Caledonian Challenge

This month, along with 600 other people, I took part in the Caledonian Challenge.  This is a charity event which involves walking over 50 miles in 24 hours along a section of the West Highland Way from Fort William to Tyndrum.

For an ‘auld yin’ like myself this is quite a tough challenge.  Actually it is pretty tough for anyone.  It includes walking through a mountain pass on General Wade’s military road which is very rocky and hard walking.  It also includes climbing steeply into the hills above Kinlochleven and over the Devil’s Staircase into Glencoe as well as walking across Rannoch Moor, the most deserted place in the United Kingdom.

I was taken with just how spiritual some of the whole experience was.  I have always thought that Scotland was pretty awesome and the best of the scenery majestic.  But walking into Glencoe at dusk, from high up above the Devil’s Staircase was beyond awesome.  The sheer scale of Glencoe is breath-taking – an over used word but truly applicable here!   Glencoe also comes with an eerie atmosphere of malevolence.  This is untamed nature and a sense of history hangs heavy in the air, a feeling enhanced by a distinct mix of light and shade with various hues of grey which enhance the formations of the mountains and the jagged ridge.

After Glencoe we turned across Rannoch Moor.  Being a 24 hour event this meant we crossed it at night with head torches.  We were aware of the silhouettes of the hills around us and the stillness of the place as we moved through the midsummer twilight you get at this time of year.  The experience was made more mystic by the sight of other head torches moving through the night all around us.

Finally, after being fed by the army at Inveroran on Loch Tulla, we moved out into the mist and the emerging dawn to cross the hills to Bridge of Orchy, Tyndrum and home.  When I crossed this point I was greeted by the most magnificent sun-rise at 5am as the sun rose in a perfect fireball above the clouds hugging the valley floor below me.  This was Scotland at her most stunningly beautiful!

The whole thing was exhausting as the energy drained from my legs with each passing mile.  However, the team experience was rewarding as we bonded together to get across the wilderness.  The wonderful Tania leading our support team was particularly good, dispensing tea, pasta and good medical advice for our disintegrating feet.

Along with my team, a lot of money was also raised for charity.  The event supports the Scottish Community Foundation which supports a range of charities and causes throughout Scotland including support for old people, children and Eco projects.   

I doubt I could ever do such a thing again but it was a remarkable experience - way beyond just the physical feat!   

Andy Reeves

I am very sad to hear today of the tragic death of Andy Reeves - the Deputy Director of Campaigns for the LibDems in Scotland.

Loosing people is always sad but far more so when they go before their time.  He was far, far too young to die.

By all accounts he was extremely well loved and highly respected as a campaigner by LibDem activists all over the UK.  I did not have the privilege of getting to to know him well personally but had found him to be a helpful, highly approachable and hardworking campaign manager and erstwhile blogger.

Only recently married to his long term partner, he will be deeply missed by his loved ones and friends.

RIP Andy Reeves

Bigotry and Booze

Alex Salmond has been announcing his administration's programme for Holyrood.

He highlights the need to tackle bigotry and booze.  That probably neatly sums up the key social problems that affect the modern Scotland - not the only ones - but crucial ones.

I hope the Scottish Parliament as a whole can rally round tackling these problems in a positive way, working together to make policies and legislation that emerges as effective as possible.

I think our other big social problem is our health record with death rates from heart disease and cancer high by European standards.  I hope, as the parliament develops, policies to tackle these issues emerge.  I am concerned that things like free prescriptions are cosmetic and somewhat trivial in their actual impact.  I am concerned that we are not putting more resources into things like cancer clinics like they are doing south of the border.

Salmond also discussed what he is calling the social wage.  He defined this as a pact between politicians, public services and the people.  He went on to say, "We shall deliver the social and economic circumstances that allow for people to dream, to aspire and to be ambitious - but it is for the individual to realise their dreams, to reach for their hopes, to meet their ambitions".

A fine statement, which I agree with and I hope the whole parliament can come together to achieve these ends.

Salmond also said, "Elsewhere on these isles, the tolerance of the poor is being tested - budgets slashed, priorities changed, hope crushed in the braying tones of people who claim to know best".

This is interesting because Salmond does not have to deal with the structural deficit and the economy.

If he was in full government he would have to cut many things that given the choice he would not, and to suggest otherwise is wholly disingenuous!  Remember how marginal Salmond and his administration were to being able to deal with the global financial crisis!

Expanding the fiscal powers of the Scottish parliament does not entirely answer this.  Furthermore, if there was full fiscal autonomy budgets would have to be slashed and priorities changed by Alex Salmond too!

So let us work together on the problems of Scotland.  Be positive to advocate improvements where we can and oppose where cheeky Alex is spinning us.

What's a Special Relationship anyway?

Barack Obama addresses the Houses of Parliament today in Westminster Hall. The chatter on the news programmes is once again all about the ‘special relationship’. Or has that now become the ‘essential relationship’?

This has always struck me as something of a British obsession and of rather less concern to the Americans.

The United States is a world power and has many important international relationships.

• China, as the new world power. 
• Russia, although waning, is still a world power (just) 
• Countries with enormous potential and resources like India and Brazil 

As a world power the United States needs to be at the fulcrum of geo politics which means:

• The growth and emergence of the east
• The dangerous instability and oil wealth of the middle east

Post cold-war Europe is less important, less at the centre of things and the balance of economic power is moving east. Also, the current American administration is supportive of supra-international bodies like the EU. Britain becomes important as part of Europe, allies but not the centre of America’s world.

In this regard the United Kingdom is just an important regional power in Europe and is not at the centre of it.

Yes, we have interests and a degree of influence around the world. However, I am not convinced we are much loved, nor, are we much hated either.

So why, post cold war, would the United States have a special relationship with the United Kingdom? We can only be one of several special relationships.

Then there is the personal element.

The UK – US special relationship has only really been there when a Prime Minister and President have been close. Think of Churchill and Roosevelt, think of Thatcher and Reagan, think of Blair and Bush (or Blair and Clinton for that matter). I’m not sure how special it was following the Bretton Woods Agreement and during the days of post war reconstruction!

Barrack Obama was brought up in Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. He spent some time in Indonesia. His grandfather was imprisoned by the British in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion. He is not close to Britain.

He is an African American in a country where more and more of her people speak Spanish. Where more and more of it looks East to the Tiger economies and the People’s Republic of China. (actually they probably look West from where they sit on the globe). If his eyes are fixed anywhere else they are probably fixed on the tinder-box of the Middle East and the Islamic world.

The United Kingdom is a constant ally. Right, left or centre we are strongly of the same mindset. Our constitutional and philosophical influence on the United States is huge. Our music, film and popular culture still has some influence. We share the same language (just about).

We remain an important ally of the United States.

So let us not get too worked up about Obama removing Churchill’s bust from the oval office or being too nice to the French, he remains a friend.

Don’t forget that America is not necessarily the only show in town for us. China and the East are important to our companies and businesses too. In fact, I understand that along with many European companies the UK is in better nick than many parts of the American economy because our companies are investing in the east and can benefit from globalisation.

India has a growing influence and we have plenty of contacts there.

Europe is the corner of the globe we occupy and where most of our trade is done.

And, sometimes, America gets it wrong. Think of:

• Iraq
• Kyoto
• Soft peddling with Argentina

We will not always want to follow America’s lead!

The 20th century was the American century, but in the 21st her power is just beginning to decline. The United States will remain the predominant world power in my lifetime but this will not always be so.

She is an important ally, a close ally and that goes very, very deep. This is not going to change. But the United States of America is not a special ally and we shouldn’t be hung up about that.

We didn't vote for independence - did we?

Well, King Alex is safely sworn in as First Minister and he has announced his new cabinet.  And so the  electoral cycle begins again.

Alex says it is as inevitable as anything ever can be in politics that Scotland will be independent.  The wily old dog!

There is one problem.  I don’t think we voted for independence. 

The SNP seemed to gain support as a broadly competent government of whom we should have no fear.  I don’t think their record was particularly scrutinised that deeply as Labour tried to run against the cuts – or whatever Labour were trying to do.  And the others weren’t that effective either.

The writer Gerry Hassan, writing about the Scottish Spring picked up on a deep long term transformation which has been occurring for decades.  This is a change from an age of identifying with the Labour party and seeing the world defined by the workplace, politics and class.

I think also the passing of the generations who lived through World War 2 and identified with a sense of Britishness through that experience has played its part in this transformation, and with it seen the decline of the Conservative and Unionist Party in Scotland.

Into this void has come the SNP, and during the 90s and 00s the Liberal Democrats – particularly under Charlie Kennedy.  Well, the LibDems have blotted their copybook big time while the SNP have grown.

Scotland has changed, tribal loyalties are decaying and the electorate is more volatile

The SNP positioned themselves with a wonderfully coherent sense of positivity and positioning,  A moderate left of centre party able to appeal to working class and middle class, and urban and rural Scotland.  A national party of Scotland.

Of course, the SNP also prospered from the perfect storm of a weak, poorly targeted Labour camapaign with a weak leader, and the collapse of the LibDems because they had gone with the Tories and lost credibility symbolised by the English tuition fees debacle.

So the SNP won and won big!  They have established, at Holyrood at least, two party politics of Labour and non Labour.  One party old, conservative and slightly authoritarian, the other modern, forward looking and aspirational.

But this doesn’t mean we voted for independence!

There does however seem to be support for increased devolution of power to Scotland.

Back in 2007 I for one did not foresee that the SNP were beginning to become more popular.  This may have been because I lived in Edinburgh which was not at that time an especially strong area for the SNP.  Nevertheless, their victory then surprised me.

I thought they would then follow a de-stabilising agenda seeking to undermine the relationship between London and Edinburgh.  In fact they didn’t.  They were much cleverer than that.  Alex Salmond has sought to evolve the parliament at Holyrood, little by little, into an independent Scottish Government.  Independence by stealth.

It is quite cunning and manipulative – but that is ok, that is politics.

With the SNP project has come a growing movement.  They have money, and the support of many key people in business and the arts.  With this comes resources for research, clever young strategists and thinkers.  They also have a cause.  Scratch many a nationalist and you find a hopeless romantic.  Labour have the moral high ground (or so they like to think!) The Tories fight for their values and prosperity.  So too the Nats have a cause that brings passion, people and bright young Turks.

Indeed, with many bright thinkers they are redefining what they mean by nationalism and independence.  For their thinkers Independence is about “...interdependence, partnership in these islands and more widely across Europe.”  They are talking about Scotland, the UK and Europe all still being connected but in a different and more appropriate way.

This is all very interesting.  It strikes me, as a firm believer in a federal solution for the UK and for Scotland , that the SNP may be coming round to a position I hold – maybe!

The Nats have placed their focus firmly on Holyrood.  This includes all their resources and intellectual capital.  It is another reason why they are winning at this level.

The LibDems and Labour need to use the intellectual capital they have with their Scottish contingents at Westminster if they are going to do well again in Scotland – this is especially true of the LibDems who have just taken such a pasting at the Holyrood election.

It is in fact a point I feel is important to not forget – Holyrood is Just one level of government!  Just because the SNP focus on it to the exclusion of other levels and have the agenda at the moment does not alter this fact.

This is the SNP agenda – to evolve Holyrood into a national government – which is not what most of us Scots want!

The Holyrood administration is not, for example, running the economy.  It was noticeable how irrelevant Alex Salmond was during the banking crisis and I can’t imagine how we would have coped with massive global entities like RBS or HBOS with balance sheets many times bigger than that of Scotland’s, if we had been independent!

 I therefore feel there is far more that binds us in the UK together that separates us.  I am a proud Scot and I want to see a strong measure of devolution.  At this juncture in our history I feel it is important we emphasise and celebrate that which binds us together lest we slip unwittingly into the nationalist spider’s web.

We are one island with one language – this is huge!

We are part of one economy – so many of our large companies are British companies based in Scotland.

This is nothing to say of the ties of kinship and friendship across the borders.

I also believe there are many British cultural traditions – some English in origin which have become assimilated into Scots culture like the waters of two streams merging together.

I think of things like:

·         Parliamentary democracy

·         Shakespeare

·         Morecambe and Wise or Coronation Street

Cultural things, English in origin, that have become part of our own culture.

I talked to one Nat recently who pointed out that Scotland once had its own parliament.  I know this! But it never reached the depth and the maturity that the English one did.  Nor did the Scots develop the tradition from medieval times, of rule with the consent of the people from Magna Carta, through the reforms of Henry iV, to the Tudor Settlement of sovereignty in parliament.  These natural rights of Englishmen, tracing themselves right down to Tom Paine, are part of the Scottish radical tradition.  True we have other traditions of thought and politics as wellt that are Scottish in origin, but we must not falsely separate our culture from other parts of Britain.

‘Wha’s Like Us?’ We have so, so much to be proud of as Scots for such a small nation but we should not build up a myth of superiority and wonderful traditions that are not quite as perfect as we would like.  But then sometimes nationalists do this.  Sometimes they are no strangers to a good measure of baloney!  

So there we have it.  I am concerned that the nationalists seek, through Holyrood, to drive a wedge to separate Britain by stealth.

This is not what most Scots want I believe.  A move towards a federal settlement may on the other hand be something there is support for and a basis on which we can do business.

It is important in the UK, before we run away with the nationalist fairy, that we recognise there is far more that binds us than separates us.

After all – we didn’t vote for independence – did we?

When the SNP are sometimes irrelevant

I read with enormous interest what Vince Cable had to say in the Guardian today.  I also note what Ed Miliband has been saying over the weekend.

We face some enormous issues.

Cable argues that we are facing profound long term change because of the banking collapse, the recession and the changing world economy.

He argues that some fundamentals were wrong with our economy based on consumer spending, a housing bubble, and an overweight banking system where three banks had a balance sheet larger than the British economy.   The deficit was only one of the symptoms of the financial crisis. This is a profound weakness and will take a long time to fix.

He also highlighted some fundamental shifts in the global economy he points out that the UK now takes prices from international commodity markets driven by China and India.  This means we are vulnerable to rising prices on commodity markets in a way we weren't before.

These things will be a challenge for government to put right

Miliband said, “We need a different kind of economy, fairer to the lowest paid and demanding greater responsibility from the higher paid: broader based, less reliant on financial services.”

Interestingly, and correctly, Miliband also highlighted that the problem of tuition fees began with Labour.

I suspect both Cable and Miliband broadly share the same analysis.

Cable pointed out that Labour are in denial that there is a big structural problem with the UK economy. “So we stick to this short-term, tit for tat: why has growth in this quarter been slower, the scale of cuts should be slower - there is genuine debate we should be having about how radical reforms to the financial sector should be - but there is not, from the progressive wing of politics a sustained critique or pressure and argument.”


These are big questions and I think both Cable, and now Ed Miliband, are trying to get to grips with that critique and how we can make a fundamental difference for the better.   

What of the SNP in Scotland?

The SNP administration is not the same as a government at a national level.

The have no direct responsibility for macro economic affairs.

They are not in charge of foreign policy.

The SNP administration is actually quite marginal to many of the most important issues to our lives.

They were actually shown to be powerless and rather on the fringe of events when it came to dealing with the banking crisis in 2008 and 2009.  In many ways I thought Salmond and his administration lost their way at this time.

This, I believe raises some tough questions.

The Scottish economy with its major financial institutions belongs most effectively as part and parcel of a larger national economy, not a smaller one.  And I believe that national structure should be a federal one not an independent one – because it isn’t independent!

And saying we are part of Europe does not fully deal with this conundrum. There is a national dimension in terms of economic cycle, fiscal policy, inflation and currency policy.  We fit into the Pound Sterling zone, not the German based Euro zone.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am a fan of Europe.  It is incredibly important to us now and in the future.  It is an important supra-national building block in a global economy and society.    

I am no Conservative with their Euro scepticism and outright hostility from some quarters.  This seems to me to be an outdated and unreconstructed philosophy in which I do not share.

So long term the re-engineering of the UK’s economy is vital.  In Scotland we badly need a stronger private sector so we are not so reliant on the public sector and the financial sector for jobs.  This is a big issue for the modern Scotland, as it is for all of Britain.

While there is a Scottish dimension and a role to play by the Salmond administration in Edinburgh, this is a problem that I think is best dealt with at a UK level.  The financial services sector for example is on too large a scale and organised on a national UK level and beyond for it to be purely the remit of Holyrood.

I see the potential for the misplaced romanticism of the Nats to be actually quite destructive – particularly if their game is to make believe that they are a national government until it actually becomes so.

Politics is all about context of course, but in the context of the changing world economy and the UK model, what Cable and Miliband have to say is more important than what Holyrood is doing.  The SNP has chosen to largely ignore Westminster and focus on Holyrood.  Just because the SNP has decided to focus on this context and have been swept to a stunning victory in the conditions of 2011 does not make the economic facts of life different.  In just this context, the SNP administration can at times be somewhat irrelevant - #just sayin’. 

What is wrong with Scottish football!!

Today I am holding my head in my hands about the state of Scottish football and the problem of sectarianism in this country.   This season we have seen some absolutely dreadful actions and seen a pretty ugly atmosphere surrounding the game.  It has also exposed a greater malaise in parts of Scottish society of violence, drinking and hatred.

The situation and tensions in football are not entirely straightforward and not everything has to do with sectarianism.

First, Neil Lennon has been on the receiving end of some disgraceful and shameful bigotry over the years! This is, and has always been, appalling - the way he has been treated by some very bigoted people.

Second, as an entirely separate issue to sectarianism, Lennon’s behaviour as an adult and a manager has been pretty poor.  This complicates things.

Third, Celtic, and some of those associated with the club, have made a full contribution to sectarianism this season. Trying to intimidate referees and the SFA.  Seeking blue noses under every bed.  Trying to draw everyone into their own paranoid murky west coast world of sectarian tension.  And all of this  has been accompanied with an ongoing narrative that they are more sinned against than sinner.

Last night my Twitter feed told me a long time before some idiot decided to have a pop at the Celtic manager, that there was a constant flow of pro IRA songs in full voice from the Celtic end.  ‘Up the RA’ was blaring out across Tynecastle.

Finally, Rangers have some ghastly Orange bigots in their support and a terrible sectarian streak.

Added to this of course are some people on the loyalist side of the sectarian divide decided it was a good idea to send bombs to Neil Lennon and some other people associated with a football club and community they don’t like! Who do these people think they are!! This has been the single most disturbing and most serious episode in the whole affair.  I see the police have raided some homes this morning.  I hope this leads to finding these people and making some criminal convictions!  

I have read a number of Celtic fans this season talking about having to get out of ‘this dreadful league’.  They seem to me to want to escape some imagined great Protestant conspiracy against the Irish Catholic community and Celtic Football Club.  What absolute tosh!

I always knew bigotry was a big problem in certain sections of the Glasgow Rangers support but what I have come to realise is that there is plenty of bigotry on the other side too.  What I have really resented is the way some people seem to be trying to draw the rest of Scotland into this narrow world full of mire.  Please don’t!

This is why the ‘ned’ who apparently tried to hit Neil Lennon last night is probably a bigger fool than he will ever be capable of realising.   True, Hearts have an association with the Protestant side of the divide but have in recent decades managed to keep the rivalries to standard football tribalism and largely keep out of full blown sectarianism.  Doing what that fan did last night just throws Hearts into the mix as well! That saddens me.

Football, around the world will always come with a certain tribalism.  Anthropologists can have a field day studying this.  There is a place for this sort of thing as a safety valve in society.  There is a place for friendly rivalry.  There is probably even a place for what the writer Graham Spiers calls ‘90 minute bigotry’.  Some of the songs and chants of football teams in the English Premiership are pretty offensive taken out of context.  

There is, it seems to me, little point in over simplifying things and there is a place for some of this as a safety valve – but the sectarianism in Scotland is intolerable and has created an ugly atmosphere well beyond football!  Something needs to change.

King Alex, our newly re-installed First Minister, has already started to play a role in addressing this problem and I think he can do much good in addressing the problems.  This is one issue that unites us across the political divides and across all Scotland as a whole.  I also think many, many people associated with both Rangers and Celtic want to solve these problems too.  All power to Alex Salmond in this regard!!

One final thought.  This is tribalism and has nothing to do with religion any more!!