The Scots Independent Newspaper Online

POPE JOHN PAUL II

So Pope John Paul II is dead.

What a life this man led! When he was born in 1920, Poland had been independent for less than two years. His father was a retired Polish soldier and his mother was of Lithuanian origin. She died when he was nine years of age, and his father in 1940.

Pope John Paul II Most of those of us over the age of forty will remember the impact of his election to the Papacy in 1978 - the sheer unexpectedness of a non-Italian Pope, the drama of his first full gestures to the crowd in St Peter¹s Square, the strong face and the powerful resonant voice.

Whatever your religious views, here obviously was a man of great faith, great sincerity and great charisma.

I happened to be in Dublin in July 1979 when his future visit to Ireland was announced and I can well remember the almost palpable thrill that went through the entire Irish community.

And so he went on to break free from the Eternal City and travel the world. He was a man who never forgot his own background, his own people and his own country, or its culture and traditions - he had gone up to university to study Polish language and literature.

So John-Paul combined being head of a world-wide church with being a man of real Polish feeling. Not only that, he prized the great diversity of all the nations of the world, shown by his symbolic kissing, just after alighting from his ¹plane of the soil of the country he was visiting.

In old age, and in sickness, his tenacity, his dignity and his adherence to his duty should act as an inspiration to us all.

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2005 Tartan Day Celebration Now Available

SO WE'RE OFF!

I write this having just got home after seeing my wife off to Australia - without me!

And I have just heard that Tony Blair has called the general election for Thursday 5 May.

From a British perspective it is highly likely that (New) Labour will win, almost certainly with a considerably reduced majority. Given the sheer arithmetic of the seats that Labour would have to lose actually to be defeated, it would be an astonishing result if Labour were not to be the largest party - and still by some margin.

But unusual results do in fact occasionally happen, as Prime Minister Harold Wilson and the pollsters discovered in 1970.

From the perspective of the Scottish National Party, of course, the election is not about forming the next British government. We cannot be that, nor is it our aim.

In electoral terms our aim should be to increase our share of the vote, to increase the number of our Members of Parliament (when total MP numbers in Scotland have been reduced from 72 to 59), and to put pressure on the London government.

We should never forget how effective the election of first seven and then eleven SNP MPs was in 1974 in making London aware of the question of Scottish independence.

Apart from the electoral necessity of doing well, the greater need for the SNP is to put over as dramatically and convincingly as possible the necessity of and arguments for independence.

I am constantly disappointed when the SNP sees itself as just another political party and promises this, that or the other group that they will be better paid or better looked after come independence.

As we can see from the success of other small independent countries in Northern Europe, it is almost certainly true that people in general will indeed be better off - with independence we will be able to concentrate on our own priorities, shed the expensive delusions of grandeur of British governments and put an end to the squandering of our resources.

But above all we should seek to convince our people that independence means responsibility and dignity, taking our own place with the other nations of the world and making our own unique contribution to their discussions.

Without independence, we shall continue to sit on the sidelines, unknown and ignored, while others take decisions for us.

THEY'RE AFTER OUR GOLD!

Horde of Vikings are after our gold!

So read a headline in the Scottish Sunday Mail on 3 April. So what is it all about?

Scandinavians have sparked a Scottish gold rush, continued the paper.

It seems that folk from the Continent know more about Scottish gold than the Scots themselves.

According the paper, it used to be visitors from Spain and Italy who were the main visitors, but now, with cheap flights from Norway and Sweden and the ferry link from Zeebrugge to Rosyth, it is the Scandinavians and the north Europeans who are flooding in.

Last year a record of 12,000 panners passed through Wanlockhead, which houses the Scottish Museum of Lead Mining.

The visitors head for the Lowther Hills in Dumfriesshire in South-West Scotland, where centuries ago gold to make the Scottish crown originally came from.

In 2001, a serious Swedish panner found a record six gram nugget to take home to his wife.

Next month, Wanlockhead will play host to the British and Scottish national gold panning championships.

POSTAL VOTING FRAUD

Now here is a scandal indeed.

Britain's postal voting system has been damned by High Court judge Richard Mawrey QC who said that evidence of electoral fraud he found in a vote-rigging case in Birmingham would disgrace a banana republic.

He found the system hopelessly insecure.

The judge went on to say that there was evidence of massive, systematic and organised fraud.

He concluded: The systems to deal with fraud are not working well. They are not working badly. The fact is that there are no systems to deal realistically with fraud and there never have been. Until there are, fraud will continue unabated.

Amazingly, in spite of all this, Mr Tom Aitchison, chief executive and returning officer for Edinburgh said that he was confident of safeguards for the vote in Edinburgh.

Even more amazingly, the Department of Constitutional Affairs claimed that steps were being taken to ensure that the system continued to be robust, safe and secure.

And, incredibly, the Labour government claims that the postal voting system is clearly working

Excuse me? as my American friends would politely intercede. Am I missing something here?

A judge says that the system would disgrace a banana republic and that the system is hopelessly insecure, and the Department responsible then claims that the system is robust, safe and secure, as if the judge had never spoken and never pronounced his judgment.

And the government claims that the system is clearly working. Now which system would that be - the fraud system?

It will come as no surprise to readers that the fraud was perpetrated by Labour party councillors. The beneficiary of the fraud was the Labour party. The government in power is the Labour government.

The six councillors have been suspended. Labour claims it condemns totally any case of electoral fraud.

The Labour government has decided to do nothing about the now discredited postal vote system.

Not by their words but by their actions shall ye know them!

THE MCDONALD ROAD GANG

Every week, up until the General Election, we will be profiling a member of SNP Headquarters staff; we will also supply a comprehensive list of who they all are. This will help Party activists know who to contact.

Craig Milroy is the leader of the Policy team at Headquarters. The Policy Unit was established in 2002 and is funded by a grant from the Electoral Commission. Together with Mhairi Hunter and Julie Shackleton he provides support and research for the development of policy across the Party, ensuring that we have robust and coherent arguments for Independence.

“The Policy Unit is about making sure that as many people as possible can access and understand the Party’s policy. But it’s more than that. Our policy is set and discussed by our members – and we need to involve as many members as possible in that process.” CM

Craig has worked for the Party for ten years, nine elections and one referendum, and spent a few years working in Parliament when it was established in 1999. He joined the Party as a student, hatching stunts and protests against the then Tory Government. Now he is still an adrenalin junkie, a snowboarder and a biker in his spare time.

Julie Shackleton is a Policy and Research Officer in the SNP Policy Unit, working with Craig Milroy and Mhairi Hunter.

Julie supports policy development work within the Party. This involves drafting policy papers, such as Saltire Papers, and associated research and briefing materials. As part of the Policy Unit, Julie also supports the internal and external consultation on policy proposals.

Over the last few months Julie's main focus has been drafting the manifesto, a series of mini manifestos and policy information and briefings for the SNP website.

Currently, her main focus is candidate support. This includes producing briefings on the SNP's main campaign themes, issuing policy guidance for hustings and responding to policy queries. She is also required to provide research support to the election press team, and write policy articles for external organisations. The Policy Unit is also responsible for the dissemination of mini manifestoes to civic Scotland as they are launched.

Julie first started working for the SNP as a volunteer in the Scottish Parliament, while studying Politics at Edinburgh University. After graduating, she worked in the North Tayside constituency office, before joining the Policy Unit at HQ in May 2002. Julie, originally from the Borders, is 25 and lives in Edinburgh. Having completed her Masters in Policy Studies at the end of last year, Julie is looking forward to having more time to indulge her love of socialising, shopping and various energetic outdoor activities - all after the election of course!

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.

Wednesday 30 March

SNP MAKES PLEDGE TO STUDENTS AS GRADUATES FACE EXTRA £2,000 BILL

BURDEN OF STUDENT DEBT TO WORSEN FROM 1 APRIL

Shadow Scottish Education Minister, Fiona Hyslop MSP and SNP parliamentary candidates for Dundee East, Mr Stewart Hosie and Dundee West, Cllr Joe Fitzpatrick today launched a campaign to have Student Loans replaced with Maintenance Grants.

The SNP calls come on the eve of the April 1st deadline when students will have to start paying a £2,000 Graduate Charge on top of their debts from Student Loans.

It is estimated that 34% of those who graduated in 1997 still cannot afford to start repaying their loans.

Recently the Chancellor of the University of Dundee and Scotland's only living Nobel Prize Winner, Sir James Black, raised his concerns over student debts and the damage that is doing to the Scottish education system.

Fiona Hyslop MSP said:

Labour has let down Scotland's education system and our students. It is incredible that more than one in three of those who graduated the year Labour came to power still cannot afford to even start paying back their student loans.

Coupled with the increase in bankruptcies among graduates it is clear that the student loans system has been a disaster for Scotland.

The Student Loans system is a costly drag on the economy.

That is why the SNP would introduce a Student Maintenance Grant. People should have access to a University education based on merit rather than ability to pay. On 1 April the Government will be adding to this mounting debt problem with a further £2,000 Graduate Charge. That is unacceptable.

There is a straight choice between a fair and equitable system of maintenance grants or more crippling debt for graduates.

Dundee East Parliamentary candidate, Stewart Hosie said:

Last year it cost Scotland £26 million to service student debt. That money would have been better spent helping our students and the Scottish economy. That waste holds our economy and graduates back.

It is ridiculous that Labour and the Liberals have kept up this failed Tory policy. It is time to scrap this failed system and bring back grants.

Dundee West Parliamentary candidate, Joe Fitzpatrick said:

Dundee University¹s Chancellor, and Scotland's only living Nobel Laureate, has it spot on. Sir James Black said that if we want university graduates we should be prepared to help them. It is university graduates who become teachers, doctors, solicitors and so on, and they repay society many times over for that initial investment.

Editor's Note:

The Graduate Endowment has been added to Student Loans debt for the first time. Graduates will be liable to start re-paying that debt on 1 April. This adds £2,000 onto the debt of every student.

A Barclays Bank survey estimated the average debt of graduates was at £12,000 and it was estimated that this would rise to £34,000 by the end of the decade. The average debt was £2,000 in 1994.

Wednesday 30 March

LABOUR FAILING TO MEET POVERTY TARGETS

SCOTLAND'S POVERTY SHAME UNVEILED

Speaking following the publication of the annual report on people in Scotland living below average income by the Scottish Executive and the Department of Work and Pensions, Shadow Communities Minister Christine Grahame MSP hit out at the Executive's failure to tackle Scotland's poverty shame.

Ms Grahame said:

These official statistics have again highlighted Labour's failure to tackle Scotland's poverty shame.

Although there is a small decrease this year in the number of individuals living below the breadline, on current levels Labour will fail to meet their target of abolishing child poverty by 2020.

It is simply unacceptable that one in four children and around one in five adults are living in poverty in modern Scotland. One quarter of a million children living in relative poverty is failure by anyone's standards.

Pensioner poverty also continues to be a huge problem. It's clear that by following the discredited Tory policy of means testing Labour have failed to make a serious impact on the proportion of our older people living below the poverty line.

Rather than handing out short term bribes, our pensioners need to be freed from the burden of means testing and the weight of the unfair Council Tax before we can eradicate this scourge for good.

Much more needs to be done if Scotland is to overcome our poverty shame.

4 April 2005

ADAM AND MACASKILL CALL FOR MORE FLIGHTS TO EU ACCESSION STATES

IRELAND OUTSTRIPPING SCOTLAND BY 3 LINKS TO 1

Brian Adam MSP for Aberdeen South and Deputy Transport Shadow Minister and Kenny MacAskill MSP for Lothians have called for more direct flights to the 10 new EU states as it was revealed Ireland has three times as many air links to the accession states as Scotland has.

Mr Adam and Mr MacAskill produced a report showing the economic opportunities presented by an expanded Europe - namely access to new and growing markets of over 70 million people and a huge labour market that could help combat Scotland's declining population and skills shortage.

However, the report also showed a lack of air links to the new EU states which will seriously hamper Scotland's attempts to take advantage of these opportunities.

Scotland only has four direct air links to the accession states, two each from Edinburgh and Glasgow, and none at all from Aberdeen. Meanwhile Ireland, one of our main competitors, has no fewer than twelve direct scheduled links to the new EU states - nine from Dublin alone.

Commenting, Mr Adam said:

Scotland's chronic lack of air links to the EU accession states is cutting Scottish businesses off from a lucrative market that is only going to grow in the years ahead.

The situation is worst for Aberdeen, where there are no direct links with the new EU states at all.

Yet Cork, which is smaller than Aberdeen, has three direct links. If Aberdeen is going to compete on an international stage it has to have regular air links to this emerging market.

The ten new states are together a market of over 70 million people and the EU is now the largest single market on the planet. This should be great news for Scottish businesses as it is a huge market for goods and services as well as a great source of the labour we so desperately need.

Mr MacAskill said:

We live in a globalized world and transport links are vital to economic competitiveness. For Scotland's capital city to have a mere two links to the emerging markets of the new EU states while one of our main rivals, Dublin, has nine is simply not good enough.

Edinburgh has a huge amount to gain from opening up the markets of Eastern Europe. Whether it be new business opportunities for the finance sector or access to labour for our hospitality and transport sectors, Edinburgh needs air links to the accession states.

Edinburgh would be any airlines first choice for a new link to Eastern Europe given the strength of our economy and world class tourist destinations. What we need now is for the Executive to show some vision and release Route Development Funds so more links from Edinburgh and elsewhere in Scotland can become a reality.

Monday 4 April 2005

EWING MESSAGE TO G8 PROTESTORS - BEHAVE RESPONSIBLY AND RESPECT RIGHTS OF LOCAL RESIDENTS

Commenting on the reports that a fringe element are planning to engage in illegal behaviour in their protest in particular blocking roads as part of a protest calendar at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles later this year, local MP Annabelle Ewing, and SNP Transport Spokesman and Inverness MSP Fergus Ewing have issued a plea to those intending to participate in events at or near Gleneagles.

Annabelle Ewing MP said:

It is essential that those who wish to protest respect the interests of local residents. Protest is a basic right. But my constituents have rights too, and that includes the protection of their property and their privacy.

Secondly, there has been some talk amongst fringe groups, such as so-called anarchists, of blocking roads.

Let me make my position absolutely clear.

Under no circumstances should any road be blocked. This would impede our emergency services, such as police ambulance and fire service. Any attempt to block any road is totally unacceptable.

I know that the vast majority of those who wish to protest against Messrs Bush and Blair, will respect the interests of locals, and also would not dream of breaking the law.

But there is a fringe element, who may opt to try to close the A9 or other road. This is not on. If any such attempt is made, then of course the Police would have to take appropriate action.

Fergus Ewing SNP Transport Spokesman added:

Peaceful protest is part of democracy. Law breaking is not.

Any attempt by extremists to blockade roads would put lives at risk by impeding the work of emergency services. For example, around two weekends ago an ambulance from Kingussie had to transport a patient south using the A9. There are, sadly, all too frequent accidents on our roads, and any blockage would prevent or delay the arrival of an ambulance or fire engine.

I call on all MSPs and MPs to condemn any such activity.

Tuesday 5 April 2005

SNP CALLS FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY HOLIDAY ON 6 APRIL

SHOULD RECOGNISE THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCOTS THE WORLD OVER

The Leader of the Scottish National Party, Mr Alex Salmond has called on 6 April to be made a Public Holiday in Scotland. That is the date of the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath.

The Declaration was sent to Pope John XXII in 1320 and acted as an effective Declaration of Independence as well as setting out the principle that a monarch had a contract with the people.

6 April is celebrated in the United States when Americans mark their Scottish heritage and the historic links between the two countries. The date is chosen because of the close links between the Declaration of Arbroath and the US Declaration of Independence.

The SNP will launch its General Election campaign on 6 April at 10.30am in Discovery Point in Dundee. Alex Salmond will then go to Arbroath Abbey where he will attend a re-enactment of the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath.

Alex Salmond said:

The SNP Manifesto will promise two more public holidays, St Andrew¹s Day in November and also a new holiday Independence Day.

6 April is a significant day for Scotland and Scots the world over, as the day the Declaration of Arbroath was sealed. The Declaration is one of the founding documents of our nation and was crucial in securing our country¹s independence.

It is also a day of global significance. On 6 April Americans will celebrate Scotland and the great contribution that Scots have made to the USA.

This date was chosen because it was the day on which the Declaration of Arbroath was signed a document that heavily influenced the US Declaration of Independence. Tartan Day recognises that contribution.

Whereas the 6 April is celebrated on a global level, our celebrations in Scotland of the day are modest at the moment. We should take pride in our history and the achievements of a modern Scotland as well as those of the Scottish Diaspora.

Independence Day on 6 April should become a national holiday when we can celebrate our achievements and those of Scots across the world as well as our shared heritage.

Annabelle Ewing said:

Tartan Day in the USA is a great opportunity to celebrate Scotland¹s nationhood and the achievements of our people. We should not be afraid to celebrate that on Independence Day.

Workers in Scotland receive fewer public holidays than most other countries in Europe. This would be a great opportunity to boost the economy and create a showcase for Scotland and Scots the world over.

Scots have made an enormous contribution in every part of the world. It is only right and proper that we should celebrate that.

Footnote: How the late Thurso Berwick would have enjoyed composing songs on the continuing cantrips of the Hanoverian Royal Family. To mark the jinxed wedding of The Duke of Rothsay and his bidie-in, we can once again enjoy Thurso Berwick's finest Republican anthem - Coronation Coronach - with the bonus of two additional verses.