UkPoliBlog: Composite feed : Scottish Blogs

Thursday news ... : Cllr Fraser Macpherson - LibDem Councillor for Dundee's West End - www.dundeewestend.com

* This afternoon, after a useful meeting about improving liaison between the numerous West End community groups, I attended the latest meeting of the Best Value Review group on Child Protection Services in Dundee.

* This evening, after a busy surgery at Blackness Primary School, I attended the March meeting of the Community Spirit group which does great work for the people in the Cleghorn, Ancrum, Pentland and surrounding areas. There was an interesting update from Liz and Kay from Dundee WestFest, as well as a good discussion on various local issues.

Bo, Selecta! : J. Arthur MacNumpty

Well, you have to admire Labour's eagerness. At a time when there are still vacancies unfilled (and a situation in East Lothian where the local party is seeking to create a vacancy) for an election this Spring, some activists are looking forward to next year's Holyrood elections. Well, the ones with the potentially messy selection contests.

And the one for Renfrewshire South did have the capacity for a mess: the seat is effectively a new one, created with offcuts from West Renfrewshire, Paisley South and Eastwood. Now, the sitting MSP for the first of these, Trish Godman, is probably in a wiser position to stand in Renfrewshire North & West. The sitting MSP for the second, Hugh Henry, could have easily fought Paisley but that would have involved a selection contest with Wendy Alexander if she is a mind to stand again, so Renfrewshire South perhaps seemed the better bet. And the MSP for the third, Ken Macintosh, could stand again in Eastwood, but that seat sees some very unfortunate (for him) boundary changes, which mean he has to be sure of a 3.15% swing from the Tories to Labour just to hold onto his job. So Renfrewshire South was always going to be a battle between Messrs Henry and Macintosh.

Hugh Henry has won that battle.

This is significant, not least for Ken Macintosh, whose wish to get re-elected has become considerably more difficult (remember also that the notional Tory majority of 2,018 in Eastwood is, if anything, lower than it ought to be thanks to the intervention of an independent, former Tory, candidate in the last election, who prevented Jackson Carlaw from winning the seat on the old boundaries).

But more importantly, everyone likes to talk about Jim Murphy swooping to Holyrood like an avenging angel should he be beaten by the Tories' Richard Cook in a few weeks' time. But where? With Trish Godman in Renfrewshire North & West, Wendy Alexander in Paisley, and Hugh Henry in Paisley South, there ain't no room, particularly with Ken Macintosh's plans for a chicken run thwarted.

And the Regional List is no help to either of them: Labour's constituency performance means that the party is, notionally, over-represented in West Scotland: by rights, they ought to have seven seats rather than eight, and the SNP ought to have six seats rather than five. That means that any Labour hopeful on the List needs a swing from Labour to the SNP of 4.63% on the Constituency Vote (enough for the SNP to win Dumbarton and Cunninghame South, taking out Irene Oldfather and Jackie Baillie in the process) yet at the same time, has to hope that Labour's Regional vote losses are minimised. A difficult position to be in.

So, before we have the Westminster election out of the way, we have the opening, internal manoeuvres in the Holyrood election. And they aren't good for the Shadow Minister for Schools and Skills.

The Global Warming Debate Part 3 : SUBROSA

This is the third part of Edward's story. If you missed parts 1 and 2 part one is here and part two here.

Climate Change III A LIFE IN (MOSTLY) PLEASANT PLACES

In my business travels to animal feed manufacturers around Great Britain and Ireland, it was my good fortune to visit many pleasant places and to do business with some very fine and honourable people. In some firms I dealt with three generations of the owning families. It is a matter of sadness that so many of these businesses have been swallowed up by mergers and takeovers into conglomerates which have less of a personal flavour about them. In some places new, local businesses have sprung up and the process is part of inevitable change, decay and renewal in a time of unprecedented rapid flux.

Some change has been decidedly for the better, as I was reminded on a visit to one of the less scenic areas some twenty years ago. With half an hour to spare, I decided to walk around the village near my customer's mill and was struck with a most overwhelming, rather unpleasant, oppressive feeling of nostalgia. It took me a few seconds to realise its cause. It was a colliery village and a still, damp Autumn day. The houses were burning miners' concession coal and it was the smell of the coal smoke and the taste at the back of my throat which transported me back to the Derby of my childhood when we lived in the mill house. In those days of smog before the Clean Air Act, towns all smelt like that in the Winter. I remembered being frightened as a very young child on a car journey through Stoke on Trent. As we descended into the Potteries, we entered a world of such blackness as I had never seen. The sky was black, the ground was black and the buildings were black as the kilns belched their smoke into the air.

Technical advances such as smokeless fuels and furnaces which consume their own smoke have obviated most of that sort of pollution. Watercourses are cleaner too. In the Fifties when the advertising men introduced housewives to detergents for their washing up, they sang the praises of the "sudsy lather" of their respective products. Much of this ended up in rivers. I remember a boat trip on the River Soar navigation when the froth in the locks was three or four feet deep and coming over the side of the boat. If anybody had fallen in, it would have been impossible to see where they were. Now watercourses are cleaner and rivers which have been dead for a hundred years are beginning to see salmon running again.

Towns were often quite unpleasant places in other ways . Derby had two renowned smells - "The Derby Hum" which emanated from the Hide and Skin factory and the sharper, more chemical smell of "The Spondon Pong"

The latter emanated from the old Celanese factory and swept across the town when the wind was in the right direction. In Spondon when it was strong, brass ornaments on people's mantelpieces turned green. I was a frequent visitor to Bridgwater in Somerset and the same thing happened there near the cellophane factory. Doubtless, most towns with industries had similar problems.

Whilst there is certainly more to be done in the capture of pollutants from combustion and processing, great progress has been made. This is based on solid, empirically proven science and sensible regulation. Carbon dioxide is often lumped in with this sort of pollution, yet it is a colourless, odourless gas, vital to life as we know it. By referring to it as "carbon" the environmentalists set out quite deliberately to equate it with dirty soot which, of course, also contains carbon.

The improvements in pollution control took place in the "exploitative", "selfish","greedy"capitalist West. When the Iron Curtain came down It was a nasty shock to find the terribly polluted landscape and environmental hell-holes created by communist smokestack industry under "scientific socialism" which was supposedly for the benefit of the people. Today in China, India and other industrial growth areas, hundreds of millions of people are suffering from similar, avoidable pollution of water, ground and air for which there are well-established, relatively cheap remedies, which could have been built in from the start of their industrial revolutions.

It is a lack of political will or possibly corruption in these countries which denies a clean environment to their citizens. The diversion of attention to monomania about CO2 is delaying the time when tried and tested remedies will give people a cleaner, healthier environment.

CO2 IS GOOD FOR YOU

So far, I have not seen reference to any scientific paper, whether concerned with observations in the atmosphere or experiments in a laboratory, which has conclusively demonstrated that carbon dioxide has the "greenhouse" property claimed for it at the atmospheric levels which are likely to occur far into the foreseeable future. The proponents of AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) are not exactly shrinking violets when it comes to making their case. In spite of many billions spent, they have not produced strong, experimental, physical evidence for their claims

The whole hypothesis (you cannot really call it a theory) is based on the observations that

(a) Carbon dioxide levels are rising and there is good evidence that some of this comes human activity.

Last year ahead of Harrogate he said:

"When the right won out, the reality was brutal. I remember very distinctly this sense that we were being told we should all place money above morality; put profit ahead of people; that we shouldn't worry about selling out. Because, at the end of the day, there was no such thing as society. But I looked around me and thought: no, there has to be more to life than this. There is more to us than this. Justice, fairness, community. We weren't ready to give in to that soulless, unforgiving Britain. That dog-eat-dog, get-rich-quick, look-after-number-one Britain. We didn't want to live in Thatcher's Britain.
"The false idols of trickle-down economics worshipped by Tories and New Labour alike have turned to dust."

So turn to this year and what is this in the Spectator?

Age, he claims, has taught him the point of Lady Thatcher. And, indeed, he now seems to see her as something of an inspiration. 'I'm 43 now. I was at university at the height of the Thatcher revolution and I recognise now something I did not at the time: that her victory over a vested interest, the trade unions, was immensely significant. I don't want to be churlish: that was an immensely important visceral battle for how Britain is governed.

But hang on, some including the right leaning press have claimed this is in praise of all things Thatcherism but read on, Nick tells you that while in the 80s the vested interest was the Unions in the noughties it is something else.

"And what has now happened to the British economy? It has gone belly-up because, once again, we have allowed a vested interest to run riot." He is talking, of course, about the banks. "They represent a vested interest. This is what I sometimes don't understand about the Cameron-Osborne act. A real liberal believes in genuine competition, a genuine level playing field and he is unremittingly hostile to vested interests." As Thatcher was to Scargill, so Mr Clegg intends to be to the banks. "What I find so striking is that the spirit â dare I say it â of the battle against the dominance of one vested interest, the trade unions, is exactly the same spirit we need now."

So it is not a return to Thatcherism, what it is is an admiration of the spirit that fought the vested interests to look out for the majority of the people and so it is again. I could not see Thatcher, or any of her successors taking on the banks, indeed we've seen how timid some of them have been in recent years.

And before Labour misinterpret and start to spin, let us not forget who was one of the first visitors to a Brown Number 10.

Gadget Launch - Preview : SUBROSA

Gadget Launch

I was tickled by RantinRab's gadget launched for International Women's Day and thought I really must have one myself.

So, let me introduce you to the latest General Election Campaign Gadget.

the iCon(man)

FMQs 11 March 2010 : SUBROSA

The new education curriculum for excellence, Scottish dentists, ferry fares and the tragedy of the three asylum seekers in Glasgow were the issues discussed today.

For those of you who know little about the new curriculum for excellence, it is planned that it be introduced to primary and secondary schools this August, at the start of the school year. However, some secondary school teachers say they're not prepared and have requested a delay. This has caused much controversy within the teaching fraternity to the extent that the head of one secondary school teaching union angrily suggested, on television last night, that primary school staff should keep their noses out of the 'big school's affairs'. I'm sure I could hear teeth grinding throughout the primary teacher population.

Labour leader Iain Gray's questions this week all centred round the curriculum for excellence. Would every school in Scotland be introducing it in August he wanted to know. The First Minister of course doesn't know the answer owing to the recent protestations. "It's a shambles," Iain Gray said.

Alex Salmond sharply retorted he would follow the advice of the curriculum's management board and that there was widespread support for the new curriculum.

Annabel Goldie, Scottish tory leader, asked about NHS dentists and wondered why patients are to be held on dentist's records long term. "The government are cooking the books to make the figures look better than they are." In a stinging response the FM informed Ms Goldie that the reason for the change of rules was to ensure patients register with a dentist and stay registered. He was proud to tell the chamber that the number of NHS dentists had increased by 15% since 2007.

The libdem leader, Tavish Scott, focused on Calmac ferry fares being increased by 4.2% although in some parts of the northern isles, where a pilot scheme is operating, there is no increase. 'Favouritism' implied Mr Scott. "Common sense," responded the FM adding "We must look after the communities who live on the periphery."

Ian Martin, in whose Glasgow constituency 3 people died at the weekend, asked if more financial help could be given to asylum seekers. The FM suggested, after this tragedy, there may be a fatal accident inquiry but it was not up to him was a decision the law and Lord Advocate must make.

You can watch this week's half hour on HolyroodLive and BBC iPlayer.

Let's Talk About Sex Benny* : Stephen's Linlithgow Journal

I have to praise Cardinal Christoph SchÃ¶nborn. Whether he actually meant that there is a link between priestly celibacy and child sex abuse scandal that's inflicting the Vatican, or merely that the link needs to be examined, he has reopened the debate.

The Archbishop of Vienna, who is a protÃ©gÃ© of Pope Benedict XVI and seen as a potential future candidate for the Papacy is hardly opening a can of worms. Although his hastily released clarification may well be a sign that the church is not prepared to publicly face that discussion.

His original article in his archdiocese's magazine called on the Church to make a "unflinching examination" of the causes of the scandal. He specifically pointed out that consideration should be made on "the issue of priests' training, as well as the question of what happened in the so-called sexual revolution of the generation of 1968".

He added: "It also includes the question of priest celibacy and the question of personality development. It requires a great deal of honesty, both on the part of the Church and of society as a whole."

In fact what he said is largely biblical. Considering that the rule on Priestly celibacy is not based on the married founding Bishop of Rome Peter but on Paul who wrote in 1 Corinthians:

"I wish that all men were like me. However each man has his own gift from God, one of this kind, and another of that kind. But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. But if they don't have self-control, let them marry. For it's better to marry than to burn with passion."

All of what Paul wrote is contained within the article and focus of Cardinal SchÃ¶nborn. The issues in Ireland, USA and Germany are the most severe examples. The Pope has already gathered the senior Irish Bishops to Rome for what can be described as a ticking off. But surely some self examination is desirable. The church hasn't always been celibate and indeed other pastors in other denominations have been allowed to take wives/husbands**. I'm not saying it is a perfect solution, there are still tales on infidelity even with the marriage of Christian leaders. But maybe the need or want is less that retaining a state of celibacy even if there is a passion burning unquenched as is the only state of service in the Catholic Church. The whole context of Paul's passage was not that you must, but you must do what is right for you, he also didn't rule anyone out of the role passed purely on the nature of their marital status.

It may do the Catholic Church no harm to realise that all humans are fallible, without it there is no need for redemption. Once they realise that and start to acknowledge that then, and I fear only then, will they be able to deal with this issue in a constructive way.

Cardinal SchÃ¶nborn is calling for just such an examination. Though you wonder if his call will be heeded and acted upon.

* For the title to work properly as a pun on the song lyrics I had to refer to the Pope by taking a popular truncation of his name.

** Well I'm including the female pastors with the husbands, but there are also a number of same gender relationships.

Bring back the peseta! : Holyrood Chronicles

Five fallen soldiers back in UK : Fitaloon at MicroShaft

The Bodies of Five fallen soldiers arrived back in the UK today. The BBC has this: The bodies of five serviceman killed in Afghanistan last week have been flown back to Britain. They landed at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire where a private service will be held, before a cortege drives them through the nearby town of Wootton [...] Related posts:

High speed rail link must include Scotland : Stewart Stevenson - Working for You

Fare rise to protect lifeline ferry services : Stewart Stevenson - Working for You

IRISH INDEPENDENT LETTER - ANOTHER REPLY ON GLOBAL WARMING : A Place to Stand

The Irish Independent have published another letter from me on global warming.

Carbon dioxide is not one part in every five million of the atmosphere but about 300 parts. The human contribution to CO2 is about 3pc so that makes the total nine parts in a million. However, Michael Job (Letters, March 10) is wrong to say that only CO2 has a greenhouse effect (by which he means only it absorbs infrared light).

Oxygen and nitrogen, which make up more than 99pc of the atmosphere, do absorb infrared, albeit not as strongly but there is so much more of it.

A greater greenhouse gas, both in its quantity in the atmosphere and its absorptive powers, is water vapour.

In total, the human element of CO2 is so tiny that any effect is also bound to be of the same order. In fact, the correlation between sunspot activity and temperature is very close, certainly very much closer than with CO2 levels, which presumably explains why global temperature has repeatedly been considerably higher than it is now, particularly during the medieval period and the well named Climate Optimum of 9,000BC to 5,000BC.

Michael says: "The notion that vast sums of money are being wasted on combating climate change is a myth, but even if it were true, it would be worth any amount of money to prevent the catastrophe which will occur if the boffins are right."

In fact, vast sums are being spent -- Kyoto has been calculated at $800m (â¬587m) a day -- and it is difficult to see why it would be worth any amount of money to prevent us enjoying an optimum climate, even if that were on offer. As my previous letters pointed out, it is simply wrong to claim that "the boffins", in general, support this scare. Indeed, even Professor Jones, the head of the British CRU (Climate Research Unit) which has led regarding this theory, has had to admit there has been no warming over the past 15 years and that it is cooler now than in the Middle Ages.

Perhaps the world has no real problems that require money?

There is another letter today saying, from a centrist position, that this is a very large amount of money & we should be more certain before spending it, which I cannot disagree with in any way. I should have said CO2 is 300 parts in a million since as written it could be interpreted to suggest 300 in 5 million.

I did send this previous letter to them in reply to 2 others disagreeing with me, However since I had already had 2 letters published, here & here, there they were entirely within their rights not to use it, frustrating though that always is..

Incidentally the article the first letter was based on has been selected by this fortnight's Britblog Roundup as the first in the "grab bag of assorted gems" of the fortnight - "Neil Craig appears to have found proof that the scientific consensus on climate change is a fabrication" - naturally, except for the Irish Independent, no part of the western press is interested in reporting such facts even in their letter pages.

Two chances for Anne Moffat MP : SNP Tactical Voting

The mess that has become Labour's candidacy in East Lothian has been remarkable and the Caledonian Mercury is correct to say that the party machine is largely to blame for getting to the position where, with less than two months until an election that could end in a hung parliament, what should be a safe seat is tantalisingly within reach for opposition parties.
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I daresay leaving Anne Moffat in place as the candidate would be the best result for those not of a Labour persuasion. We saw what clean skin Willie Bain was able to do in Glasgow North East in the heat of the expenses scandal after standing in place of the somewhat disgraced (but Lord nonetheless) Michael Martin. The result in Livingston, similarly, may not be as some are hoping for given that Jim Devine is not actually standing although SNP PPC Lis Bardell seems confident there is still an outraged many out on the doorsteps..
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The group of East Lothian activists that have forced a vote may well lose the day if the full 700 strong Labour members in the area decide that they don't want a fuss and putting Moffat back in place will make for an easier life. Even if Anne Moffat loses the vote, she can still appeal to the NEC, wasting even more precious campaigning time.
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Where I disagree with the Caledonian Mercury's take of the situation is where it lazily, or perhaps even mischievously, suggests that it will be the Lib Dems who will reap the benefit of Labour's misfortune. This is to overlook the fact that the SNP won the equivalent of the East Lothian seat in the European elections and the Scottish Parliament regional vote.
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They may be shooting from fourth but a lot has happened in these five long years, including a surprise move from former Lib Dem candidate Amy Rodger who announced that she no longer wishes to contest the seat. Clearly, in Amy's eyes, progress was not being made despite Labour's mounting problems.
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However, there's only one vote that counts and that's on May 6th and while Labour's problems mount up and the Moffat saga continues to unfold, opposing parties of whatever colour can only gain from it.
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East Lothian of course is not the only Scottish seat that is still without a Labour candidate. I have lost track somewhat but I believe Airdrie & Shotts was until recently still waiting to decide to what extent it believes in the principle of All Woman Shortlists. Unlike Jack Dromey, Harriet Harman's husband and unsurprising winner of the All Woman Shortlist contest in Leyton and Wanstead, there is now no chance that a local man will win the selection contest on merit. Joanne Milligan therefore remains the favourite and, not being from the area, one has to wonder if that will hurt her chances where emotions continue to run high in what could well be a tight race. The good news for the SNP is that Sophia Coyle is running, the same candidate who amassed a 15% swing in the same area in 2007.
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So a few outside bets for SNP gains are still out there and we have the Labour party machine to thank for them.

Update: National Security Surrey Heath Style : SUBROSA

Remember the post in which I informed you that the Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey Bengali Welfare Association had applied to Surrey Heath Council to demolish the above listed Victorian school and build a large mosque which would overlook the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst? If you don't the story is here.

The final planning decision has now been made and the plans have been thrown out on a 'technicality'.

According to the BBC 'The association argued that the building no longer met the needs of the growing local Muslim community and people wanted to worship in a mosque and not a school.'

As far as I'm aware this attractive building has not been a school for some years. Why did they buy it in the first place if they felt that way?

Nigel Farage, the UKIP MEP for the South East, described the full council's decision as, "The right result for the people of Camberley.

"The initial planning application should have been thrown out as the building in question is listed and is sited in a conservation area.

"This was never about religion, but about the fair and just process that applies to everyone no matter what faith or belief."

Exactly.

source

Timeline (2003) : Inveresk Street Ingrate

BBC Strategy Review : Cllr Fraser Macpherson - LibDem Councillor for Dundee's West End - www.dundeewestend.com

I am dismayed at the BBC Trust's proposal in its Strategy Review to close BBC Radio 6 Music.

To quote the BBC itself, the station "brings together the cutting edge music of today, the iconic and groundbreaking music of the past 40 years".

Radio 6 Music is distinctive and valuable, and offers a place for exciting new acts to be heard. It provides its listeners with content that no independent commercial broadcaster offers, and has helped artists like Florence + The Machine reach greater audiences. At 3.4 pence per listener hour, 6 Music is also good value for money. Closing 6 Music would generate a very modest saving, and it is not clear that this would be worth losing such a distinctive station.

The future of 6 Music is a decision for the BBC Trust to make after they have consulted with licence fee payers. Whatever decision is made, the Liberal Democrats are adamant that it must be in line with the BBC's purpose: to make programmes that are distinctive, high quality, and of good value. I am unconvinced that shutting 6 Music would contribute to these goals.

There are two other aspects of the BBC Trust's proposals that concern me. Firstly, the proposal to close the Asian Network is difficult to understand as is the proposal about :

"... not offering any more localised services than the BBC already does - for example, new services for individual towns or cities."

I have given my feedback to the BBC consultation on the Trust's proposals and you can give your views to the BBC on their proposals by clicking here.

Harris Academy Parent Council : Cllr Fraser Macpherson - LibDem Councillor for Dundee's West End - www.dundeewestend.com

Last night, I attended the March meeting of Harris Academy Parent Council - it was a very informative and interesting meeting - the main item for discussion being the parent survey results.

Both Jim Thewliss, Head Teacher, and I updated the Parent Council on the school rebuilding project. I am grateful to the Director of Education for giving me a progress report in advance of last night's meeting.

The department is meeting with the Scottish Futures Trust tomorrow regarding the project.

Photopolis - Hunter Street : Cllr Fraser Macpherson - LibDem Councillor for Dundee's West End - www.dundeewestend.com

This photograph from Photopolis shows a Hunter Street of old, hugely different to today's Hunter Street 'link road' between Old Hawkhill and the Hawkhill by-pass.

Gordon Brown Exposed as 'Playing Fast and Loose' : SUBROSA

For those of you who missed Channel 4 News last night, there was an excellent report from Cathy Newman regarding Gordon Brown's comments on defence spending.

Gordon Brown insists, both at his Iraq inquiry evidence and yesterday at PMQs, that defence spending rose year on year since labour came to power, yet just this week Sir Bill Jeffrey, the most senior civil servant at the MoD, told the Chilcot Inquiry the forces were kept short of funds when Brown was Chancellor.

Factcheck proves that, in real terms ie taking account of inflation, Gordon Brown is wrong. The figures in the video were given to Factcheck by the MoD and show the defence budget fell year-on-year in real terms on four occasions since 1997 when labour came to power - in 1998, 1999, 2002 and 2007.

According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, inflation has to be factored in to make spending comparisons meaningful. So Gordon Brown was, at the very least, playing fast and loose with the figures by ignoring inflation. Nato also provide figures for each country including defence expenditure's share of GDP.

So Gordon Brown lies again. He thinks if he throws figures around nobody will bother investigating them. Thankfully we have the power of the internet and a news programme like Channel 4 to expose him.

The Fruit of Gordon's Character : Stephen's Linlithgow Journal

"It is for other people to judge but I believe that character is not about telling people what they want to hear but about telling them what they need to know.

"It is about having the courage to set out your mission and the courage to take the tough decisions and stick to them without being blown off-course, even when the going is difficult.

"For better or for worse, with me what you see is what you get."

Well that is what Gordon Brown is saying should be the judgement on which people base their decision for this election. So lets look at Labour's mission over the last 13 years.

On law and order they seem to have been blown by whatever the police want irrespective of the civil liberties that they limit. So that is a course but one that many social progressives who once felt the Labour party was their natural home are wary of.

On Iraq they set out on a mission to get rid of Saddam. They certainly weren't swayed by the advise of legal and military experts that their reasoning for the invasion was flawed or illegal. We've even had David Miliband saying that UN was feeble over Saddam, that only the iron fist of the US and UK could waken them up. But Bush and Blair still kow-towed to New York to get a retrospective resolution even though they broke Article 2 of the UN's founding charter.

On tax that steady course that Gordon has ploughed. He announced he was to remove the 10p tax band. Only for it to be given a temporary reprieve. In effect he had unfairly doubled the tax burden of the lowest paid. Indeed only most earning up to about Â£2,000 less than the Tories want to freeze public pay everyone was worse off. While at the other end it was Gordon who made a differential in the high rate capital gains and income tax thresholds making it easier for the richest to avoid paying a full amount of tax. Yet now he speaks of a future fair for all.

As for the banks, well it got worse. Gordon refused to listen to Vince Cable, a former banker, and sailed his course of deregulation. Allowing them carte blanch to gamble the nations savings against the market. We'll be paying for that courageous path of the former chancellor for years to come.

Only the Liberal Democrats have consistently stood up for our civil liberties in the last 13 years. Only the Liberal Democrats spoke out about the illegal war on Iraq with one voice. Only the Liberal Democrats are promising to make our taxes fairer. Only the Liberal Democrats are prepared to reform the banks, yes allow the investment banks to speculate, but not at the expense of individuals and firms access to core banking services.

Gordon Brown as the son of the Manse is no doubt aware that Matthew 7:16 says. "It is by their fruits that you shall know them." Sorry Gordon but Labour have turned out to be a rotten apple. The Tories are merely the same old sour lemon trying to disguise themselves as a sweet strawberry. The Liberal Democrats are trying to give real sustenance to our economy, it is time to build a fairer Britain.

MPs' Day In Court : Stephen's Linlithgow Journal

Today is the day that Jim Devine, Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Lord Hanningfield are meant to walk around the corner from the Palace of Westminster to Westminster Magistrates Court to answer charges of false accounting relating to their expenses. I say meant to because Devine was too ill according to his doctor to appear before an employment tribunial yesterday.

It comes the day after it was announced that another Labour MP Harry Cohen is also to be investigated further by the police. The four appearing today The face charges of false accounting under section 17 of the Theft Act 1968. The maximum sentance for such an offence is 7 years in prision.

Global Warming Debate - Part 3 : SUBROSA

This is the third part of Edward's story. If you missed parts 1 and 2 part one is here and part two here.

Climate Change III A LIFE IN (MOSTLY) PLEASANT PLACES

CO2 IS GOOD FOR YOU

The whole hypothesis (you cannot really call it a theory) is based on the observations that

(a) Carbon dioxide levels are rising and there is good evidence that some of this comes human activity.

(b) For a while temperatures appeared to be rising in approximate step with the rises in carbon dioxide.

Therefore (a) was causing (b) . "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" to use the Latin expression.

Most effort has gone into the creation of truly massive computer programs, claimed to mimic the processes of the world's climate and to enable the researchers to predict what the future effects will be. In a vastly more sophisticated way, this is exactly what scientists (some of them the same people) claimed to be able to do back in the Seventies, when they believed that they had conclusive evidence of global cooling which would require human intervention to reverse it.

Whilst horticulture was not part of my job, I came across several greenhouse complexes adjacent to factories which used waste heat from the processes. Not only that, they also ducted carbon dioxide from the furnaces to enrich the atmosphere of the greenhouses to produce massively increased crops as well. I recently heard one Russian academician describe CO2 as "bread for

Jim Murphy does God. And then some. : SNP Tactical Voting

Alastair Campbell famously declared on behalf of Tony Blair that "we don't do God". Jim Murphy on the other hand quite patently does and is seemingly available for Christenings, Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, the lot.
However, his version of faith and how it fits into Politics has been dismissed in The Scotsman today by the Scottish Episcopal Church as 'shrinkwrapping' faith and 'the politics of the supermarket checkout'.

Murphy has very recent for of course and his clear attempts to gather up votes based on a person's faith does not just extend to the Christian and Catholic camps. Writing in the Jewish Chronicle (East Renfrewshire has the largest Jewish community and second largest Muslim community in Scotland), he urged people to stop blaming British Jews for what happens in Israel. Honestly, I had no idea that anyone was doing just that but apparently, according to the Secretary of State for Scotland, there is a "mind numbing stupidity" amongst us.

Fair enough if he is right and fair enough for Jim to write for the Jewish Chronicle but I just hope he doesn't feel the need to do so every 4 or 5 years when there's an election on.

In the article, where Jim notes that the SNP "have got themselves into some interesting company" in a depressing barb at Osama Saeed, he tries to finish with a funny, an apparently true story where two constituents, one Muslim and one Jewish, were complaining to Jim about the state of the roads while in the background a TV showed the latest depressing scenes from the Middle East. Jim's thoughts were 'Don't turn round'.

Very good Mr Murphy, I'm sure the Nobel Peace Prize awaits but in the meantime I would suggest leaving the cheap, brazen, even wanton overtures to the various faiths out there to one side.

Some things are better left to a higher power. And I don't mean Gordon.

Combat Stress appeal : Fitaloon at MicroShaft

From the Telegraph, an appeal well worth supporting. The centrepiece of ‘The Enemy Within‘ appeal is a hard-hitting TV advert, broadcast for the first time on Thursday night, which aims to bring home the difficulties faced by veterans when they leave the forces and try [...] Related posts:

Brown is Fiscally Illiterate - Fact Checked : Fitaloon at MicroShaft

Gordon Brown's statement that the Defence Budget has gone up every year is Fiction. That is the fact. Cathy Newman also describes Brown's use of "near cash" terms as "Fiscally Illiterate". So during PMQ's Gordon Brown has uttered yet more Brownies and yet again he will get away with them unless both Cameron and Clegg hammer [...] Related posts:

Two Calls a Day to Keep the Tories Away : SUBROSA

My labour supporting reader Niko left the following in one of his comments.

It's from Charlie Whelan, the Political Director of the Unite Union. I wonder if Unite members are refunded the cost of the telephone calls.

The Times today carries an extensive analysis of a poll in the key marginal seats by Populus which puts Labour and the Tories neck and neck at 38 per cent. It is confirmation of a spate of recent articles that shows underlying the headlines the Tories have not sealed the deal with the electorate. It also excludes the 50 most marginal seats which are assumed to go Tory. But we know that the Unite membership in those 50 seats far exceeds the majority being defended. If it is game on in the 100 quoted, it must be battle joined in the 50 they have excluded.

This is all the more reason why we need to build on the momentum from last week's record number of calls made to Unite members in the key seats. There's another "Talk Thursday" this week and regional phone banks have been organised across the UK for this Saturday. Please get involved and make those "Two calls a day to keep the Tories away".

If you are unsure as to where your regional phone bank is this Saturday or are having problems gaining access to the virtual phone bank, please contact me or my colleague Andrew Brady at andrew.brady@unitetheunion.org

All the best,

Charlie Whelan
Political Director

The Power of the Blogosphere : SUBROSA

Firstly, this post is not about smokers and smoking, it's about our freedom to choose being lawfully denied each and every one of us.

Secondly, I must record my gratitude to Anna Raccoon and Old Holborn who have fought feverishly raise the money to pay Nick Hogan's fine and return him to his family. Nick, you may remember, is the ex-landlord who was fined £11,600 for permitting two people to smoke in his pub - even though he was not present in the building at the time. He was able to pay £1,600 but was unable to lay his hands on £10,000 and the judge decided such a failing required 6 months in prison.

The blogosphere raised the £11,600 to show that this was not justice and OH delivered it to the prison today.

Each and every one of us ought to be aware that the smoking policy is just the beginning of government's complete control over our freedom to choose.

Any one of us is at risk. If you're over 65, slightly overweight, drink alcohol, want the best school for your children, drive the 'wrong' car, take a photograph of a police officer - the list is endless - you are at risk.

What does concern me in the over 65 issue. It's well recorded over 65s don't matter. They don't give enough money to the Treasury although what they do give is on money which has already been taxed. The recent report on Stafford Hospital stated most patients were over 65 - obviously passed their usefulness date. Finally it's being reported that 60% of inspected hospitals in England were not accurately assessing their own performance.

Please consider this, if a landlord is fined/imprisoned for 'permitting' two people to smoke on his premises when he wasn't even present, do you feel that the justice system will deal with you fairly even though your 'offence' is nothing to do with smoking?

The smoking issue is the tip of a very large iceberg. You'd better believe it. Only we can change this and we must take some responsibility for allowing a government to destroy our beliefs of fairness and justice.

The George Young Five Point Plan : SNP Tactical Voting

With Gordon Brown mentioning Lord Ashcroft no less than five times at Prime Minister's Questions today, it is clear that this 'Donor-gate' issue won't be dealt with until Cameron answers it himself.

But what can the Tory leader do? Admit there is a problem and he has to sack the millionaire and probably Hague too; don't say anything, you look weak and your poll ratings will probably continue to plummet.

So how about an announcement from white knights Iain Duncan Smith or Sir George Young on a five point plan to clean matters up going forward coupled with a stirring general speech on what democracy means to the UK from Cameron himself.

The five point plan could involve:

1) fixed four year term parliaments

2) no individual party donations of above Â£1000

3) state funding for election campaigns allocated out based on the popular vote of the last election (indirectly assisting with proportional representation)

4) a maximum election spend of Â£5m per party

5) implement a d'hondt based system to elect Lords on rolling 12 year terms rather than the house being stuffed by alternating PMs

It's just an idea, but I'm convinced Cameron needs to do something albeit with limited options at his disposal.

'Albert and Doris hadn't been to a branch meeting for a couple of years.' : Inveresk Street Ingrate

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain 141

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 141st of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1565 friends!

Recent blogs:

An inconvenient future
Eat shit and die!
Capitalism breeds inequality

Coming Events, all open to the public:

Sunday Evening Film Programme

6pm at 52 Clapham High St, SW4, London

14 March - Comrades (part 2)

Norwich Radical Film Forum

2pm at The Workshop, 53 Earlham Road, Norwich NR1 3SP

20 March - Zeitgeist III

The Origins of the Socialist Party's Declaration of Principles.

22 March, 8.30pm,

Unicorn, Church Street, Manchester City Centre.

The Road to Socialism - Kropotkin, Morris and Marx,

Forum with Brian Morris (Author of "Kropotkin: The Politics Of Community" and "Bakunin: The Philosophy Of Freedom") and Adam Buick (Co-Author of "Marxian Economics and Globalization" and "State Capitalism:The Wages System under New Management").

Saturday, 27 March, 4.00pm,

52 Clapham High St, London SW4.

Future Visions - The Socialist Party Summer School

23rd - 25th July, Fircroft College, Birmingham.

Quote for the week:

"Under private property ... Each tries to establish over the other an alien power, so as thereby to find satisfaction of his own selfish need. The increase in the quantity of objects is therefore accompanied by an extension of the realm of the alien powers to which man is subjected, and every new product represents a new potentiality of mutual swindling and mutual plundering." Marx, Human Requirements and Division of Labour, 1844.

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Edinburgh Trams - The Debacle Continues : Jim Millar

I drive in Edinburgh a lot, and like everyone else, I'm fed up with the tram works. Today Edinburgh Trams Board issued this press release:

Edinburgh Trams Board Updates City on negotiations

This update follows a meeting of the Edinburgh Trams Board today.

The Board noted formally its profound disappointment with the lack of progress by the consortium (with the exclusion of CAF the contractor responsible for the manufacture and delivery of the vehicles) against the expected progress.

The Board also expressed deep concern that the latest revised programme provided by the contractor Bilfinger Berger proposes an additional delay to the original programme which would extend this by a further 30 months from now to a completion date of January 2014. This was deemed to be entirely unacceptable by the Board, as was an unqualified increase in cost.

At the meeting, the Board reviewed options in order to achieve the delivery of the trams. The Chairman acknowledged the frustration being experienced by the many stakeholders across the City:

"My concerns and those of my fellow directors are for the people of Edinburgh who have continued to suffer from these seemingly endless delays. I am genuinely not in a position to talk in detail about the confidential aspects of today's meeting - this is for reasons of commercial sense. However I can say that today we have been presented with a series of options by the management team. We have had a full and constructive discussion around these options and have a clear sense of what we need to do to achieve the best possible outcome. We have also been reassured that the basis on which we intend to move forward is fully justified and that the enhanced rigour requested by the Board earlier this year has been followed to the letter.

At the meeting the Board reviewed our legal and commercial advice and the findings from a set of specially commissioned audits on the consortium's progress. The meeting addressed the key issues in detail and concluded with an instruction to the management team to continue to apply rigorously the legal terms of the contract to the contractor including and taking into account fully their actions to date. While the board will continue to seek a reasonable negotiated outcome to all matters in dispute, the clients' rights will be strenuously safeguarded.

Our stakeholders are entirely unified in the resolution to apply the full terms of the contract.

"As soon as there is more to say publicly, we will provide that information. Our priority, and that of our partners, remains the delivery of a 21st Century integrated public transport system, that represents good value and which Scotland's Capital City deserves. This we will do."

When Less is More for Alex : Stephen's Linlithgow Journal

Speaking to COSLA's annual conference last week Alex Salmond said:

"This Government will not sit idly by and accept cuts imposed from Westminster."

Looks to me like the no cuts message the SNP have been spouting for months.

Yet on Saturday at his party's General Election launch he said:

"Because at this election the message is simple.

MORE NATS MEANS LESS CUTS"

It may be simple but it is not clear.

He's been accusing the other parties and even in this speech of having the "axe sharpened and poised" yet for all his rhetoric he has just announced that even voting SNP there will be cuts. Where was the clarion cry of "U-Turn"?

I'll be fair earlier on he did also say:

"The London parties talk about cuts as though it was all about numbers on a balance sheet. But we know different. Behind those cuts will be real people, real services, real jobs."

Thing is the Liberal Democrats are aware that having to make cuts to make up for Labour and the bankers folly can make an impact on people lives. That is why we are balancing cuts with holding back on some of our objectives. Balancing taxes so that the lowest paid don't suffer while we find ways to pay for things fairly. We've also promised to balance cuts with investment in employment and education opportunities so that those that have been suffering will have a way to make things better both for themselves and for our economy.

Salmond says "we as a community know the value of looking out for each other; the value of investing in education, in housing and in health." Dare I ask where is the new investment in school infrastructure since the SNP came to power, the investment they they promised to match brick for brick has not been forthcoming.

PMQs: The Verdict : SUBROSA

Parliament, 1857: "Please Sir! I've made it nice and clean."

Brown = 5; Cameron = 5; Clegg = 5. Delicate flowers need not read further.

I don't think I can do it this week. I hold up my hands and admit that I dislike Brown (as you may have noticed) and just listening to him gives me a sick-to-the-pit-of-my-stomach feeling that I've never had before. I've always tried to put feelings aside and, whatever has happened in previous days, judge PMQs as a stand-alone. He is really trying my patience. He's such a lying, blustering (intrans to speak in a boasting, angry or threatening way, often to hide fear) bombastic, fraudulent f/tard as he parrots the same lines ('the right thing to do' made yet another appearance) week in week out. His script-writers must be as p!ssed of as I am.

His MO is plain to see for anyone who cares to watch and there is a discernible pattern to it - pre- and post- Whelan, Campbell and Mandelson. I've been watching this treacherous b/stard for more years than is psychologically helpful and it's reached such a stage that I'd rather have Nick Clegg as PM than listen any more to the scripted and typed lines of Brown. The thought that some people might actually vote for the Labour Party in the upcoming GE just so they'll have to acknowledge and sort out their own mess, fills me with dread.

Videos will follow so you can make up your own minds.

We had the awful roll-call of remembrance plus a tribute to Michael Foot.

Richard Benyon, Con, Newbury, a former Officer with the Green Jackets, had the first question: The Army Families Federation has carried out postal trials which show that the majority of the Armed Forces won't be able to vote in the GE. "Will the PM intervene to avoid "the perverse situation" where they are fighting abroad to give others the right to vote while being denied that right themselves?"

Brown: The Justice Secretary (gesturing to a bemused & blinking Straw) is making "the best arrangements possible so that every soldier and every member of the Armed Forces overseas ... will be able to cast their vote and I will personally write to him about all the arrangements that are being made. It is absolutely right that everyone should ha-ha-have the chance to cast their vote in every election."

David Drew, Lab, Stroud, asked about Ashcroft. Brown denied he'd been involved in any investigation of Ashcroft. The Cons cried, "Shame!" and from that moment Labour b/benchers found their collective voice and found another use for their Order Papers rather than sticking them where they rightly belong.

Roaarr-aargh! (You have to remember that I'm watching this for the second time around).

Cameron associated himself first with the tribute to Foot and then to the soldiers who've died in the past week. He asked Brown about the Coroner's verdict yesterday. You really need to watch the videos for the exchange. Cameron was angry. I think he came into the Chamber having already decided to be angry and, in my book, he did very well indeed until he blotted his copybook right at the end when he half-smiled at Brown's comments and Brown turned and smiled at Darling.

Clegg also read out the names of the dead servicemen and Foot. NAO - led on crime - prisons as colleges of crime. Brown always treats the LibDem leader as an indulgent school-ma'am would treat a wayward and retarded child. (Am I still allowed to say that?)

Enough - these are my notes, make of them what you will and enjoy the videos:

Brown ran his finger along the lines and read his speech, head down and sotto voce.
Brown red-faced. Harman smirking and pointing. Darling subdued and old.
I-I-I. implied the Conservative Party weren't patriotic preferring to deflect the question back to Ashcroft.
Hain laughing like a drain.
Straw with a yellow flower in his buttonhole (?)
Khan, slumped and arms crossed.
Slurs & impugns integrity of others.
Bercow ineffective. Do Labour MPs think he owes them?
Lots of stomachs, of both sexes, overflowing waistbands on the Labour and LibDem benches.
Brown defended extended use of cctv and dna
A red-red robin redbreast asked about MumsNet (wtf?)
Mine-detection equipment - lessons have been learned.
Always accusing the Conservatives of being divisive, not being consensual or patriotic.
Anne Widdecombe has stepped into the 1960's with a wonderful Quant/Sassoon hairstyle
Brown should be afraid - he falls short and he's been uncovered.

There were some very good questions, angry exchanges and catcalls worthy of St Chav's Comprehensive. It was an interesting half-hour.

Cross posted from CallingEngland where you can see video footage of today's half-hour.

Latest West End Updates ... : Cllr Fraser Macpherson - LibDem Councillor for Dundee's West End - www.dundeewestend.com

* Following residents' complaints about potholes at the junction of Riverside Place and Perth Road, I reported this to the City Council. I have now had feedback as follows :

"An order has been raised by the area inspector for the filling of a number of potholes at the Riverside Place/Perth Road junction and this will be done within the next 28 days."

* A resident pointed out to me that there is inadequate street signage for Hazel Avenue - signs are missing at the junction with Hazel Drive and there is only one, poor conditioned, one at the junction with Perth Road. I reported this to the City Development Department and have received the following response :

"The street name plates at Hazel Avenue referred to in your email below will be checked within the next two weeks.

It is unlikely that any replacement signs will be erected by the end of the financial year however those required will be attended to as soon as possible thereafter."

* I also received complaints about overgrown shrubbery protruding onto the pavement on the north side of Perth Road at its very western end, near to West Loan. The shrubbery is in the ownership of the land-owners, a manufacturing company, and the City Council will request that the foliage be trimmed.

More West End History on Photopolis ... : Cllr Fraser Macpherson - LibDem Councillor for Dundee's West End - www.dundeewestend.com

I recently mentioned the excellent Photopolis on-line collection of historical Dundee photographs. With thanks to the City Council's Leisure & Communities Department, here's another fascinating West End one - the old Harris Academy in Park Place, that opened in 1885 but was replaced by the current Perth Road building in the 1930s :

Slaves of New York (1989) : Inveresk Street Ingrate

We Fought the War and Well It Sort of Won Itself : Stephen's Linlithgow Journal

So David Cameron's latest claim is that the Tories won the cold war. That must have been the Tory MP for Berlin East in the by election night of 9 November 1989 in that case I'm sure you'll remember the night well.

Peter Snow: Here are the new graphics for the Eastern reaches. Margaret Thatcher is looking to secure a big win here, with the help of Helmut Kohl and the late addition or Perestroika and Glasnost. Some opinion is that we shouldn't expect anything tonight. Some are saying that the Hungarian relaxation may take some time to whittle through the the rest of the seats out here so we shall wait and see.

However, if Margaret Thatcher does secure a victory expect to see me use this graphic as a surge of Blue rosettes charges through the wall and secures victory in the war that was cold.

David Dimbleby: Neil Kinnock what do you make of that?

Neil Kinnock: I think it is ludicrous David. It is obvious that if there is a result tonight it will be the people that will have spoken. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Iron Lady.

DD: But wouldn't that be bad news for Socialism and indeed you own party.

NK: The enemy of idealism is zealotry, sadly too many of my socialist friends have taken themselves too zealously and forgotten the people. Socialism will survive because it is the people that will decide.

DD: Prime Minister what do you say to that?

Margaret Thatcher: Marxists get up early to further their cause. We must get up even earlier to defend our freedom. The Labour Party believes in turning workers against owners; we believe in turning workers into owners. As young man on our staff in our research department also called David said to me just the other day. If the people of East Berlin rise up to own their city twenty years from now whoever leads our great party will say "The Conservatives won the Cold War on this night.".

There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families. And you know what David, I think the families of Berlin will be reunited tonight in that victory for the Conservatives.

Now I may have missed something but that wasn't how I remembered it. The people rose up in Berlin, in Moscow, in TimiÅoara. It wasn't so much won by anybody but lost by the behemoth of Central Planning. I remember my second term of my second year Economics degree the entire political philosophy course was meant to have focused on the socialist philosophy, systems and structures. Ten weeks of lectures became three and the third was a "What next?" hastily put together lecture.

We'd battled for years in a cold war state. In the end it turned out that maybe Sting was right in the song Russians.

Mr Reagan says we will protect you

I don't subscribe to this point of view

Believe me when I say to you

I hope the Russians love their children too

I think it was indeed more hope, more luck and a love from the Eastern Europeans for their own rather than anything we did that led to the end of that particular war. There was very little being done except to hold the lines.

(On a side note as for Cameron attacking Brown for wearing a CND badge at the time, I think that speaks for the Tories Nuclear policy now. Or Brown bringing in Ashcroft to an unrelated area of questioning, truly shows up how disconnected both the main party leaders are with the mainstream opinion on how they should behave.)

This post has been sent via email therefore spacing and fonts may not appear at my usual standard. Also there may be links to other relevant blog entries or other content added later today along with adding the correct tagging.

A Success Story In Spite of the Government : SUBROSA

Staff of the John Lewis Partnership are expected to share a £140 million bonus pot this week as the retailer reveals strong full-year results boosted by its Waitrose supermarkets.

About 70,000 employees should receive bonuses worth 14% of salary, up from 13% last year. The expected bonus is equivalent to eight weeks' pay and will range from £1,500 for part-time shop staff to more than £100,000 for Charlie Mayfield, the partnership's executive chairman.

The John Lewis Partnership, which was set up in 1928 when the son of the business's founder began sharing profits with employees, is seen as a bellweather of the high street. It stood out as a success story among recession-weary retailers in last year's second half as its sales rose amid economic gloom.

Why is John Lewis so successful? It is run democratically and everyone who works within the organisation has a personal stake and thereby interest in its future. It is a success because it listens to its customers and provides them with what they want. It is an example of people working together for their common good.

John Lewis intends to extend a trial of stand-alone home and electricals stores. They currently have two; one in Poole and another in Croydon and the board gave the go-ahead for a further two stores, although locations have not yet been disclosed.

Unfortunately Waitrose only have 3 stores in Scotland at the moment and although I thought they may buy the old Somerfield stores, they are not large enough for their requirements. Perth could accommodate a John Lewis as well as a Waitrose as the catchment area is vast and ease of access and parking makes it a most desirable shopping city.

Congratulations to the John Lewis Partnership who regularly show that working together pays in more ways than one.

source

Criminals vote Tory : Holyrood Chronicles

Quote of the day : Holyrood Chronicles

WHEN GOVERNMENT'S SHARE OF THE ECONOMY WAS 6% : A Place to Stand

This is part of an article on New Zealand's adoption of free market reforms but this particular line jumped out at me.

If we look back through history, growth in government has been a modern phenomenon. Beginning in the 1850s and lasting until the 1920s or '30s, the government's share of GDP in most of the world's industrialized economies was about six percent. From that period onwardsâand particularly since the 1950sâwe've seen a massive explosion in government share of GDP, in some places as much as 35-45 percent. (In the case of Sweden, of course, it reached 65 percent,

What has been done clearly can be done & therefore such levels are achievable. I personally would be happy with 15% but that may just be because I am a child of this age.

In Britain at the moment government spending is just over 50% of GNP (60% in Scotland) though 1/4 of that is money raised by borrowing rather than tax. It strikes me that a society that can borrow 12.5% of GNP in a period of flatlined growth would have no difficulty whatsoever in borrowing 6% fairly permanently if our growth matched China's. That, somewhat improbably, means we could do with no taxation at all! Actually if we raise about Â£20 bn (1.5% of GNP) on bandwidth licencing & other sorts of rental assets that can only easily be done by government & there is a continuing increase in money supply to keep prices at a constant rate zero taxes become not unreasonable.

HT to Jerry Pournelle

If we assume technology has been growing at an exponential rate, as all the evidence shows, this increase in state parasitism accounts for the fact that real rates in wealth increase are not expanding exponentially.

++++++++++++++++B+rad DeLong'+s estimate of historical+ +wo+rld growth:+

Year/ Population millions /GDP per person/ annual growth
5000 BC / 5 / 130 /--
1000 BC / 50 / 160 / 0.21%
1 AD / 170 / 135 / 0.20%
1000 AD / 265 / 165 / 0.14%
1500 AD / 425 / 175 / 0.24%
1800 AD / 900 / 250 / 0.71%
1900 AD / 1625 / 850 / 4.3%
1950 AD / 2515 / 2030 / 5.17%
1975 AD / 4080 /4640 / 10.38%
2000 AD / 6120 / 8175 / 7.4%

This is a my pocket calculator working of the growth rates & is higher than normally believed though the trend is the same. I assume the difference is in the amount of growth worldwide soaked up by increasing population. There is a clear correlation between the rate of rise slowing & then declining & the post 1930 increase in government. There may even be a correlation between the post 1500 rate of growth & the end of feudalism & governments being under the rule of first centralising monarchies & then the rule of law rather than local aristocrats/warlords but that is more speculative.

Labour won't budge on Budget : SNP Tactical Voting

Well, the next Budget will be Labour's after all with the date now penned in for 24th of March which makes a May 6th election a near certainty. That's Â£60 of won bets and fiscal stimulus that you won't see coming out of my pocket Gordon. It's not looking such a clever move now, hey!?.

There is something positive about this move from Labour though, a 'winners want the ball' mentality where rather than leave the difficulties to the next Parliament, they want the agenda, they want the tough decisions and they want to go into the election firing on as many cylinders as they can. Fair play to Brown and/or Darling and/or Mandelson for coming up with that decision.

As for what will be announced that day, speculation is almost futile. A freezing of top public sector pay has been trailed but this is a drop in the wide expanse of ocean that is our public spending that needs stemmed back and who is to even know if Labour will try to get away with a few election giveaways to win votes, parking the spending problems for yet another year. I am not entirely sure that Gordon Brown, like King Canute, can stem that spending tide that has built up for ten years. Certainly his warning of there being 'bumps in the road' sounds like an eerily similar understatement to boom and bust being gone forever. We're in a bust now and there are still 'bumps' to come as Gordon is no doubt optimistically putting it? Heaven help us.

No-one is being upfront about what needs to be done during the next Parliamentary term; Labour are focussing on continuing the spending to avoid a double dip, the Tories are lifting only the corners of the carpet cuts that they will introduce with relish and the Lib Dems have replaced their calls for "savage cuts" with a shopping list. The SNP is wisely positioning itself as the defender of Scotland's interests but that doesn't really help lance the considerable boil that is our UK deficit. It is all hideously depressing and consequently Alastair Darling's words a fortnight hence need to be gone through with the finest of toothcombs by the independent experts.

A May 6th election it may be but the key dates prior to polling day could well be the week after the 24th as the economic policy of each party is stated and picked apart. I daresay that even then our political leaders will continue to be turning a blind eye to the tsunami that is approaching as they scrabble around for votes by promising the earth.

Stevenson Welcomes Support Funding For Ex-Service Personnel : Stewart Stevenson - Working for You

The Tories Who Say NI : Stephen's Linlithgow Journal

That is NI as in Northern Ireland. Yesterday Alistair Carmichael the Liberal Democrat Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary said:

"It's time for David Cameron to come clean about the position of his new alliance on policing and justice.

"With the UUP saying one thing, and the Tories saying the complete opposite, voters will struggle to understand what exactly joint Tory/UUP candidates stand for.

"What we're seeing is the Tories in complete disarray. When it takes George Bush to step in as the voice of reason, it's clear that David Cameron has dug himself a very big hole.

"This raises serious questions about David Cameron's judgement. If he can't manage to steer a straight course in opposition, how on earth would he cope as Prime Minister?"

Don't forget that Cameron and Reg Empey the UUP leader are going into this General Election with a joint slate of candidates. Should any of the UUP lot be elected they have promised to take the Tory whip. As it stands we may well be facing a tight election or a minority Tory administration. Yet on the single most important piece of devolved Northern Irish policy that will not only be discussed and voted on, not just this year but years either side, David said do one thing and Reg and his buddies at Stormont did the opposite.

As for George W. Bush having to step in to sort out an 'internal' party matter. I think today's Peter Brookes cartoon in the Times sums that up rather nicely.

Lost labours - why I support the LibDems : Cllr Fraser Macpherson - LibDem Councillor for Dundee's West End - www.dundeewestend.com

A message from John Kampfner :

Dear Fraser,

Yesterday, I launched my pamphlet, Lost labours, with Nick Clegg.

As somebody who has a long involvement with the Labour Party, including editing the New Statesman magazine, I have been able to give a frank and honest appraisal of a decade and a half of New Labour. And in it I explain why I can no longer support them, and am instead turning to the Liberal Democrats. You can read a more condensed version in an article I wrote for the Guardian here.

Alongside one million other voters, I deserted Labour in 2005 in protest at Iraq in favour of the Liberal Democrats, the only party to oppose the war. My decision to back the LibDems in 2010 is based in a more fundamental appraisal of Labour's record together with a positive assessment of the Liberal Democrats' platform.

New Labour in office has had one all-consuming purpose: re-election. Since 1997, their every working day was based around the task of prolonging their term of office. It filled in the ideological hollow and justified ever-encroaching authoritarianism and a pandering to the right on criminal justice and other areas of social policy. In contrast, the Liberal Democrat analysis of the failures of the deregulated market has been consistently, and painfully, accurate. Nick Clegg's tax reform plans, taking four million low paid workers out of tax altogether, are the most redistributive of any party. And the Liberal Democrat approach to criminal justice, human rights, foreign and social policy is close to mine.

People can only for so long be exhorted to hold their nose, to vote for a party they feel has let them down, simply because the alternative is worse. It is deeply damaging to politics to resort perpetually to the double negative. The Liberal Democrats offer a positive, radical and different vision. That is why they have my support.

Best wishes,

John Kampfner

Prison policy is on a knife edge : SNP Tactical Voting

The re-raising of knife crime as an issue was inevitable and so it has proved with even a cursory glance at the headlines today.

Labour are scenting blood on this topic and are keen to paint the SNP as that most appalling of political characteristics 'soft on crime'. The Lib Dems on the other hand are in favour of quashing all sentences of less than three months to be replaced with community payback schemes.

While I am in favour of the latter and sceptical of the former, I should entertain the possibility that mandatory prison sentences should be applied to anyone who carries a knife.

For a start, Scotland is the sick man of Europe in terms of alcohol and diet and I am in favour of radical action to improve our standards as a result, including the minimum pricing of alcohol for example. So what is mandatory jail terms for knife-carrying but a radical proposal to a problem that sees us at the wrong end of the table for such crimes?

The main problem I have is that the debate has thus far been skin deep and, as far as I am aware, has not fully considered the notion of where these prisons that will hold the tens of thousands of knife-wielders will be housed. Money is tight, compromises have to be made so should those compromises extend to how many people we can incarcerate behind bars? The jury is no doubt out on that one.

Kenny MacAskill does seem to be attempting a fine-balancing act, boasting that average length of jail terms have increased under his watch while neatly overlooking the fact that most criminals who are found guilty of their knife-wielding crimes do not go to jail. It is fair to say that one can't have it both ways, adopting a policy of no jail terms for some but seeking to lengthen jail terms for others, certainly not without a crystal clear explanation.

I am personally of a liberal nature which is why I find myself intuitively siding with the Lib Dem/SNP approach rather than that of the Tory/Labour benches but until the ramifications of each side's knife policy are discussed in full, we'll be going nowhere fast on addressing one of Scotland's many ills.

Follow The Iron Road to Airdrie : Stephen's Linlithgow Journal

I've had a hectic start to the week, somewhat more so that the usual week, but Monday marked a new stage for Bathgate.

It was the laying of the first stretch of new track to link up Bathgate with Airdrie and to create another through route from Edinburgh to Glasgow. The platforms along the route are developing nicely. The new one at Bathgate will make my journey to the station change as the direct line down Mid Street will be more direct than my current journey down Hopetoun Street and St. David's Street.

The BBC article mentions most of the new and upgraded amenities along the line but fails to mention Blackridge Station. The village to the West of Armadale was overlooked by planners when the route was first planned but with all party backing a campaign was launched to provide the people of Blackridge with a station on the line that was going by them anyway.

While the provision of direct train services from Bathgate to Glasgow and Airdrie to Edinburgh are great aspects of new line, the regular service for Blackridge enhances the residents opportunity to use public transport. There are currently only two direct express buses to Edinburgh in the morning from Bathgate the X1 at 0610 and 0700; the latter arrives in the East End at 0816. But only one back out the 1715. It is hardly encouraging for those who maybe work at the Gyle to use public transport. So a train stopping at Edinburgh Park may well encourage more people out of their cars.

The contractors Balfour Beatty are confident that the track laying and electrification will be completed by December this year, on schedule. Seeing some of the things they have done to work through the snow and flooding recently I'm confident that they will be doing all they can to make sure they do deliver on time.

Coroner's Verdict -'Unlawfully Killed' : SUBROSA

The first British female soldier to be killed in Afghanistan, along with three of her comrades, had been inadequately trained and they were killed unlawfully while on active service, a coroner has recorded.

Cpl Sarah Bryant was one of four soldiers who died when their Snatch Land Rover hit a bomb during an operation near Lashkar Gah in June 2008. A verdict of unlawful killing was also entered for the three SAS reservists, Cpl Sean Reeve, L/Cpl Richard Larkin and Pte Paul Stout. At the inquest into their deaths Wiltshire and Swindon assistant deputy coroner David Masters said there was an 'inadequacy' in training given to the soldiers and lack of adequate equipment.

David Masters highlighted widespread concern among soldiers about the limitations of Snatch Land Rovers and the inadequate training for detecting improvised explosive devices, the biggest killer of troops in Afghanistan. It was his intention to relay his findings to the MoD along with the fact that there was a poor supply of EBEX mine detectors for training and use on the ground.

This damning verdict comes just days after Gordon Brown insisted he had met all requests for equipment in Iraq and just a few weeks after General Sir David Richards, chief of the general staff, sent a memo to his ministers which said that recent cuts to the defence budget are having a 'cumulative and corrosive effect on our soldiers and their families.'

Is it any wonder his Cabinet Office has instructed a news blackout on the war in Afghanistan during the general election campaign?

Brown approves of our participation in the Afghanistan war or he would have made preliminary withdrawal arrangements by now in line with other countries. He must be aware equipment is inadequate and yet he still insists the military have everything they need to perform their work.

Craig Murray tells us about the billions of dollars in cash leaving Afghanistan while Munguin has his own message for the Prime Minister.

Along with other bloggers I will be very happy to publish any material from the military, their families or friends during the general election campaign. Your privacy will be respected. My email address is on the right under 'contact information'. Fausty has a note of other bloggers wishing to keep the truth flowing from Afghanistan.

Surgeries today : Southside & Newington Newsblog

Tavish in town ... : Cllr Fraser Macpherson - LibDem Councillor for Dundee's West End - www.dundeewestend.com

Dundee LibDems are most grateful to Tavish Scott MSP, Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, who today spent more time in the West End campaiging with John Barnett, Liberal Democrat Westminster candidate for Dundee West. John and Tavish are pictured above during an interview in Nethergate.

This evening, I met with the team leader of the Street Lighting Partnership and Blackness Road residents about changes to street lighting there (where the old SOX (Orange) lights have been changed to High Pressure Sodium SON lights) and although this should result in improved lighting, concerns from residents about the extent the lighting covers across the road to the opposite footpath. The Street Lighting Partnership will further investigate the matter and report back to me in due course.

I also attended tonight's West End Community Council meeting. There were excellent presentations on Discovery Credit Union and the Hannah's Highway project - it was a very constructive and participative meeting of the Community Council.

BUILD A MASS, UNITED PUBLIC SECTOR DEMO ON 10th APRIL : East Dunbartonshire Scottish Socialist Party

Make the rich pay - bail out all public services, not bankers' and billionaires' profits

By Richie Venton - SSP national workplace organiser

9th March 2010

Photos: John Lanigan

Two major trade union events in the space of 48 hours demonstrate the seething anger at public sector cuts, the potential for a united resistance across the trade unions, and the potency, increasing popularity and urgent necessity of the Scottish Socialist Party's alternatives to this assault on jobs, services and conditions.

EIS 10,000 march

On Saturday 6th March, 10,000 teachers, lecturers, nursery staff, parents, pupils and other trade unionists poured out of Glasgow's Kelvingrove Park, snaking their way round a mammoth route to the EIS union's rally in the SECC.

This was the first national demo called by the EIS in decades. The overwhelming majority of the marchers had never been on a demo before. The age profile was a whole cross-section, from toddlers in buggies and primary kids, through trainee and newly qualified teachers, to bearded veterans of the profession - united in their fury at education budget cuts, whilst bankers' bailouts, renewal of Trident weapons and bloody war cost the public a fortune.

Anger at that obscene contrast was reflected in speeches by the EIS president and others at the rally. They denounced the governments of Westminster and Holyrood for regarding these expenditures as more important than the education of our children, who represent the future, and lambasted the SNP government for now confronting children with the choice of either free school meals or smaller classes, when they had promised both and children deserve both.

SSP on the march

The EIS march is part of a campaign they have entitled "Why must our children pay?"

The SSP was the only party with a leaflet that directly dealt with the issues of the march, demanding "make the rich pay - not our kids; bail out education and all services - not bankers' profits; 20's plenty in any class - give our kids a chance."

People snapped up the leaflets, smiled and murmured their agreement with the headlines, turned and quoted it to their friends as they assembled to march off.

The lively SSP contingent was joined by parents and children who fought the heroic Save Our Schools Campaign in Glasgow last year. As we marched we led the chant "Twenty's plenty in any class - give our kids a chance", which caught on with the crowd marching and bystanders on the pavements.

As the 10,000 trod towards the end of their marathon march to the SECC rally, we improvised an SSP "street meeting" on the pavement as they passed us! We belted out our message on a very loud PA system: "The SSP demands that the government tax the rich, to bail out education, not bankers' profits and bankers' bonuses." Several sections of the march shouted back their agreement with us as they marched past, and even more contingents applauded us as they marched past. A sign of how profoundly the bankers' bailout has changed people's consciousness, including their open-ness to the SSP's unashamed socialist demands.

The EIS leadership promised in speeches that this mass demo is just the start of the campaign, which is to be welcomed, and which EIS union activists and members will make sure is the case.

It is absolutely right that as the union representing 60,000 members in education they should take up the cudgels in defence of that service. But what would be tragic, and totally divisive and counter-productive, is if the EIS leadership argued for cuts in other services to save education; unity of opposition to all service cuts, combining the power and scale of members of all public sector unions and the communities they service is what is urgently needed to stop the slaughter.

Biggest civil service strike since 1987

It was therefore encouraging that an EIS representative (as well as speakers from the FBU, UNISON and STUC) addressed the 8th March strike rally in Glasgow, called during the 48-hour stoppage by all civil service workers, members of PCS.

This was the biggest civil service strike since 1987. Across the UK, over 250,000 workers brought services to a halt in tax and customs offices; Job Centres; driving centres; the Courts; the MoD; passport offices; the Scottish parliament (for the first time ever); Westminster â¦ to name but some. 30,000 of these strikers were in Scotland.

They are overwhelmingly low-paid workers, whose partial compensation for low pay has been a modest average pension of Â£6,500 and a reasonable redundancy scheme - which is now under assault. The government has set in motion the legislation to slash the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, cutting the package that most workers would get on being made redundant by up to one-third, tens of thousands of pounds each. A sure sign that the Labour government (backed up quite openly by the Tories on this) want to slaughter tens of thousands of jobs on the cheap - in addition to the 100,000 already shed in the past 5 years - and usher in privatisation by making the prospect more attractive to the privateers.

The response to the 48-hour strike was absolutely overwhelming - forcing management to stoop to tricks like jetting in a handful of scab managers from Newcastle to open the Glasgow DVLA office.

Socialism in the civil service

Again, not only did SSP members in PCS play an instrumental part in building the strike, but our policies were more widely and eagerly embraced than for a long time: on the picket lines, at the PCS strike rallies in Glasgow and Dundee, and at the SSP public meeting in Glasgow after the union rally. This was a really large meeting, with over half those present attending their first ever SSP meeting. And strikers were enthusiastic in their support for our socialist aims - many commenting wryly that if only we could get a fair hearing in the media, imagine how popular our case would be - as well as our proposals on how to build public sector unity against all cuts in the immediate future.

Unity against the carnage - build 10th April Demo

Alongside a rolling programme of further industrial action by the PCS, railway workers are striking (Scotrail) and balloting for pre-General Election strikes (Network Rail). Numerous anti-cuts campaigns, involving council workers' unions and communities, are campaigning against the brutal council cuts that loom. Already 5,000 council jobs face the chop, with hair-raising predictions of 32,000 jobs (one in every eight!) being butchered by 2014. And community centres face closure up and down Scotland.

So an immediate opportunity to tie all these strands of struggle into a rope to restrain the axe-wielders presents itself on Saturday 10th April. Scottish UNISON is calling a mass, national demonstration in Glasgow that day, in defence of public services.

SSP members in all the various trade unions - alongside other union members - need to move heaven and earth to make this an almighty display of the power of a united working class on the march, by calling on their unions to mobilise members into an event that dwarfs even the brilliant 10,000 on the EIS march.

As Labour, Tory, Lib Dem and SNP politicians sharpen their knives in a grisly pre-election competition for whose cuts are the deepest, the SSP

Labour's Lord Ashcroft : SUBROSA

He looks like a started wee laddie in the photograph doesn't he? But he's no wee laddie and I doubt if he's ever startled, at least not in his position as the biggest influence in the biggest union in the UK - that of Unite. Since March 2007 Unite has given more than £11 million to the labour party.

I'm pleased I don't live in a marginal constituency where the battle is between labour and the tories. That's where Charlie Whelan and his union are spending their time and their members' money. Unite has set up a 'virtual phone bank' to canvass people in the marginal seats urging them to vote labour. Every Thursday thousands of members volunteer to contact other members as part of a campaign known as Unite4Labour. The log in to a computer database and are given name, phone numbers and a script to read asking how the person intends to vote.

It's a strategy of 'peer to peer marketing' borrowed from Barack Obama in the US,

"You can spend billions on glossy leaflets and posters but what really matters in a modern election is convincing people," Mr Whelan says. "If you ring up from a political party then won't listen, but if you ring up from a union, and they're a member of the union, they're more likely to take notice of what you say."

Charlie Whelan, as Unite's political director, is working closely with Douglas Alexander, labour's general election co-ordinator and it would seem he's now once again a powerful figure who is in and out of No 10 and still has the ear of Mr Brown. I'm sure he has. For £11 million he could have mine too.

In Rachael Sylvester's article she states 'Superficially Mr Whelan could not be more different from Lord Ashcroft. One is a former communist, beer-loving football fan whose political hero is Che Guevara; the other is a billionaire fan of Margaret Thatcher who owns a yacht and a Victoria Cross collection.'

My description would differ because Charlie Whelan can lord it as much as Lord Ashcroft and perhaps more so. I know nothing about Lord Ashcroft but I know people who have met Mr Whelan during his fishing sojurns to Scotland and all I will say is that I'm grateful I have never had the pleasure of being in his company.

As Ms Sylvester concludes, 'If the voters in marginal seats realise who is trying to pull the strings they might be even less inclined to vote for either man's (Whelan or Ashcroft) party.

If that were to happen perhaps we'd see a real change in British politics and one for the better. It couldn't be any worse could it.

source

Ulster [Unionists] Say No! : Stephen's Linlithgow Journal

Strange to think that today it was the Ulster Unionists that said 'No'. That used to the be single word epithet us from Northern Ireland used to place with the DUP.

If this had been the first assembly there wouldn't have been the cross community agreement to devolve police powers. But that was was when the UUP were a bigger Unionist voice than the other Unionist parties now that role is reversed.

There is of course one dissenting UUP voice, Lady Sylvia Hermon MP is the widow of former RUC Chief Constable Sir Jack Hermon. She herself trained in law and was a professor at Queens alongside David Trimble for a time. In February while the talks about devolution of policing and justice were ongoing she asked Shaun Woodward in the Commons:

"For those of us who definitely do not want to go back to direct rule and who want devolution and the talks at Hillsborough to succeed, with the principles of tolerance and respect at their core, what more can we in this House do to encourage those in the negotiations to take them forward and make them successful, in the interests of everyone in Northern Ireland?"

Interesting that the sole UUP representative with inside knowledge both of the upper echelons of Northern Irish policing and law should take such a different stance from Economist and leader Reg Empey.

I think her independence from a bizarrely shaping up UUP and Tory marriage, is probably all that is going to be needed to return my home seat to becoming held by some form of independent Unionist once again after 9 years or experiencing the mainstream. Or is having the only UUP member for the last 5 years really the mainstream?

Quote of the Day: Graham Stuart MP on Lord Paul : Fitaloon at MicroShaft

Do listen to this "Imagine a Tory donor who'd bought a company, run its pension fund into the ground, bought the assets back for pennies in the pound, who became a privy counsellor even though he wasn't qualified while personally funding the leader's leadership bid – they (sic) would be a massive [...] Related posts:

The Twice Disgraced Lord Mandelson is a Hypocrite

Cocktail of ingredients making Sangin so lethal : Fitaloon at MicroShaft

BBC News – Newsnight – Afghanistan's Sangin ‘a grim place' for UK troops – Watch more Videos at Vodpod. BBC Newsnight had this last night on Sangin and how it is a Lethal Cocktail. Sangin in Afghanistan is the most dangerous place in the world for UK troops, with six UK servicemen being killed there since [...] Related posts:

Equipment Shortage and bomb training Caused Deaths : Fitaloon at MicroShaft

Yet again the basics are blamed for the deaths in Afghanistan of four soldiers.The BBC has this The coroner at an inquest into the death of four British soldiers in a blast in Afghanistan has pointed to "inadequacies" in their bomb training. Coroner David Masters said the deaths also highlighted the problems of the [...] Related posts:

Commonwealth Games 2014 - The Logo : SUBROSA

This is it. All £95,000 of it so Scotland had better like it.

Now let me explain what it means - other than the 2014 Commonwealth Games which will be held in Glasgow.

It is based around 4 numbers associated with the games - the 20th time they have been held, the 17 sports represented, the 11 days of the competition and one host city.

The second ring is precisely 17/20ths of the size of the full outer circle and the third ring is 11/20ths of the size. At the heart of the logo is the letter G standing for host city, although I'm sure you already know that.

John Scott, chief executive of Glasgow 2014 Ltd., praised the new design's 'fun and flexibility'.

I suppose we have had a bargain. The logo for the 2012 Olympics in London is said to have cost £400,000.

source

EJUP GANIC - WAR CRIMES EXTRADITION : A Place to Stand

Previously I put up a link to General Lewis MacKenzies's description of the massacre Ganic has been charged with but did not go further. I think it is worth quoting more of:

(Muslim President) Izetbegovic was in a box, and (JNA General) Kukanjac was holding the key. The President looked at me and said very carefully, "General MacKenzie, don't worry. I WILL ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE SAFETY OF THE JNA PERSONNEL."

I was surprised; this was quite a commitment. "YOU GUARANTEE IT?" I asked.

"YES," HE SAID.

I paused, and Colm and I exchanged glances again. "Okay," I said. "We'll give it a try." ...

We had gone about a kilometer when I thought I heard a shot. I turned around and looked at Steve. His SUSI was a lot taller than my VBL and he could see back down along the column of trucks. I knew from the look on his face that something was seriously wrong.

I jumped out of the VBL and started to run back towards the sound of the shooting, which no longer consisted of single shots but sustained bursts of machine-gun fire. I hadn't asked Steve to come, but within seconds he was beside me.

The heaviest shooting was about fifty meters away. I could see TDF soldiers sticking their rifles through the windows of civilian cars that were part of the convoy and shooting the occupants. As Steve and I ran by, we saw blood splattered over the windscreens of some of the cars.

When we reached a crowd of some twenty TDF soldiers, we realized they had driven a car across the road to split the convoy in half. The JNA soldiers were SITTING HELPLESSLY in the back of their trucks; the TDF were demanding that they throw out their weapons and military equipment. To make the point, one of the TDF soldiers, who had two grenades hanging from his teeth, was threatening to throw a third into the back of the truck full of JNA soldiers if they did not hurry up and surrender their weapons...

At the first TDF checkpoint... I asked (a TDF sentry) what had happened. He explained that the TDF soldiers had received an ORDER FROM SOMEONE IN THE PRESIDENCY TO ATTACK THE CONVOY. We never found for sure who gave the order, but my suspicion was that Vice-President Ganic wasa lot tougher than he wanted to admit, and had given the green light to carry out the attack...

Needless to say, we were not well received at the JNA camp. Word had been passed that the UN had guaranteed the safety of the convoy, but that we have failed our promise. This was not the time, however, to point out that we were merely accompanying the convoy as impartial witnesses and go-betweens, and that it was the President of Bosnia and his TDF commander who had guaranteed the convoy security...

Goulding held a press conference at the end of the day's activities. We fell it was important that he condemn the TDF attack on the JNA convoy, and so he made the following statement:

"I also went at my request to see the scene of a particularly horrible incident on Sunday evening, where, as I think a number of you know, some soldiers of the Yugoslav People's Army were killed in a cold blood when commanders of the Bosnian Territorial Defense had failed to honor a promise on safe conduct which they had given our people who were evacuating the HQ of the Yugoslav Army in Sarajevo."
Months later, when I have left Sarajevo for good, I was surprised to discover just how little media coverage Goulding's strong statement had received around the world. I couldn't help thinking that IF JNA HAD AMBUSHED THE TDF, INSTEAD THE OTHER WAY AROUND, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FRONT PAGE NEWS..."

It seems Ganic was not personally involved in making the safe conduct promise but that it was a genuine guarantee he was bound to honour & that the order to break it came from his office & presumably from him.

A Bosnian Muslim witness has already confirmed Ganic's responsibility. M. Bozinovich | Former Minister of Interior of Bosnia, Alija Delimustafic, told the court in 2002 that Ganic commanded over Bosnian Muslim units that blocked the withdrawing ethnic Serbian soldiers who were slaughtered on the streets of Sarajevo.
Note that MacKenzie, though not firmly committed to the Bosnian Muslim view is also far from impartial let alone pro-Serb. His article starts with the quote from him "If I could convince both sides to stop killing their own people for CNN, perhaps we could have a ceasefire." This is disingenuous since, while it has been very widely reported from many unrelated sources that the Muslim Nazi forces regularly did indeed carry out killings of their own civilians to get on TV there is no evidence whatsoever of any Serbs doing so. Indeed the end of the article, in pointing out how heavily censored any reports of killings of Serbs were, makes it obvious that there would have been no point in Serbs engaging in that sort of obscenity.

It seems there are also a large number of other atrocities by Ganic for which not just Serbs but also our Croatian Nazi allies want justice. However this particular case is unique in that the victims were Yugoslav citizens & presumably mostly born in Serbia (as indeed was Ganic) which therefore, by normal judicial standards gives Yugoslavia/Serbia the right to try the murderer of its citizens.

The other atrocities are not & should not be part of the indictment. However they certainly should tend to discredit claims being put by friends in western media that he was really a nice multicultural moderate democrat (like his boss, Alia "neither peace nor co-existence with non-Islamicists" Izetbegovic if the BBC is in any way to be trusted.

Croat death camp veterans say Ganic responsible for atrocities.

As do Bosnian Serb survivors of Muslim death camps.

None of these, obviously, led to any attempt by the ICTY to bring him to trial though they have done so, or simply killed, very many Serbs on little or no evidence. The Bosnian Muslim Nazi regime hasn't even made a token attempt to slap the wrist of its own mass murderers. I hope the law is followed & Ganic brought to trial. The eyes of the world will then be on the Serbian judicial system. More important even that his conviction will be that the trial is seen to be fair. I think it is difficult to dispute that there is evidence warranting trial. IF they do this they will have proven their judicial system to be not only better than virtually non-existent one of the Bosnian Muslims but much better & less corrupt than the NATO funded ICTY & presumably its patrons.

A contrarian writes ... : Holyrood Chronicles

The Lib Dem Shopping List : SNP Tactical Voting

Per The Telegraph:

The Guardian claimed that according to senior Lib Dem sources, Nick Clegg would ask whichever party forms the next government to invest extra funds in education through a pupil premium for disadvantaged children, as well as raising taxes on the rich by requiring capital gains and income to be taxed at the rate.

Mr Clegg would also demand changes to the voting system, a democratically elected House of Lords and more focus on a greener economy.

So, good to see Nick Clegg is as committed to those "savage cuts" as I expected him to be.

The above wish list, mostly in devolved areas so irrelevant north of the border, is a bit of a headache for the Scottish Lib Dems who still remain without a big policy to sell to the public.

I don't know what Tavish Scott is banking on to deliver a very ambitious haul of a quarter of Scottish seats for his party but he'd better get thinking or he'll find himself in the past its sell by date section.

Scottish Water : SUBROSA

Some of my readers who live outside Scotland may not be aware Scottish Water is publicly owned. Over the years the Tories have repeatedly suggested it ought to be privatised although various FMs have rejected the idea. Alex Salmond has been strong in his defence of keeping our water in public ownership.

Imagine my surprise when I read Alex Salmond and John Swinney have held secret meetings about the possible sale of Scottish Water with the Australian company which owns Thames Water; the first being 2008 and the second July 2009.

A FOI inquiry disclosed that Mr Salmond and Mr Swinney held at least two meetings with the Australian banking group Macquarie dating back as far as 2008.

The Sunday Herald has reported that the Scottish Futures Trust is looking at alternative models for future ownership of Scottish Water and is considering whether it should be sold off. Although the SNP has insisted that privatisation is not an option, it is now clear that two of the country's most senior ministers were exploring a change of ownership parallel to the review.

A Scottish government spokesman said: "Mr Swinney met representatives of Macquarie bank last June, at their request, to discuss the financing of Scottish Water. There were no actions arising from the meeting."

Young Tris has brought to my attention the Water Industry Commission for Scotland (WICS). This quango, set up in 2005 to encourage Scottish Water to reduce prices for customers, comprises six commissioners and employs around 23 staff on a budget primarily funded by Scottish Water. That doesn't make sense to me that a publicly owned business sets up a quango in order to tell it to reduce prices - am I missing something here?

This quango spent over £100,000 on staff jollies. Isn't life good as a public sector employee? Along with the Health Scotland this is a quango which should be dissolved. (no pun intended).

source

Quizzical Recompense : Stephen's Linlithgow Journal

You know it is nice to know that Drumlanrig peruses this blog on a regular basis to fill his diary column in the Scotland on Sunday. I see that he took the "and finally" piece from my blog post after Nick Clegg's speech to get a few laughs this weekend. The question was asked very much tongue in cheek and taken in that way. I did in fact have a different tongue in cheek question if I had have had the opportunity to interview Nick as originally planned. I'm so glad our leaders are able to laugh at themselves and show their human side.

Tavish Scott had in fact seemed genuinely shocked that he hadn't paid a donation to LYS's quiz last year. It is a fundraiser for the youth wing but being a party leader he was merely doing the rounds of events, but he has supported the organisation at other times through the year.

This year I'm pleased to report that Tavish not only turned up again and paid, but got involved in reading out the questions and scores for one of the rounds. Even better although Nick Clegg was unable to attend he did sign the prizes pictured (acquired at no great expense from a pound shop) that were given out on the night.

West End Community Council Update : Cllr Fraser Macpherson - LibDem Councillor for Dundee's West End - www.dundeewestend.com

I have today launched my March 2010 update to West End Community Council. Click on the headline to read it or go to http://tinyurl.com/wecc032010.

Subjects covered include :

â¢ Recycling paper facility at Pennycook Lane :

â¢ Refuse collection - Perth Road near Windsor Street

â¢ Sunken manholes

â¢ Tay Rail Bridge Disaster - 1879

â¢ The Bridge sculpture

West End Community Council meets tonight at Logie St John's (Cross) Church Hall at 7pm.

Monday activities : Cllr Fraser Macpherson - LibDem Councillor for Dundee's West End - www.dundeewestend.com

Yesterday, along with other city councillors, I attended a very informative briefing on human trafficking and steps that are being taken to combat this extremely concerning matter.

After two surgeries at the Mitchell Street Centre and Harris Academy, I attended City Council committee meetings at which I asked a question about Dundee population projections contained within a report on main issues facing the TAYplan strategic development planning authority, commented on and asked a question about the HMIe interim follow through inspection report on child protection services in the city, and sought assurances that the outcomes of a proposal to introduce an e-book and e-audio book service by the Leisure and Communities Department would be reported back to committee after a period in order that its success can be gauged.

At the City Council meeting, the proposal to temporarily move the polling station for voters in the Tullideph area to Morven Terrace during renovation work on the Tullideph sheltered lounge (that I mention last week) was approved. I sought - and was given - assurances from the Chief Executive that the change of polling station would be well-publicised for residents in the area.

Yesterday, I also received an update from the Housing Department on the work currently taking place at the lounge in Tullideph Place :

"Following on from a Health and Safety Report and also an Accessibility Audit it was noted that there was some items at the complex which needed attention.

As well as items in these reports it was also noted that users of the facility were having great difficulty accessing the rear patio area and even falling so it was agreed that we should upgrade the access to this area. We are forming a decking area with easy access to the patio and seating area so the clients can use this area during the better weather.

The access to the front, which is on a slope, also proves difficult for some of the clients, particullarly anyone in a wheelchair. There is a door which is quite heavy and a wheelchair user had previously fallen from his chair whilst leaving the building. We are going to make level the access at the front of the building, make the threshold level and fit an automatic door.

The fire exit to the side of the building also needed upgrading as this did not allow anyone in a wheelchair to use this exit if needed so this is being upgraded.

We are also making one of the wc's fully accessible for a wheelchair user.

This work started on Thurs 11/02/10 and it was hoped to be finished by end of March 2010. However there has been a slight delay in the external works due to the extremely cold weather but the internal works will be completed and the complex opened again by the end of March 2010."

January trade gap widest since August 2008 : Fitaloon at MicroShaft

Reuters has this. Britain's goods trade deficit with the rest of the world unexpectedly widened to its biggest since August 2008 in January, after the sharpest drop in exports in over three years, official data showed on Tuesday. The Office for National Statistics said that Britain's goods trade gap widened to 7.987 billion pounds [...] Related posts:

Was Robin Cook the Candidate I Never Had? : Stephen's Linlithgow Journal

Living in West Lothian I was intrigued by Mark Thompson's article this morning that was hypothesising that Robin Cook may, had he survived, have defected to the Lib Dems. It would have been one photocall that both myself and Charles Dundas, his opponent from 2005, as the prominent faces of West Lothian Liberal Democrats would have been called in for. But would it have actually happened?

Mark bases his premise on the Comment is Free article by John Kampfner in today's Guardian, who describes his political fulcrum as based firmly around Robin Cook's left liberal leanings. Like Cook in the run up to 2005 he was disgruntled with Labour, but while Cook stayed in the party at that time Kampfner supported the Lib Dems. Robin did get on well with both Charles and myself in our dealings with him, and indeed his last letter to me was one of agreement.

But we're five years on and many of the mainstream commentators are saying that the Iraq influence has run its course. Kampfner however, does point out another driving force that progressives who have or had supported Labour may well be thinking of supporting the Lib Dems in 2010. He bases it on "a more fundamental appraisal of Labour's record, together with a positive assessment of the Lib Dems' platform".

"[Liberal Democrat] analysis of the failures of the deregulated market has been consistently, and painfully, accurate. Their tax reform plans, taking 4 million low-paid workers out of tax altogether, are the most redistributive of any party, alongside green taxes, a "mansion tax" on high-value properties and the closing of tax loopholes (on pensions and capital gains) exploited by the rich. The Lib Dem approach to criminal justice, human rights, foreign and social policy is close to mine."

From my personal experience all of those values would certainly be held with Robin. So is that core of liberal-left looking our way. One wonders what that would mean if 30 years on from the Gang of four they had a leader in Robin Cook who would have supported all of the above, plus other areas in cleaning up politics. Of course it was he that Blair had chosen alongside Bob Maclennan to put Labour's view in the Joint Consultative Committee on Constitutional Reform prior to 1997. So events of the last 12 months and his own parties inaction may have persuaded to join the party offering serious consideration to the issue 12 years on. What if he too had left the Labour movement to find his feet as a true progressive within the Lib Dems?

Locally I think it would have made Livingston an interesting contest. One wonders who would have been the candidate, Devine wouldn't have been elected in September 2005 and wouldn't have been in the mire he is in. Looking at his record I don't think he would have followed Cook to our party. Would Graeme Morrice have managed to take the position of Labour candidate he now holds? One thing is certain I would be personally be pounding the streets of Livingston trying to hold the seat for our man, and persuading those who had backed him before that he hadn't changed only the party they supported had. Pretty much the same message that Lib Dems have been putting to or hearing from Labour voters for a while really.

It is an interesting hypothesis of where Cook would stand on a number of key issues since 2005. I would love to stood on the doorstep of Clifton Terrace or at some location in Livingston flanking him and the party leader as we welcomed him into our fold. What I suspect is more likely to have been the outcome though is that even now he would still have been fighting to get Labour unto his course, he may even have been somewhat successful making it harder for the Conservatives to win or the Lib Dems to take Labour gains.

But the demise of progressive Labour politics is clearly made by the party's slogan for this election. They're saying "A Future Fair for All" not "Fairness We've Delivered".

Is This the End of Tory Finger Wagging? : Stephen's Linlithgow Journal

"But you do it too!" as Mark Thompson pointed out was not the best defence of the Tories over Lord Ashcroft's non-dom status.

The 'innocent' plea of I'll only do it one I am required to do so, from Ashcroft himself showed how weak and ineffectual first William Hague and latterly David Cameron have been in holding their own peers to promises that they have made to the party.

But now Lord Paul has announced that rather than wait until he told to do so, he will pay full UK tax on his overseas earnings from the start of the next tax year, that is from the 6 April. So if Lord Paul is doing it before any requirement to do so, what not Lord Ashcroft the ball is back in the Labour court.

Military intelligence is an oxymoron : Holyrood Chronicles

Modom's Travel Solution : SUBROSA

Baroness Ashton of Upholland is having problems getting around. She has found herself seeking lifts from EU foreign ministers and air forces.

As that will never do for the EU's top diplomat, Baronness Ashton has come up with an idea - her own plane.

"I am very conscious of the imagery that surrounds this, but it is very difficult, without question," she said. Really? What about other people who have to travel great distances out of necessity?

One EU diplomat said, "If they give her a plane then Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, will want one. And if they give Barroso one, then Herman can Rompuy, the European Council President will want one, or they will try to commandeer hers."

Lady Ashton has time to keep a travel diary:

Tuesday Had to cadge a lift to Haiti. The Spanish Air Force were taking in an aid flight so they let me on board. Couldn't take me back, so had to book a commercial flight

Friday Went from Port-au-Prince to Paris to see Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, who offered to give me lift to Córdoba in Spain for the EU foreign ministers' meeting. No room for the staff, who had to fly to Madrid and take the train to Córdoba

source

Making Tracks: First Rails Laid On Airdrie-Bathgate Project : Stewart Stevenson - Working for You

Who benefitted from Purcell's Presidency? - Go Lassie Go : Fitaloon at MicroShaft

Another excellent article from Joan McAlpine on the Steven Purcell affair, and the fact that the Press and TV are ignoring the story. There is, as she says, much interest in the issue as I can testify from the hits on this blog, many indeed from Glasgow City Council. It is as I said on Sunday [...] Related posts:

Tories Lay Out Tough Educational Attainment Targets : Stephen's Linlithgow Journal

In an indirect way Michael Gove, Tory Education spokesperson, has shown a prejudice in the way the Tories view education. He has said:

"In the last year for which we have figures, of the 80,000 pupils who are eligible for free school meals, the very poorest, just 45 got to Oxford or Cambridge."

He went on to say that Labour had failed the poorest pupils as a result. But hang on I say. Is the hallowed spires of the oldest Universities the only real judge for their success and are Labour the only ones that can be blamed for that failure.

Compared to when I went to Kingston University, after not having free school meal, so I must really be a failure, less students travel far away from university. Indeed more are staying at home. One wonders why that is. No hang on I remember going on a rally as a student, a rally calling for grants not loans. Then protesting against the eventual introduction of tuition fees. The road to such ruin is Tory initiated.

But it is not really a failure to not get to Oxford or Cambridge. Academic attainment should be based on improving the chances of the students that are taught. My parents were both teachers, my Aunt is quite senior in the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency. All of them working on the front line of education cared about improving the lot of all those students as best as they could.

Free school meals provision is a way to he that improvement, whether that leads to an engineering degree at somewhere like Brunel, or a more practical Economics degree at Kingston than that offered at Oxbridge, or a even just to attain a college place for a work related qualification.

I think Michael Gove has failed to understand the nature of education and fully encompassing all aspects of our universities, further education colleges and even just our schools achievements.

Youtube closedown : Love and Garbage

True scale of Brownies on violent crime rise revealed : Fitaloon at MicroShaft

In a major speech on crime last week, Mr Brown said: "Crime is falling. Fact. Down by more than a third since 1997. Fact. That's 6 million fewer crimes each year. Fact. Almost 1 million fewer homes burgled. Fact. Almost 1 and a half million [...] Related posts:

Behind the Rent Strike (1974) : Inveresk Street Ingrate