A welcome break

It was sheer good luck that made me take a holiday in the first two weeks of January this year;  the holiday was a late booking, for reasons I shall not bore you about, and my wife and I went to Tenerife.  It was hard to imagine it was January, and TV pictures of Scotland covered with snow seemed barely believable.  Friends have congratulated us on our foresight in being away during the worst winter for years, but it was just luck.

One thing always puzzled me about Tenerife, and that is the price of diesel and petrol;  it is only possible to catch a glimpse of filling station prices as the bus goes past, but they seemed to range between 70 and 90 cents a litre.   The currency difference was about 10%, or 10 euros for 9 quid, so 90 cents was 80p – or thereabouts, on a good day.  Precise figures depend on fluctuating values day by day, so I can only give a ballpark figure.  The point is that I paid £1.059 per litre for diesel in Edinburgh just after Christmas, in a country where millions of litres of oil are being pumped daily;  Tenerife has no oil rigs, no oil at all, in fact, and oil is shipped in by tanker, for there is no other way.  It is an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and the filling stations will be running at a profit.  So who’s daft?

 

Chilcot Inquiry

I have to confess that I am becoming less and less convinced of the value, or the point , of the Chilcot Inquiry;  so far we seem to be getting an awful lot of 20/20 hindsight, and so many ifs buts or maybes that you query as to why there is supposed to be a Cabinet in the British Government.

There are oohs, and aahs, as one politician after another sits in the witness box and tells the “honest truth”, since political truth is an oxymoron;  the latest, Clare Short, was obviously trying to put in an advance defence for the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, by saying he was “marginalised”, and feared he would lose his job!  He got over that quickly, and managed to sign the cheques, though not as correctly as the Armed Forces needed;  one wonders if this was his way of registering his grudging acceptance of having to do his job, but holding back.  Pity it did not affect Mr Blair, but the troops on the ground.

Word is that Mr Blair could be recalled, but as he is now past history, the appearance of Mr Brown will be more interesting.

Voting Reform

It is unclear what the Prime Minister is up to with his proposal to introduce voting reform if he is re-elected;  the system he wants, the Alternative Vote, is the most minimal advance on first past the post.  No person will be elected unless they get more than 50% of the vote, so the ballot paper will be marked: 1, 2, 3, 4 etc   ;  the bottom ones first preference will be chalked off, and then their second preference will be allocated to the other candidates until someone gets 50%.  Tedious, but not proportional representation, and the least one can do.

When we read  that reform of the House of Lords (Labour manifestos 2001 and 2005) is also included (Still 735 Lords to 644 MPs after 13 years of Labour rule), as is a Bill of Rights – Act of Succession anyone?, then we can put that as pie in the sky.  Oh I almost forgot – a referendum on the voting plan, as it is a major change but  face still firmly set against any Scottish Referendum.  Hypocrisy writ large.

Parliamentary Questions

Readers will know that  for my sins I receive all the answers to the Written Parliamentary Questions in Holyrood, and I have appended below one such;  if you look at the number of the Question, 30236, that is the number of Questions asked in this Parliament.  Well, it is higher because they are actually up to 31,000; at a rough cost of £100 per question, the opposition has cost the taxpayer 3 million quid since the SNP became the Government.  Some of them are necessary, but a lot of the questions are irrelevant, and only there to frustrate the Civil Service and the Government; the one below being a case in point where a properly thought out and framed question would have saved the taxpayer £800.

Scottish Parliament – Written Answer

1 February 2010 (Holding Reply Issued 27 January 2010)

Index Heading: Finance and Sustainable Growth

 Jeremy Purvis (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) (LD): To ask the Scottish Executive  when it was first informed of the pending or actual collapse of the Globespan Group.

(S3W-30236)

Mr Stewart Stevenson :

We were not aware of the potential of the Globespan Group going into administration until the evening of 16 December 2009. Although we were aware from my meeting with the company in September 2009 that it would have to borrow more money to sustain some of its activities, our discussions did not include any request for or offer of financial support; nor were there any discussions with lending institutions regarding Globespan. No approach was made by the Group or any other party seeking our input into any rescue package.

Contact with the Globespan Group at official level has been on air route development. Discussions with Scottish Enterprise after the company went into administration have been on approaches by airport operators seeking replacement carriers. We had no discussions with Scottish Enterprise on the Globespan Group prior to this, and therefore there was no request to Scottish Enterprise to offer support.

While responsibility for the company and its customers now lies with the Administrator, the Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE) responded as soon as we were aware that the Group had gone into administration. On
22 December PACE officials prepared comprehensive information packs on support available through PACE, which included the offer of one-to-one counselling, advice on career development and opportunities, and access to high quality training for issue by the Administrator directly to Globespan employees.

Mr Purvis asked 8 other questions of a similar vein about Globespan, all of which were covered by the above response;  the tenor of the questions was looking for some way to blame the Scottish Government for the Globespan collapse.

Ae stap furrit, twa staps back?

 Kenneth Fraser

   Sae we didnae win Glesca Nor-Aist, an oor unfriens wul threip, yit agane, that the wheels hae faan aff the S.N.P. baunwagon. The affcome o this election wes whit aabodie expeckit. We kent that Lawbour haed gotten  the feck o the votes there i the European Election in June, an haed a majority o 10,000 ti fend. This time it wes 8,000.

   Why soud there hae been nae chynge? Weel, it seems ti me that in a sait sic as this, elections are gey lik the experiments o auld Professor Pavlov. The Lawbour candidate kythes, waffs a reid rosette, an aabodie (or at ony rate a third o them) cums oot an votes fir it. “We’ve aye votit Lawbour”, an they aye dae. Whit haes Lawbour duin fir its faithfu uphauds owre the lest 74 years? No muckle. The consteituency cums first in Scotland fir ilka meisurement o puirtith an hardship. Maist o the voters, nae dout, bi this time hae nae howp o a better life. Gin they haed, they micht think aboot no votan Lawbour!

   Bit aa this haes happenit mony times afore. There hae been, stertan wi Hamiltoun in 1967, 29 by-elections in Scotland – nearly aa in sauf Lawbour saits, as bi the law o averages they are bund ti be. Lawbour haes wun 21 o them an the S.N.P. ainly 5. That’s aboot ane ilka aicht year. Nou an again, Lawbour forgets it cannae tak the voters fir grantit; the S.N.P. wins a sait frae them; syne Lawbour gets its ack thegither agane, an brings the Pavlovian voters back ti the “Sit up an beg” poseetion. Fir us, on the tither haun, we hae nae chyce bit ti fecht on lik a general o the Gryte Weir, makkan ram-stam frontal attacks on weel-fendit strangpynts, an (five times oot o sax) bein thrawn back. Bit we ken hou ti pick oorsels aff the flair an aa, an there is aye anither victory ti cum. Gin we luik, no at ae election, bit at the lang tairm, naebodie can say but that the S.N.P. haes grown in strength owre the lest 50 year, sae frae that pynt o vizzy, the baunwagon is aye rowan alang – be it in fits an sterts. Gin we may tak a len o the wirds o General de Gaulle in 1940: “Scotland haes lost a battle, bit she haesnae lost the weir.”

Dealaich na bancaichean

Calum MacEacharna

O chionn goirid stèidhich Riaghaltas Breatainn planaichean na bancaichean a dhealachadh. Shaoil mi gun robh seo neonach! B’ e Brown an duine a bha ag iarraidh air Lloyds HBOS a cheannach, co-dhùnadh eaconomach eagalach do dh’ Alba. ’S e banca tuilleadh ’s mòr a th’ anns an Lloyds Banking Group. Chan eil òrdughan mar seo math do  luchd-ceannaich no an eaconomaidh. A-rithist, tha e soirbh a dh’fhaicinn dìreach cho dona ’s a tha Brown mar neach-eaconomaidh. Fad nam deich bliadhnachan mu dheireadh chunnaic sinn fàs anns ar eaconomaidh ach b’ e fàs mealltach a bha seo. Thachair e air sgàth gun robh cosgaisean airgid ìseal, smachd air creideas lag, is iasadan cunnartach an àite fàs fìor ann. Choirich Brown trioblaidean anns an t-siostam-banca Ameireaganach ach chaill daoine an seo airgead air barantasan RA. Bha na bancaichean a’ toirt seachad iasadan de dh’airgead RA do luchd-iasaid RA, ann an làn sealladh sùil mhi-mhothachail riaghladair RA. Ged a dh’fhaodas càs Breatainn a bhith gu math cosail ri càs Ameireaga, ‘s e rudeigin a chruthachadh an seo a th’ ann.

A-nis tha Lloyds a’ reic a bhancaichean ann an Alba, Cheltenham & Gloucester, is a gnìomhachas eadar-lìon, Intelligent Finance. ’S urrainn do RBS bancaichean Natwest agus companaidhean-àrachais Churchill is Direct Line a reic. Cha do rinn Brown na planaichean seo nuair a bha e a’ smaoineachadh air Alba. Tha gnìomhachas an àrachais mòr, gu h-àraidh ann an Glaschu, is tha mi an dòchas gun ceannach cuideigin na gnìomhachasan sin is gun cum iad na h-obraichean anns a’ bhaile. Le dealachadh nam bancaichean ’s dòcha gum faic sinn banca Albannach ùr mar TSB a-rithist. Ach tha feum againn air luchd-ceannach prìobhaideach stèidhichte ann an Alba ga cheannach, an àite companidhean mar Tesco no Virgin. Phut Brown airson riaghailtean ùra airson duaisean-airgid is chan fhaigh luchd-obrach banca le tuarasdalan os cionn trichead ’s a naoi not duais mar airgead. Gheibh riaghladairean cumhachdan mas fheudar dhaibh “cùmhnantan a shracadh suas far am bitheadh neo-bhunaiteas na thoradh a leanadh pàigheadh” a rèir an Sunday Telegraph. ’ ‘S e co-dhùnadh poileataigeach a tha seo ach bu chòir do Brown a dhèanamh aig an toiseach.

Airson an ath riaghaltas tha tòrr obrach romhpa. Bu chòir dhaibh na bancaichean a dhealachadh gu buidhnean nas bige sa chiad dol-a-mach. Ann an Alba bu chòir do riaghailt  nam bancaichean a bhith fo smachd Dhùn Èideann agus Righaltas na h-Alba.
 

Break up the Banks

Calum Mackechnie

Recently the British Government established plans to break up the banks. I thought that was strange! Brown was the man who required Lloyds to buy HBOS, a frightening economic decision for Scotland. The Lloyds Banking Group is too big a bank. Orders like this aren’t good for customers or the economy. Again, it’s easy to see just how bad Brown is as an economist. Throughout the last ten years we saw growth in our economy but it was a false growth. It happened because interest costs were low, control of credit lax, and there was dangerous lending in place of real growth. Brown blamed difficulties on the American banking system but people here lost money on UK mortgages. The banks were giving loans of UK money to UK borrowers, in the full view of the less than observant UK regulator. Although the British crisis might be very like the American crisis, it is something that was created here.

Now Lloyds is selling banks in Scotland, Cheltenham & Gloucester, and the internet insurance company Intelligent Finance. RBS can sell the Natwest banks and the insurance companies Churchill and  Direct Line. Brown didn’t make these plans when he was thinking about Scotland. The insurance industry is large, especially in Glasgow, and I hope that someone will buy these businesses and keep the jobs in the city. With the break up of the banks maybe we will see a new Scottish bank like TSB again. But we need a private buyer established in Scotland to buy it, rather than a company like Tesco or Virgin. Brown pushed for new rules for bonuses and bank employees with salaries in excess of thirty nine thousand will not receive bonuses as cash. Regulators will get powers if necessary “to tear up contracts that would result in payments being made that would cause instability," according to the  Sunday Telegraph. ’ This is a political decision but Brown should have done it at the start.

For the next government there is a lot of work in front of them. They should break up the banks into smaller groups in the first instance. In Scotland banking regulation should be under the control of Edinburgh and the Scottish Government.