CAMPAIGNING FOR SCOTLAND (Owned, Edited and Printed in Scotland since November 1926) "Promoting all that is best in Scottish Nationalism and all that is best in Scotland." Content of the Flag in the Wind Web Site is the copyright of the Scots Independent Newspaper. [ Issue 346 -  19th January 2007]

Compiled by Ian Goldie

THANKS FROM WALES

Here is a pleasant letter the Flag has just received from North Wales.
 
Hi
 
I am a Plaid Cymru candidate in North Wales in this year’s national Assembly elections.  I had to contact Scottish national Party headquarters to ask a question about Lib Demsin Scotland and the effect of the “graduate tax not tuition fee” to help debunk some Lib Dem propaganda her in North Wales.
 
Every person I spoke to from the guy who answered the phone in SNP HQ, to marie Hunter in policy to the person who answered the phone in Fiona Hyslop’s office to Fiona herself went to a lot of trouble to help me out.  In particular Fiona took the trouble to call me back and give me some very useful information.
 
If there is some way through The Flag (which I read every week!) to let them know that their efforts were very much appreciated please could you do so.
 
Good luck in May.
 
Mark David Jones
Plaid candidate Vale of Clwyd
 
Pleased to help out, David.  How pleasant it is to receive thanks – all too seldom expressed in the modern world!
 

OH, WHAT A TO-DO! 

I well remember in the mid-1970s the late Tom MacAlpine saying to me: “Forty per cent of the vote, a simple majority of the seats, and that’s it!”
 
Astute as Tom was, I remember thinking that on that point he was very wrong indeed.
 
And I’m glad to say that the present-day SNP does not believe that a simple majority of seats constitutes a mandate for independence.  People vote for all sorts of things in elections – often just as much against one party they are fed up with, as for another.
 
That is why I support Alex Salmond’s strategy of (a) in the first 100 days of a new SNP-led Scottish parliament, a white paper setting out proposals for the question to be put and the arrangements; and (b) a referendum of the people to be held after time has been allowed for a full national debate on the issue.
 
Now, of course, we have journalists jumping up and down declaring that Salmond has changed his position.
 
Not at all.  This strategy was clearly laid out well over a year ago.  The SNP cannot help it if these same journalists fail to read its policies and then tell lies about them.  All we can do is tell them the truth – once again – and hope that they will print it.

Why do I support Alex so much on this one? (I don’t always see eye-to-eye with him on things.)
 
For a start, he is being honest with the people.  He sets out his stall. It is good for the people to know what the SNP’s strategy for independence is, and to be reminded that that is our major policy.
 
It is also good that we should not have a quick referendum immediately following the euphoria of an SNP-led government being established.  It is good that the vote should be well considered and the arguments well aired.
 
It also gives any possible coalition partners - most likely the Liberal democrats and the Greens – time for reflection, especially the former.
 
At the moment the LibDems are opposed to a referendum – let’s hear their reasons.  How long can they deny the people the right to express their wishes on this vital topic?  Or do they simply adopt this stance as a bargaining position?  In the end, all will be revealed!

 

ARGUMENTS FOR INDEPENDENCE (4)

So far, in these arguments for independence, I have tried to concentrate on the positive:  (1) independence is natural and normal (14 July); (2) independence is psychologically good for countries as well as people (25 August); and  (3) independence will restore democratic government to Scotland (15 December).
 
Today I would like to reflect on some of the things that Scotland suffers from as a dependent nation and on the transformation that independence would bring.
 
Firstly, we would not be run by a parliament that is with over 80% English members, many of whom have little knowledge of Scotland.  Constitutionally, we would have our own parliament, putting Scottish interests first, having the time to solve, and being able to concentrate on solving, problems particular to Scotland.  In a minor way, this has been started already by the present devolved parliament.
 
Secondly, the present first-past-the-post voting system, leading to the “elective dictatorship”, would be consigned to history.  With a good system of Single Transferable Vote, we would have a balanced parliament that would represent the will of the Scottish voters.
 
Thirdly, from an international perspective, Scotland would no longer be an “invisible” country.  We would double our number of MEPs in the European Parliament (if Scots choose to remain in it) and have Scottish men and women – as of right – taking part with their colleagues from the other countries in its various institutions.
 
We would also have our own seat in the United Nations, as other countries do.
 
Fourthly, we would not have a foreign and defence policy based on the desires or delusions of the Westminster government. Our own Scottish government would choose whether or not to be a part of NATO, and we would almost certainly opt not to have Trident or any other weapons of mass destruction based in our waters or on our land.
 
We would have our own foreign policy and have contacts with other nations in the same way as other small north European countries have.

Fifth, would not build an over-capacity of power stations, and there would be no danger of Scotland becoming a dumping ground for any other country’s nuclear waste.
 
Sixth, nor would we, without the agreement of our own government, have weapons ranges that would pollute our shores. Low-flying planes would be subject to much tighter restrictions.
 
Seventh, our present policies on oil and fishing would have to be totally reviewed.
 
Eighth, we would not be subjected to a barrage of news filtered through a BBC London perspective.  News would be from a truly Scottish perspective – just think of the news of the Iraq war from a Scottish viewpoint, rather than from a Brown/Blair perspective.
 
These, then are just a few of the changes an independent Scotland would see.  They stem from the basic fact of independence, and would happen irrespective of party.
 
If there are others that you feel I should have mentioned, please let me know.
 
 

SIMON HEFFER, BASHER OF THE SCOTS

At the end of November, Simon Heffer, a journalist with the London Daily Telegraph, wrote an article inspired – if that is the word – by the Labour Party’s Scottish conference – the one where Gordon Brown and Douglas Alexander forsook Westminster to come north to bash the Scottish National Party.
 
I missed the article, but its final paragraph was emailed to me by my nephew.  It reads as follows:

“I know this is horrid for Gordon Brown, who, like Napoleon, or Stalin, or Hitler, aspires to come from a distant province or satellite state and take over the mother country.  But he and his friends started this process; it is a shame, given hoe very brilliant we are always being told he is, that he wasn’t clever enough to realise how we might finish what he started.”
 
Now this is fascinating.

Firstly, while politically I am opposed to Gordon Brown, I feel the juxtaposition of his name with those of Napoleon, Stalin and Hitler is both ludicrous and sinister.  It is simply smear by association.  Had these words appeared in any Scottish newspaper, there would have been expressions of outrage from letter writers and other media.
 
Secondly, the view of the Scottish nation as “a distant province or satellite state” says it all about attitudes of many active in the media in London.
 
Thirdly, the view of England as “the mother country” reinforces the idea that other countries in the so-called United Kingdom are simply there to follow what the “mother country” dictates.
 
It is all very reminiscent of the late Enoch Powell who, talking of the “English kingship”, said:  

“English it is, for all the leeks and thistles and shamrocks, the Stuarts and Hanoverians, for all the titles grafted upon it here and elsewhere, ‘her other realms and territories’, Headships of Commonwealths, and what not.   The stock that received all these grafts is English, the sap that rises through it to the extremities rises from roots in English earth, the earth of England’s history.”
 
To return to Heffer’s article.  It is curious how, for him, all the constitutional ills of the Westminster parliament are transposed from politicians in general, to Labour politicians in particular, to Scottish Labour politicians and finally to the Scottish electorate.
 
It seems to be all the fault of the Scots that Scottish Labour politicians are successful in their own small Westminster sphere, that England does not have its own parliament, that the Scots are “subsidised” by the English.
 
Mr Heffer never seems to ask himself why English Labour politicians must be of such poor quality that the Scots take so many top positions, why England never campaigned for its own parliament until now, and why – if we believe his figures – Scotland is doing so poorly run from Westminster that it has to be so grossly subsidised.
 
But he does go on and on.  Really, how long can this old Union last when such influential English commentators hold the Scots in such obvious contempt?
 
You can read Simon Heffer’s article for yourselves at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/11/29/do2901.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/11/29/ixopinion.html