Rolled-up Trousers

Tories in Northern Ireland show the power of smaller parties

Labour and the Tories are keen to talk down the amount of influence the SNP are likely to have after the general election.

David Cameron's manoeuvrings in Northern Ireland give the lie to this though. He has been wooing the Ulster Unionists assiduously and has entered into a pact with them. It's caused him a number of headaches but the hassle can't be for no reason.

Analysts say it is because the next Parliament is going to be tight. How many UUP MPs are there? One.

And she's not happy with the alliance. Lady Hermon is now standing as an independent meaning it's even possible there won't be any UUP MPs in the next parliament.

Make no mistake about it, any number of SNP MPs is going to have a major effect. The larger the number, the more beneficial that will be for Scotland.

Poll: Your Top 5 reasons Labour and the Tories are the same

Angus Robertson, SNP leader in Westminster, has come up with "Gordon Brown's Tory Top Ten", a list of reasons that Labour are just like the Tories 

Inspired by that I now offer you the chance to vote on this. This is not just for the sake of it - the five with the most votes will go on my election leaflets.

Online Surveys & Market Research

New use for The Sun's SNP logo as a noose

Many want to see a hung Parliament this year. Hang both Labour and the Tories.

New use for The Sun's front page image from 2007?

Fancy some lunch?

That Glasgow Central is within reach of the SNP at this General Election has been devastatingly demonstrated this week.

The party is throwing itself behind this campaign and the public are responding. As has been widely reported, there was a fundraiser for the Glasgow Central campaign held this week which was packed out and raised much needed funds given we're up against multi-millionaire opponents.

The event sent shockwaves through the Labour ranks. The natural order of things was troubled. It is Labour who are meant to organise big dinners with the Asian community. There was a layer of people there hungry for change and willing to put the time and money into making it happen. They weren't the usual "community leaders" and chuntering classes.

The news coverage came from Labour's feeling of "How dare the SNP come onto our patch and raise sums of money too"! They even demanded to know whether diners knew they were donating to the SNP. Our donors have been phoned by the Sarwar family with demands to know why they are supporting us. Politics is rarely simple in the Asian community, typified by how the owners of the restaurant where the dinner was held, the Kabana, made a video of the event which is the one that was leaked to the media.

In the ensuing press coverage it has been hard to assess what the issue is. In the small print, issue has been made about food being consumed at the Scottish Parliament. Clarification has been sought from the authorities, and it has been made clear that the lunches can move elsewhere. Donors were not hung up on the Scottish Parliament aspect of it, and in fact were possibly even going to be put out having to go to Edinburgh.

We've then got the 'cash for access' aspect which apart from on the headlines, only a few have tentatively put forward because of the absurdity and hypocrisy of it. The donors/auction winners didn't need to win the auction to make whatever points they may or may not have. They were sitting a few yards away from Alex Salmond all evening. We're also talking about the most accessible First Minister we've had. I know all sorts of people, often of no real substance, who have successfully held meetings with him and Nicola Sturgeon just because they requested it. Some have tried to deride the comparison the SNP have made with charity auctions, but the principle is the same if you see it as 'cash for access'.

This takes us back to two points here - the first is that the opposition don't like the SNP raising money. And those donating to the campaign were an indication of the desire for change in Glasgow Central, and no amount of shenanigans of the type we've seen over the last few days from Labour is going to change that - in fact it's likely to harden it.

Labour's commitment to GARL

Labour in the Scottish Parliament have been complaining for months about the Glasgow Airport Rail Link not going ahead.

The uncomfortable fact for them though is that their manifesto back in 2003 promised us a Glasgow Airport Rail Link and they didn't produce it in the next four years. After the election, "delivering" the rail link was also in their coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats.

It followed the previous parliamentary session where Iain Gray, then transport minister, announced in the Scottish Parliament on 9 October 2002 that it was one of the then Scottish Executive's "top priorities" (col 14500), and the plan was for work to begin in 2005. They didn't end up presenting a bill before Parliament till 2006.

Labour were in power till 2007. If GARL was such a top priority for them, why hasn't it been completed already? They like to harp on about manifesto commitments. Fact is that they didn't get round to GARL during the times of plenty.

This post was updated on 8 February 2010

Ferrets in a sack

The Labour Party tried yet again to hand Gordon Brown the sack last week, only to find themselves too busy fighting in the said receptacle to do anything with it.

It is the third time they have made a timid attempt to remove Mr Brown, only to find themselves paying unwitting homage to their leader in aping his decade of marches half way to the top of the hill against Tony Blair.

The obvious point is that the Labour Party, including the cabinet, have no confidence in the prime minister. It's just they don't have anything better. David Miliband didn't have the bottle when the need came to push and shove. However, the astonishing thing for me about last week was not just the so-lukewarm-it-was-actually-as-cold-as-the-weather endorsements of Gordon Brown by the obvious people, loyalists like Jim Murphy and proteges like Douglas Alexander were at it too.

Voters cannot then by into this Gordon Brown vs David Cameron dichotomy that Labour try to create, and not just because there is no difference between Labour and Tories apart from presentation.

In Glasgow Central, the electorate has a choice between a Labour MP and an SNP MP. If the former is elected, and Labour win power for five more years, he is going to spend his time on benches fighting amongst colleagues on how and when Gordon Brown is to be replaced. If Labour are in opposition, he is going to be spending his time in recriminations, finger pointing and yes, fighting with colleagues.

Only a solid block of SNP MPs, including one from Glasgow Central, will offer the coherence and cohesion that is needed during these times of national and international crisis to stand up for Glasgow and Scotland.

Cringing Scots

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Alex Salmond for his Christmas card this year. It's terrific.

It has though come in for criticism from opposition parties because it has the Scottish flag on it.

I have never understood why unionist parties accuse the SNP of manipulating the saltire for party political ends. Every party uses their country's flag. Politicians in most states do so too, it's natural. In the US, they wear it on their lapel. It just so happens for Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems, that flag is the Union Jack (see pictures below).

The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that it is Scotland's flag itself that is being objected to.

The artist that did this year's Christmas card is Gerard M Burns. One of his paintings also has pride of place in the First Minister's office. The painting was actually commissioned at the time the Scottish Parliament opened in 1999 but was quickly banished till the SNP won in 2007 because the saltire on it was considered too big.

For the other parties, it seems the only useful purpose the saltire should serve is to provide the blue for the Union Jack.

In fairness to Labour though, Jim Murphy has been trying to convince his party to adopt the saltire. By trying to foist it like this on his troops though, it is as close as you can get to politicising the flag. The forced photoshoot with Iain Gray at this year's Labour conference is case in point.

It won't make any difference for Labour to be seen more comfortable with the saltire. They actually have to be able to come up with policies which are relevant to Scotland, and which will very likely have to be in the face of their counterparts in London. Are Scottish Labour capable of independent thought?

 

 

 

BNP - taking us back to the ice age

Nick Griffin has provided us all a villain to unite against. On Question Time his racism was exposed, but this will find resonance in parts of the country, aided by weak opposition from other political parties.

Griffin compared ‘indigenous Brits’ to Aborigines. A people under threat from ‘genocide’ caused by the immigration policies of successive governments. London, he says, is no longer a British city. Seems to be doing all right all the same.

You would think then in mentioning the Native Australians and Native Americans that he would have sympathy with their cause. It was truly bizarre to watch Griffin talk seriously about true British people being the ones who were here when the “ice melted” – from the ice age, not last winter. But let’s follow Griffin’s logic all the way through on the face of what he actually said yesterday. The Native Americans should then be able to send all the Europeans back. We would also welcome 'back' millions of Australians.

This country would be jam-packed. If there is an overcrowding issue now, it would be exacerbated as a much smaller number of people would be forced to Africa, Asia or just to be driven into the sea (or London if Griffin chooses to write it off). But this is more than a matter of immigration as Griffin would now have us believe. In the footage of that meeting in the US with David Duke, he is addressing a loony white supremecist audience, not a Native American one.

SNP conference dispatch - the economy

The economy naturally was discussed at SNP conference through a number of motions. One speaker criticised Jim Murphy’s ‘Arc of Insolvency’ line, pointing to an 'Arc of Recovery' where Iceland is now faring better arguably than the UK is on growth and unemployment. Norway has hardly been touched at all.

Gordon Wilson, SNP leader from 1979 to 1990, delivered the Donaldson lecture this year, and suggested the SNP should adopt negative campaigning, pointing out that it has worked for Labour over the years. His concrete suggestion was to highlight ‘Bankrupt Britain’, and in the context of the massive public spending cuts ahead, the idea of London as Scotland’s economic comfort blanket is in serious jeopardy. He has a book out.

One of the conference highlights for me was the Saturday lunchtime fringe launching Gerry Hassan’s new book on the Modern SNP. It was hosted by Joan McAlpine of the Sunday Times and had a thought provoking panel who have contributed to the book. Hassan himself said that the SNP has been a “breath of fresh air” on the Scottish political landscape and reflected on what state we’d be in if it was just Labour, Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Parliament.

Colin Mackay, political editor for independent radio said he felt there was less of a buzz amongst delegates this year compared to the previous two. This hadn’t yet slipped into complacency, but was certainly what he described as a comfort zone. With the aim being to deliver independence through a referendum in the short term, the current trajectory wasn’t going to deliver that. A number of people took exception to this I should add.

The economists Jim and Margaret Cuthbert meanwhile accused the SNP of having joined the Washington Consuses with their economic policy, and adopted neoliberalism (albeit with a heart) just as the whole system collapsed. They advocated strategies that the party could now adopt in moving forward with a different model, allowing Scotland to chart a new and innovative course.

I reflect that it does seem to be very much business as usual as far as the causes of the current crisis are concerned. Regulation and policy remain unchanged across the board internationally and politically there doesn’t seem to be much determination to change this. Could Scotland lead the way on this, just as we have with climate change? Obviously the powers do not reside in the Scottish Parliament on this matter, but a robust articulation of the country’s views and a concrete set of proposals are possible.

SNP Conference 2009 twittering

 "When Labour fight poverty, poverty usually wins" - David Kerr, SNP's Glasgow NE candidate. Line of the conference for me #snpconf

"Gordon Brown: What a sorry excuse for a Scotsman" barnstorming fraternal address from Plaid Cymru #snpconf

Salmond - taking Scotland's voice and Scotland's values to the heart of Westminster #snpconf

Salmond - on Brown's signalling of reduction of nuke subs from 4 to 3. "Correct number on the Clyde is zero" #snpconf

Compassion signified by Megrahi's release could be that #snpconf

Salmond - Gandhi's nonviolence was active, not passive. Need something to break cycle of violence - #snpconf

Salmond - Scotland has leading climate change legislation and Gordon Brown should let us be represented in Copenhagen #snpconf

Salmond - social democratic contract based on "wealth created and wealth shared" #snpconf

BNP on Question Time

Good times for the BNP just now. Vote is up around the country, a couple of MEPs and now appearing on BBC's Question Time without even appearing to lobby for it.

The argument for the BBC's defence is that now there will be an opportunity for the BNP to be exposed. But the Question Time format does not lend itself to this kind of cross examination (more on this here). The programme consists of politicians essentially making prerehearsed speeches on the issues of the day.

There was an opportunity for the BBC to be badly exposed on this issue but it appears as if a cross party consensus has emerged for them all to eschew the long standing policy of not sharing platforms with the far-right. It appears the lure of TV cameras makes everything different to your normal town hall meetings. One thing that should further make us doubt the likelihood of the BNP being "exposed" on Question Time is the pandering that the mainstream parties have done on matters of immigration, race and faith in recent years.

We may not have heard the last of this. But my other hope is that if the BNP are invited onto the programme in Scotland, that the Scottish parties do at least unite and refuse to take part.

The preposterousness and absurdity of the BNP

It's been warned throughout this time of economic crisis, that rising unemployment could lead to a rise in racist tendencies.

But these last few weeks, rather than the country turning in on itself, it has been our MPs that have borne the brunt of anger from a united public. A persecuted and vilified minority they have become!

However, once this has died down a bit, it has also been predicted that the disaffection brought about by MP expenses could lead to a surge in support for the BNP.

I find this logic somewhat warped. Understandably, trust in Parliamentarians is at an all-time low. Everyone is talking about politics, so much so that Question Time was brought forward to a 9pm prime time slot this week.

But what would make anyone think that voting for thugs now wearing lipstick would make things better? The BNP hadn't even got into second gear before they were caught out lying on their election leaflets. Pictures of happy families, OAPs and British workers were found to be actors, and not even British ones at that.

MPs aren't getting it

More revelations on MP expenses today. It keeps on coming.

It is horrific, but I also can't understand why weeks into this affair, MPs are still being undone by this.

Today, it's not like David Cameron's Etonian pal Bill Wiggin, or Geoff Hoon, have been caught unawares. They've had more than ample time to review their records and come clean before this was dragged out by the Daily Telegraph.

Surely any spin doctor would have told them that it's better to release news on your own terms rather than have someone else expose it.

But clearly they and many other MPs who we've still to learn about, haven't learned the lesson. What the public are looking for is honesty and transparency.

Today's lot, and tomorrow's, have sat around hoping that the Daily Telegraph wouldn't notice them. 

Bashir Ahmad: Judged by the content of his character

Four days after Bashir Ahmad’s death, I’m still finding it difficult to think of much else.

Glasgow Central Mosque was jam packed for his funeral which took place only half a day later. It’s customary in the event of someone’s death to pay tribute to them, so it’s difficult to convey exactly what made him so special. There is a reason why literally everyone’s comments about him are to do what his manners and gentlemanliness though.

He came from a culture which puts great stock on hospitality, but from this background, no one excelled him. He had an old school quality. Speaking to people, I’m amazed at how many folk have been dined and plied with food at his house. Mangoes had been delivered to farflung places of the country, where Pakistan’s king of fruit had never been before. Even his family appear to be taken aback by the sheer volume of people telling them how some of his kind words had made them feel special.

Martin Luther King said that he dreamed of a day when people would be judged, not by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character. And this is exactly the basis upon which Uncle Bashir was loved.

Bashir Ahmad MSP RIP

The news has come through this evening that Bashir Ahmad MSP has died of a heart attack.

He was at home with his family. The suddenness has left us all stunned. People with him at work only an hour or two earlier say all seemed fine. From God we come and to Him is the return.

Uncle Bashir, as we called him, was a great man. The best. People admired him because he had those characteristics we all need - exemplary manners, a great nature, warmth and hospitality.

He was a history maker - Scotland's first ethnic minority MSP, its first Muslim MSP.

42 days later

There seems to be some despondency amongst activists regarding the 42 days result, the cynicism of the DUP, and the betrayal of some on the Labour benches who said they would rebel only for them to lose their spines at the eleventh hour.

Chins up though, this has still to go through the House of Lords, who will hopefully reject it and send it back to the Commons for them to think again. We must all then keep the pressure up.

Vote Ken

I'm by no means a stranger to London so I hope readers won't mind me giving a quick tuppence on the Mayoral elections today.

If Boris wins, it will be the most ludicrous result since Hartlepool elected a monkey as Mayor. At least there, the monkey had some connection with the town and had one fairly decent policy of giving out free bananas to schoolchildren.

Labour donors anonymous

Why do so many Labour donors seem embarrassed about giving to the Labour Party? David Abrahams did it through his employees. Wendy Alexander's leadership campaign, where she had to beat nobody, raised £17,000 through attracting several donors of £995, just under the £1000 mark where they would have to be declared.

One of them as revealed in the Herald today was Jersey based (and thus not allowed to contribute) but did it through a Glasgow company. To compound matters, this is no different from the case of Abraham, or I believe front organisations like the Muslim Friends of Labour, which have served the effect of keeping anonymous people who are embarrassed at the idea of donating to Labour openly.

Partisanship

Matthew Marr's descent over the last few days has got my unusually troubled by the antics of a Labour spin doctor. I know Matthew since we met at organising meetings for the Make Poverty History march in Edinburgh 2005. He was working for Catholic charity SCIAF at the time.

We later crossed paths again when he was an aide to Glasgow City Council leader Stephen Purcell. I won't go into the details, but I can well imagine the scene at Prestonfields last week as I was myself at the sharp end of a Marr tonguelashing over what was a relative non-issue. I was by no means under his employ or anything, and have seldom been spoken to like that in life over so little. It seems I'm not the only one either.

SNP conference thoughts

It's about time that I got round to doing a write up of last week's SNP conference in Aviemore.

As has been widely noted, it was the first one to be held under an SNP government. Accordingly, there were a lot more people there, and not just the 1000 or so delegates. The place was teaming with various lobbyists who have suddenly noticed we exist. I remember just two years ago at the same venue I organised a fringe meeting and I was the only person leafleting delegates that afternoon. Times have changed very quickly, and there were even some protesters standing outside.

Osama Saeed for Glasgow Central

It's about time I got round to telling my blog readers the news that I have been selected as the SNP's candidate for Glasgow Central at the next Westminster elections.

I look forward to expending my campaigning energies to get elected, and thereafter to represent the interests of my constituents.

The next general election will in my opinion be the last ever election to Westminster held in Scotland. 60% of Scots believe that we'll be independent within a decade. So much has changed in the last two years - remember people laughing at  Alex Salmond's claim in 2005 that the SNP would win 20 Holyrood seats to take power? How many seats did we win in May this year? That's right. This is why the unionist parties in Holyrood oppose a referendum on our constitutional future. They know that if it's set, the SNP will win the argument.

Death and Taxes

If as Benjamin Franklin said, there are only two certainties in life - death and taxes - then Inheritance Tax manages to wrap both up into a neat package.

The Tories label it death tax, which some bristle at. I think it's accurate. It takes no account of who will be receiving the bequests. It is a tax on the deceased's estate (i.e. not the recipient) before distribution is made - therefore it is a tax on death. The name 'Inheritance Tax' is actually spin. Internationally it's known as the not quite as euphemistic Estate Tax, if it's not just honestly called Death Duties.

I'm not one of those who is in principle opposed to the idea of giving from a deceased's estate. I think it's very important that on our death we should be looking to make generous bequests to good causes. I'll leave it to others to decide whether the UK Treasury fits that description.

Spouses employed by Parliamentarians

Paul Hutcheon at the Sunday Herald delved into the employment habits of MSPs at the weekend, highlighting that 50 out of 129 employ a close relative.

I don't have a problem with this in principle, as long as the employee is actually earning their crust. My feeling on this is that quite often there is no work being done to speak of, but salary is still diverted into their bank account.

I would imagine that this is pretty much the same state of affairs as Westminster. As an adjunct to this I also note that the Treasury has responded to the Arctic Systems case by saying it will now enact legislation to effectively stop small companies from "income splitting". This is the practice of a business run by one spouse paying themselves a salary up to the 40% tax limit, and then paying their spouse who does not actually do any work for the business thereby allowing them to use their 22% tax band too. This effectively allows them to take out over £70,000 from a company a year at more or less the 22% level where normally this would fall under the higher rate.

Parliamentarians are also getting away with this with the rules on staff salaries. If they're going to pay their spouses for doing nowt, then at least make them pay at the 40% level for augmenting their income. It would be good to see the government set an example by first clamping down on Parliamentarians.

Labour friends of Muslims?

A glance at the Electoral Commission's latest report into party finances shows that the Muslim Friends of Labour donated over £300,000 to Scottish Labour's election campaign this year.

When the group was set up a few years ago with a dinner at Glasgow Central Mosque, the obvious problem was not whether Muslims were friends of Labour, but whether Labour were friends of Muslims.

The Herald reported that the "Muslim community" had donated £300,000 to Labour. While not strictly true, what MFL does is give cover to those giving donations by it not ending up on the Electoral Commission's web site. Noman Tahir calls for a naming and shaming (UPDATE: More in the Sunday Times).

Over the last few years, the decline in Muslim membership of the Labour Party has been well documented. What hasn't been reported however was a corresponding drop in donations from Muslims - probably because there wasn't much in the way of Muslim philanthropy of this sort in the first place. MFL is an attempt to recognise that money can buy you love in politics.

A new day has dawned, has it not?

I genuinely thought that it was a joke when Tony Blair was first touted as a Middle East peace envoy. At best it must've been an initiative to massage his ego, nothing more. Even he can't be deluded enough to think he can make a positive difference.

Then it gathered momentum. Last week's Question Time pondered his suitability, and many concluded it didn't matter what the Arabs thought of it - he's a good man in our view and that's all there is to it. This was the same week where Pakistan were told to stop interfering in UK internal affairs, as if we always mind our own business.

Blair will have as much success and impact in the role as his own Middle East envoy in the last decade, Lord Michael Levy. Either Blair is extremely biased or he's extremely limited. Probably both. Last summer he couldn't get his head round calling for both a ceasefire of Israel's Lebanon bombardment, and looking for a longterm solution to the problem. It was one or the other for him.

Blair's human rights

Blair may be leaving office, but I have the sinking feeling he's not going anywhere. He's going to be part of the national body politic for some time to come. Not the move into the serious old age of Thatcher, or to the cricket of Major for him. This is bad news for us all, but none will take it as badly as Gordon Brown I think.

Anyway, Blair's aiming to go out with a bang for now. In an article in the Sunday Times this week he defended control orders:

We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first. I happen to believe this is misguided and wrong.

Blair better hope that whenever he comes up against a war crimes tribunal that it doesn't operate on his standard of human rights. For, it could easily be argued at the time that given the nature of the star witnesses, particularly in the security services, that it would be better not to have a trial at all and move straight to sentencing.  But because that wouldn't be entirely fair, we'd just lock him up in his front room with no access to the outside world.

Michael White writes regarding Margaret Hodge's call for housing to be allocated to migrants after indigenous people, rather than on the current basis of need:

Last year the number of council and housing association units built in the borough fell from a very modest 572 to 230. What is true, as Jon Cruddas, Dagenham's Labour MP now running to be deputy leader, keeps saying is that social services in poor boroughs do feel the pressure of globalisation. So do falling local wage rates. "Racialising" problems will not help, better statistics leading to more Whitehall cash will, argues Cruddas whose local activists beat back the BNP. Labour in Barking did not, add Mrs Hodge's critics.

There's no point in beating the BNP by becoming the BNP. There can be no triangulation with them. But as White says, this strategy doesn't work anyway. If you make the far-right's rhetoric acceptable by aping it, why would you get the votes on that platform rather than the real deal?

Humanitarian intervention

Oxfam director Barbara Stocking said:

"Day in day out, Oxfam sees the human consequences of Britain's foreign policies at first hand, both good and bad. Labour's foreign policy has been at its best when it has been in tune with public opinion and international law. However it is now clear that the invasion of Iraq, and the government's failure to stand up to all governments when they break international law and harm innocent people, have seriously damaged Britain's capacity to be a force for good on the world stage.

"The Iraq war was a terrible misadventure. But it must not cause future Prime Ministers to return to the caution of the previous Conservative government. That administration stood by while the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda unfolded. We must say 'never again' as much to our failure to stop these atrocities, as to repeating Iraq."

£10,000

MPs have voted themselves an allowance of £10,000 a year for running websites. Why don't they just head down to Wordpress and get one for free?

Seems like some friendly web design company is going to be creaming £6.5m or so from this, when a basic blog would do the trick. MPs could keep us updated on their activities, give reasons for why they voted as they did, while people could leave comments and feedback.

In most European countries there is a party of the right whose basic definition is its attachment to the national interest of that country. Only here is there a Conservative party, and Tory press, largely in the hands of people whose basic commitment is to the national interest of another country, or countries.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft on the Conservative MPs whose allegiances lie with the US and Israel.