The Scots Independent Newspaper Online

WHY DO THEY LIE?

Labour candidate in the Glasgow East by-election on 24 July Margaret Curran said she had lived all her life in the East End of Glasgow. Not true.

She has lived for about at least the last 19 years in the South Side of Glasgow.

A spokesman said this was ‘a slip of the tongue’.

It was a lie.

Gordon Brown told Parliament that a majority of motorists would benefit from the new car tax structure. Not true.

About 47% will be worse off, only about 20% will be better off.

This too was put down to ‘a slip of the tongue’.

It was a lie.

This follows Mrs Curran's website having a story and photograph of her allegedly meeting with a 93 year-old war hero, a Mr McGuiness.

Mrs Curran said that Mr McGuiness looked "not a day past 70".

Not surprising!

Mr McGuiness is a 67 year-old Labour activist who had been given an MBE. The war hero is Mr John Hipson!

Indeed, the Labour campaign has been inept all through.

On Tuesday, Labour campaigned in Glasgow East with Taggart actor James Michie,

Mr Michie made a film for BBC's 'This Week' programme just a week before the 2007 election in which he said: "An independent Scotland would find a new confidence - it would slow down the brain drain that takes so many of its brightest and most skilled."

In the Daily Mail of 17 July, Mr Michie is reported as not being persuaded about the merits of independence, but he felt that the UK was "emotionally and politically redundant".

RED HERRINGS AN’ A’ THAT

So Labour has complained about BBC Scotland being biased towards the SNP. I wish!

Of course, this Labour complaint has nothing to do with the BBC, or bias, or even the SNP.

It has all to do with Labour being in an awful political mess and wanting to publish a distracting story.

This ‘red herring’ policy is a common ploy for New Labour when they are in deep trouble and the press are likely to be onto them: just put out a press release that may appeal to the baser instincts our journalists and watch them haring offin pursuit of the new ‘story’.

The most notorious example was the night of the ‘Dodgy Dossier”, shortly before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

This was the night that Channel 4 news revealed that the supporting ‘government dossier’ on Iraq was a sham and had been partly lifted from a draft PhD thesis on the internet, grammatical mistakes and all.

Within two hours Tony Blair declared that he was going to cut immigrant numbers massively.

And of course it worked. Our stupid media set off in hot pursuit of this red herring and the dodgy dossier was never analysed torn to shreds in the way it should have been.

Except by Channel 4 itself, which gloriously pursued it, to its great credit.

GLASGOW EAST BY-ELECTION

This report is being written during the evening of Tuesday 22 July.

By the time you read it on the net on Friday the result will be known.

So what’s the situation so far?

The hard facts of arithmetic for the Scottish National Party do not look good. Two years ago Labour won the seat with 61% of the vote to the SNP’s 17%.

In other words Labour scored more than three and a half times the vote of the SNP. The massive gap of 44 points needs a swing of at least 22%.

It is one of Labour’s very safest seat in Scotland.

And yet, and yet …

Labour and the press and indeed the SNP are treating this campaign as if the seat were a marginal.

Why?

There are in fact lots of reasons to believe that the Labour vote will fall dramatically.

The new Scottish National Party is still very popular indeed after more than a year in office. The candidate was chosen smoothly and the campaign could scarcely have been better

By way of contrast, the Gordon Brown government in London is extremely unpopular. The selection of the Labour candidate was shambolic and there have been a tremendous number of mistakes.

After about seven campaigning visits, my own impression, for what it is worth, is that there has been a great swing to the Scottish National Party and a huge disenchantment with Labour.

Whether that will be enough to turn this by-election into a historic victory we shall just have to wait and see.

Read Christina McKelvie MSP's Weekly Diary

Tuesday 15 July 2008

ASYLUM COMMISSION REPORT SET TO PRAISES SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT EXAMPLE

SNP Home Affairs spokesperson, Pete Wishart MP, has welcomed reports that the Independent Asylum Commission (IAC) has praised the Scottish Government's policies and record on the treatment of asylum seekers.

The IAC has undertaken a UK-wide review of the asylum system, and it is expected to hold up the Scottish Government’s record of speaking out against dawn raids, the detention of children at Dungavel and the ban on asylum seekers being allowed to work, contrasted against the position taken by the Westminster Government.

Mr Wishart said:

“Immigration may be reserved but morality and decency are not, and this report makes the case for the Scottish Government having responsibility for asylum seekers and immigration.

“The introduction of a decent immigration and asylum system, ending the detention of children and the practice of dawn raids in this country is long overdue.

"The SNP has consistently raised our fundamental opposition to dawn raids and the detention of children in Dungavel, and the Asylum Commissions recognition of the common sense approach taken by the Scottish Government is very welcome.

“The Scottish Government, the Children’s Commissioner and the Scottish Refugee Council have all called on the Home Office to use alternatives to Dungavel rather than detain innocent children behind barbed wire.

“In spite of the practical steps the SNP Government has been able to take, there remain serious concerns about the detention policy being operated in Scotland as it is, and this report will make sober reading for the Home Office.”

“The Scottish Government should have responsibility for asylum seekers and immigration, then we could preclude the possibility of the current failings continuing.”

Friday 18 July 2008

SNP ALARM OVER SPIRALLING NUCLEAR CLEAN UP BILL

Mike Weir The bill for nuclear clean-up in the UK has rocketed by a further £10bn according to figures revealed today.

The latest estimate from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) suggests the commonly accepted figure of £73bn will rise to £83bn. The total bill has risen by £20bn over the past three years.

SNP MP Mike Weir said:

"The NDA cannot give a credible estimate of how much we will have to pay for nuclear clean up.

"The costs associated with developing new nuclear stations are mammoth, and the expense and risks associated with disposal are incalculable. There is
nothing sustainable about nuclear.

"Thank goodness we have an SNP Government in Scotland that will not allow any new nuclear stations on our soil."

Sunday 20 July 2008

SNP WELCOME SCOTLAND'S POPULATION GROWTH - HIGHEST SINCE 1983
REGISTRAR GENERAL FIGURES IN SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY

SNP Home Affairs spokesperson, Pete Wishart MP, has welcomed the report in Scotland on Sunday newspaper today (Sunday) that Scotland's population has risen to its highest level for quarter of a century - with the Registrar General set to confirm this week that the number of births have exceeded deaths for the first time in a decade, and migration into Scotland.

The figures will reveal that Scotland's population has increased to 5.14 million. For mid-2007, the total represents a 27,300 increase on the previous year, and is the highest total since 1983.

Mr Wishart said:

"News that Scotland's population is growing is very welcome indeed.

"An increasing population has the potential to boost Scotland's economic growth and help our nation prosper, and for the first time in quarter of a century the Registrar General's figures give an optimistic outlook.

"These dramatically improving fortunes are of great encouragement as the Scottish Government works to end decades of economic underperformance, and lead Scotland towards increasing sustainable growth."

Saturday 19 July 2008

WEIR ATTACKS MISSED CARBON CAPTURE OPPORTUNITY FOR SCOTLAND

UK GOVERNMENT TORPEDOED PETERHEAD PROJECT – COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

The Scottish National Party's Westminster Energy Spokesperson Mr Mike Weir MP has reacted to the story in today's Press & Journal, which reveals that Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks rejected plans for a world-leading carbon capture plant at Peterhead on grounds of cost – causing the project to be developed in Abu Dhabi.

The information has been revealed in evidence to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, which is expected to produce a report on Tuesday that is critical of the UK Government.

Mr Weir said:

"For the UK Government to torpedo the world-leading Peterhead carbon capture project represents a massive missed opportunity to pioneer this potentially planet-saving technology in Scotland.

"It would have been the world's first pre-combustion carbon capture plant. Thanks to the UK government, the project will now be developed in Abu Dhabi rather than the North East of Scotland.

"To reject the Peterhead Project on grounds of cost simply adds insult to injury at a time when some £15,000 million of North Sea revenues from Scottish oil this year alone are keeping the UK Exchequer afloat.

"The carbon capture technology could have been developed at Peterhead for a fraction of just one year's Scottish oil revenues.

"Nothing better illustrates how Westminster control is causing Scotland to lose out. It is all take by the London government – and no give to Scotland.

"The Scottish Government is doing everything it can to make Scotland the clean, green powerhouse of Europe – as we saw this week with the announcement in Fife of the UK's biggest biomass energy plant.

"But the UK government is holding Scotland back from achieving our full green energy potential in all areas.

"Instead of Westminster's bungling, the Scottish Parliament needs to gain responsibility for all energy issues in Scotland."

Note: The full article in the Press & Journal is here:

Clean-energy plan 'scuppered by cost'

Minister admits north-east carbon-capture project torpedoed to save cash

By David Perry

Published: 19/07/2008

Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks has admitted the UK Government torpedoed plans for a revolutionary £600million clean-electricity project in the north-east to save British taxpayers "hundreds of millions of pounds".

His confession that it was the amount of support BP and Scottish and Southern Energy wanted from the Treasury that led to the Peterhead scheme being dropped is contained in evidence to the Commons environmental audit committee.

The same committee is expected on Tuesday to criticise government willingness to allow energy giant E.ON to build a coal-fired power station south-east England.

E.ON has promised its Kingsnorth plant will be capable of being retrofitted with a carbon-extraction system to clean up emissions when a commercial version becomes available.

MPs are expected to demand a guarantee that it will be installed.

Mr Wicks told the committee: "As to Peterhead, I do not believe it would have been sensible or proper governance if we were to have a demonstration project that cost the British taxpayer literally hundreds of millions of pounds to give it to the first one that came forward, namely the Miller Field Peterhead project.

"Perfectly properly, we had a competition and then made the decision – it was controversial but I believe it was the right one – that instead of pre-combustion, it should be post-combustion."

The two decisions forced BP and Scottish Hydro owners Scottish and Southern to pull out of plans to extract carbon from gas landed at St Fergus – a pre-combustion process – before using it to produce "green" electricity.

BP has since decommissioned the Miller field, where it had been intended to inject the carbon to raise pressure and extract more oil.

The pipeline infrastructure remains, meaning it will be possible to think again at a later date.

The scheme is going ahead in the oil-rich Gulf state of Abu Dhabi.

Evidence sent to the committee from Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney makes it clear the Scottish Government still retains high hopes of using rundown North Sea fields like Miller to bury carbon.

He told MPs: "We believe that Scotland is well-placed to play a leading role in the development of CCS (carbon capture and storage), given our research expertise, the commitment of Scottish industry and our significant storage potential in the North Sea.

"We recognise that time is of the essence in quickly bringing CCS to commercial viability."