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 349 -  9th February 2007]

Compiled by Jim Lynch

Well, I’ve made a real mess of the Flag Schedule this time, and forgot a couple of weeks;  now everyone knows what they are doing I am left to do this week myself!  Poetic justice – I created the problem – I’ll need to fix it.  (Mutter, grumble, fulminate!)  However I am grateful that Ian Goldie phoned to query the schedule, otherwise there would be no Flag this week, and having boasted about never missing a week!

The schedule was a bit complicated, as Allison Hunter is stepping down; I have some ideas about a replacement, but will leave this until after the elections.

So I get two weeks running, but this happens to suit, as a number of things have been getting up my nose.  No Gaelic or Scots language this time, as they only come once a month.

 

Liberals slither away from Labour.

Readers of this publication will know of my general disdain for the Liberals.  I first came across them when I lived in Peterhead;  the East Aberdeenshire   Liberals adopted a candidate, and I and a few other SNP members went to the adoption meeting.  The Liberal candidate was a Mr Hoyer-Millar, and the supporting speaker was Jo Grimond MP, at that time the leader of the Liberals.  In the concluding remarks, thanks etc, Mr Hoyer –Millar, who had been happily burbling on about how wonderful Mr Grimond was, said : “..and if we cannot have Jo Grimond as the Prime Minister of All-England, then let us have him as the Prime Minister of Scotland.”  He then sat down to rapturous applause – in Peterhead.

We were very happy to see the Liberals appoint a candidate, because East Aberdeenshire was a safe Tory seat, and because the Liberal vote was a second class Tory one, this meant that the seat was now winnable from the SNP point of view.  This point of view was vindicated in the 1970 election, where we came close, then in 1974, when we won it;  I missed both of these elections, having moved to Edinburgh.  The SNP lost the seat in 1979, but  Alex Salmond took it back in 1987; with Alex as the MP and Stewart Stevenson as the MSP, the seat, now renamed Banff and Buchan is a safe SNP seat.

I digress, as is my wont; in Aberdeenshire we perceived the Liberals as second class Tories, but they are rather more sleekit than that, and over the last 8 years they have been second class Labour, making them real political chameleons.  Over the past two Parliaments, they have been joint members of the Scottish Executive with the Labour Party, with one fundamental difference;  anything good achieved was down to the Liberals, and anything bad was nothing to do with them at all.  Now they have gone very quiet, slithering gently away from the coalition, and putting distance between them and any hint of failure.   Their most notable piece of deception was in the Dunfermline by election last year, when they campaigned against tolls on the Forth Road Bridge, while the Transport Minister was busy signing the cheque for the new toll booths; the Trans port Minister was Liberal MSP Tavish Scott.  Or the abolition of student tuition fees, which is a lie; a payment deferred is not a payment abolished.  You can certainly fool some of the people some of the time.

Along with their distancing from Labour, they say they will not go into a coalition with the SNP because they are opposed to an independence referendum;  now this is a party which names itself Liberal Democrats (the Democrat stolen from the Social Democrat Party they also had a coalition with at one time), and just last Sunday I watched one of their English brethern rabbiting on about how they had a website and that anyone with a point of view could contact them, mass consultation.  When the interviewer asked if this would result in any changes to party policy, he got the evasive response that policy was made by their annual conference!  They believe in referenda as a vital part of the democratic process, so why is Scotland to be excluded/

I think what irritates me is that they portray themselves as the squeaky clean good guys being fair and open and honest, like the way they destroyed their leader Charles Kennedy last year because he had a drink problem, which he admitted and was trying to beat.  After crucifying him, they then obscenely paraded him around the streets of Dunfermline;  he went along with this, because one of these days he will be back as leader of the Liberals, and the current crop of double dealers will rue the day.
 

Liberal – with our money

And how do the Liberals manage for money?  Well, there were headlines in the Sunday Herald last November about the rake off Tavish Scott, Transport Minister, had from the Edinburgh Accommodation Allowance.  First he rented a flat from his sister, which he subsequently bought from her; he then resold it with a £36,000 profit, and purchased a family home in Morningside with a mortgage of £265,000; at this point he left his wife in Shetland and set up in his new home with a BBC journalist.  We, the public, are forking out £979 per month for this privilege.  This is not illegal, it is all perfectly legitimate, but as to how the Liberals like to be seen to occupy the moral high ground, not very moral at all.

The deputy first minister, Nicol Stephen, also featured in the Sunday Herald a couple of weeks later;  he was charging the taxpayer £9,000 per year to pay the interest on a house he owned jointly with his wife, specifically forbidden by the parliamentary rules.  He claimed that he did not know this was in breach of the rules;  this seems rather strange, as Mr Stephen was a solicitor, and then spent a number of years as a senior manager with Touche Ross Corporate Finance, before working as a director with a  company called Glassbox Ltd.  I think this was a PR firm but it has now gone out of business, and it is difficult to find any information.  The point is that he is not a badly informed person with regard to either law or finance.  Again, the moral high ground fallacy.

And then there is Michael Brown;  who he ?   Well, he has disappeared into a black hole in Liberal memories, called Elmley Prison in Sheerness, Kent;  Mr Brown had a company called 5^th Avenue Partners, and last September he was jailed for two years after admitting perjury and a passport offence.   Mr Brown wrote to Liberal leaders as follows: “You may previously recall I made a substantial donation to the Liberal Democrats.  Unlike donors to other political parties, I have never sought any reward, honour or return for my financial support, nor would I, and I feel very saddened at the resulting negative interest and perception of my involvement.  However, I am pleading with you to help me as I believe I am being very unfairly treated in prison.”

Michael Brown gave £2.4 million to the Liberal Democrats the biggest donation they have ever received; in October last year  the High Court in London ruled that 5^th Avenue Partners was a fraudulent company.  It is likely that the Liberals will have to repay the money, although they have spent it; Michael Brown is not in jail for giving the Liberals money, although perhaps he should be, but they took his money, and slithered away when he got into trouble.  Whether they repay the money or not, their treatment of Mr Brown will deter many donors.

They are not nice people.
 

Cash for dishonours

Commenting after Sunday’s Politics Show where the junior Minister for the Scotland Office, David Cairns, backed the role of Tony Blair's aide, John McTernan, in Labour's campaign north of the border whilst Mr McConnell has refused to endorse him, the Leader of the SNP, Alex Salmond MP, said the Downing Street aide's presence had sent the Labour campaign into chaos and raised questions about where they were getting their funding from.

According to newspaper reports Mr McConnell has snubbed John McTernan's role in Labour's campaign. Whilst in other news it is being reported that John McTernan's recent interview with the police into the cash-for-peerages investigation was the catalyst for a series of arrests of other Downing Street aides and Tony Blair's chief fundraiser Lord Levy.

Commenting Mr Salmond said:  "Whilst John McTernan gets no backing from Mr McConnell he is endorsed wholesomely by his London masters.

"This only leaves the impression that Mr McConnell is a mere cog in the London driven campaign for the Scottish elections. A campaign described by ex-First Minister Henry McLeish as 'negative', 'London-based' and 'extreme'.

"John McTernan gets a fulsome endorsement from a junior Minister at the Scotland Office but no endorsement from Mr McConnell and no comment from his recently appointed Minister Rhona Brankin.

"It is yet another example of chaos and disarray as cash for honours splits the Labour campaign asunder.

"Labour in Scotland have no immunity from the crisis engulfing Labour in Westminster.

"Not only has the Prime Minister appointed someone at the epicentre of cash for honours to run Labour's Scottish campaign, but the question of where Labour's campaign finances in Scotland are coming from now looms large.

"The question to be answered by either Mr Cairns or Mr McConnell is how much tainted London finance is bankrolling Labour's campaign in Scotland?

"It is inconceivable that if Mr McConnell were not in a situation to appoint his own campaign team that he wasn't also relying on Labour's London money.

"Given these developments Labour in Scotland are up to their neck in the cash for honours quick sand."

Mr Cairns repeatedly tried to turn the interview on to SNP finance plans, as he was clearly uncomfortable with the questions he was being asked;  on the previous Friday evening, Rhona Brankin, being interviewed on why East Lothian Labour administration had spent £13 million buying back council houses they had previously sold, also tried to divert BBC TV interviewer Isobel Fraser on to SNP finances.  The policy, as noted elsewhere of avoiding the war, the cash for dishonours; Labour’s “principles” are full of black holes.

And we had just gone to press last week when it was announced that Tony Blair had been interviewed again, leading Angus McNeil MP to comment drily that there were more policemen inside Number 10 than outside guarding it.

Tony Blair always pictures himself  as a man of conviction ; this year the word might become plural.
 

A woman’s prerogative

What an absolute load of nonsense we are hearing from the Unionists;  on the Politics Show, when the Liberal MSP for Gordon accused Alex Salmond of changing his mind, he responded by asking her if it was only women that were allowed to change their minds.

Simple, common everyday remark, but from the furore some people are attempting to whip up you would think he had condemned every woman to enter a convent; among the reactions was one from Annabelle Goldie, leader of the Tories in the Scottish Parliament, suitably indignant at this slur on women.  I can only assume that as these people cannot lay a glove on Alex in any argument they clutch at straws; next thing they’ll attack him for will probably be supporting Hearts. (Well???)
 

John of all trades – master of none

The other day I was reading, as one does in an idle moment, the transcript of Lobbygate, which was the Scottish Parliament’s Standards Committee (October /November 1999) into the sting mounted by the Observer on Beattie Media, and their claim that they had the power to arrange meetings with Jack MacConnell, at that stage Finance Minister.  I found the following of interest:

Adam Ingram: I ask again, because I believe it to be a relevant question, how you went about recruiting Kevin Reid and Christina Marshall.

Gordon Beattie: Who do you want me to deal with first?

Adam Ingram: Whichever one you want to deal with.

Gordon Beattie: Okay. I will deal with Kevin Reid first, if I may. Kevin’s father, John, has been a --

Convener: I remind you, Mr Beattie, that you do not have to answer this line of questioning. I have made it clear that we are concentrating on MSPs’ behaviour. However, if you wish to continue, please do.

Gordon Beattie:  Kevin Reid was recruited because of his abilities; because he had a political background, like Jack McConnell. Sure, he was not nearly as experienced as Jack - that point has been made and I have noted it. People are saying "Why did you recruit Kevin Reid?" I will tell you why I recruited Kevin Reid. I was extremely impressed by Kevin when he came along for an interview. I gave him the hardest interview I have ever given anyone, because I was not going to recruit him just because his father was the Minister of Transport. It is important to point out that his father was the Minister for Transport when I recruited Kevin- he was not the Secretary of State for Scotland, and as Minister of Transport he did not even have a Scottish brief.

Now three things from this little snippet; the Convener was Mike Rumbles, Liberal MSP, who bent over backwards to be “fair”; then nepotism never enters the frame, and  Dr John Reid has been a very busy boy indeed:

Opposition Spokesman on Children; Opposition Spokesman on Defence; Minister of State for Defence; Minister for Transport; Secretary of State for Scotland; Secretary of State for Northern Ireland; Minister without Portfolio and Party Chair; Leader of the House of Commons and President of the Council.

Following a spell at the Department of Health, he took over as Secretary of State for Defence in May 2005. He moved to the Home Office in May 2006.

One of these days they will give him a job he can do – Prime Minister? – or in an independent Scotland a Government adviser, as he has been in most departments and knows what mistakes not to make.  (OK, I am an eternal optimist.)
 

Foot in the Mouth Notes

How noble of Glasgow’s Labour administration to freeze Council Tax in the city for the second year running;  they have stated that they will not cut any services, although the head of finance stated in December that cuts of 5% would have to be made across the board.

We are sure that this move is completely altruistic, and has no connection at all with the May local elections.

 

Noted a report in the Sunday Herald on pensions reform which mentioned a “former Edinburgh deputy mayor.”

I know that there is a deal of ignorance shared between the two major Scottish cities, but I would have thought everyone knew Scotland has provosts.

 

There was a political row just after the new year because Tony Blair had advertised for a butler for 10, Downing Street;  their spokesman said that the building was a Grade One listing and needed to be properly managed.

With the current shenanigans, is Mr Blair not a wee bit worried about “What the butler saw?”  Or does he not care?

 

Last month there was a debate in the press about school uniforms in Scotland, and how they were in danger of being associated with Nazi Youth organisations which existed at the time of the Second World War.

I wore school uniform in Scotland, during and after the Second World War, and that perceived “association” never raised its head.

 

According to what we read in the English press, there is a growing demand for an English parliament, and a growing resentment at the “perceived” cost to England of Scotland.

How ironic, and a mirror of the poll tax; when this was imposed in Scotland we protested and marched against it, to no avail.  When it was imposed in England, they rioted in the streets, and it was abolished ; how odd if England’s reaction leads to Scottish Independence.