Back to basics
This site was originally supposed to be quite a low-maintenance affair, planned to mostly link to interesting stories from other places. So much for THAT theory. But for old time's sake (and because we've got some paperwork to do today), let's round up a few worthwhile pieces that might have escaped your attention lately, especially if you don't keep an eye on our Twitter feed for some inexplicable and frankly rude reason.
Promising fairly-new blog A Sair Fecht offered up this impassioned plea to Labour and Liberal Democrat voters (in particular), which could probably have done without the word "fascism" but is otherwise a terrific piece of heartfelt commentary that couldn't be further away from the media myth of the "cybernat". While over on the other side of the fence, hardcore Labour activist Duncan Hothersall (who we're currently trying to tempt into a Straight Debate) broke a long blogging silence with a very honourable call for more decent discourse, which we hope he'll put into action here.
In the professional media we enjoyed Alain Massie's thoughtful appraisal for the Scotsman of Labour's chances in the Scottish local elections next month and his long-term analysis of how the party found itself in its current state in Scotland, while we were entertained in a very different way by trying to work out the exact shade of purple in Kevin McKenna's face as he embarked on a particularly bitter, vitriolic rant against the SNP in the Observer (yes, even by Kevin's high standards), perhaps as a result of his humiliation after the paper apologised for McKenna's lies in an utterly disgraceful piece about Jocky Wilson.
Away from party-political issues, Iain Macwhirter was also in good form in the Herald, spelling out the thing a great many people were thinking about the recent Elish Angiolini report on women's prisons but were afraid to say for fear of being immediately denounced as a vile misogynist by the increasingly militant fundamentalist-feminist (femdamentalist? fundafeminist?) camp. And on the Rangers front there was an intriguing financial investigation of the club's immediate future by Paul McConville, arriving (by way of well-sourced study of the available facts) at the conclusion that one way or another there'll be no Rangers in Scottish football next season.
With luck we'll have time later for a closer look at yesterday's First Minister's Questions and the disturbing picture it paints of deterioration in the quality of Parliamentary debate, but that should be enough to keep you going for a while.
On Cornton Vale, I'm largely in agreement with Angiolini. Prison should be a last resort, reserved for the violent and the incorrigible. Banging people up for non-payment of fines and repeat victimless crimes costs me a fortune and prison rarely turns anyone into a better person. The plural of anecdote is not data, but back in the 90s when there were a series of suicides at Cornton Vale I was struck by the relatively trivial nature of the crimes involved.
If you are an MP at Westminster then you'll have good reason to want to spend more on prisons. (Think about it …) For the rest of us spending on education makes more sense. Cornton Vale is only the start, buf you've got to start somewhere. And if not now, when? Et cetera.
I completely agree. I just don’t see the fundamental difference between the injustice and stupidity of women being locked up for trivial crimes, and the same happening to men.
We have to start somewhere. And it will be easier to take the second step after the first one instead of being all Lib Dem about it and insisting on both steps at once.
A friend who is a senior prison officer has been complaining for years about the lack of action at Cornton Vale. He certainly agrees that CV should be pulled down but makes the point that many of the women are there because it is the only place available where they can get some respite from abusive relationships.
The sheriffs don't want to send them to CV – there is just no alternative place of care.
"A friend who is a senior prison officer has been complaining for years about the lack of action at Cornton Vale."
He might want to rephrase that.
RevStu…oh my. I didn't read it that way until you said that. Must be tired.