Talking-up Scotland

 The report does not use the word ‘systemic’ to indicate any deep, pervasive, problem, at all. It’s not a word you bandy around unless you can really back it up with hard evidence. Only Justice committee convener Margaret Mitchell MSP (Conservative & Unionist) uses that word in an interview. The headline is simply a lie.

Hmm one of those impartial conveners we rely on?

From the Holyrood Justice Committee report:

A review into the 2012 Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act – one of the biggest transformations of a public service since devolution – has concluded that, despite challenges, the reform has led to greater consistency of service across Scotland. This has particularly benefitted victims of crimes such as domestic or sexual abuse. Unification has also resulted in more equal access to specialist capabilities and support across both Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, two new reports from Holyrood’s Justice Committee have revealed. This has helped in areas such as more complex serious crime and extreme events.’

That is a very encouraging opening statement which, had there been systemic problems identified, would have mentioned them.

The report did identify areas for improvement:

During its review, the Committee found that, despite an improving picture, further changes should be made to areas including:

• The police complaints processes should be overhauled, to create a more equitable, clear and fair system.
  • The Scottish Police Authority (SPA) should take a more proactive role in its oversight and scrutiny of new Police Scotland policies.
  • Suggested options to include the Scottish Parliament in the appointment process of the SPA chair should be explored.
  • The SPA and Police Scotland should demonstrate that recent improvements in their leadership and governance mean that previous shortcomings caused by personality issues could not reoccur.
  • Police financial projections for the future should be more robust, taking into account known challenges.
  • There should be a rethink of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s ‘retained duty service’, which is no longer fit for purpose. This should consider pay, training and responsibilities of ‘duty’ firefighters. 

https://www.parliament.scot/newsandmediacentre/111519.aspx

I spent nearly 40 years in education, convening, writing, reading and responding to reports of inspection of some kind. I’ve seen far, far, worse still not using the word ‘systemic’. I’ve seen none without a list of things to improve. All of the above are typical of large organisations and so doable as to be, of course, not newsworthy.

 

Long-time opponent of Scottish independence, Professor Ronald MacDonald, is promoting a new Australian technology which could turn Scotland into an energy superpower. From the Daily Business Group yesterday:

‘A breakthrough in renewables technology could see Scotland develop a new source of energy supply with huge export potential. Scientists in Australia have found a way to store and export low-cost ammonia, turned into hydrogen, which is becoming a key green energy source. Ronald MacDonald, pictured, professor of economics at Glasgow University’s Adam Smith Business School, is urging Scotland to become an early adopter, saying renewable hydrogen would enable Scotland to become entirely carbon neutral and sell energy to other countries. Along with reduced energy costs, improved air and water quality, other advantages include the ability for Scotland to be self-sufficient in creating enough low-cost energy to exceed the amount of oil and gas produced from the North Sea. It could lead to Scotland supplying a super-grid, in partnership with a consortium of global energy majors. If hydrogen became central to the national economy then remote, rural and regional areas of Scotland would be able to generate and export electricity and ammonia on a large scale. This would enable the country to significantly increase the manufacture of food products, technology and IT-based services to the scale of global corporate enterprises, and increase its exports of medicine and healthcare services, education and training services.’

https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2019/03/scotland-urged-to-drive-hydrogen-powered-revolution/

Could there be a wee financial incentive for the Prof’s HIAlba-IDEA think tank, behind this sudden enthusiasm for a project that might further strengthen the case for independence?

This news follows recent evidence of the continuing surge in Scottish renewable energy generation. See:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-natural-capital-ecosystem-service-accounts-2019/pages/5/

 

Anoher difference between Scotland and rUK?

I know it’s not a necessary condition for the Scots to be really different from their neighbours to then deserve independence but, if it’s there, it can help in articulating a rationale which helps. Yesterday, in the Guardian/Observer, we read:

‘Three-quarters of NHS hospital trusts in England are using private debt firms to chase treatment costs from overseas patients and refused asylum seekers in a practice branded “inhumane” by critics, the Observer can reveal. Data released under the Freedom of Information Act shows that 77 of 102 hospital trusts have used private debt firms to pursue ineligible patients. Of 60 trusts that provided patient numbers, 8,468 patient debts were referred to private debt collectors between 2016 and 2018. However, of the 48 trusts that provided full financial details, only about £1.5m of the £21m of debt referred to private firms during those three years has been recouped – barely 7%.’

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/23/nhs-trusts-use-bailiffs-collect-debts-ineligible-patients-asylum-seekers-immigrants

I searched and searched but could find no evidence of a single case of a Scottish health board pursuing the sick for the cost of treatment. Tourism is booming so there will have been a few. I’d have been horrified if I had. That wouldn’t be the better country I want to live in.

Mind you, maybe our health board accountants had already worked out that it would cost more to pursue than we’d get in return – canny!

Add the above to the list below to see that we are collectively, in our behaviour and values, a wee bit different.

More evidence of a difference as 73% of Scots back increase in taxes for higher public spending

Are Scotland’s employers also different – more willing to pay a decent wage?

Another step on the way to becoming a ‘Living Wage Nation’ and a ‘Better Nation?’

With 1 in 4 living wage employers already in Scotland, the Scottish Government aims to make this a ‘Living Wage Nation’

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

80 000 lowest paid workers in NHS England still on poverty wages as NHS Scotland follows Scottish Government policy to pay a living wage to all public-sector employees

Scottish care workers to receive Living Wage for ‘sleepover’ hours while English care workers receive only the National Minimum Wage.

At 78% level of satisfaction with NHS Scotland is impressive 36% higher than for the NHS across UK

UK Government urged to follow Scotland’s praised lead on employee ownership – another 8% story?

8% of the population but 11.8% of the charitable donations – ‘punching above our weight?’

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

BBC Scotland lie and distort to try again to spread violent crime crisis into Scotland despite it having only 3.5% of the gangs for 8% of the population, falling levels of violent crime and because of falling levels of fear of crime?

 

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/general-election/brexit-to-blame-for-rising-hate-speech-in-scotland-1-4894523

Under this image of a ‘remainer’ and a ‘leaver’, outside Westminster, we get one of the most confused (deliberately?) accounts I’ve read, attempting to create anxiety, for Scots, about something not actually there.

Based on the reflections of someone who did some actual empirical research in 2014 but has since done none, we hear:

‘Revisiting his findings two years later, he said sectarianism remained a “deep-rooted and serious problem” across the whole of Scottish society that was being perpetuated by a “culture of denial”.’

The evidence:

1. Ian Blackford was verbally harassed by Brexit supporters who shouted abuse at him as he walked down the street in central London.
2. MP Paul Masterton sent a Christmas card branding him a “traitor” and telling him to leave the UK over his stance on Brexit after being mentioned in Daily Telegraph, so was card posted in Scotland? No confirmation of such offered.
3. Figures published in October showed hate crime offences recorded by police in England and Wales rose by 17 per cent in the 12 months to March.
4. The Home Office noted “spikes in hate crime following certain events such as the EU referendum and the terrorist attacks in 2017”. In England & Wales.

 

Not about the same thing as the Blackford and Masterton examples AND WRONG:

‘And figures published last month showed Police Scotland recorded 6,736 hate crimes in 2017-18 – a rise of 2.4 per cent on the previous year. More than two thirds of the incidents were race-related.’

See these official figures:

http://www.copfs.gov.uk/media-site/media-releases/1765-hate-crime-in-scotland-2017-18

 

 

My desire for Scottish independence is based, first and foremost, on leaving behind the imperial monster that is Great Britain and beginning to live unashamed of the horror inflicted, often by our own soldiers, on civilians and freedom fighters, across the globe. If it doesn’t include that, then it really doesn’t matter to me. The previous First Minister seemed to understand:

Sturgeon is a very capable politician but her judgement or her values on foreign affairs seem positively suspect. Alex Salmond would have given the loathsome Campbell what he deserved. Though clearly highly engaged with issues of equality, gender and race in the UK, she has now, three times, revealed herself to be uncaring of the slaughter of men, women and children in the arenas where Henry Kissinger, Hilary Clinton and Blair Campbell did their work.

For those unaware, but not FM, see this on Kissinger:

What’ ‘I recommend’ you read the work of a war-criminal? Try this:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/does-henry-kissinger-have-a-conscience

On Hilary Clinton, see this:

https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/10/24/hillarys-war-crime/

‘Whatever you think of Hilary Clinton?’ What, it’s possible to think she is not a war criminal who cares nothing for the lives of women in the Arab world?

On Alistair Campbell:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/10/alastair-campbell-iraq-dossier-inquiry

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/do-you-remember-what-happened-to-david-kelly/

Can she compartmentalise the lives of Kissinger, Clinton and Campbell? ‘Oooh, forget about the horror, look at these sentences about leadership. I’m right into leadership.’ The ability to compartmentalise this way is the mark of a particular mind. I have no hesitation in calling those three psychopaths.

Finally, remember that Salmond took support from nowhere to nearly there, in 2014. The current leadership struggles to take us to under 50%. There are other potential leaders in the SNP. It’s not Labour. While Brexit may pull us over the line it won’t be thanks to a First Minister who clearly now inhabits the same policy space as all those old Labour ‘Atlanticists’, slavish followers of US/Israeli policy, Brown, Alexander, Murphy and Robertson.

Resign? Why should I?

 

These headlines are the predictable outcome of the publication of research from the supposedly independent think-tank, the Resolution Foundation, titled ‘Wrong Direction’ which suggests the SNP’s poverty targets, 12 years from now, will not be met. The research is based on determined, at times puzzling, negativity in the production of mere estimates by a researcher and a group strongly connected to the Lib Dems and the Tories and funded by proceeds from an insurance company accused of ‘sleazy’ practice where ‘pensioners are the losers.’

The report does go on to blame UK austerity for much of the projected increase but by then the title and the headline claims have fed the media with just what they want. The author is familiar with mediated politics and so must have known what would happen. Details below.

This is the report:

https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2019/03/Wrong-direction-briefing-note.pdf

The key findings including the third, at which point BBC investigators stopped, drooling excitedly:

‘Although uncertain?’

An early graph and comments caused this researcher to wonder what is going on here:

https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2019/03/Wrong-direction-briefing-note.pdf

Maybe I’m being thick but at the last point when we have actual data, 2015-2016, poverty had fallen to 23% and quite steeply too from 27%. From that point on, they predict an almost 90 degree turn upward, based on their estimates, predictions, guesses. Remind me, are economists known for their ability to predict the future? Howe did they do with the crash in 2008? How, on earth, can they be so sure that current and future devolved powers will not continue to eat away at poverty? Did they consider the possible transformation in control of the economy which might result from gaining independence or is that not in their mindset to imagine? Is that because they are aligned with the worldview at the softer end of Conservatism but still, crucially, wedded to the Union? Let’s find out. First who is the author and where has he been:

Centre Forum, remember them for later but we all know what ‘centre’ means in UK politics – Blair, Cameron, neoliberal economics. Adam, we see below, has no problem associating with, writing for, Tories:

The think tank, Centre Reform, was founded in 1998 and became Centre Forum in 2005. In 2016 it became the Education Policy Institute, headed up by David Laws. Remember him?

That’s nice, a Lib Dem popular with the Tories. Let’s get him to lead an independent think-tank. Adam has moved to the Resolution Foundation. Who are they? Here’s their Executive Chair:

They made 1.5 billion in donations in 2017 but no details of the sources are published.

https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2018/07/Resolution-Foundation-Annual-Report-1617.pdf

However:

‘The largest single donation was £60.75m which went to the Gatsby Charitable Foundation from Lord Sainsbury, followed by £42.88m from Sir Clive Cowdery to the Resolution Foundation’.

https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/significant-increase-in-donations-worth-1m-or-more.html#sthash.KYgCJwX4.dpuf

What does Cowdery do?

‘Clive Cowdery made his fortune selling on ‘zombie’ insurance funds. Now the entrepreneur is targeting distressed financial companies.’ 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/insurance/3464929/Clive-Cowderys-Resolution-rises-again.html

‘The whole business of buying up ‘zombie’ insurance funds, refurbishing them and selling them on for vast profits is sleazy enough and a better regulator than the Financial Services Authority should never have allowed this to happen. In fact, it ought to be far more cautious about the similar game being played with pension funds. The real losers in both these cases are the policyholders and the pensioners whose life savings are passed around like junk at a car boot sale.’

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/article-1160787/ALEX-BRUMMER-Cowdery-falls-cosh.html

Well, I’m reassured now.

 

 

 

As unemployment remains consistently lower than in the non-Scottish parts of the UK, small business relief seems likely to have been helpful in enabling this significant group of employers. See:

https://www.parliament.scot/S5ChamberOffice/WA20190322.pdf

 

https://twitter.com/scotgovocea

You’ll get quite a competent piece of journalism elaborating on the above, at:

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/news/scotland/value-of-scottish-natural-resources-calculated-for-first-time/

Some recent 8%s:

8% of the population but 28.5% of the wind-powered electricity

March 16, 2019johnrobertson8343 Comments

The UK as a whole generates up to 20 000 MW with wind power, on a good day, on and offshore. Scotland generates up 5 700 MW. I suspect Scotland does it more reliably due to more windy days but…

8% of the population but 20% of the space jobs!

March 15, 2019johnrobertson8344 Comments

Set phasers tae Malky! From the Scottish Government’s Space Exploration and Affordable Housing Department today: ‘Scotland’s space sector could be worth £4 billion by 2030, Innovation Minister Ivan McKee said today. Speaking during a parliamentary debate on Scotland’s space sector…

Return of the meme! 8% of the population but 38% of the food and drink exports. How would Scotland survive?

March 15, 2019johnrobertson8343 Comments

(c) SBNN In Insider today: ‘Value of whisky exports rises 7.8% as Scotland’s food and drink sold abroad brings in record £6.3 billion. Total exports increased by £293 million in 2018, a 4.9% rise, according to HMRC. Food exports have…

 

I forgot to check thoroughly, this previous poll by Opinium for the Observer, 13^th to 15^th March, with 110 adults, online and with The Independent Group included, giving:

Conservatives              25

Labour                         8

TIG                               4

Lib Dems                     4

UKIP                             6

SNP                              51

Green                          2

https://www.opinium.co.uk/political-polling-13th-march-2019/

Look at the size of Labour as the Yoons circle the wagons in Jackson Carlaw’s forecourt. You don’t, however, get the SNP surge if you exclude TIG. Then you get only 44% support for SNP. Why is that? Labour Indy-supporters give up the ghost as TIG threatens to finish them off?

So, maybe a bit more optimism allowed than I thought earlier this evening?

 

 

 

 

Apologies to Northern Isles: Only all-yellow map I could find.

It’s only one telephone sub-poll but the latest from Ipsos MORI of 91 adults for 15^th to 19^th of March gives us, for all respondents:

Conservative   15%

Labour             16%

Lib Dems         10%

SNP                  50%

Greens             1%

UKIP                 2%

Looking only at those certain to vote*, we get:

Conservative   12%

Labour             15%

Lib Dems         8%

SNP                  55%

Greens             2%

UKIP                 1%

57% for independence? A complete wipe-out of the opposition at Westminster?

And telephone surveys tend to favour the older more conservative voter!

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2019-03/ipsos-mori-political-monitor-march-2019-tables.pdf

Could this be the long-awaited waking-up to the chaos that is Westminster, the clear hostility to Scottish representatives there and the likely consequences for the Scotland?

We must wait and see but can surely have a wee smile tonight.