LESSONS HAVE NOT BEEN LEARNED

I've had it in mind for a few days to write something about some of the interventions that have been coming from London politicians and commentators about the SNP.

So many of them have now put their two pennyworth in that it seems to be almost impossible to keep up...

Sarah Vine, (close mate of Cameron's wife, and wife herself of the funny looking, snippy wee man who reminds me of a Hogwarts house elf, and who managed to lock himself in a toilet on his first day as Chief Whip) warning that the SNP with its small numbers of MPs in a British parliament, would turn the country into a communist dictatorship.

We all know about Mr Major insisting that no one who is not standing for the parliament should be allowed to pass an opinion on the subject. His announcement of where he is standing is expected shortly.

The along came Boris, with his usual lack of tact and diplomacy, to liken Nicola Sturgeon to king Herod, the bloke, you'll remember, that had all the kids in his country killed, lest one of them turn out to be competition to him in the king stakes.

Then you get Cameron announcing that he intends to set up inspections of the work of the Scottish parliament... So much for the most power for any devolved parliament in the world, anywhere. Way to get our approval, Poshboy.

 Anyway, I've spared you from my thoughts becasue I saw THIS and could never have bettered it. 

Every day someone launches an attack or vitriol at the SNP or at Nicola personally. 

What I can't understand for the life of me is why, over the last few months, they haven't learned that that kind of thing doesn't actually do a lot of good.

OK. In the referendum they alternately love bombed us and blasted us with hatred. A teary-eyed Cameron one minute saying how it would break his heart if Scotland left (presumably because whatever else he was remembered for ...very little I suspect... he would go down in history as the prime minister who lost Scotland)... and the next they screamed at us that we would be broke within a month, they'd take our currency away from us, bar us from EU membership and put up barbed wire border posts. We really were too wee, poor and stupid to do what Iceland could do with its 400,000 population.

None of that worked. The more they ranted, the more the YES numbers rose. From 22% at the beginning to over 50%. They panicked, got Gordon to come out of retirement to promise Federalism, because they had known all along that that was the most popular option... and, as we know, they won the day 55/45.

But we also know that the day after the queen purred down the phone at him, Cameron stuck a great big evel knife in Gordon's back. Voting on English laws in the UK parliament would exclude Scottish MPs. (Not desperately unfair in my opinion: why should a Scottish MP vote on English matters for which he has no responsibility to his constituents?) But effectively this meant that Labour would almost never again really be in power, even if it won a UK election. The Tories would nearly always be able to vote down Labour's legislation for England, because the Tories would nearly always be in an English majority.

Game, Set and Match, Cameron.

The Eton boy famously said that he had Alex Salmond bagged, stuffed and mounted on his wall after the referendum. Given what has happened since he may well live to regret that!  What he really had on his wall though, was Ed Miliband. And Ed had signed the vow, and Gordon had made it credible. Sheesh, how they must have broken out the good Bolly that night.

If I'd been in any of the major English-based parties at the beginning of the campaign for May 2015, with the SNP in the ascendancy, I think I'd have been looking back at the near past to see if I could learn from the mistakes that were made which led to a post referendum situation where the losers were the winners; where the SNP was the third largest party in the UK with probably around 14 times the number of members in Scotland as their nearest rivals, Labour. And the Greens had at least as many members as Labour.

I might well have ruled out another vow. I'd certainly have ruled out Gordon "I guarantee all this.... oooops" Brown.  And I think, given its obvious popularity, I'd have ruled out gratuitous insults of the SNP and its leadership.

Who do they impress, these insults? I wonder if even solid Labour voters like to hear Sturgeon being likened to a child murderer by a posh boy whose party has overseen thousands of deaths of our poorest people by cancelling their social security payments just weeks before their deaths. 

Maybe some people are amused by these things, but you don't convert floating voters with that kind of talk. 

If you don't believe this, look at the debates where the unionists ganged up on Nicola and Patrick, or just Nicola, and then look at the SNP membership spike that followed them.

I can't quite work out why the London parties are so intent on committing political suicide.

In the referendum campaign I always thought that they would find a way at the end to scupper our hopes. 

I couldn't, of course, guess what it would be. You'll remember that I proposed it might be a terrorist plot to bomb Holyrood, foiled by the might of the British Empire's secret police. (Not difficult if they had organised it.) 

Or maybe the death of a senior but expendable royal.  

Or the wedding of Harry to someone or other, anyone will do,  and great rejoicing and celebrations throughout the land. 

I must admit I never saw coming the Vow or the Clunking Fist guaranteeing it.

I still think it quite possible that they have something up their sleeve for a couple of days before the election. 

Please let it be Gordon again. That would just be so funny.
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PS.... A propos de Gordon, I have just read this tweet from Iain:

Iain Macwhirter ‏@iainmacwhirter  9m9 minutes ago

It's #indyref 2! "All we need is Gordon Brown trundled out like Mons Meg for one last blast against the Nats". My Herald column tomorrow.

STAND BY FOR YET ANOTHER U TURN: THIS TIME BY THE TRAINS

It's a while since we had a full blown U-turn from the London lot, but after reading an article in the Daily Telegraph on the new English high speed train link from London to Birmingham, then on to Leeds and Manchester (what they call bridging the North-South divide!!), I think I can see that Mr Hammond will not be long in providing us with much merriment.

The scheme has been criticised by just about everyone and every organisation in England. Natural England, the Forestry Commission for England, English Heritage and the 13 councils running areas the length of the route from London to Birmingham (the first stage, due to cost £17 billion) have condemned it.

It is being described as deeply flawed, distorted and based on false premise and accused of ruining ancient forests, spoiling habitat and even endangering the water supply.

MPs of the constituencies along the route, including cabinet minister Cheryl Gillan, the deputy chief whip, a Foreign Office minister and a Cabinet Office minister have also criticised the plans, which, given its unpopularity in these constituencies, is not unexpected. The Presiding officer, John Bercow's constituency is also affected and the London Mayor has slated the project because of the bottle neck it will cause outside Euston Station, its London terminal.

A report for the "51M" group of local authorities along the London-Birmingham stretch, written by two leading transport economists, Chris Castles and David Parish, concludes that none of the government's claims on behalf of HS2 stack up.

Capacity on the existing West Coast Main Line, the main alternative to HS2, could easily be tripled, they argue, while building HS2 will lead to major disruption" and will overload the transport system all around Euston, the line's London terminus.

The report's authors scorn claims that the north-south divide will be bridged and say that this is not borne out by any evidence.

The report catalogues "a long list of errors and dubious assumptions in the government's analysis", according to Chris Castles, who also accused the 'pro' lobby or using "vague rhetoric, obfuscation and abuse." You have to wonder, at a time when the UK is so short of money, why the government is pressing ahead with a scheme so clearly unpopular, which is going to cost billions of pounds that the country doesn't have.

After all, when all this money has been spent, it will only take 15 minutes off the journey from London to Birmingham... Someone, somewhere must be getting something from this. It's certainly not the public.

Does anyone know if there is to be a Barnet consequential for this project?

POLL RESULTS: 8% FOR SHOOTING PEASANTS!

Thanks to everyone who took the time to take part in the poll on the English police’s reaction to His Royal Highness The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, Duke of Rothesay, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, Prince of Wales, Knight of the Thistle, Knight of the Garter, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Bath, Member of the Order of Merit, Knight of the Order of Australia, Companion of the Queen's Service Order, Privy Counsellor, Aide-de-Camp, Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall, Earl of Carrick* and his companion Her Royal Highness Mrs Parker-Bowles being disrupted on their way to the theatre in a Rolls Royce and provocatively bedecked with more bling that any of the rest of us are likely to see in our entire lives.

It had been suggested by the London police chief, Paul Stephenson, that his officers, specially attached to the royal personage, had only one duty, and that was to get their “principle” to where he was supposed to be going. Nothing else mattered. I remember listening to him and his mate Boris Johnston spluttering on about the outrage of the heir to the throne having to be delayed getting to the theatre, and Mrs Parker-Bowles frightened out of her life by ordinary but angry people. He was adamant that his men had behaved with restraint because they had the right to shoot people. ...And not one single soul had been shot! Goodness. Copngratualtions to the police for that excellent piece of work. And not a passing newspaper vendor killed either. Magical.

The argument then opened up beyond shooting peasants to the use of various and sundry other crowd control methods, such as tazers, tear gas and water cannon. Boris Johnston chuntered on in buffoonish fashion that we British peasants were lucky that, unlike these Europeans, OUR lovely rozers didn’t use these methods of crowd control. (Although that’s not entirely true, and they do in any, case kettle people for up to 12 hours without toilet facilities, charge at them on horseback, turn them out of their wheel chairs and drag them across the road, and of course kill the odd passerby on his way home from work (although clearly not if he is on his way to the theatrein a dinner jacket).

As they were talking, I was imagining what would have happened had the royal protection officers decided to kill a few people as examples to the rest, obviously in order that they complete successfully their mission of getting this "principle" to his night out. I had my ideas as to what would have followed, but I was interested to see how people, from a fairly wide political spectrum and an extremely wide geographical area, who read this blog, felt.

So, here we have the results:

83% felt that shooting the protesters would provoke much more severe problems including civil disobedience. (Personally I would be surprised if someone didn’t burn down Clarence House and then Scotland Yard and then the Houses of Parliament.)

14% felt that it would escalate crowd trouble.

I was actually quite surprised that only 5% thought it would be reasonable to use water cannon, tazers or tear gas, I’d have thought more might have been happy to see control brought back to the streets by these methods, used commonly elsewhere in Europe.

That 8% thought that the police should have shot people who were threatening a late arrival at the theatre of their Hallowednesses, was I thought, quite shocking.

But I suppose we should know that in this country, the value that is put on the life of a newspaper salesman is not necessarily the same as the value of the life of a son of the Queen.

Grateful thanks once again to all who took part.

(*PS: It seems to me like Charles Philip Arthur George has around 15 jobs there. Does the government not think that in these times of economic depression it is unreasonable that one man hole down 15 government funded jobs? Should he not lose 14 of them to other people about to be made redundant?)

HOORAY! WE'LL NEVER BE POOR AGAIN...

Let me say at the outset that I am a strong believer that people who can work, should work, and that those who cannot, should be supported at a decent standard of living.

Whether people are unable to work because of advancing years or because of illness, pain, disability physical or mental, we, as a decent society, one which helps people of other countries and advises them on human rights and decency, should look after them to a high standard.

This makes me sound like I’m Mr Iain Duncan Smith in the flesh, but of course that is where we part company.

IDS has said that his reforms will make it always pay to take a job. And because, of course, he would not be willing to insist on a liveable minimum wage, that means reducing benefits. This is roughly what Mrs Thatcher did in the 1980s, removing the earnings related supplement and then reducing benefit entitlement based on National Insurance payments to 6 months instead of a year. Then when she had managed to reduce the level of benefits, she abandoned the wages councils and allowed companies to pay as little as they liked. (The state of course had to take up the slack with housing benefits and supplementary benefit, but that’s another story.)

Mr Duncan Smith said a new Universal Benefit would lift 350,000 children and 500,000 working age adults out of poverty, while the number of “workless households” would be cut by 300,000.

Super. Let’s just make this very clear. At minimum wage of £5.93 per hour, working a full week of 37.5 hours, this brings in a top line income of £222.38. That is an annual salary of £11,563.

An internationally recognized way of calculating poverty is to mark it at 66.6% of the average wage. (Yes, I know it’s flawed, but it’s the best we have, and poverty can be described as comparative.) The average wage has dropped by £2,500 over the last year to £25,543. That would make the point below which one drops into poverty by UK standards (on which I assume Mr DS is working) at £17,011.

To take people out of poverty, without recourse to benefits, Mr Duncan Smith will need to provide full-time jobs at somewhere in the region of £9 per hour. Is that going to happen?

IDS insists that he will be able to cut £1 billion from the amount that is taken, either fraudulently or in error, which is marvellous, and I commend him for this. But I think that without any doubt he has exaggerated the anticipated results of his policies in order to overshadow the downside of all of this which is that, in the hands of target driven, under trained, underpaid clerks on the front line, and managers with precious little idea of how to manage, this will bring untold misery to many totally innocent, poor people struggling to survive. A downside which is seen by some on his own side, including the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

Let’s also remember that the DWP is currently being investigated for falsifying statistics and that Duncan Smith’s assistant Chris Graying seems to have a habit for exaggeration (going back over many years) of that which he sees in his mind’s eye and wishes to be.

Nonetheless, I wish Mr Duncan Smith every success in his quest to find work for people. I’ve been engaged in this pursuit for quite a while now, and it’s not an easy one, but it truly is a satisfying one..

Photographs: IDS, who has genuinely made an effort to learn the problems of the Benefits System (whether this has been successful or not, I'm not sure); Boris johnson, who just looks bored with the whole thing (who could blame him?); and Chris Grayling demonstrating his talent for exaggeration (!!!!!).

FANCY A 55% PAY RISE?

All you need to do is be a FTSE company director.

Another example of how we are so NOT all this together has come to light.

New figures from the Institute of Development Studies show that FTSE 100 director pay increased by 55% in the year to June. In the FTSE 350, boardroom pay climbed by 45% on average.

FTSE 100 chief executives paid themselves on average £4.9m during the year. But the study found the rise in pay packages was enhanced by share options, long-term incentive plans and bonuses.

In the meantime another survey by the same consultancy found that employers were still pushing through pay freezes, which effectively means that pay is being cut when inflation is taken into account.

Unions were rightly shocked at the levels of pay at a time when workers suffered real cuts to their wages, pay freezes and redundancy.

What a charmless and unequal society we live in. How did we get to this stage where greed is so good, the devil take the hindmost, and the poor depend on Boris Johnston to save them from eviction?