A matter of democracy
Last week the SNP MSP Joan McAlpine – a figure often singled out for criticism by both Unionist parties and the media – came under fire once more for a column she’d written in the Daily Record, in which she questioned the motivations behind Labour’s desire to devolve more power away from the Scottish Parliament to local councils.
It’s a point this site was making as far back as 2012. Scottish Labour have given up on any hope of winning a Holyrood election in the forseeable future – the latest poll of Scottish Parliament voting intentions puts the SNP on over 50%, to Labour’s 26% – so the party has suddenly discovered a passion for local devolution that it oddly chose not to enact while it was in control at Holyrood for the best part of a decade.
But McAlpine’s point that Scots tend to trust the Scottish Parliament more than any other elected body was immediately misrepresented as an attack on hard-working and honest councillors. Yet the reality is that there’s an empirical measure of democratic accountability (and therefore trust), and it’s a measure in which Holyrood unarguably comes out on top.
Scotland has three layers of elected government dealing with politics inside the country (ie excluding European elections, which don’t affect the point anyway). And in only one of them can Scots be said with any reasonable sense of conviction to be getting the representation they actually voted for.
– At Westminster, of course, Scotland voted Labour and got a Tory/Lib Dem coalition.
– At Holyrood, Scots voted SNP and got an SNP government.
– And at council level – well, at council level it’s a mess.
The Single Transferable Vote method by which Scottish councils are elected is one which rarely produces majorities. Of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, only six have a single party in control. That, of course, is a perfectly desirable outcome. The First Past The Post system in use for Westminster elections almost always produces large majorities on barely over a third of the vote, and is massively undemocratic. STV is designed to favour coalitions, and often achieves that aim.
The problem with STV arises when losing parties combine to completely exclude the party which actually came first in the election. Several Scottish councils are now run entirely without the input of the most popular party, and all sides are guilty.
In Stirling the SNP came first, but were elbowed out by a Labour/Conservative alliance. In the Scottish Borders the SNP retaliated by combining with the Lib Dems to exclude the “victorious” Conservatives. In Midlothian Labour and the SNP got the same number of seats, but the Nats did a deal with Greens and independents to give Labour the boot. In Moray the SNP were joint winners, but the independent group joined the Tories to keep them out. In both Highland and East Lothian, conversely, the SNP, Labour and Lib Dems all ganged up to kick out the independent group, whereas in Aberdeenshire the SNP were the victims of a Lib Dem/Tory stitch-up.
There are other examples, but the point is made. Advocates of STV, of course, point out that this IS democracy at work – if losing parties can work together to take control, then that coalition will represent a majority of the electorate. But voters often don’t see it that way, particularly when the most popular party – which may have secured very close to half of the votes by itself – is completely shut out of the deal.
(They can also be upset if the party they voted for then forms a coalition with one that it campaigned strenuously against and claimed to be ideologically opposed to – there are several Labour/Tory and even SNP/Tory ruling alliances.)
Holyrood is the only layer of Scottish democracy in which the most popular party has NEVER found itself excluded from government. At Westminster, indeed, it happens six years in every 10, and at local elections voters simply have no idea what might be the outcome of their vote.
Even under Westminster’s hopelessly crooked FPTP there’s a chance of exercising influence via tactical voting, most commonly deployed in Scotland against the Tories. But STV takes that power away from voters, and often sees their vote indirectly electing the party they like the least.
Even if we completely overlook any specific issues, like the Westminster expenses scandal and countless instances of serious wrongdoings at the under-scrutinised council level on a scale that could never happen at Holyrood, the core fact is that Joan McAlpine is absolutely right – the Scottish public trusts its Parliament more than it does any other elected body, and it’s right to do so.
Labour wants to take power away from the one institution the people of Scotland regularly and consistently say they trust more than any other and hand that power over to the least-trusted, least-accountable, least-voted-for sector, for what are fairly naked reasons of political self-interest. While greater devolution is unquestionably a good idea in principle, we don’t think it’s unreasonable to point that out.
Is thatt he Big issue in the cooncillor’s left hand?
“At Holyrood, Scots voted SNP and got an SNP government.”
Sorry to spoil the argument but, in 2011, 55% of the voters (and fewer of the total electorate) voted not to have an SNP government but got one!
“Sorry to spoil the argument but, in 2011, 55% of the voters (and fewer of the total electorate) voted not to have an SNP government but got one!”
Sigh. But more of them (and by a large margin) voted SNP than anyone else. The SNP, in the terms everyone understands the phrase, won the election and they’re the government. In councils, the party that came first have quite often been completely frozen out. That has never happened at a Holyrood election and I don’t *think* it’s ever happened at a Westminster one.
Except it doesn’t spoil any argument. The SNP vote was highest, therefore they had the clearest mandate possible from the results. Who ought to have been in power instead? Try not to talk drivel.
Ok Phil, but under the system this country uses to vote in governments, we got the government we voted for.
There’s a good indication at the link offered below of what ordinary Glaswegians think of the “hard-working and honest councillor” in your picture on his wee jaunt to Cowcaddens:
http://discuss.glasgowguide.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=25114
And, of course, you could always ask ordinary Glaswegians about the likes of Stephen Purcell …
How about a law that the party with the largest number of votes has the first chance to form a council, whether by minority or in coalition with one of the smaller parties? This seems to be an unwritten law, or at least a point of honour, at WM elections (mainly because the scoundrels know they wouldn’t get away with it if they kicked the largest party out – ask Gordon Brown).
It would stop all this ganging up. And as for the so-called “independents”, well, they may say “independent”, but I say “closet tory” (with few exceptions).
This highlight a point I have made several times here on Wings of late – no-one goes into a poling station voting (or even hoping) for a coalition. So how can coalitions be defined as democratic unless it is clear to voters beforehand that the party they are voting for will, if unable to secure a majoirty, aim to form a coalition and which parties they will form a coalition with.
I’m very much in favour of devolution of powers to the most local level possible, and while I appreciate the arguments put up in this article I think there’s a deeper question at stake.
The SNP does have a tendency towards centralisation motivated – I believe – by an understandable and long-held paranoia about Labour numbers, cronyism and corruption on the ground, something more prevalent in local government. That is disintegrating, and the tens of thousands of new SNP members (and Greens and SSP) in every locality need localised structures through which they can build support.
(A seldom mentioned point is what the SNP in particular should do with all these extra hands. Boredom, disillusion and alienation can create all kinds of serious problems and could even dent future independence plans.)
The present structure of local government was gerrymandered by the Major Government of the 90s, and is an undemocratic corporatist’s dream – which is why Labour adapted to it so well. The last thing they want is engagement with people, genuine democratic discussion with real people in real neighbourhoods.
It’s oft repeated that Scotland (and the UK generally) has abysmally very poor ratios of elected representation per head of population. And while I certainly agree with much of what you said about the present voting system for councils and need for reform, that isn’t the main issue.
The SNP Government would do very well to go into the 2016 Holyrood election with a radical policy of local government reform, breaking up the present clumps into something more recognisably representative, plus genuine empowerment of neighbourhoods through elected representative councils with responsiblity for relevant budgets.
Short-term party interests are never a good basis for policy; the SNP should trust the people – we’re out there and we’ll respond to being given real localised power.
@Ian
And not only that, the vote for the government that the Scottish electorate favoured actually increased in 2011. An endorsement of trust, efficiency and common sense well rewarded.
As has been made more than fundamentally clear on this website (and WBB)…FPTP doesn’t offer any form of democracy whatsoever to the Scot’s electorate.
FPTP = undemocratic, antiquated adversarial politics, not consensus
Time for the Holyrood model to spread down to council level and over to WM (to define ‘up’ to WM would be to put that place on a pedestal that it doesn’t deserve).
Holyrood is a much better reflection of voters wishes than Westminster with FPTP. Holyrood’s system isn’t perfect, though. It’s the best on offer, and that in part is why it’s trusted most.
Trust is also high because the SNP’s and Green’s best people go to Holyrood and focus on what they believe is best for Scotland. That cannot be said for any Unionist party.
Ian says:
19 January, 2015 at 12:26 pm
Ok Phil, but under the system this country uses to vote in governments, we got the government we voted for.
And, of course, exactly the same applies to the elections for the UK government.
And, of course, only the SNP tell the voters who they would work with at Westminster. Not sure about the LibDems, having listened to Clegg at the weekend.
In the area in Edinburgh I live in we have three councillors, one SNP, one labour and one green. Sadly they all talk a lot of guff and follow the whip without embarrassment even if you contact them directly.
They have voted for the trams, the blanket 20mph speed limits and anything other than the people of Edinburgh want. We also have a transport convener , Labour who is always on the BBC Scotland news which is in no way connected to her being a candidate for the 2016 election.
Yawn…
As in Stirling, Falkirk Council is currently run by a Labour/Tory coalition.
As part of the ‘Austerity Cuts’, £40 million pounds in savings has to be found over the next three years.
The response of this Coalition is to target these cuts to the Social Work/ Education budget, effectively hammering the most vulnerable yet again, while conveniently blaming these measures on cuts imposed by the Scottish Government.
Of course, the fact that they have also voted to build a brand new Municipal Building complete with all the trimmings, they’ll take the credit? for themselves
I’m swayed by the arguments, best put in Lesley Riddoch’s book, for devolving power past councils to smaller units of co-ops. She describes well the ways that Scottish councils are oversized and inefficient, I think this is also the point Mike Russell was making in a National column recently.
“And, of course, exactly the same applies to the elections for the UK government.”
If this site was called “Wings Over The UK” and backed Scotland staying in the Union, that’d be an excellent point.
That’s a shocker in one of the links – £500K payout to Charity Chief at an Easterhouse organisation. The payout included a £232,708 “discretionary top up”. Holy shit!
There needs to be longer term progress towards more local decision making and accountability. Systems and transparency clearly need to be in place first though.
If Westminster polling is accurate then I think we’re in for a high probability of either a minority government or a coalition of the losers, e.g. a Lab/Tory coalition
There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Londonati media if SNP form a loose or coalition alliance to take power.
I don’t accept the premise that getting who you vote for = trust
How about featuring questions on trust in your next poll?
@steveasaneilean
I agree. My understanding is that in most many party systems with PR where coalitions are inevitable, parties do declare before the election which general grouping (left, centre, right) they align with and who else they are willing to work with. In an independent Scotland I expect we will have many individual parties, and the typical European system of broad alliances will evolve.
@Phil Robertson,
Quote: “Sorry to spoil the argument but, in 2011, 55% of the voters (and fewer of the total electorate) voted not to have an SNP government but got one”
It’s always good to hear the other sides viewpoint Phil, but using the above argument looks more like playground silliness than any serious political point.
However, if you genuinely don’t understand how voting works in a democracy, please don’t hesitate to ask, as like everyone else on Wings, my main desire is to inform and educate the electorate in Scotland.
I’m ashamed to admit it but i used a tactical vote in the last general election and voted Lib Dems to keep the torries out, and look what happened.
Disgusted with myself to say the least!
I will no longer vote for another party “Tactically”, i cant stand the torries being from Fife they helped destroy the kingdom along with the rest of Scotland! they have a cheek even advertising for a vote north of the border!
SNP all the way.
It is a worry though. On top of THE VOW fraud, a Milliband Westminster gov starts stipping powers off of Holyrood. Another extremely sensible reason to not vote Slab in May.
Whilst I agree that the SNP do seem to like to centralise things you’ve got to ask yourself one simple question.
Would you rather trust the SNP with powers at Holyrood or Labour with certain powers on a council level?
The Tories twice “reformed” Local Government as a response to the growth of the SNP. First by Ted Heath in 1974 which brought in the Scottish Regions and then by John Major in 1996 which demolished them and instituted “Unitary” councils with no discernible relation to anything in the communities affected.
Both were cynical ploys to destroy local democracy.
I agree with comments above that the whole system should be changed. Lesley Riddoch is right to advocate the Nordic system of smaller units similar to the parish council size. I also favour a return to the traditional counties which at least were a fairly organic development over time. The old atlases are still around! It shouldn’t be such an upheaval!
Phil, I give you 10 out of 10 for persistence but on each and every occasion “You have been weighed, you have been measured and you have been found wanting”. Keep em coming though – I would miss them 🙂
I think if you look at the history of Labour led Glasgow Council. You will quickly realise why SLAB are so keen on local (Democracy) sic. They see a chance to get their grubby corupt hands on some power. They want to run the councils like the mafia style council in Glasgow Kremlin. It’s not to provide better representation of the people. It’s to provide better SLAB control of Scotland. If they got the chance they would cancel,delay,complain and hold back every policy Holyrood tried to implement. They are deplorable and a parcel of rogues!
Perhaps a reason for centralisation is to spread money as far as possible at a time of cuts when savings have to be made or services get slashed.
The idea that councils represent local democracy is kind of ridiculed by the sheer size of some of the council areas, most notably Highland council. Not to mention Aberdeenshire Council having their headquarters outside their jurisdiction. I’m all for subsidiarity, but unless a council is actually “local”, then they can’t really claim to represent local communities any better than Holyrood.
That’s hardly their fault, of course, since they don’t define their own boundaries. But they day I believe Labour genuinely want to bring decision-making closer to people is the day they start the campaign to reorganise councils more in line with municipalities in the rest of Europe. Until then, I think we’re all quite entitled to think their “double devolution” rhetoric is their usual self-serving nonsense.
After all, this is the party whose UK Health spokesperson wants UK-wide NHS policies, as if devolution never happened.
(Besides, the idea of Willie Young having any more power over Aberdeen than he already has is truly frightening.)
I agree with Dave.
We ought to push for large amounts of local authority powers and funding to be devolved down to Community Councils.
I would be a great way to start undermining the corruption that exists at local authority level.
Labour failed in, Westminster, Holyrood and I dare say at council level too. I wouldn’t trust them to run a bath.
The calibre of councillors and councils, needs to be raised first before the, proposed, devolution of more “powers”.
Though, in my opinion, Labour just want to take powers away from Holyrood and avoid, at all costs, giving any more, never mind useful, powers to said government.
The SLAB troughers in the ENGLISH Parliament in LONDINIUM don’t intend discussing what the Scottish people see as a very important issue for Scotland, so there’s no change there then bussiness as usual.
SNP NOT wanted on ENGLISH Broadcasting corporation debates on ” GREAT BRITTAIN minus Scotland, Wales & N Ireland” em ENGERLAND ONLY THEN.
Politically I AM FEELING LIKE NOBODIES CHILD.
So basically if we can’t exercise significant power at parliamentary level, we’ll rig it so we can wield power at local level.
They’re determined wee souls right enough.
O/T From our friends at Scottish News…
“Since we launched Scottish News in September 2014 our main focus has been to try to raise enough funds to start a daily global news broadcast which is owned and operated within Scotland. As we said in our video before Christmas, this is a mammoth task and will take vast sums of money to launch.
Our crowdfunder, and subsequent donations, allowed us all to move away from other responsibilities and focus on this task full time. In doing so we have produced our promo video, a series of ‘taster’ episodes and a short behind the scenes documentary style clip on what we are trying to achieve, alongside an extensive business plan.
We are still working towards raising the funds to launch the Scottish Evening News, but in the mean time it is not feasible for us to take a wage to do so, which means, sadly, we will not be able to focus on it full time. We will however continue to work towards this goal with everything we have. Rest assured that we are passionate about this project, and desperate to see it to fruition.
On the upside, if we can begin to bring in funds through alternative projects, we can dedicate several hours a week to producing the content that we want to produce without budget concerns. Content relevant to Scottish current affairs. In the short term that will be in smaller, easier to manage productions and not a daily news broadcast, but we still have sight of the long term goal and as soon as it becomes possible to do so we endeavour to provide the broadcast news service that we believe Scotland deserves.
Whilst we are extremely grateful for all of your donations so far, and they have allowed us to create a platform to build upon once we manage to secure some larger donations, the sum we require to launch fully is a 7-figure sum and not one that can be reached through crowdfunding alone. It is for that reason that at this stage we would urge you not to donate any further until we have those larger donations secured. Every penny that has been donated so far has been used solely for the purposes of building the Scottish Evening News and all further donations will be reserved in our business bank account until we can produce further content.
Thank you for all your support, the Scottish News Team.”
I’d be curious to see the political map if we went back to (say) the local govt structure pre 70s reorganisation AND applied the PR system we have for Holyrood elections.
I do favour strengthening local democracy but what SLab wants is transparently not that.
I also think the Yes parties should be creating community councils wherever they have lapsed or never been set up – not to politicise them, but to ensure we have active local pressure groups.
O/T
https://twitter.com/chunkymark/status/557118522711883778
Interesting article…
https://stevetopple.wordpress.com/2015/01/17/same-old-new-labour-beyond-the-third-way-or-a-stealthy-mk2/
And they want to hand more power to this lot.
North Lanarkshire Council at the dodgy contracts game. Awarding a £30 million a year contract to Mears Scotland run by Willie Doherty husband of Glasgow Lord Provost Sadie Docherty. So what do they do? Sack the watchdog (Tommy Morgan)
This in the Herald.
http://tinyurl.com/n34awyt
The woman who lead the Tories at Holyrood came 4th in the election in her constituency. Not only is she in Holyrood but leading a party, there has to be something wrong with that system
As others have said, this issue is dealt with very well by Lesley Riddoch in her Blossom book. We don’t have local democracy in Scotland. We don’t give local communities enough control or enough say over that which is done to them by their “local” Council (local in my case being over 100 miles away).
Personally I would ban party politics from local government and make local government as small as reasonably possible – perhaps more akin to the old town council model so long ago abandoned.
In addition we should have much tighter scrutiny over what local authorities do and the decisions they make and how they spend our cash than we currently do.
At present they seem to make decisions with impunity, riding roughshod over the views of local people, and without being really answerable to anyone, least of all us ordinary Council Tax payers.
As for Labour’s record in local government in Scotland I present as exhibit 1:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/monklands-council-guilty-of-nepotism-and-unfair-spending-1587298.html
Need I say more?
The problem with devolving even more powers to councils, is simply down to the fact that they are simply not up to it. They do not have the legal and other expertise available to the Scottish parliament.
Time and again, local councils of all parties, have shown themselves to be inept at even the simplest of administrative tasks (Edinburgh trams?). Indeed, there are quite a few councillors in Scotland I wouldn’t trust to boil an egg, never mind take on new powers.
And then we have Scotland’s very own tammany hall (Glasgow council) run by Labour for the benefit of Labour for the last fifty years. A more corrupt, wasteful and inept public body would be hard to find.
So, regardless of politics, whilst Holyrood is not perfect, I think it is a helluva lot more competent than most local councils.
Vote Labour in Glasgow and you get the Orange Order thrown in for free.
Even David Torrance couldn’t make that one up.
But the Labour leader of Glasow City Council,
Gordon Matheson, did.
Devolving budget responsibility to Glasgow Council would be like HBOS donating loans to David Murray.
Actually, that’s not strictly true.
It would be worse. Much worse.
@ Nana
Good links. “New Labour MK2” caught red handed in that stevetopple piece.
Democracy, in the sense that people think of it, doesn’t work,it never did or we’d be happy, what we have is a system of pretendy democracy to keep the masses believing they have a direct input.
The complexities of real democracy would lead to nothing ever being done, so the solution arrived at by all politicos is Benign Dictatorship and the trick with that is to make it look like you got what you asked for, but that now has become more difficult with an increasingly more interested electorate
So it’s probably time now for the politicos to Fess up and lets see if anyone’s got the gumtion to talk first and admit the only way to rule fairly on behalf of the people, for the people is to be a Dictatorship but really nice people
and that’s how we get rid of the greedy sponging councils and put in all our own drones to carry out the tasks
Oh how i wish that would work but sadly it wouldn’t coz unfortunately it has to be run by people and there’s the rub isn’t it We’re all too corrupt to stay nice..
I would though (Honest)
In East lothian its a Labour/Tory run council,all pals together on the ‘Better Together ‘ stall and on the council.
They are bloody awful! Cant wait to get shot of them,but its a long way off.
Good news is that George Kerevan is to be our westminster SNP candidate,getting lots of folk along to canvass and its looking good response wise so far.
Anyone wants to help,please contact local SNP group!
Local democracy is painfully thin on the ground and simply taking things from Holyrood and given them to the current council setup would make things worse not better.
It would need a complete shake up of local democracy and a much better audit and control of councillor activity. If Labour have such proposals then by all means air them. If they are simply looking to hand more lard to the existing set up then absolutely not.
Divide and rule – same ol’, same ol’.
Reduce the power of the Scottish Government and, hey presto, given enough time, argue it is superfluous.
Ignore all those tourist posters stating Scotland is a ‘wee country’ – all edges easy to see from the centre – and then reissue them when it’s been returned to small again by severed and disconnected democratic government.
Aberdeen City Council, a Unionist Council supported by a Green. Refused a Gift of £80Million to pedestrianise the City, UTG project favoured by the majority. The Council is spending £33Million vandalising the Art Gallery. Paid £26Million of AECC debt. Muse Construction was given an exclusive contract to build a Carbuncle, which will be leased back by the Council over thirty years costing £Millions of future debt. ACC voted against the by pass road for thirty years. The council was underfunded 30% for thirty years by Labour/Unionist Gov The Health Board was underfunded by Labour/Unionist Gov. They tried to get the FM banned from the City. They are an embarrassment.
In many Councils the SNP have the most elected members but the Unionists Parties unite to gain power. All councils should have to publish their budget on a website.
Well said. Glasgow City Council is hardly representative or fiscally responsible. We need to introduce new voting systems for local elections so that voters can be sure their views are heard and money is spent on their behalf and not misapproriated
Phil Robertson says:
Ian says:
Ok Phil, but under the system this country uses to vote in governments, we got the government we voted for.
And, of course, exactly the same applies to the elections for the UK government.
Erm … I know I’m the village idiot around these parts but excuse me for asking … where exactly on the 2010 G.E. ballot paper did the option for coalition appear? 😉
I’m sure I must have blinked otherwise I’m sure I’d remember seeing it. 😛
Yes folks you all know who I am … I’m just giving all my *ahem* alias’s a wee bit of an airing today! 😀
Landslide Westminster elections are won by 27% of the vote.
Lets not forget Glasgow council’s original plan to blow up high rise flats live on TV at the commonwealth games!
Incidently the Lorraine Dunbar/ Barrowman ham Brigadoon show at the start. Represents old colonial Scotland. Nicola Benadetti and Dougie MacLean represent the Scotland I would rather live in.
Sorry to go off-topic, but has anyone received their copy of the print edition of the Scottish Statesman yet? Total lack of communication from them.
I think that party politics at council level have mostly been detrimental. At national level it is necessary as a shorthand for what a politician stands for but at LA it could be done with everyone Independent and standing for a ward they live in. Voters could easily get to know the candidates through local hustings and the council could make use of all talents rather than what we have now where every council is excluding almost 50% of the councillors from contributing ideas and solutions.
Groupings would be based vote by vote on true support for a measure and would bring more consensus and be more effective in actually improving local areas.
If democracy is to be local then 1800 persons of voting age is about the maximum for any “locality”. More and it becomes impersonal.
That gives a minimum of 2500 local authorities in Scotland, 20 per MSP, 276 in a “region” like Mid Scotland and Fife and 168 for the kingdom of Fife. As Fife already has 73 cooncilors its only just over double the number of talking heads if things really do need to be decided at a mormaer level.
One general problem of governance – and this applies to a lot more than Scottish local government – is that, with so much of a council’s money coming from central government, there is no particular incentive to use that money wisely. This is because a council does not have to take the political pain of raising that money in the first place. Would Edinburgh have voted for trams if they’d had to pay for (much of) the scheme themselves? Hardly.
If the Scottish Government is responsible for paying for local education and local social work, in effect, they might as well run them too – thus, connecting much better who pays for something, to who spends the money.
It has taken over 35 years to get full fiscal autonomy from Westminster. Still waiting.
I’m beginning to think that Phil is just a strategem to get a stooge to talk shite & get shot doon in flames. 🙂
Born & bred in Glasgow, the last thing we need is more power for the crooks who can’t handle what they’ve got.
Labour only want the power to go to local councils so they can still get their hands on dirty cash for building approvals and other scams they are involved in ,as you will find in most labour controlled regions it takes a tad more than just having the money and the will to build shops ,homes etc you need to grease a lot of the labour palms and they dont want to lose that, that is the real reason they are as corrupt as they come and each and every labour region should be investigated for corruption and licencing and planning corruption …..just ask the people who had to fork out 5000 – 15000 pounds in an envelope over dinner who asked for it
Devolution to local council level is the final part of Labours rearguard campaign.
They are slipping into oblivion and the final hold is slipping as their grip is lost.
Dirty tactics may give them a few more years but I doubt it.
😀
Hey Phil, how about this one, 800,000 tampered with postal votes won the day for the 55% (aye right!) and your precious union. British democracy in action. You’ve got to love it!
Village Idiot? 😀
Coffee and keyboards don’t mix well.
I live in Highland Council area. It has 80 members for a massive area. It is usually described about the size of Belgium, but about the size of Macedonia would be more accurate. A little bigger than Turkey would also be true.
This is the nightmare that the Major government created. I can assure you that it was not democracy that they were thinking of when they created this monstrosity. Democratic it definitely is not.
Decentralization of decision making would be good, but it cannot be done while we have such huge unwieldy unmanageable entities at the top. However, I don’t want to see another Local Government reorganization on a massive scale. I would suggest that a gradual approach would work better.
Is that devolved, or is it reserved?
Of course, the New Labour councils’ machinations are predicated on New Labour retaining control of the councils. If they think we’re going to stop the SNP surge in 2015 or 2016, they’re sorely mistaken.
“Extra” hands? No such thing: every single pair of hands is needed and will be utilized. 93,000 may seem a phenomenal amount for a party, but we’re up against the machinations of Westminster, don’t forget – and that means we’re still “only” the third largest party.
Labour must be aware that it is perfectly possible to vote them out of Local Government as well. The 2016 elections will be the next major battle. Voters need to be reform minded at every level of representation.
If we were not already justifiably wary of the new-found enthusiasm for localism among British politicians then Gordon Matheson’s ill-judged remarks should serve as a warning. Unable to conceal his hatred of the Scottish Parliament and the SNP, Matheson clumsily reveals that this Core Cities “initiative” is driven by a British nationalist agenda that has absolutely nothing whatever to do with empowering local communities, and everything to do with giving the British parties in Scotland the means to undermine the Scottish Government and drive a wedge between the people of Scotland and their parliament.
Let us be very clear about this. The British political parties, and particularly their branch operations in Scotland, are driven by a single imperative – the preservation of the British state and, thereby, their own power and privilege. Their overriding aim is to get the Scottish Parliament back under their control and to install an “executive” in Scotland which will be Westminster’s lapdog. Everything that the British parties in Scotland do must be seen in this context. Many would prefer to abolish the Scottish Parliament entirely.
It is hardly unknown for politicians to take a popular policy and pervert it to some nefarious purpose. And that is precisely what Matheson and his cronies are up to here. There is broad agreement that local devolution is highly desirable. But it MUST be done for the purpose of improving democracy. We MUST NOT allow localism to be hi-jacked by the ruling elites of the British state for the purpose of securing their grip on power to the detriment of democracy.
Local devolution in Scotland must be implemented solely under the auspices of the democratically elected Scottish Parliament. Better trust a snake in the grass than a British politician bearing a gift purporting to be power for the people.
From this document: How many Elected Representatives
Though the actual size of the populations of these different council types varies considerably from – 118, 209 and 256 people per councillor in France, Austria and Sweden respectively compared to 2,336 and 2,603 people per councillor in Ireland and the UK respectively.
So, the UK has 4.5% of the political representation of France at local level.
@ bjsalba
Local Government is devolved.
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/visitandlearn/25488.aspx
A return to the County structure should not involve a great deal of upheaval in my view. Add on smaller parish style units. But, even if it did, it would be worth it to reform the undemocratic structure we have.
Last I heard from Scottish Statesman a printer had let them down, another was doing it. But much time has passed…
Money that could have been better spent I’m beginning to think.
I think Phil’s second name is anonymous.
There can’t be two of them, can there?
Ken500 says:
“It has taken over 35 years to get full fiscal autonomy from Westminster. Still waiting.”
Depends if you count FFA and Home Rule as the same thing. In my mind they are. In which case we’ve been waiting well over 100 years.
Federal Broon offered it with his personal guarantees and some folk actually believed he was serious!
If there was only the choice between Red Tory or Blue Tory at local government level, I probably wouldn’t vote but if I did it would most likely be Blue Tory.
Reasons, they often are independently wealthy and do not therefore have the same motivation to fiddle.
They are better educated on average.
They often have a more holistic appreciation for community character, especially smaller communities.
Provided, of course, welfare matters were always controlled at the national government level, where I would always vote for the fairest option open to me.
Further devolution is an excellent,progressive idea. But let’s continue to focus on the first bit, and get that right.
O/T OUCH!!
Read Full James Blunt Takedown of Chris Bryant
Dear Chris Bryant MP,
You classist gimp. I happened to go to a boarding school. No one helped me at boarding school to get into the music business. I bought my first guitar with money I saved from holiday jobs (sandwich packing!). I was taught the only four chords I know by a friend. No one at school had ANY knowledge or contacts in the music business, and I was expected to become a soldier or a lawyer or perhaps a stockbroker. So alien was it, that people laughed at the idea of me going into the music business, and certainly no one was of any use.
In the army, again, people thought it was a mad idea. None of them knew anyone in the business either.
And when I left the army, going against everyone’s advice, EVERYONE I met in the British music industry told me there was no way it would work for me because I was too posh. One record company even asked if I could speak in a different accent. (I told them I could try Russian).
Every step of the way, my background has been AGAINST me succeeding in the music business. And when I have managed to break through, I was STILL scoffed at for being too posh for the industry.
And then you come along, looking for votes, telling working class people that posh people like me don’t deserve it, and that we must redress the balance. But it is your populist, envy-based, vote-hunting ideas which make our country crap, far more than me and my shit songs, and my plummy accent.
I got signed in America, where they don’t give a stuff about, or even understand what you mean by me and “my ilk”, you prejudiced wazzock, and I worked my arse off. What you teach is the politics of jealousy. Rather than celebrating success and figuring out how we can all exploit it further as the Americans do, you instead talk about how we can hobble that success and “level the playing field”. Perhaps what you’ve failed to realise is that the only head-start my school gave me in the music business, where the VAST majority of people are NOT from boarding school, is to tell me that I should aim high. Perhaps it protected me from your kind of narrow-minded, self-defeating, lead-us-to-a-dead-end, remove-the-‘G’-from-‘GB’ thinking, which is to look at others’ success and say, “it’s not fair.”
Up yours,
James Cucking Funt
The TTIP agreement will be signed off this year. It will be an all encompassing agreement without exemptions except where opt-outs are in place at the time of signing. Mr Cameron and the Westminster government will represent the UK (including Scotland) and as such any commitment by Westminster will be binding upon Scotland, including areas presently devolved to Scotland. The NHS in Scotland will be up for grabs by private healthcare except that it is made clear the TTIP does not apply to areas proscribed by the Scottish parliament and this is not clear at the time of writing. Time is not on Scotlands side.
more here;
http://caltonjock.com/2015/01/19/real-dangers-for-the-nhs-in-the-trans-atlantic-trade-and-investment-partnership-ttip/
Your point is worth considering, Phil, but more needs to be taken into account. I do not have statistics to hand, and do not doubt that your 55% is correct by some measure. However, to be fair, what measure is it based on?
The voters had two votes, one for their constituency MSP and one for their List MSP. Some people voted for a constituency candidate who belonged to a different Party from the one they chose for their ‘List vote’.
So, please clarify: Do you mean 55% of ‘the voters’, or 55% of all the votes cast (constituency and List combined)?
I think you will agree that ‘the votes’ are more indicative than ‘the voters’ in this instance. Your point presumes that all voters voted for only one Party. But this was not the case: some voted for two. There is no way of telling how many did this – whether many or few – but some certainly did.
It therefore follows that we cannot just presume that everyone who cast one of their votes for the Conservatives, the Lib Dems, Labour, the Greens, the SSP, or whoever, did not cast the other for the SNP. They may or may not have done, but nothing can be presumed on that account – there is simply no way of telling.
I’ve heard Lesley Riddoch talk a few times on devolving power to local communities & I do think it’s a good idea but not yet.
Surely the first step is to ensure that an Scot govt has a mandate to take such steps which can probably only happen at the Holyrood elections as it is specific only to Scottish democracy.
Some councils are well known for their croneyism so any attempt to tackle them will be resisted by the dirty tricks brigade anyway. Scot gov needs to know it has the power of the people behind it for such a radical shake up. It needs to be done but if the people aren’t behind it, any attempt will be doomed to failure.
Had independence gone ahead then that could have been a part of the transition process but alas it didn’t.
Destroy SLAB first in May then 2016 @ Holyrood using the power of the ballot box by voting them out. With resistance minimised, change can happen.
O/T
Stu is not having a good day. He’s locked out of his home 🙁
Devolving powers to local councils is Labour’s latest wheeze but in reality it is just postcode lottery by another name.
In local council elections if no party has an overall majority then the resulting coalition should always be between the party with the most seats and one of the ‘losing’ parties. Never between two ‘losing’ parties such as happened in Stirling Council (Lab/Tory).
O/T weird but amusing
Electoral calculus has taken a flaky today and will not predict the Scottish outcome based on input data from the latest poll.
It predicts the entire UK instead of just Scotland.
Amusingly if the 46% SNP 26% Labour 13% conservative and 7% Lib Dems are keyed in it predicts NAT majority of 370 in the house of commons.
510 seats for the SNP
121 Seats for Labour
1 seat for the lib dems
0 seats for the pandas
18 seats split between greens, Plaid and the Irish parties.
I know Alex Salmond is good but this is a tad unrealistic
Meant to state why James Blunt wrote to Bryant…
After the shadow culture minister name-checked Blunt as one of the performers from a ‘privileged background’ dominating the arts, the singer decided to write back
and lets not forget…
Chris Bryant claimed over £92,000 in expenses over the five years leading up to the 2009 scandal over MPs’ expenses. During that time he flipped his second-home expenses twice, claimed mortgage interest expenses that started at £7,800 per year before rising (after flipping) to £12,000 per year. He also claimed £6,400 in stamp duty and other fees on his most recent purchase, and £6,000 per year in service charges. Chris Bryant changed second home twice to claim £20,000: MPs’ expenses
I’m going to take a wild guess and say that James Blunt is a tad irked by the gimp.
Good letter though.
What about Ronnie Saez, council official in Glasgoe who managed the East End regeneration scheme. Failed miserably,and left with £500,000 in pocket.
@bjsalba, The Highland Region is bigger than Turkey? do you mean the one you had for Xmas.
The sheer geographical size of Highland makes risible the idea of ‘local’ government and the multi-member wards (based on population) compounds it.
Look at the maps of Ward 1 (3 members)
http://www.highland.gov.uk/info/772/politicians_elections_and_democracy/463/council_wards
and Ward 6 (4 members)
http://www.highland.gov.uk/info/772/politicians_elections_and_democracy/463/council_ward_information/6
If you have a local councillor within 50 miles you are very lucky.
Come election, it is firstly, ‘will any of them even know where I live?’ Then of those that may, ‘Who would I vote for?’
I agree that we should go back to the old ‘county’ system which makes far more sense. Rather than just set councillors, community councils should be able to send a member to council debates. Not necessarily always the same person but sometimes just a local person who has expertise or informed opinion on a particular matter, to represent them.
Pre-1975, virtually every burgh (upwards of 1,000 citizens) in Scotland had its own town council, which appointed its own full-time officers (just 3 or 4 depending on size). Elections were held every year with one third of the councillors having to submit themselves for re-election. Those councillors had to present their case at heckling meetings comprising local citizens, most of whom had long memories with regard each councillor’s performance over the previous three years. This was certainly local democracy in action.
Apart from Scotland’s four major cities, party politics were completely absent as councillors were expected to be politically independent and elected solely for the good/benefit of the people in the town. They did not receive any remuneration for any council work/meetings and expenses were extremely limited. For example, one representative of the council would have been appointed to attend the annual meeting of COSLA (Convention of Scottish Local Authorities), yet all he/she got was a rail travel warrant, and, perhaps, a frugal boarding and/or meals allowance.
Unfortunately, nowadays, councillors have a professional status, yet they hardly behave or perform as professionals. Undoubtedly some are good, but none are outstanding by any measure. Most, in my opinion, have become mediocre in terms of performance. Party politics at local level has killed off independence of mind, thought or opinion. Until that is reversed, there is little chance of any improvement in local democracy.
@boris Some further info.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2AMNmigWzQ&feature=youtu.be
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/europe-releases-its-ttip-proposals-intellectual-property
http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/press/index.cfm?id=1234
http://www.waronwant.org/news/press-releases/18263-eu-condemned-for-supporting-corporate-courts-
Douglas MacDonald,
Quite so. Exactly the sort of system we need again.
And now the cyberrats know how we felt on 19 Sep! The man is back!
@Peter A Bell
Not clear what you’re proposing, Peter; more localised democracy or not? If so, when?
I agree Labour apparachniks like Matheson calling for devolution to local councils is just a tactic to buttress their (fast eroding) power base. So call their bluff – the last thing they want is real local democracy, so let’s give them it in spades
As I suggested at in my original post at 12.42pm, I reckon there thousands of SNP / YES activists out there who would relish the opportunity to get involved in democratically engaged, genuinely (and financially) empowered truly localised government – county, town, neighbourhood levels, all elected and accountable. I doubt many in Labour would have the stomach for that.
I also think localising democratic responsibility is the best way to win even deeper and wider grassroots support for independence, and to let all the new party members and local activists channel their energies productively. It’s one thing to have a re-engaged electorate and a massive surge in party membership; it’s another to keep people engaged and postive about the choice they made.
So let’s break up the Tory-conceived, remote and unrepresentative corporatist authorities and replace them with a system that’s genuinely democratic. Centralising power is a symptom of fear, and it leads to bad government.
Or worse, to the bizarre notion of “benign dictatorship” as espoused by dear old @Dr Jim, above.
I say trust the people, and give them the power and responsiblity to manage much more of their own communities. Independence will come by building that kind of ‘can do’ confidence in ourselves.
Douglas Macdonald @ 4.48pm, mentioned Town Council “Greeting Meetings”, generally on the eve of the poll, when the ordinary punters could turn-up and have a go at the cooncillors.
There is a legend in Cumnock about one Provost, a local bus driver, who had a standard greetin’ meetin’ speech, which nicely sums-up what being a local cooncillor is all about.
The speech allegedly went: “Us yins has been pit here by youse yins, fur tae see that us yins secure fur youse yins, the things whit youse yins pit us yins here fur tae get youse yins in the first place.
“And youse yins can rest assured, us yins will use the powers, vested in us yins, by youse yins, fur tae get youse yins, the things youse pit us yins here fur tae get youse yins in the first place.”
What councils and councillors are all about – couldn’t be any clearer.
“What about Ronnie Saez, council official in Glasgoe who managed the East End regeneration scheme. Failed miserably,and left with £500,000 in pocket.”
DOESN’T ANYONE *EVER* CLICK THE LINKS?
Tedious tantrums
Your post reads that the SNP voted for the Edinburgh trams, which is not the case. Labour led the way on this with the Tories and LibDems eager partners at Holyrood and Edinburgh Council, costing us £476 million or so.
Capella says:
19 January, 2015 at 1:19 pm
The Tories twice “reformed” Local Government as a response to the growth of the SNP. First by Ted Heath in 1974 which brought in the Scottish Regions and then by John Major in 1996 which demolished them and instituted “Unitary” councils …
Actually the first reorganisation of Scottish local government happened in 1975 under Harold Wilson, not Ted Heath. Unlike the 1996 one, the 1975 structure was introduced after a serious analysis and a genuine consultation process. I do not believe that this particular reorganisation had anything to do with SNP success in the 1974 election – all it did was to extend the new (1974) two tier local government system from England/Wales to Scotland.
The 1996 one was quite different. It was brought on abruptly, without a discernible rationale, and was in my opinion prompted solely by the desire to destroy Labour’s power base, in the same manner as the 1986 abolition of the Greater London Council.
I do not think SNP figured in either of these events.
Strange how labour when in opposition make demands for greater scrutiny here or more robust governance there, etc.
Yet when in power, they actively avoid scrutiny, which then results in major adverse issues that only fully come home to roost when labour have been thrown out of power.
It then beomes someone else’s problem!
But as we know (the crash, Iraq or pensions), labour then go into a defense mode in opposition blaming the incumbent for not sorting out the problems labour created when in power.
I believe the SNP have nothing to fear by devolving power or opening the Scottish Government up to greater scrutiny. It derails opponents, pleases the electorate and is a guarantor of high standards should the political map in Scotland change for the worse.
I am more worried about the press / media / bbc and how the SNP will be marginalized as the uk election approaches! This is our greatest challenge!
D McD
Phil Robertson says: 19 January, 2015 at 12:16 pm:
“Sorry to spoil the argument but, in 2011, 55% of the voters (and fewer of the total electorate) voted not to have an SNP government but got one!”
Besides being a somewhat specious in the first place your argument defies the basic of arithmetic, defies simple logic and resembles the mental process so beloved of the Establishment’s Labour party.
Hint: – It cannot be applied when more than two parties stand in the election unless ONLY two of the parties share the total votes.
You’re not a Labour in Scotland supporter by any chance are you, Phil?
It appears that the only fair result is for Labour to have its God given right to be victorious in every election in Scotland in every aspect of brown envelope stuffing and having the power of greyskull or murphy’s heid.
@Rev Stu
I’m sure Bob Mack was just summerising the content so the rest of us don’t have to click through 🙂
I can see why Chris Bryant assumed James Blunt made it to the top on his networks and connections, as it sure wasn’t on his songwriting ability.
Macart says:
Village Idiot? 😀
Coffee and keyboards don’t mix well.
Oops! 😉
Sorreee! 😛
Send me the bill for the cleaning up and I’ll pass it on to oor Jimbo who will be only too pleased to pay it … provided he can claim it on his expenses of course! 😀
As far as the regions thingy is going I have to admit I’m all up for the regions being disbanded and the old original counties being returned to service. I far rather have smaller counties than these humongous unwieldy regions that we currently have.
These regions are just an excuse for masses of money and equipment to go *ahem* missing! With the old small counties people felt more comfortable and able to deal with the council, I think, and were more likely to get things seen to in an orderly fashion. There again tis I … the village idiot here so what the hell do I know! 😀
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
“What about Ronnie Saez, council official in Glasgoe who managed the East End regeneration scheme. Failed miserably,and left with £500,000 in pocket.”
DOESN’T ANYONE *EVER* CLICK THE LINKS?
Stu … calm down. Remember there are a lot of folks on here who are *ahem* village idiots in training! 😉
As you know being a village idiot takes a lot of hard work and it is not easy trying to get folks to do the unthinkable … click a link … any link. I’m doing my best but as the sole holder of the village idiot title it is a long and winding road to reach the end but I’ll keep going for the benefit of all under training! 😀
The problem with STV arises when losing parties combine to completely exclude the party which actually came first in the election.
http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/CouncilNews/ci_cns/pr_referendum_020312.asp
Adding to ken500, unionista Aberdeen City Council have bankrupted the oil capital of Europe but a nasty example of disfunction democracy in action was their Aberdeen wide poll held to decide whether or not to accept Ian Woods £50 million gift and destroy the center of Aberdeen with the money. Aberdeen voted YES, unionist council NO and then they scrapped the poll, rejected the old fraud’s vanity project, because there’s nothing you can do is there Aberdeen. The poll cost a fortune too. But its only money, loads and loads a tax payers money.
ABZ Finance Convener and landlord Labour millionaire Wullie Young hasn’t been sectioned, yet. But he’s up on a complaint again that the next white elephant they’re building in Aberdeen was farted out in way too much secrecy. Lets all have a poll to see where the contracts went.
Village Idiot :
Can I suggest you move to Cumnock – they don’t have a Village Idiot, so, everyone gets their turn. You could save them a lot of heartache.
Socrates MacSporran says:
Village Idiot :
Can I suggest you move to Cumnock – they don’t have a Village Idiot, so, everyone gets their turn. You could save them a lot of heartache.
😀
Mind you Socrates I think you can see my moving to Cumnock would create a wee problem for me, or rather the wee village where I currently live. 😉 What would they do for a village idiot. I can’t be in two places at once … or can I? 😛
@martin wood regarding the electoral calculus giviving SNP 510 seats.
I guess the only thing left is, will we grant england a referendum to leave with all their debt and missile system (assuming they can afford it, if not it goes to the new Scottish branch of “nukes for cash” and the waste gets fly tipped over the border at 3am.
Sorted !
O/T There is an indigogo fundraiser set up to raise £5000 to help SNP candidate fight Jim Murphy’s East Renfrew seat if anyone interested. Sorry cant post link.
What happens when a Village idiot moves from his village to New Cumnock?
He raises the average IQ in both places.
I’ll get my furry coat and whooooosssshhhh
O/T re a previous thread
@Chic Mc gregor
sent this reply to you at the bottom of the thread “The price of truth” Am repeating it here in case you don’t read it there!
Thanks for that great check-list.
I modified it to suit Northern ireland, adding pics (I do like a nice bit of colour on the page!!) and comments.
All we need now is a Welsh friend to adjust it for Wales and we’ll be able to sell boxed sets!
Hope you and all the other Wingers enjoy the post!
Best to all
ben
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/for-your-eyes-only-key-actions-from-the-british-unionists-handbook/
Hi Annie,
Here’s the link
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-kirsten-kick-jim-murphy-out/x/2351308#home
I’m going to donate a cheeky tenner when I get paid later in the week.
an says:
19 January, 2015 at 12:26 pm
“Ok Phil, but under the system this country uses to vote in governments, we got the government we voted for.”
Doesn’t matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.
https://id.theguardian.com/profile/ajistsaidnaw/public
Thankfully no one is falling for BBC etc vote Murphy in May or else Scotland and of course this is NOT future Lord Murphy and soon to future Scotland region Labour FM CiF but he’s really really funny. If you’re out there Jim, we know you’re a phoney lefty tory boy and everyone knows even you’re eggman was a phoney.
“Nationalism is the measles of the human race.” must be stamped on his soul by now, plus expenses.
You try to be nice, you try to be humorous, you even try to inject a note of sarcastic irony sometimes, but even then the professionally outraged brigade, who seem to have no little affection for their own intelligence just can’t help themselves can they. Perhaps in their eagerness to display this imaginary depth of intellect they might read peoples posts more to a pace in keeping with the speed of their mighty brainpower and maybe, just maybe they may understand what the posters intent was instead of exercising their absolute freedom of speech to be a Numpty just for the sake of it, and i’m not the only one,,Yet Again..tiresome little people better suited to Big Brother TV than talking to actual people…
I dont know but it might be there is a case for tactical voting Tory in East Renfrewshire to kick Jim out and see what Slab do with a non elected party leader.
Alter the constitution?
Hand clapping
I’m all for tactical voting, but I think there is a limit of tolerance people will accept. Asking folk to vote Tory is beyond the limit . People will ignore the request.
Espoused?
Tediustantrums says:
19 January, 2015 at 12:49 pm
In the area in Edinburgh I live in we have three councillors, one SNP, one labour and one green. Sadly they all talk a lot of guff and follow the whip without embarrassment even if you contact them directly.
They have voted for the trams, the blanket 20mph speed limits and anything other than the people of Edinburgh want. We also have a transport convener , Labour who is always on the BBC Scotland news which is in no way connected to her being a candidate for the 2016 election.
Yawn…
Er, incorrect I am pretty sure that the SNP voted AGAINST the continuation of the trams when it was obvious it was a white elephant, a very expensive one!
However , Edin Council are performing incredibly badly regards developments, I do wonder who is being given the backhanders because it seems to all go against what is in the interests of the city and its history, especially the artchitectural integrity. Some development good, mich very bad. Needs serious investigation and fine tooth comb taking thru the planning deptartment.
Mark Ferguson
Labour List
I want rid of Trident and I’d back a real attempt to axe it. But I also know an SNP trap when I see one. I hope MPs know the difference too.
6:53pm – 19 Jan 15
@ Schrödinger’s cat, handclapping, it may not need a tactical vote, as the nasty buffoon now has to con his wealthy electorate that he is only going to take SLab all new mansion tax from all those soft southern English/Londoners for his 10,000,000 new nurses and certainly NOT mansion tax plush Renfrewshire. Below is NOT Murphy, but rancid Graun CiF ajistsaidnaw who hates divisiveness and is not a unionist but is, depending who asks:D
“However, describing Labour support for Better Together during the referendum as a ‘Grand Betrayal’; sneering at Jim Murphy’s plan to deploy funds from the mansion tax as ‘contrived political posturing’ and describing criticism of the nationalists as ‘juvenile and tawdry’ has made me convinced that he has now wholeheartedly embraced their discordant ideology. A shame. I have a great deal in common with Kevin and I will always be grateful for his focus on the With Kids charity in the east end of Glasgow.
I would be even more grateful if he would do everything he could to prevent a right wing Tory government achieving a majority at the next election and destroying the public sector in the UK. That means urging Scots to vote Labour.”
Come back tellen1
Nana Smith says: 19 January, 2015 at 4:52 pm @boris Some further info. Thanks. I’ve added it to the report
In terms of local government and the Labour party critisisms. We’ve been here before. Gordon Brown vetoed the moves; Quote from, (Labour focus ‘must be on reform’) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5358610.stm
“the early influence of the camp of would-be Labour leader Gordon Brown which is thought to be more cautious about handing down power.”
@ annie @ Betsy Thanks for the link. Just added my own “cheeky tenner”.
Would it be possible to live in a council where SNP won but got booted out by a tory/labour coalition who then went on to introduce tuition fees, private healthcare and education because these powers had been devolved to them?
@ClanDonald
Yes 🙁
@ClanDonald
But …
you stated “devolved” and it might be that the devolving authority might have something to say, like abolishing the council.
Anyone on facebook?
MURPHY (VIDEO) DUNDEE REFUSING TO TALK WITH YES VOTERS
https://twitter.com/Independent_SCO/status/557271899584348160
Of course everyone likes to talk about devolving more power to local councils, health boards and communities, until it actually happens and things start being done differently in different areas. Then they talk about postcode lotteries.
@ben madigan
The term ‘unionist’ in a Scottish and Northern Ireland context are quite different things as you should know.
That document has nothing to do with Northern Ireland Unionists and should certainly not be used to wind them up.
Also you have left in at least one reference to the SNP, a party which also has nothing to do with the political situation in Northern Ireland.
Please do not use a tongue in cheek dig at Unionists in Scotland which is quite a different group from a similarly named group in Northern Ireland. For example at the time it was first written the belief was that the majority of Scottish catholics were pro-union and a large percentage of the Scottish Labour leadership were/are catholic as well.
Not the same thing. Not appropriate in any way.
Please desist and do not attach my name to this inappropriate and spurious association you have made.
Here it is Nana
http://tinyurl.com/ln2oyyu
@hetty
Totally agree some of the new buildings in Edinburgh are an embarrassment to our city,whoever gives the green light to these buildings must be a fan of 60`s/70`s council block chic.
There is a new building on the beach front at the west end of Portobello that looks like a prison block,what a waste of a chance to build something that enhanced and complimented such a great location.
New iScot magazine just issued, looking at the likes of the McCrone report. I genuinely believe this could be a success.
That will be down to us.
http://www.iscot.scot/iscot-magazine-january-february-2015/
@Dr Jim 7.24pm
I understood it, and it made me smile!
🙂
@John King
Thanks John.
Jim has a strange way of reaching out to Yes voters.
Shallow cabinet, good description.
It might surprise people that Westminster’s rules don’t actually officially recognize political parties. The original idea was that the United Kingdom would be split into constituent parts, (constituencies), of roughly equal size. That each constituent part would elect a single representative to speak for them who would represent every person in that constituency whether they voted for the representative or not. The elected body was to elect the officials of government from within their ranks.
It was the elected members who introduced political parties for their own best interests and certainly not for he interests of the electorate. Note that the Queen summons an individual to her presence and commands that individual to form, “Her Majesty’s Government”.
History shows it need not always be the leader of the largest party. See WWII for example. Note that if a member jumps ship from a party that member continues as a member either as an independent or by the member, not his/her electorate, joining another party. I.e. the member continues to represent his/her constituents, not his/her party.
A matter of democracy, Labour/Tory duplicity to enpower and enrich the 1%. Must watch for all wingers, ” The Super rich and Us” on iPlayer of all places. First class journalism that exposes the neo- liberal nightmare in the UK. The second episode concludes with the confessions from the super elite that they know that they have gone too far, that the 99% are at breaking point. This is why the establishment loath the SNP with a passion, we are the vehicle of their doom.They have fought us with all their might and will continue to do, because otherwise it is the end of days for them. Now it is spreading across the Uk via Ukip and Greens. We have already induced a Grand coalition at Westminster. Did anyone think they would live to see Red\Yellow\Blue Tories unite to vote on austerity Super Max?
On todays outing of DimJim he,ll be renting a crowd shortly,reach out and touch sombodys hand Jim anybodys hand anybodies there.
Can I just point out that if the SNP achieves the same percentage vote in May as it did in the Scottish Parliament Election in 2011 it will win around 50 seats. That is not fanciful. It is possible.
We already did it.
What we should do is stop implying a London Labour Government is more acceptable than a London Tory one.
A message that there is no real difference would be useful though I think it will become increasingly obvious that Labour isn’t going to win, not least because BBC is now in full Tory mode in its UK wide coverage.
How it will square this with full Labour mode in Scotland I don’t know
@Phil Robertson says:19 January, 2015 at 12:45 pm:
” And, of course, exactly the same applies to the elections for the UK government.”
Balderdash, Phil. There is no such thing as , “The Government of Britain”.
Last time I looked Britain was only a single entity as an archipelago. An archipelago that was comprised of a bipartite United Kingdom that contained four individual countries. is made up of the non-UK Republic of Ireland, the non-UK Bailiwick of Jersey, the non-UK Bailiwick of Guernsey and the non-UK Isle of Man. The latter three being Crown, (NOT UK), protectorates. There is no such thing as the Government of Britain, No British armed forces and no queen of all Britain.
Your not very good at this political debating thing are you Phil? Making it up as you go along are you, Phil? Is it perhaps you follow the Unionist mantras, “Never mind the facts – just claim anything you like”?
@ Dave McEwan Hill
53 constituencies out of 73 in 2011 is equivalent to 43 out of 59 at Westminster – it isn’t necessarily valid to just calculate it that way, of course, there may be other differences such as the size of majorities needing to be overturned, turnout, etc.
I’m not wanting to be over-optimistic – 43 would be very good; 50 or more fantastic.
Dave mcewan hill , the “BBC” in Scotland won’t square with “down South”
As per the London “daily press” Scottish and English editions with often
Completely contradictory headlines for the benefit of the unionist
Perspective either side of the border.Be assured that the “Jackie Bird”
Show etc ,when the time is right will back Murphy and his coheres
“To the hilt”the media will hope that a fair percentage of theScottish
Electorate just won’t notice the separate media agenda/messages North
And south of the border.This actually has been going on for as
Long as I can remember (decades) and really only has become
More apparent to most people because of Wings, Newsnet etc.
Come on guys & gals – have a wee thought. There are very large countries all over the World split into areas/states/or territories that have populations and areas very much larger than Scotland and they have just one elected senator/member or whatever they care to call them. There are cities much bigger than Scotland’s population :-
Shanghai – 24,150,000; Karachi – 23,500,000; Beijing – 21,150,000; Delhi – 17,838,842.
What will happen if we devolve powers too far is that we will have small areas exclusively Tory, Labour, LibDem and Raving Loony. When the chances of the Raving Loony party running the country are nil the chance of them gaining power in a small area are much higher. It is not a good idea to devolve powers too far.
@ChicMcgregor
Sorry to have offended you so much. Please accept full apologies
The typing error re SNP was corrected as soon as i re-read the post
As you requested your name was removed
I do not agree that i created an ” inappropriate and spurious association”
I think the post illustrates the unionist/Loyalist mentality in NI .It does share some features (but not all),with Unionists in other parts of the UK but it has its own distinctive profile, as you rightly pointed out
If the post winds them up – well, it’s simply a reflection in a Mirror
Dave McEwan Hill
Labour isn’t going to win, not least because BBC is now in full Tory mode in its UK wide coverage.
How it will square this with full Labour mode in Scotland I don’t know
It won’t even bother to try to do that; after all, lying has worked so far, so why change a successful strategy?
Until it blows up in your face, of course.
@ben madigan
Apologies accepted. Glad you have corrected the SNP error and removed my name (and I hope, Wings).
The continued use of it in a N.I. scenario is, as they say, ‘on you’ and certainly not one I would advocate or entertain personally.
Socrates McSporran
Yon cumnock coonselors speech reads clear as a bell to me. 😉
TBH that probably constitutes RP pronunciation in Cumnock. 🙂
I don’t want to see any more power handed down to local councils, until they demonstrate their worth. There is a local scandal every week, at local level.
How can they possibly have their eye on local stuff, when there only concern is to go into coalition with a party that their supporters did not vote for?
Here is this week’s cracker from my Council, North Lanarkshire. This is the Council my local anti fracking group asked to call a moratorium on fracking – because they have the power to do that. They said, yes, we sympathise, but the Scottish Govt. need to do that.
“Mr Morgan, who until December was convener of audit and governance, had been for months querying the local authority’s £30 million-a-year contract with Mears Scotland – run by Willie Docherty, husband of Glasgow Lord Provost Sadie Docherty.
Mr Morgan declined to discuss his sacking, hinting at a potential legal challenge that could go straight to Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy to be dealt with.
Sources close to North Lanarkshire Council leader and Labour heavyweight Jim McCabe, who is currently on holiday, insisted Mr Morgan’s removal had nothing to do with Mears.
He said: “This case is in the hands of my lawyer so I am unable to comment.”
Remember also, East Dunbarton are looking to remove free school meals as a cost saving exercise.
Who thinks they don’t have enough power?
@Valerie
I made a comment regarding NLC and Mears earlier in the thread.
Good luck with your efforts. I am in South Lanarkshire but still have Jimmy Hood as MP and McMahon as MSP.
We have an uphill battle against Hoods 14,000 majority but the more we expose these parasites the better.
BTW there was an article on the BBC Scotland news website regarding NLC and Mears Scotland alleged fraud. It was puled within an hour of posting. I guess that would have been a phone call from McTiernan to his pals at PQ.
@The Man in the Jar, sorry didn’t click your link, but see that I also lifted the Herald quote from FB!
I’m just incensed, because we are being treated as mushrooms, nothing better. People need to take a very hard look at their local Council and what they are doing before they ask for more powers. They have the freedom to move their entire budget around, apart from what is raised via council house rents, which should be solely spent on council housing, but generally has a raid made on it too.
People interested in their budgets do have free access to the annual budget, it has to go through committee, so folk should not complain they cant see stuff – start demanding your rights to this, before demanding the Scottish Govt devolves more to these idiots.
And another thing, since when can MPs just decide they no longer have to represent their constituents, as in not taking part in the Trident debate?
What is the bloody point of writing to your MP to inform them of your views?
I’m seething about that.
Maybe it’s time to stop participating.
Maybe that’s our only option to really force change. What’s the alternative?
The SNP and the other pro-Scotland stakeholders should be concentrating on one goal: Ensuring voters go into the polls asking themselves, which party can be relied upon to put THEIR interests first and the interests of their country (Scotland) first, at Westminster.
The SNP are guaranteeing the electorate a Labour Government – one that will guard Scottish interests, if and only if, it holds the balance of power in the next Parliament.
Only by returning SNP MPs to Westminster in overwhelming numbers can that guarantee possibly be met.
THAT should be our singular message of this campaign – That we need win every seat in Scotland we can, because that is the only way power and influence can be accrued and exercised.
The ONLY reason the pro-Union parties have had this damascene conversion to further devolution to local councils is to degrade the power and influence of a Holyrood dominated by the SNP.
That blindingly obvious point is the focus of this article and it needs be heeded. The ONLY way we can create enough leverage to wrest control of our affairs from Westminster is by deploying that dual influence in Edinburgh and at the centre of British state power, in Westminster.
“Wull says:
Your point is worth considering, Phil, but more needs to be taken into account. I do not have statistics to hand, and do not doubt that your 55% is correct by some measure. However, to be fair, what measure is it based on?”
The figures for the SNP vote are within 1% of each other for both constituency and list votes i.e. around 45%. I take your point about voting differently but the outcome would suggest that, whatever went on, it made little difference to the overall shape of things.
Rober Peffers says:
Balderdash, Phil. There is no such thing as , “The Government of Britain”.
For you information, I never mentioned the government of Britain so your rant is based on a false premise. Britain, by the way, is the island containing England, Scotland and Wales. It does not include Ireland.
And as for “It cannot be applied when more than two parties stand in the election unless ONLY two of the parties share the total votes.” you had better tell the Scottish Government, the Electoral Commission and most of the media, all of whom have these figures on their websites.
Wee update on Scottish Borders. SNP now the biggest group in the Administration and Tories lost a by election so the two groups are now equal in numbers. Reason for the SNP, Libdem and Independent coalition was due to Tories p*ssing off LibDems and Indys so much in the last admin that the two groups preferred the new larger SNP group to work with.