Wings Over Scotland

We need to come up with a name for this sort of thing. The weekend saw a prime example of the cynical, dishonest negativity that’s been inherent in the “Better Together” campaign since day one (and indeed, long before it was named as such).

Two stories about things being banned appeared in Sunday’s papers – the ejection of the “Scottish Republican Socialist Movement” from participation in this month’s march and rally for independence in Edinburgh, and the BBC’s successful complaint against “Better Together” for using its logo in a campaign leaflet. The former got more prominence, as the headline story in Scotland on Sunday in which Labour’s Jim Murphy used the incident as an excuse to smear the SNP despite not a shred of evidence being offered to suggest that the party even knew of the existence of the SRSM (which as far as we can gather is three blokes in a shed), let alone that it was comfortable with its cartoonishly extremist stance.

The anti-independence campaign, meanwhile, declined to offer an apology to the BBC for the illegal use of its logo, and instead took the opportunity to proudly announce that it would be reprinting 100,000 copies of an amended version of the offending leaflet, apparently in response to the SNP MSP Joan McAlpine pointing out the misdeed.

Readers of this site will of course be entirely familiar with this modus operandi, by which random and often anonymous internet nutters who happen to support independence (even if they in fact belong to entirely different parties) are treated as SNP spokesmen acting with the backing of, and speaking for, the SNP leadership. Yet on the Union side even official named representatives – often elected MPs and MSPs, who are paid by the public to represent all their constituents, including those who want independence – are never held accountable for their words and actions.

(Johann Lamont, for example, is yet to publicly reprimand a single one of the numerous Labour MPs and MSPs who have compared Alex Salmond to genocidal murderers, despite Labour regularly forming shrieking lynch mobs demanding the resignation of all and sundry if some minor council-election candidate from the SNP says something mildly contentious on his private Facebook page.)

We haven’t thought of a snappy name for this dismal phenomenon of deliberate double standards yet. It’d save a lot of trouble if we could just refer to it by a category name and avoid having to explain it every time, because we’d put good money on it continuing to happen for the next two years. Anyone got any ideas?

We're just beginning to see how the future of the UK will look under austerity. The full horror of the cuts may not be due to bite until later in 2013, but already we can see where and how they're likely to affect the UK population. Among the most controversial of these measures (so far) are the proposed regional levels for pay and welfare.

The regional pay proposals would see public workers paid less the further from the south-east of England they work (although devolved services in Scotland would be spared this), while the regional welfare payments would see a person on benefits paid less if they live in a poor area of the UK.

At present, government jobs are split into pay bands, with those on a certain band in one occupation earning roughly the equivalent of another public sector worker on the same band in another occupation. There's room for manoeuvre within the bands, but not much. These banding brackets are agreed through national pay negotiations by unions, ensuring that staff are treated fairly and consistently regardless of where they work. However, the creation of regional pay proposals puts an end to that idea.

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We’re just beginning to see how the future of the UK will look under austerity. The full horror of the cuts may not be due to bite until later in 2013, but already we can see where and how they’re likely to affect the UK population. Among the most controversial of these measures (so far) are the proposed regional levels for pay and welfare.

The regional pay proposals would see public workers paid less the further from the south-east of England they work (although devolved services in Scotland would be spared this), while the regional welfare payments would see a person on benefits paid less if they live in a poor area of the UK.

At present, government jobs are split into pay bands, with those on a certain band in one occupation earning roughly the equivalent of another public sector worker on the same band in another occupation.  There’s room for manoeuvre within the bands, but not much. These banding brackets are agreed through national pay negotiations by unions, ensuring that staff are treated fairly and consistently regardless of where they work. However, the creation of regional pay proposals puts an end to that idea.

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We noted at the autumn 2012 reopening of Parliament that Scottish Labour were again attacking the SNP for being “obsessed” with the independence referendum at the expense of other matters of more direct concern to the people of Scotland. At that week’s FMQs, Johann Lamont also bitterly criticised Alex Salmond on the grounds of secrecy, with particular regard to future EU membership.

The implication, of course, is that were Labour in control of Holyrood they would be powering ahead with a dynamic programme of openly-declared policies. Now seems as good a time as any for a recap of what Scottish Labour’s positions currently are.

Known policies are highlighted in bold.

[UPDATED: 21st July 2013]

– on the constitution: “Vote for the status quo and we’ll change things at some undetermined point in the future, in some unspecified way or ways (even though we just spent several years on the Calman Commission/Scotland Bill, supposedly coming up with a settled and lasting position on devolution).”

– on a replacement form of local taxation: “We’ll get back to you on that.“

– on the existing Council Tax: “We will either freeze, increase or cut Council Tax”

– on higher education funding: “We haven’t made a decision yet.“

– on fighting sectarianism: “We refuse to participate in the discussion.“

– on alcohol pricing: “We’re for doing something, but not this.“

– on gay marriage: “The time is right to consult on options.“

– on raising train fares above inflation: “We are both for and against this.“

– on maintaining/upgrading nuclear weapons: “the Labour Party has pledged its support for a ballistic [nuclear] missile-armed submarine platform based on continuous-at-sea deterrence.”

– on building a new generation of nuclear power stations: “We haven’t ruled new nuclear power in, but neither have we ruled it out.“

– on use of Scotland Bill taxation powers from 2016: “If you have got tax powers, you have to make a decision as to whether you would use them.“

– on maintaining universal benefits like prescriptions, personal care and bus travel for the elderly: “Once we have decided as a country what kind of public services we aspire to, then we must have an honest debate about affordability.“

If anyone has any more up-to-date information on these or any other Scottish Labour positions, please do send it in. In that event, you may wish to CC Johann Lamont.

Just the facts.

RECORD IN COMPETITIVE MATCHES

Berti Vogts P13 W5 D4 L4
George Burley P8 W3 D1 L4
Craig Levein P10 W3 D4 L3

PERCENTAGE OF GAMES WON

Berti Vogts 38.5
George Burley 37.5
Craig Levein 30

PERCENTAGE OF POINTS WON

Berti Vogts 48.8
George Burley 42
Craig Levein 43.3

Berti Vogts was building a young team from scratch after the veteran side of Craig Brown disintegrated, and still got us to the [EDIT: Euro 2004] playoffs. He was sacked after 13 competitive games. George Burley was being constantly undermined from within by his own players, from above by the SFA and from outside by the media. He was sacked after just eight competitive games.

Craig Levein has more players from the top divisions in England and Scotland at his disposal than any Scotland manager of the last decade. He has now led the team through 10 competitive games, and won significantly fewer of them (against worse opposition) than either Vogts or Burley. He has comprehensively lost the faith of the Scotland support. If we are to maintain even the slightest hope of qualification for World Cup 2014, his time is up. He must go, and he must go now.

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We’ve never in our entire lives wanted Scotland to do anything other than win a football match. Tonight, that might change. The dismal but all-too-predictable performance against Serbia on Saturday was another soul-crushing 90 minutes under Craig Levein. His tactic of playing every game looking for a 1-0 win on the counter-attack, despite having a defence almost totally incapable of keeping a clean sheet, was thrown into sharp relief last night as Andy Murray – once a notoriously passive and defensive tennis player who regularly failed at the last (or second-to-last) hurdle – finally completed his transformation into an attacking powerhouse capable of going toe-to-toe with the likes of the brutally talented Novak Djokovic and winning.

From Levein’s pronouncements since the feeble 0-0 draw with Djokovic’s Serbian countrymen at the weekend, the Scotland coach shows no signs of learning the lesson of Murray’s magnificent victory, and seems perversely determined to stick to a losing formula as much out of sheer stubborn petulance as anything else.

Starting the qualifying group with two home points from six would leave Scotland with a mountain to climb, but with eight games to come it wouldn’t be a completely insurmountable one. The catch, however, is that it WOULD by any sane analysis be an impossible task with Levein as manager.

If he plays this defensively at home – and incredibly, it’s by no means inconceivable that he’ll once again line up in a few hours in 4-1-4-1 formation with Kenny Miller alone up front – it’s safe to say our chances of securing the away wins we’d need to stand a chance would be nil. And more to the point, even four points from six are unlikely to be enough with the best teams in the group still to come, if we keep playing this way.

Scotland fans who don’t want the next two years to be over before they’ve begun now face a gruesome reality. Victory over Macedonia would secure Levein’s position for the forseeable future, which would almost certainly doom the qualification attempt to failure. Two more dropped points, on the other hand, might just be enough to see him sacked. The national side currently has a more talented group of players available than at any time in the last decade, and is stronger in attack than in defence for perhaps the first time in 20 years. A more positive manager might well still be able to save the campaign, even from such an inauspicious start.

But tonight’s game is the last point at which that will be true. The next round of matches sees us away to Wales and Belgium, and if Levein is allowed to oversee the dropping of any more points there then the situation will be utterly irretrievable. In this blog’s view, Scotland’s only hope of qualifying for World Cup 2014 is to draw tonight. (A defeat would be a catastrophe too far for any manager to recover.)

So do we pray for victory over 90 minutes no matter what, or take the long-term view? This blog, for more than just footballing reasons, finds itself – albeit uncomfortably, reluctantly and painfully – in the latter camp. What do you think? The poll’s at the top of the grey column just to the right of these words.

The CBI Director-General, John Cridland, came north this week to tell Scotland we shouldn’t be independent. He has every right to do so. But what he has no right to do is use half-truths as the basis for his scaremongering.

I hear that Mr Cridland told the CBI Annual Dinner in Glasgow on Thursday night that the “immediate effects [of independence] would be profound, and in the short term costly. When Slovakia separated from the Czech Republic, it cost the country four per cent of its GDP in the following year.” But what Mr Cridland won’t tell us is what happened next.

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We’re thrilled to welcome to the blog the YesScotland campaign’s estimable post-graduate European law expert Stephen Noon, with some intriguing stats.

The International Monetary Fund has just published its latest statistics for the relative wealth per head of different countries. And, for Iceland, Ireland, Norway and the UK, they paint a fascinating picture.

The figures are based on “purchasing power parity”, which allows us to make a fair comparison between the different countries, and they show that Norway, Ireland and Iceland are all wealthier per head than the UK. Indeed, at no point in the financial crisis did any of the countries dip below the UK in this IMF wealth league table.

If we take a look at 2010, when the full impact of the crisis was being felt, the wealth per head for each country, in current international dollars, was:

Norway     $52,165
Ireland      $39,492
Iceland     $36,535
UK           $35,344

The UK was $1,192 behind the ‘poorest’ of the three, Iceland, at this point. If we fast-forward to the current year, 2012, the IMF estimates are:

Norway     $54,479
Ireland      $40,443
Iceland     $39,083
UK           $36,605

This year, the average UK citizen is now forecast by the IMF to be $2,478 poorer than his equivalent in ‘insolvent’ Iceland. And putting the IMF’s crystal ball to full use, let’s take a look at referendum year, 2014. What will be the relative strengths of the four nations by then? Won’t being a powerhouse big country have propelled the United Kingdom above lowly Iceland at least?

Norway    $57,217
Ireland     $44,283
Iceland    $41,647
UK          $38,935

It seems not. In 2014, the UK won’t even reach the level of GDP per capita that Iceland enjoyed in 2012. The wealth gap between the two countries will have increased, once again, to $2,712 per person.

Similarly, for Ireland, 2010 saw the Irish $4,148 ahead of the UK in wealth per head, and according to the IMF that Irish advantage will increase to $5,348 in 2014.

And finally, Norway’s $16,821 advantage per person in 2010 is forecast to become $18,727 by 2012 – in other words, just short of 50% wealthier than the UK.

It’s not quite what you’d expect from listening to the rhetoric of the anti-independence parties. Perhaps they should actually go to Iceland, or Ireland or Norway – small, independent nations which, it seems, now form an arc of faster recovery.

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A version of this post appeared previously on SNmr.

The official website of UK Labour carries a page devoted to Willie Bain MP, the elected representative for Glasgow North-East. It contains a mission statement including the stirring sentence below:

“Politicians have to keep in touch with the people who elect them, and that’s why I’m working hard in the constituency too. I will never claim lavish expenses and never milk the system.“

(Our emphasis.) This week, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority published its official account of MPs’ expenses for the year 2011-12. Out of 650 MPs, Willie Bain was the 5th-highest claimer, racking up an incredible bill of £180,923.70 to the taxpayer on top of his £65,738 salary.

(If the current Parliament runs to its full length and these figures are typical, then the services of Willie Bain will have cost the UK public £1,233,305 over the term.)

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As regular readers will know, we've always been keen admirers of Bruce Everiss's almost-unparallelled videogames-industry knowledge and expertise. So we've been thrilled to recently see him storming back to the cutting-edge as chief of marketing for David Darling's new company Kwalee, which has hit on the genius idea of making it big in the ultra-competitive App Store market by employing a vast team of staff to come up with two-player-only knockoffs of ancient board games.

The well-documented problem with the App Store, of course, is visibility. To have a chance of getting your game noticed you need it to get lots of great reviews, and when your games are extremely mediocre and competing against hundreds and hundreds of existing clones of the same thing which DO offer single-player play as well as online, the chances of that happening are slim.

Unless you cut out the middleman and write the reviews yourself, of course.

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Recently we’ve highlighted a few of the more demented arguments made by Unionist politicians and commentators with regard to the independence referendum. But there’s one aspect in particular that we can’t quite get to grips with, so we’re going to throw it out there and see if anyone can enlighten us, especially some of the wilder-eyed carpet-chewers in the “No” camp who we know keep a keen eye on this blog:

“If, as you claim, Alex Salmond desperately wants to get out of holding a referendum on independence because he’ll lose it, why are you helping him?”

Answers on a postcard please.

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We’re quite cynical folks, especially when it comes to Scottish Labour. We expect little from them, although even then we’re still sometimes surprised. But a couple of pieces today from two of the Scottish party’s most prominent – well, let’s use the word “thinkers” and keep things civil – raised our eyebrows good and proper.

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