The leaders of the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru, Alex Salmond MP MSP and Ieuan Wyn Jones AM have taken the unusual step of writing to the heads of the international press bureaux to highlight how the impartiality of the British Broadcasting Company is compromised by the current proposals for the leaders debate which cut out three of the four countries which make up the UK and two parties of government.

They have also written a joint letter to BBC Director General Mark Thompson stating that the BBC's insistence in denying fair competition of ideas could endanger the conduct of a free election.

Writing to the international press the two leaders state:

"The BBC's proposal effectively disenfranchises the people of Scotland and Wales. The format as currently devised makes no allowances for the reality of the devolution settlement which sees the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly - and indeed the Northern Irish Assembly - responsible for a number of key policy areas including health and education. We believe this is a retrograde step by the BBC which reflects an overly centralised, metropolitan and outdated attitude and which fails to meet the needs of three of the constituent nations of the United Kingdom.

"As yet, no satisfactory measures have been put in place to ensure that balanced coverage, reflecting the different political make-up of the United Kingdom.

"Around the world, there are excellent examples of state broadcasters who do manage to achieve balance in far more complex political situations -Canada's CBC being a notable example. It is hugely disappointing the BBC lacks the ambition to even try.

"It is extremely sad that after almost 90 years of being a world respected independent broadcaster, the BBC has allowed itself to be politically compromised in this fashion. It is only right that the wider international audience is made aware of the extent to which the BBC is failing to represent the people of Scotland and Wales in this way."

In the letter to BBC Director General, the leaders write:

"You will be aware that your own guidelines as well as OFCOM's code of practice does not entitle your organisation to have unfettered discretion in how you comply with your duty to impartiality during a UK General Election. Your correspondence with our parties does however lead us to believe that the discretion you have exercised to date in relation to your planned coverage of the 2010 UK General Election is in breach of your obligations with respect to due impartiality.

A healthy democracy requires a fair competition between the alternative policy positions being offered at election time. For politics to be about healthy debate, the winning of hearts and minds, rather than about prior tribal political affiliation, then parties in reasonable competition must be given similar opportunity to present their policy platform to the electorate.

"The medium of television has a unique ability at election time to bring the competition of ideas, which is at the heart of the democratic system, into the living room of every voter in the country.

"Without a properly informed electorate, the conditions for free election are not possible."

Commenting, Mr Jones said:

"Unless broadcasts are held in a fair, impartial and accurate way, the legitimacy and integrity of the General Election results will be called into question. That cannot be an acceptable state of affairs for anyone.

"The action the BBC has taken in putting together these plans is nothing short of a betrayal of the principles upon which the editorial integrity of the BBC is built."

Mr Salmond added:

"It is very sad that after almost 90 years of being a world respected independent broadcaster held in the highest regard, the BBC has allowed itself to become politically compromised setting up these debates.

"The BBC's proposal effectively disenfranchises the people of Scotland, Wales and indeed, Northern Ireland and cuts out two governing parties. The debates as they currently stand reflect an overly centralised, metropolitan attitude which fails to meet the needs of three of the constituent nations of the UK."


 

More Nats mean less cuts

The people of Scotland want more than just a politician they want local and national champions.

Unveiling key themes in the SNP General Election campaign at an event in Edinburgh East - one of the SNP's key constituencies - SNP Leader and Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said that SNP MPs will be local champions working for people across Scotland as he told voters more nats means less cuts.

In a speech which addressed the dissatisfaction across Scotland with Westminster politics and Scotland's role in a hung parliament and warned the London based parties over their plans to cut Scottish jobs and services, Mr Salmond put Scotland's communities at the heart of the SNP campaign.

Mr Salmond said:

"At this election, more than ever before, Scotland needs champions.

"And so on polling day, we are not just choosing MPs in the House of Commons. We are choosing national champions to stand up for the people of Scotland.

"National champions and LOCAL champions, who will offer communities across our nation the voices that they need.

"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.

"At this election, the choice is clear. We must do all we can to protect those people, those services and those jobs.

"Thus Scotland needs champions. Now more than ever.

"The more SNP MPs elected the stronger Scotland's position will be.

"Because at this election the message is simple.

"MORE NATS MEANS LESS CUTS."
 

Lucky Jack

The latest scandal to hit Labour in Scotland should be no surprise to anyone;  everyone in Scottish politics knew that former First Minister Jack MacConnell had a genuine interest in Malawi, and that he had been promised the job of High Commissioner there.   However, after the SNP victory in the 2007 Scottish Election, the post of High Commissioner slipped from his grasp;  the reason was quite simple – if he had been given the post he would have had to resign his Motherwell and Wishaw seat in the Scottish Parliament, and Gordon Brown was terrified of losing this to the SNP.

So, hard luck on the people of Malawi, and hard luck on Mr MacConnell;  he might also have expected a seat in the House of Lords, being a former First Minister, but for some strange reason this was not forthcoming.  I say strange reason, because it is within the rules to be a Lord and a Member of the Scottish Parliament, after all we have Lord Foulkes braying there every week. (And we did have Lord Watson of Invergowrie until he tried to burn down Prestonfield House and was sent to the pokey). Methinks it has something do with the fact that Gordon Brown did not want Alex Salmond to become First Minister and leaned on Mr MacConnell to do a deal with the Tories and retain the post, and Mr MacConnell’s failure to comply saw the ermine robes disappear.  (Why Mr Brown thought his suggested course of action would be acceptable to the people of Scotland could perhaps be explained that he has spent so long in London he has gone native.)

However, in recognition of the fact that Mr MacConnell, a former Secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland, knows where a few bodies are buried, Mr Brown created another wee job for Jack;  he is now Gordon Brown’s special envoy, unpaid, but he still has his £57,000 salary from the Scottish Parliament, and he has managed to spend a further £70,000  flying all over the world, doing , as far as can be ascertained, SFA.  Nice no work if you can get it.

This is not the first time a grateful establishment has made a job for Jack;  in April 1998 he was given the post of Chief Executive of Public Affairs Europe, a company jointly owned by Beattie Media and MacLay Murray and Spens.  He was headhunted for this post as soon as he resigned as the Secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland, and left it as soon as he was selected as Labour candidate for the safe seat of Motherwell and Wishaw.  The company had only one employee, Mr MacConnell, had no contracts, no turnover, and quietly folded its tents when Jack became a candidate.  It was glibly asserted that it was a commercial idea that had not worked out;  to coin a phrase - “Aye right.”  (All this information came to light when the Scottish Parliamentary Standards Committee held the hearing into the Observer sting on access in 1999 in which Mr MacConnell was cleared.)

A Plea for Space

“Let him have some space to put his life back together and regain his health”  This is now the plaintive (or plaintiff?) cry of the Labour political class and their media spear carriers in the case of Steven Purcell, who resigned last week as the leader of Glasgow City Council, in extremely mysterious circumstances.

The press of the West has been remarkably circumspect, perhaps because of the various threats of injunctions flying about, but we can only view this as a protective screen.  Only a few weeks ago, the same media gave Nicola Sturgeon, SNP MSP and Deputy First Minister plenty space – on the front page of their papers for days on end.  This despite the fact that she broke no laws and no rules, but they treated a misjudgement as if it was a crime. 

The case of Mr Purcell, if the allegations are to be believed, is completely different;  it has been stated, but not publicly admitted by the Labour Party, that he took cocaine.  Possession of cocaine is a criminal offence, with a maximum penalty of 8 years gaol, according to Joan MacAlpine in the Sunday Times, and one can only take cocaine if it is in ones possession!   It has also been admitted that two senior officers of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency visited him in May 2008, as his name had come up in their investigations, and they warned him about the possibility of blackmail.  This was around the time of the Glasgow East by election, and it is rumoured that Labour did not want him to go forward as a candidate at that election as the glare of publicity would have brought his drug problem into the open.

John Mason, SNP MP for Glasgow East has raised concerns about this aspect, on the basis of how could a person be judged unfit to be a candidate for the Westminster parliament, but fit to run the largest local authority in Scotland?  John has also said that Audit Scotland should examine the contracts signed by Glasgow Council during Mr Purcell’s term of office, since the police were talking of criminals perhaps exercising undue pressure.  These questions by John Mason have sparked off a barrage of protest from Labour, who accuse the SNP of politicking!  A further point, not yet made, is that when a person flees abroad, as Mr Purcell is alleged to have done,  a presumption of innocence is not automatically assumed.

Other items of note
 

Tory drivel

I see from the Scotsman that a Tory MSP, one Murdo Fraser, apologised to school pupils in the public gallery at the Scottish Parliament after a debate on Education.

Mr Fraser said he felt sorry for anyone who had to sit through the drivel of the last two hours;  surprised that the Presiding Officer let him speak that long.
 

Old Party Political Broadcasts 1

Among the items which emerged when clearing my loft for insulation was a video cassette of Party Political Broadcasts from 1991;  there was one of Alex Salmond talking of the obscenity of billions being spent on nuclear weapons while other things were being cut.  This was when the Tories were in power;  on Saturday past, Alex was again talking about even greater billions being spent on nuclear weapons, and severe cuts for everything else were coming, after 13 years of Labour being in power!  No change from London.
 

Old Party Political Broadcasts 2

I was also intrigued at an item from another broadcast, from the Liberals this time, when Simon Hughes, of that ilk,  was bewailing pollution of the sea, and stating that we were so fortunate that we had vast supplies of drinking water;  I suppose he knew the seas were salt, although it was not immediately obvious from his words.


Horrid Henry

Three pictures on one page in the Scotsman this week, taking up about a third of a page, of the Secretary of State for Scotland, Jim Murphy, reading excerpts from Horrid Henry to schoolchildren;  it was alongside a report on class sizes, which is nothing to do with Westminster.  One is perplexed as to why he was there in the first place;  perhaps he was standing in for someone else ????
 

The Rotten State of Britain

I have just finished reading the above book, which afforded me some puzzlement;  it kept recounting examples of official foolishness, filthy hospitals, gross waste of resources and draconian laws that I found strangely foreign.  It was only when I came to a chapter on Education that I thought to myself “I don’t have to read this”, and the penny dropped!  I had been reading about the rotten state of England.  Law and order, education, the National Health Service and local government are all devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

Anyway, having read the book, I am glad that Scotland, if we so wish, can choose to have a different future, particularly as the author was not in favour of a written constitution.  “Constitutional solutions bring their own problems” he wrote.  Hmm.

"Whit is ti be duin?” *

Kenneth Fraser

   We cannae say bit that the tribbles o the Scottish Government hae gaithert theirsels intil a fair haip the nou. The opposeition pairties, an Hir Maijestie’s Leal Press Corps, maun howp that the curtain wul sune cum doun on the Tragedie o Keing Alex, wi aa the Meenisters strawn athort the flair deid, juist lik the lest ack o “Hamlet”. It is up ti us ti stap them. Hou micht it be duin? Here are a pickle thochts.

   I the first place, we maunnae be blate ti min the voters that a Government that daesnae hae a feck o the saits in Pairlament cannae expeck ti get its ain wey aa the time – or aiven maist o the time. An as the Halyrude election draws nearer, the Opposeition pairties wul be mair an mair tempit ti jyne hauns agin it. This is a fack o life, no a sign o the oncome o daith.

   Forbye, we maunnae devall in threipan that mony o the trauchles that the Government haes ti thole are the affcome o the praisent recession, an the want o siller that it brings wi it. An wha brocht us the recession? Stap furrit, that economic genius an wad-be Sauviour o the Warld, Gordon Broun! An we soud min that his ain accoonts dinnae balance aither. Ti tak bit ae case, lat us speir at him whaur he wul fin the siller ti pey fir aa thir tanks an planes an weirships he haes on order…

   Bit (A hear ye cry) a government haes ti govern an no juist girn. It micht dae weel ti tak its slogan frae that braw film “Animal House”, whaur the hauden-doun Delta Fraternity yist ti say: “Dinnae git wud, git aiven!” Hou can it dae that? Whan its plans are defait in Pairlament – as the Referendum Bill fir ane micht be – lat it be ready ti bring furrit new legislation that wul tak the ineitiative back frae the Opposeition agane. There ocht ti be meisures sae popular wi the voters that ilka pairty wul hae nae chyce bit ti support them. Ithers micht be popular wi the voters, bit no wi the opposeition pairties, sae that in turnan them doun, they wul shaw up their ain fauts. I that wey, we’ll can howp fir a blithe ennin ti the first tairm o the S.N.P. Government.

*Title, copyricht V.I.Lenin, 1902

Calum Maceacharna

Thuirt Alasdair Darling gu bheil ar gnothaichean eaconomach “arguably the worst they’ve been in 60 years.” Chan e iongnadh a th’ ann an seo! Tha e doirbh a chreidsinn dìreach cho sgriosail ’s a tha Làbar ann an cumhachd, gu h-àraidh fad deich bliadhna. Tha Alba is an Rìoghachd Aonaichte ri cùl nan dùthchannan eile le eaconomaidhean mòra is tha sinn ann an stad nas miosa. A rèir an Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) bidh mun cuairt air £15 millean de ghearraidhean againn eadar 2011 is 2014. Cha tuirt Riaghaltas na RA fhathast  càit am bi iad ach tha mi cinnteach gum bi Alba na pàirt mòr de na planaichean co-dhiù. Rinn  Darling a-mach gum bitheadh eaconomaidh Breatainn a’ fàs a-rithist an ceann aon bhliadhna. Chan e ùine gu leòr a tha sin is chan eil e coltach idir. Cuideachd, shaoil am Priomh Mhinistear gum bitheadh rudan eaconomach na b’ fheàrr an ceann sia mìos. Tha mi an dòchas gum bi a h-uile duine eile a’ smaoineachadh an aon rud - ’s e duine gu math eagalach a th’ ann is tha feum againn air siostam riaghaltais ùir!

            A rèir luchd-naidheachd is nan Nàiseantach ’s e plana taghaidh a th’ anns an aithisg ro-bhuidseat seo, a’ cur geallaidhean geàrr-ùine air adhart gus an ath thaghadh. Mar eisimpleir chuir Darling an cèill àrdachadh ann an sochairean cloinne agus chiorramach de 1.5% ann an 2010, cosgais de £700 millean. Ged a chuir Darling cudrom air seo tha an IFS ag ràdh gun tèid seo a ghearradh a-rithist an ath bhliadhna, an dèidh an ath thaghaidh. Gu mì-fhortanach, mar as àbhaist fuilingidh Alba. Bidh £800 millean nas ìsle againn nar dùthaich ged a tha mun cuairt air £500 millean ann bhon ola. Tha mi cha mhòr cinnteach gun tèid an t-airgead sin a chosg ann an Lunnainn air na geamaichean Olympic agus an ath-chruthachadh.

            Cuideachd, tha Darling a’ cur planaichean air dòigh airson cìsean de 50% air duaisean-airgid nam bancairean. Mu dheireadh thall tha mi ag aontachadh leis an t-Seannsalair. Chan eil e spèiseil gu bheil iad a’ cumail orra mar a bha iad. Rinn iad sgrìos air iomadh  beatha is chan eil e ceart gum bi barrachd airgid acasan. A bharrachd air seo tha sluagh na dùthcha gu math feargach leotha. Ach, chì sinn an cum an Seannsalair ris no an gèill e fo bhagairtean nam bancairean a dh’fhalbh!
 

Darling’s Economic Promises

Alasdair Darling said that our economic matters are “arguably the worst they’ve been in 60 years.” This is not a surprise! It’s difficult to believe just how destructive Labour are in power, especially over ten years. Scotland and the United Kingdom are behind the other big economy countries and we are in a worse state. According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) we will have about £15 million of cuts between 2011 and 2014. The UK Government hasn’t yet said where they will be but I’m sure that Scotland will be a big part of the plans anyway. Darling made out that the British economy would be growing again after one year. That isn’t enough time and it isn’t at all likely. Also, the Prime Minister thought that economic matters would have improved after six months. I hope that everyone else is thinking the same thing – he is a frightening man and we need a new system of government!

According to reporters and the Nationalists this pre-budget report is an election plan, putting forward short-term promises until the next election. For example, Darling laid out a rise in child and disability benefits of 1.5 % in 2010, a cost of £700 million. Although Darling laid stress on this the IFS say that this will be cut again the next year, after the next election. Unfortunately, as usual Scotland will suffer. We will have £800 million less in our country though there is about £500 million from the oil. I am nearly certain that that money will be spent in London on the Olympic Games and the regeneration.

Also, Darling has made plans to tax bankers’ bonuses at 50%. Finally I agree with the Chancellor. It isn’t acceptable that they are continuing as they were. They destroyed many lives and it isn’t right that they should have more money. In addition the general public is very angry with them. But, we will see if the Chancellor sticks to this or if he caves in under threats from the bankers to leave!

Calum MacKechnie