the biggest impact on cod stocks, yet allows other countries' fleets to continue the obscenity of industrial fishing unabated. This deliberate attempt to target one nation's fishing heritage is totally unacceptable.

"The Scottish fleet is being targeted because the UK can be depended upon to sell them out at every possible occasion. The UK cannot be allowed to go through with this final sell-out. The SNP will fight for our fishing communities at every possible occasion.

"In last week's Scottish election the SNP increased their share of the vote in Scotland's main fishing areas. We have been confirmed as Scotland's fishing party. And the new Scottish government must take into account the policies which the fishing communities voted for.

"Key amongst these is the demand that the Scottish Fisheries Minister leads for the UK at future Fisheries Council meetings. Whoever forms the next government must make sure that this demand is met - or be guilty of our coastal communities' final betrayal".

Newly-elected Dundee East MSP Shona Robison revealed she had more than one reason for celebrating when she announced at the weekend that she is expecting her first child in the summer. Shona (37), who on Thursday beat Labour's John McAllion to record a historic victory for the SNP in the shock of the Scottish Parliamentary elections, is more than six months pregnant but she and her husband Stewart Hosie, the SNP national secretary, decided it was better to confine the news to family and close friends until after polling day. "We didn't want it to be an election issue so we kept quiet but if anyone asked me, I told them," she said. "It has been unbelievably busy so I've not had time to sit down and think about things. Maybe that's a good thing as it allowed me to concentrate on getting fit and the campaign. Both myself and Stewart are very, very pleased and can't wait until the birth of our first child in July."

John Swinney today insisted his party would not dump its goal of Scottish independence. And he slapped down speculation that the SNP might have to consider settling for Scotland winning more autonomy but remaining part of the UK. "Under no circumstances," Mr Swinney told BBC Radio Scotland's Eye to Eye programme. "I joined the SNP at the age of 15, I have devoted my adult life to the winning of Scottish independence. And I'm not going to change the SNP's fundamental direction towards Scottish independence. I believe in independence, I believe independence is the only way in which our parliament will have the power to deliver a prosperous economy, to get people out of poverty, to guarantee we have a safe and secure environment, and that we have a place for Scotland in the world. That's what independence means to me, and it's as relevant today as it has ever been.

Mr Swinney argued his party fought an election campaign that had won praise from commentators but voters had not yet been ready to view it as a party of government. "The party got caught in a transition from being a party that attracted many protest votes in the 1999 and previous elections, to becoming a party of government," he said. This transition was one the SNP had yet to make, he said. "I am absolutely serious about delivering Scottish independence, and we will not deliver Scottish independence simply by being a protest party. We have to deliver Scottish independence from a position of strength - which is in government, in office." He also said the party had to strengthen its political organisation on the ground, and to "rejuvenate" itself at local level. He said he had already launched moves to bring about better participation for individual party members, moves to expand the membership of the party, and other internal changes.

The SNP must look to winning more first past the post seats and building a coalition for Independence as the route to success, two leading nationalists argued today. Writing in the Sunday Mail, Andrew Wilson said: "We are no longer the party of protest and that is a necessary right of passage for us. We didn't convince Scotland to make us the new government but we must keep at it. The SNP can't win by carping at the sidelines and hoping the mercury rises fast enough. Now we must build a coalition of support for what we are about. This is the challenge that lies ahead and I look forward to serving the cause to the best of my ability." Meanwhile Alex Salmond has outlined his belief that the party's first past the post gains on Thursday are where the SNP should look for an example of how to succeed. The SNP now holds more city seats than ever before, in Aberdeen, Dundee and Inverness, and at nine has its highest tally of parliamentary seats in nearly thirty years. Writing in the News of the World, Mr Salmond said: "Where we were organised, in the central belt – in seats like Linlithgow, Cumbernauld – and Kilmarnock, we did well. And then there are the places we actually won like Dundee East, Aberdeen North and Ochil. In vote terms, it was the third-best result in history while Labour had their worst result in Scotland since 1931."

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