How time flies!

    Well here we are at Issue No 365 of the Flag in the Wind, and it is7 years since the Flag started.  The first issue was on 9^th June 2000, so I suppose I am a bit previous with my comment, but it is worth noting that the Flag has been updated every single week for those 7 years – no passes!

      What is the old saying? “Keep a thing for 7 years and you’ll find a use for it.”

It is in my mind that the Flag will become even more the weekly Scots Independent, as we now have a Scottish National Party Government, and Yes, the name Scottish Executive is no longer extant, and we will be politically correct and use the term Government;  Alex Salmond is no Henry McLeish to be bullied out of the use of this name by London Labour.

         The new Ministers in the Parliament will go by the title Secretary, and I was astonished to read in the electronic Scotsman fulsome praise for John Swinney, in his meetings with Standard Life, the Scottish Tourist Board and COSLA;  I am beginning to realise that we won!

Reality breeds resentment

    What petulance we are seeing from the upper echelons of the Labour Party;  first it was Mr McConnell, the outgoing (now there’s a contradiction) first minister, who said after Alex Salmond’s election as First Minister: “Mr Salmond said a new wind was blowing through Scotland, but all we have had so far is hot air.”  Alex ignored that.

     Then another former minister, Rhona Brankin, castigating Richard Lochhead for a lack of progress in acting on the ship to ship oil transfer in the Firth of Forth; this received the rather mild rejoinder from Richard that he had only been in the job two days!   He did not point out that the problem had existed for some months under the Lib/Lab Executive, but no serious attempt had been made to solve it; the SNP is able to spell magnanimous. Generally, any responses from Labour have been surly to say the least, while Alex Salmond moves in statesmanship fashion.

   The most serious examples of petulance emanate from Westminster, with a little known Labour MP from East Lothian bracketing Alex Salmond with Hitler; I have not heard much about this MP, apart from the fact that she is alleged to have the poorest Commons attendance of any Scottish MP, and to have claimed the highest expenses of any MP in the United Kingdom ( must have beaten Labour’s Eric Joyce into second place); obviously too busy spending our money to appear at Westminster, but perhaps her remarks about Alex Salmond were the realisation that if  her Scottish Parliament colleague’s majority was reduced from 8175 over the Liberals to 2145 over the SNP she herself was in danger of seeing her gravy train derailed. An additional factor is that her constituency includes Musselburgh, now held in the Scottish Parliament by Kenny MacAskill of the SNP.

  And strangely, at the time of writing, neither the Prime Minister in the exit lounge, nor the Prime Minister in the foyer, have found time to pick up the telephone and congratulate Alex Salmond on winning the election; Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, found time to helicopter in with her good wishes, but not the petulant pair.  Tsk tsk.

PS – I have just witnessed , on BBC TV, Gordon Brown ignoring any questions on his future relationship with Alex Salmond; seems like both petulants have congratulated Rhodri Morgan in Wales,  Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness in Northern Ireland, and even Colonel Gaddaffi, but Alex’s phone is mute. Ah - the overpowering smell of sour grapes.

The numbers game

      There is no doubt in my mind that there is a Herculean task ahead of the Scottish National Party in this Parliament, and it is not solely connected with votes in the Parliament, but with filling all the posts.  Consider, if you will, the composition of the last Parliament: there were 50 Labour MSPs, and 17 Liberal MSPs, that meant that there were 67 MSPs to fill all the posts.

   Now there are only 47 MSPs to fill all the posts; it is no use complaining about the vagaries of the Labour/Liberal plotting that created this system, which was designed to stop the SNP, but only how we manage it.   Leant upon by Sir Menzies Campbell, who was leant upon in turn by the petulant prospective Prime Minster, the Liberals decided that a time in Opposition would be good for them (and Liberal politicians always tell the truth), so eschewed any coalition with the SNP; I think that Tavish Scott’s comment that he was standing at the bus stop when Fergus Ewing swept past in his ministerial Volvo was not far off the tragicomic mark.

   There are certainly many advantages of not having a coalition; the SNP did not have to sacrifice any posts, and I for one am delighted to see Nicola Sturgeon as the Deputy First Minister, rather than Nicol Stephen, as the only common ground between them is their initials.   Some of the Liberals are not bad, Ross Finnie for one, and if I can think of another I’ll let you know;  he at least appeared competent and was never caught with a blatant lie, or maybe I just didn’t notice.  I was also relieved, because if the Liberals had been in coalition I would have had to be nice to them, and I have always regarded them as charlatans, so I am saved that ignominy;  on the other hand, we are in coalition in some Councils, so I may shade my comments.

Minority Government

  One aspect of minority government which appears to have been overlooked by commentators in general is the constitutional one; while many countries in Europe have minority governments, they can always work together because their differences are usually ideological, and ideologies can change, but nationalities do not.

    To expand this further, Denmark, for example,  has apparently  had a minority government for a long time, but seems able to work away to create peace and prosperity for Denmark; as far as I am aware, they are not subject to influences from outwith their borders.  Here in Scotland, we have the three Opposition Parties in the Parliament taking their instructions from Westminster;  this very fact makes them wary of anything smacking of support for the SNP, because our stated aim is to have an independent Scotland, so they will use every trick to frustrate the SNP being successful.

      The circumstances outlined in the previous article are proof of this truth;  the incipient Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, MP, Thane of Fife, has seen Central Fife being taken by the SNP’s Tricia Marwick, and Fife Council now controlled by a coalition which is not Labour.  Fife was a Labour heartland, and is that no more;  Brown is seeing the crown of England slipping from his grasp, and has leant upon Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal MP for East Fife (or North East Fife – as East Fife is a football team) to keep his troops from offering aid and comfort to the SNP.  The perceived wisdom is that Sir Menzies will become a Minister in Brown’s government if there is a hung parliament after the next election.  Personal advancement – ye canna whack it!

      The Tories are in a more ambivalent position; their leader, David Cameron, is pushing hard on English votes for English issues in the House of Commons, and this would mean that all such legislation would depend on the Tories, who control England; naturally this is being resisted by Labour, which depends on its Scottish MPs for its majority, but would also lead inevitably to an English Parliament, and who would wish to deny them that?  Cameron is punting that one as hard as he can.  But then where does that leave the Scottish Tories?  They will be abandoned, cut off from the Union they so cherish, and their position would be untenable – wishing to be a part of the Union – and being rejected.

Cross free with SNP

   I quote from the Peterhead Branch Newsletter :

“The Branch Float, a 32 foot long, 9 foot high model of the Forth Road Bridge won first prize in the “Other Organisations” class.

“A lot of effort went into the creation of the Bridge and we thank all those who helped.  We also thank Mr Pearce, Managing Director of Sutherland of Peterhead (Road Hauliers) Ltd for his co-operation in allowing us the use of his premises and equipment.

“The slogan was “Cross Free with SNP” and the young ladies who enhanced the Bridge were Maureen Geddes and Irene Balloch.

“Central Buchan Branch took the Bridge to Aikey Fair and attracted a great deal of interest.  Sixteen new members were enrolled at the Fair.

“ The Bridge also travelled to Aberdeen to take part in the Bon Accord Parade, but did not win any prize.  This was no doubt because they did not take the young ladies, although we offered them.”

 This item is from the Peterhead Branch Newsletter of August 1967 – Yes- 1967 – and now that we have an SNP Government we will at last “Cross Free”.   I am sure that I have a picture of this somewhere, but cannot find it.

Render unto Tesco

A few months ago, I was struck by a response given to a question by Sir Terry Leahy, Chief Executive of Tesco;  the question concerned the domination of the market by Tesco, and was either about Inverness or Glasgow, or somewhere they wanted to open yet another store.  His response to this was that the customers were “voting with their feet” – ie they kept coming to the stores.

This remark came back to me when, during the Scottish Election, the Chairman of Tesco, Sir David Reid, urged the Scots not to vote for the SNP, but to preserve the Union.  Now Tesco is a predominantly English company, but has a strong hold in Scotland because they bought over William Low’s in 1995; they are also predominantly grocers, but dabble in insurance.  Anyway, they do not stand for any Parliament, or even a Council, so nobody votes for them, and they would shudder at being made democratically accountable, because the market rules –money – not votes. 

So I decided to follow the lead, and vote with my feet, or rather with my wheels!  From the date of Sir David’s unwarranted interference in the democratic process I have not purchased one litre of petrol from a Tesco filling station, whereas  before I filled up every week;  I am not brave enough to dictate to my wife where she should shop – she would ignore that anyway, but I control the car, I think.

Interesting comment on the above from the indefagitable Andrew J T Kerr, speaking about how Tesco is in dispute with its delivery drivers in Scotland, as Tesco wants to change the drivers’ terms and conditions, to their detriment; the drivers are on strike, and it would seem that while their union is backing them, Tesco is refusing to recognise the union.  Andrew thought that Tesco only liked some Unions!

Bannockburn Rally Saturday 16^th June 2007

We are assembling at 13:30 at Lower Bridge Street in Stirling with the March kicking off at 14:00. At the National Trust site of Bannockburn Nicola Sturgeon MSP will lay the wreath for the SNP. Everyone will hear Nicola and Bruce Crawford MSP speak and then we will be entertained by Eva Christie who has played Glastonbury before and Five Park Drive. Hopefully it will be a good family event that further celebrates our victory at the elections and the important time in our history. This year Professor Christopher Harvie MSP is giving our Dr. Allan Macartney lecture at the King Robert Hotel at 16:30 .

The local SNP branch are hosting a party at the King Robert Hotel, provisionally from 6pm to 10pm. We do not have their final details yet, but I think it is likely that there will be a couple of traditional Scottish bands there.
 

 SYNOPSIS

The amount to be covered under this heading will be limited as it will be Westminster, however, it will be vital as the battleground is shifting to there.

Thursday May 24 2007
 
Westminster SNP Leader Angus Robertson MP has today (Thursday) reported progress towards Scottish inquiries into overseas military deaths. At present all war casualty probes are conducted in the English Coroners Court system and are subject to delays of up to 5 years.

Earlier today (Thursday) Mr Robertson met with Scottish Government Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill MSP at Holyrood.

Speaking after the discussions Mr Robertson, who is the SNP Defence spokesperson, said:

"I am delighted that the new Scottish government is taking this issue seriously. Service families who have lost loved ones currently have to wait up to five years for closure and often have to travel hundreds of miles to attend a Coroners Court inquiry.

"Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill confirmed his wish to resolve this situation and he has pledged to meet shortly with the new Scottish Law Officers to establish the best and quickest way forward.

"The Scottish legal system must play its part in reducing the delays for inquiries and would hold their proceedings closer to home for many families.

"I am unaware of any objections to this initiative, and I hope all parties in the Scottish Parliament will support the SNP government."

The proposals have already received the support of Service families. Mrs Diane Douglas, mother of Lance Corporal Allan Douglas, killed by a sniper in Iraq, who had to make the journey south for his inquest welcomed the initiative.

She told the Press and Journal: "This is an excellent move. It is a lot of hassle for people to have to travel south. Why should they have to be held in England?"

Thursday 24 May 2007

After calling for an urgent debate in today's (Thursday) Business Questions, SNP Treasury Spokesperson Stewart Hosie MP slammed the Government for further delays in developing the carbon capture and storage project in Peterhead.

Following yesterday's decision by BP to pull out of the £500 million project, Mr Hosie said:

"The Government is solely responsible for the failure to deliver what would have been the world's first commercial hydrogen power plant and refinery.

"The Chancellor has announced on 5 separate occasions support for CCS technology to boost his green credentials.

"The Minister for Science and Innovation, Malcolm Wicks said on February 27 that decision would be taken in 2007 giving assurances that the timescale was not incompatible with the decommissioning of the Miller Field.

"Then the Secretary of State for Scotland, Douglas Alexander said on the same day that the Government would reach a decision within months.

"However we now find the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Alistair Darling has announced the competition will not even be launched until November. It is this delay which has led to BP being forced to pull out of the project.

"The Government must explain their actions and try their utmost to salvage this project. We need substance from Gordon Brown, not spin. Scotland cannot miss this once in a generation opportunity to take the lead in potentially planet saving technology."