We wish all our readers a Happy New Year,
and hope that it will be a successful one; however, our
magnanimity does not extend to members of other political
parties. Hypocritical we ain’t.
This edition will be a bit limited, as we
are in what my friend and colleague, Peter D Wright, calls
the Daft Days, and while we are sure that politicians, among
others will behave in a suitably indiscreet manner, the lack
of media coverage will hide this from our scrutiny - until
later.
HACKLES RAISED
A
week past Saturday, I marched in the "Save Our Regiments"
demonstration in Edinburgh; there was not a highly visible
SNP presence, but I walked alongside a very nice chap,
Douglas Edwards, SNP Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for
East Kilbride, who is standing against the current Labour MP
, Adam Ingram, Armed Forces Minister. However, I did not
feel at all isolated, as there were a lot of red hackles
about, and I did my National Service with the Black Watch;
that was 50 years ago, so there might be something in this
tradition syndrome. (I later discovered I had been marching
with the Royal Scots contingent, but never gave that a
thought; as my grandfather, whom I never knew, had served in
the Royal Scots, that balanced that out.)
The march was well
attended and well received by the people who lined Princes
Street; there was a lot of clapping, and I met someone who
had taken his grandchildren, as this was a sight they would
never see again. It was a bitterly cold day, but the
marchers attended the rally in Princes Street Gardens, and
nearly everyone stayed to the end. I felt a twinge (only a
twinge) of sympathy for Lesley Hinds, Edinburgh’s Lady
Provost, as New Labour was castigated, rightly, for its
treatment of the Scottish Regiments; she was at pains to
point out that she was there as the First Citizen of
Edinburgh and as Lord Lieutenant of Lothian, (plus some
other title), and not representing the Labour Party! A
number of Labour MPs were invited to attend, but had not
responded.
We had speeches from 5 or
6 retired General and Colonels, who now have no axe to
grind, and rather a lot of information from them; for
instance I was unaware that the Foot Guard Regiments were
not to be touched, as there would then not be enough of them
for ceremonial duties! I think it was a former Black Watch
Colonel who made the point that the Scottish Regiments were
actually pretty good at operational duties, which was
supposed to be the main occupation of soldiers. The
Organiser thought it would be a good idea to transfer the
Guards Regiments to the Tourist Board, and save the Ministry
of Defence a lot of money. There is no doubt that these
changes are cost driven; the MoD has already squandered vast
sums of money on schemes that do not work, so they have to
make economies somewhere. At present the Army is
overstretched, and a lot of Territorial and Reservists are
serving in Iraq; in fact there is a further rumpus brewing
as 150 health professionals are being called up to active
service, thus creating even more problems for the National
Health Service. Also, there is supposed to be a two year gap
between tours of duty; this is now down to 8 months, and now
we are apparently going to send 2000 soldiers to Darfur -
not before time. The answer to needing more troops is
somehow to get rid of them - London logic.
There
were 3 SNP speakers at the Rally; Pete Wishart MP for North
Tayside was well received, and the crowd was ecstatic about
Annabelle Ewing MP for Perth, because she had been ejected
from the House of Commons for calling the Defence Secretary,
Geoff Hoon, "A backstabbing coward" (Can’t say fairer than
that). The last speaker was Alex Salmond, who advised
the audience that they should leave the Regiments intact and
disband the Labour MPs; his comment that we did not need one
super regiment, as we already had 6 super regiments struck a
chord. Alex also said that the concentration of money on
high tech "solutions" was a waste: "If Osama bin Laden comes
after us with a submarine, we can handle that!" He pointed
out that the Defence Secretary had just placed orders for 89
Eurofighters (sounds like Tories), and that the cost of one
Eurofighter would keep a Regiment for 6 years; and on the
European scene, there was a Dutch Pipe Band in the march, no
doubt as they had more reason than most to appreciate the
part played by the Scottish Regiments.
Two days before, the
Scottish Parliament had passed a motion condemning the cuts;
this was a Tory motion, and it went through by 61 votes to
59. The SNP supported the motion, as did the Liberals, happy
to go against the Scottish Executive on a matter not to do
with its competence; one Labour MSP voted with them, and
will be severely chastised this week, but apparently
she feared the Dundee Courier more than the Parliamentary
Whip. The SSP voted with Labour, as did Margo MacDonald, and
the Greens abstained.
I don’t quite know
where this Campaign goes now; they say that they do not
support any political party, which is fair enough, but also
that they are going to put up "Save the Regiment" candidates
in Labour seats. If they persist with this policy they will
only succeed in letting the Labour candidate in, as they
will split the anti-Labour vote; I do not believe they could
carry enough weight to have a member elected, and this would
be another example of the law of unintended
consequences.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Well,
the Scottish Parliament building itself may be finished, but
the scandal surrounding it is far from over; MacAlpine the
builder is suing the Parliamentary Corporate Body for over
£4 million, for loss of profit.
Their case is based on
the fact that they put in the cheapest tender for the
original building; Bovis, who won the contract, had put in
the dearest tender and were knocked out of the contest. For
some reason, as yet unknown, they were allowed to re-submit
their tender, while the other builders were not. All this
was uncovered by the relentless questioning of the civil
servant, Barbara Doig, by John Campbell, QC for the Fraser
Inquiry, and the action stems from that, since the facts
were unclear until then.
The Presiding Officer,
George Reid, is understandably extremely disappointed at the
continuation of the Holyrood saga, but he will not be
surprised; the tendering process would seem to have been in
breach of European law, to say nothing of the common law of
Scotland. With the cavalier attitude of civil servants and
Establishment politicians to competitive tendering, one
might wonder at how many other government and local
government contracts could survive scrutiny? Mr Reid,
however, put in a rider that will gladden many Scottish
hearts; although MacAlpine is suing the Corporate Body, as
the current responsible body, the contract was awarded by
the then Secretary of State for Scotland, Donald Dewar,
presumably on the advice of the civil servants in the
Scottish Office. There was no Scottish Parliament, there was
no Corporate Body, no MSPs - in short - all this was done by
Westminster. They broke the rules, chose the builder, the
site, the architect and the type of contract, then handed
the mess over to the new Parliament, elected five months
later.
The action will also
strike fear into the civil service; an "independent" report
into the fiasco cleared civil servants of any blame.
Alastair MacDonald, from the office of the independent civil
service commissioner said in this report: "There are, in my
view, no instances of "misconduct" which would cause me to
advise you to consider disciplinary proceedings against any
individual." He found that they had all acted in good faith.
However, if the case does come to trial, this will be held
under Scottish Law, where witnesses will be examined under
oath; this did not happen in the Fraser Inquiry, which
revealed a real can of worms, but there were no legal
restraints on witnesses. Who knows, maybe this time, we
might hear and see more of the footage from the Wark-Clements
documentary, "The Gathering Place", access to which was
denied to the Fraser Inquiry.
An interesting sidelight
on the subject; last year the cost of ministerial cars by
the Executive rose to £647,000, and the cost of taxis went
up to £338,000. The reason given is that ministers prefer
not to take the bus or train in case confidential papers are
seen, or mobile phone conversations heard; people with good
memories may recall that the emergence of the Holyrood
building site was due to an overheard conversation on the
Edinburgh- Glasgow train, and that was not with a mobile
phone.
OOPS -
CORRECTION
I said last week that if I
was wrong when writing about time zones in America, then
some of our American devotees would correct me. Well, Norma
E Leibold has written to correct me, but about casinos!
She wrote "Sorry, Mr
Lynch. I live in Southern California and there are approx 6
casinos (on Indian Reservations) all within 25 miles of me.
And from what I understand they are always busy" I remember
I was told that there were casinos on Indian Reservations,
but I thought that they were not open to the general public.
I stand corrected; thank you, Norma.
FOOT IN THE MOUTH
NOTES
"Your paper may not have a
vast circulation, but it is an influential one." Lord Steel
of Aikwood.
We have his
communication to us using these exact words; how nice of
him.
Some Post Office
workers went on strike on Christmas Eve this year, as
management decreed that the Post Offices should remain open
until 4 o’clock, instead of closing at 12.30 as per
Christmas Eves over the last 30 years.
Bit of a paradox here,
as management are generally into closing Post Offices, not
keeping them open.
The Irish are the
second most prosperous people in the European Union, and are
even wealthier than the Swiss; the UK comes in at No 6, but
Scotland has no separate statistics thus saving our blushes.
However, in World Football ranking, Ireland comes in at No
12, with Scotland at 86.
The defence mechanism
of Irish jokes is wearing thin.
Scotland’s First
Minister reacted angrily to interference in the Parliament’s
affairs by London Labour MPs; he was responding to comments
made by Nicola Sturgeon MSP, leader of the SNP in the
Scottish Parliament. The main grievance of the aforesaid
MPs, not often admitted, is that the Scottish Parliament is
getting all the publicity.
Hell hath no fury like a
politician ignored.
The
Scottish Book Trust conducted a survey among Scottish
parliamentarians of their favourite Scottish books. The
winner was Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s "Sunset Song", and the
runner-up James Hogg’s "The Private Memoirs and Confessions
of a Justified Sinner" (appropriate?) Books by Muriel Spark,
Andrew Greig, John Buchan and Robert Louis Stevenson were
all equal third.
What an erudite bunch,
said I to myself, or are they just politicians showing how
they wish to be seen? (Haven’t read either of the top two,
but some of the others when I was at school.)
Policy Postcard
Post Offices
Labour
in Westminster are hell-bent on the privatisation of the
Post Office. They are doing this by opening up the
service to competition, but allowing the private sector to
cherry pick the profitable bits - leaving the rest to
wither.
-
The Post Office is a
vital service - especially in rural areas. But the
lesson from postal privatisation in Sweden has been a
price hike of 40% on stamps, an end to door-to-door
deliveries in rural areas and the number of Swedish post
offices has been cut by half.
-
Labour should have
learned from the privatisation failure that was Railtrak.
Now we are faced with Mailtrak.
-
London Labour are
going to privatise our post - but the Scottish
Parliament won't even have a say.
The Working Life of Linda
Fabiani MSP
Click here to read SNP MSP Linda Fabiani's working diary.
SYNOPSIS
A brief snapshot of what
some of our Parliamentary representatives have been up to
over the last week. Do not imagine for a moment that they
are all off roistering, or whatever, at this time.
Speaking
following the announcement that the building firm McAlpine
are to take legal action against the Scottish Parliament
over the tendering process for the Holyrood Project, SNP MSP
Fergus Ewing called on the Labour Government at Westminster
to pay for the cost of any legal action taken on the basis
of a decision made prior to the establishment of the
Scottish Parliament.
Mr Ewing said that as the
appointment of Bovis was taken in January 1999, any costs
arising from any legal action should be borne by the
decision makers themselves - the Labour Government in
Westminster.
"This legal action is the inevitable consequence of the
failures of the Scottish Office prior to 1999. As the Fraser
Report said "if one tenderer was effectively permitted to
change a very material aspect of the financial basis upon
which its tender was submitted that is an opportunity which
should have been afforded to the others."
"While we should not prejudge the outcome of this action as
the matter is now subject to the legal process, it's clear
that any future costs associated with the flawed contract
process should be paid by those who made the deals. In this
case it's clear that the crucial decisions were made prior
to the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, and so the
Parliament should not have to fork out for someone else's
mistakes.
"It is also clear that many of the crucial facts about the
Holyrood project would still be secret, but for the
investigations of Lord Fraser. If Westminster had its way
the facts of the matter would still be hidden from the
public and the Parliament itself.
"With power comes responsibility. The power over the
contract for the Holyrood Project was firmly in the hands of
the old Scottish Office under full Westminster control when
it was signed in early 1999. The Labour Government at
Westminster should now take responsibility for its actions
and agree immediately to bear the full financial burdens of
any such legal action."
Speaking
following the meeting of the Scottish Parliament's Education
Committee, Shadow Education Minister Fiona Hyslop MSP
welcomed the concessions announced by the Executive at the
meeting in relation to the implementation legislation
designed to protect children, but hit out at the
incompetence of Ministers for failing to put children first.
She said: "I welcome this last minute concession by the
Minister, but remained stunned by the complacency of the
Executive in this matter. "This is a political fix which
could have been avoided had the Executive not been so
incompetent in the management of the implementation of the
legislation.
"The Executive are now left in an invidious position where
many volunteering organisations are still confused about
their disclosure requirements. At the same time the
Protection of Children (Scotland) Act will not now come
fully into force until April, a full two years after it was
passed.
"But we must not lose sight of the central issue of
protecting children from risk of abuse.
"As of today children are both in danger of losing support
by much needed and valued volunteers because of this
confusion, and are not fully protected under legislation.
"Euan Robson has totally mismanaged the situation and it's
only at the eleventh hour that he has started to listen and
respond to the serious concerns of Parliament and the
voluntary sector.
"Throughout this sorry episode, the Executive have failed to
act in the best interests of the children this law was meant
to protect."
The
SNP’s Social Justice Spokeswoman Christine Grahame MSP has
described the findings of a major report by NHS Quality
Improvement as "a damning indictment of Labour’s failure to
tackle poverty in Scotland". Ms Grahame has lodged a
Parliamentary motion challenging the Scottish Executive on
the report's conclusions.
The report, published on
20th December, shows a clear link between poverty and a
range of health problems facing children and young people
such as asthma and diabetes all the way through to teenage
pregnancy and neonatal death among the more deprived
communities of Scotland. Ms Grahame said:
"It's little wonder the
Executive were so keen to allow this report to be slipped
out just before Christmas. Perhaps they were hoping that no
one would notice the damning conclusions which are to be
drawn from it; namely that deprivation is closely linked
with a range of health problems for children living in
communities throughout Scotland and the gap between the
deprived and least deprived areas appears to be growing.
"I note also the comments
of Dr Armstrong, the Chief Medical Officer who said that
‘the report illustrates once again the excess ill-health
burden carried in Scotland’s poorest areas’. Hardly a
glowing endorsement of the Liberal/Labour Executive’s
efforts to date in tackling poverty in Scotland’s deprived
communities.
"This report shows that if
you live in a community gripped by poverty you can expect to
see higher levels of teenage pregnancy, greater levels of
stillbirths and neonatal death, you will be more likely to
see higher instances of depression and anxiety, higher
levels of diabetes and asthma and face greater chance of
unintentional injury."
"All in all this report is
a damning indictment of Labour’s failure to tackle poverty
in Scotland. Much more is needed in order to close the
poverty gap across Scotland which is resulting in poorer
health and poorer futures for Scotland’s children and young
people."
SNP
MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife Mr Bruce Crawford has
criticised the Environment Minister for failing to seek a
commonsense compromise between SEPA and Scottish Power
resulting in huge problems concerning how Scotland is to
dispose of 115,000 tonnes of sewage sludge every year.
Commenting, Mr Crawford
said: "This judgement today throws up a massive problem of
how, in future, Scotland should go about disposing of
115,000 tonnes of sewage sludge per annum.
"The High Court has found
that it cannot be burned at Longannet Power Station, in 1998
the EU ruled out disposal at sea and communities across
Scotland are rightly up in arms about disposal of sewage
sludge to land.
"This leaves only landfill
and that is a very unattractive environmental option.
"Of course the case would
never have reached the Courts had Ross Finnie attempted to
seek a commonsense compromise between SEPA on the one hand
and Scottish Power and Scottish Water on the other.
"He is after all the
Minister with responsibility for both SEPA and Scottish
Water – it would have been in the public interest for the
Minister to have banged heads together to find a solution.
"Instead what we have been
left with is an expensive court case for the public purse
and not a clue about how we are going to dispose of
Scotland’s 115,000 tonnes sewage sludge per annum safely in
future."
SNP
Fisheries Spokesperson Richard Lochhead MSP and Ian Hudghton
MEP have
reacted to the outcome of the latest Fisheries Council
meeting in Brussels
on the annual fishing quota talks.
Speaking in Brussels, Mr Lochhead
commented
"The SNP share the industry's relief that there was no
repeat of last
year's ambushes that left our fishing communities reeling.
However this
deal is no bed of roses, despite the welcome removal of many
of the more
draconian restrictions which will make life easier for some
parts of the
fleet.
"There is little reward for the enormous sacrifices made by
Scotland in
recent years, such as the scrapping of half the white fish
fleet.
"Our fishermen remain stuck on 15 days a month, effectively
a part-time
fishery.
"The
quota increases. particularly monkfish, will help the
fleet's
viability but there is a long way to go before our fishing
communities
will be back on the road to recovery."
Ian Hudghton added
"I hope that this deal is the start of a process which will
allow our
coastal and island communities to recover from the economic
and social
hardship inflicted by the CFP, especially over the past few
years."
The
Leader of the Scottish National Party, Mr Alex Salmond MP,
has submitted a motion to the House of Commons welcoming the
SNP’s recent by-election victory in Grangemouth. In
particular Mr Salmond welcomed the intervention by the
Labour MP Michael Connarty who wrote to every elector in the
ward. The SNP vote went up 42%.
Alex Salmond MP said:
"This was a crucial
election test in the heart of Scotland. Control of the local
authority was at stake and the SNP took an astonishing 56%
of the vote and won control of Falkirk Council in the
process.
"The sitting Labour MP
wrote to all of the electors in the ward with astonishing
results for the SNP. We will be encouraging all sitting
Scottish MPs to write to their electors in the run up to the
General Election.
"The Labour Party realise
that it is now game on. People in Scotland trust the SNP to
stand up for their interests at Westminster. It has been an
atrocious past few weeks for Labour with voters clearly
turning to the SNP in ever greater numbers."
Editor’s Note:
Alex Salmond MP submitted
the following EDM:
SNP Victory in
Grangemouth
That this House welcomes
the result of the Inchyra by-election in Grangemouth on 16
December 2004 which saw the SNP vote increase by 42% to win
the seat by 321 votes; notes the vindication of the policies
of the SNP administration of Falkirk District Council and
SNP candidate Angus MacDonald; notes the attempt by the hon.
Member for Falkirk East, to influence the result of the
election by personally writing to every elector; notes that
this did not prevent the SNP success and calls for similar
interventions from Scottish Labour MPs in other elections.
The result of the
Grangemouth by-election on 16 December 2004, on a turnout of
35.5% was:
| SNP |
603 |
(56%) |
| Lab |
282 |
(26%) |
| Ind |
169 |
(16%) |
| Ind |
28 |
(3%) |
In May 2003 the result was
as follows:
| Ind |
937 |
(58%) |
| Lab |
455 |
(28%) |
| SNP |
235 |
(14%) |
There was a 42% increase
in the SNP’s vote.
