THEY MUST BE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT...DESPITE THE UNIONIST PRESS'S CONSTANT CRITICISM

In an email to Munguin from the first minister I noticed the following two paragraphs.

I was both delighted and humbled this week to see that people of Scotland continue to place their trust in the Scottish Government to listen to them and act in their best interests.

The latest social attitudes survey found that 73 per cent of people in Scotland trust the Scottish Government, the highest level since 1999, compared with 23 per cent who trust the UK Government.

Now all we usually hear from the Press and the BBC is "SNP bad" But Holyrood Magazine's poll shows that the Scottish public doesn't actually agree with them.

And it is interesting that 76% of the poll of 1,288 people thought that the Scottish government should have control over most of what happens in Scotland.

We've long believed that the Press had much less influence over the public's opinion than it thinks it has. For example the D C Thomson press in Dundee produces the ultra conservative Dundee Courier, Evening Telegraph, and the once ubiquitous Sunday Post. 

Once upon a time one of these papers, maybe more (and the now-defunct People's Journal) went through the letter boxes of the vast majority of Dundee homes, and yet they stubbornly voted Labour at every election, until very recently, when they have solidly voted SNP.

Any you have to ask yourself how many people who read the Sun actually vote Tory.

The Press and Journal were running a story earlier saying that the Scottish government is the most trusted in Europe, but it has mysteriously disappeared. 

I wonder why.

2016, the Scottish Government and the Media.

By Panda Paws

We live in turbulent times and it’s difficult to make accurate predictions about the future but I feel safe in saying that in 2016 the SNP will be bad. Peak badness should arrive at end of April/beginning of May to be followed after the Scottish General Election by a period of “one party stateness”. 

The mocking meme of “Snpbad” was denigrated by no less a genius than Magnus Gardham (well Leaksy thinks he’s a genius though he neglected to say at what since it patently isn’t journalism). Apparently we are wrong to criticise journalists’ partiality and to wonder if holding the government to account should consist of more than regurgitating opposition press releases and acting as the media wing of SLAB. As Bertolt Brecht once put it perhaps we should dissolve the people and elect a new one given our lack of appreciation for MSM.

No-one and no party is infallible but MSM’s constant nit-picking and misleading spin on the activities of the Scottish government means that roughly half the population wouldn't believe them if they told us Christmas day was 25 December so often has the SNP been accused, warned and criticised. If I were President of the World, once I’d sorted out inequality and war, I’d have mandatory training for all journalists reporting on Scotland where the first, and quite possibly only needed session, would be on the boy that cried wolf.

They accuse independence supporters of confirmation bias, seeing only what we want and expect to see, but they themselves have a big plank in their eye that leaves the motes in ours even more minuscule. In Saturday’s Herald we have former Labour MP John Robertson’s interesting (aka contradictory) comments that he is not a Unionist but he believes in the Union. His comments about SNP people are particularly noteworthy.

In case you'd never heard of him, this is John Robertson, the guy who didn't know whether or not he voted for war in Iraq and who doesn't like SNP voters.
Not a single one of them. He used to be an MP.

"They are not nice people, the SNP, all of them. I can't say anything nice about them because they certainly did not say anything nice about me. “

Luckily Mr Robertson is an easy-going chap.

"I am not bitter. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. I don't hold any animosity towards anybody or any side”

It’s an interesting kind of non-animosity that thinks ALL of your opponents are not nice people so I guess we are lucky that he’s not bitter!

Like most independence supporter I want a MSM that holds all parties to account without fear or favour where journalists analyse the news and inform us. Unfortunately “I want” isn’t “I get”. We have a situation where the SNP is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. 

The Queensferry bridge was “Salmond’s vanity project” and opposed by all other parties, including the Greens, despite it being known since the time of  John Major’s government that the old Forth Road Bridge would not be able to cope with increasing traffic by 2015 at the latest. But when the bridge needed to be closed, was the SNP congratulated for its foresight in commissioning a new one? Well I don’t need to answer that do I.

The SNP are a competent government and whilst I don’t agree with all of its policies, they are miles ahead of the opposition. As much as I rate Patrick Harvie as a politician (though he was wrong on the new bridge!), the Greens have a way to go before than can be an official opposition. However it insults those who have lived under totalitarian regimes to describe Scotland as a one party state.

A one party state is one where the opposition is suppressed, not one where they are so incompetent that few in their right mind would want to vote for them. The Unionist parties really need to get their act together and come up with intelligent, cohesive policies that are based on something more sensible than the opposite of what the SNP says. As it is we are stuck with an immature democracy with a biased, establishment media that fail in one of their primary roles of holding the government to account.

Until then it’s “SNPbad”.

NEW CABINET ANNOUNCED

The First Minister has announced her new cabinet.

A well balanced team with a 50-50 mix of men and women.

Personal congratulations to my own superb MSP, Shona Robison, who takes over the massively important Health and Well-being brief while, quite logically, holding on to Sport, which is so closely related to health and well-being.

The two other deputy leader candidates are in the cabinet in charge of Infrastructure and Education. Again two big posts.

Nicola said of her team: 

"The aims of my government are clear: to create a nation that is both socially democratic and socially just, a nation that is confident in itself and governed effectively and a nation which will address poverty, support business, promote growth and tackle inequality.

"The new cabinet team I have announced today will pursue these priorities with verve, vigour and determination.

"Every member of the cabinet is part of this government's top team on merit, on the basis of the excellent work they have already done as ministers.

"The cabinet line-up is also a clear demonstration that this government will work hard in all areas to promote women, to create gender equality and it sends out a strong message that we will start the business of redressing the gender balance in public life right here in government."

I look forward to the rest of the ministerial team being announced. 

In the meantime Munguin's Republic offers hearty congratulations to all the cabinet secretaries.

JUNK MAIL ALERT

The British Government has produced a booklet about how Scotland benefits from being in the UK. This has been done at Taxpayers' expense.

Of course, that's not unreasonable.

Indeed, I believe the Electoral Commission instructed both the Scottish and British sides to make information on their campaigns readily available to the public. Scotland did with the government's White Paper, and now Britain has with this booklet.

The difference between the two efforts is that every household in Scotland will be sent a British book, whether they want it or not (a bit like the Sun's free copy to every English household, which caused so many problems for Ed Miliband). 

The Scottish paper was and is available to those who wanted it, free of charge, either in a download, ebook or in a paper version. You had to request a copy if you wanted one.

Clearly this cut the cost of distribution, because those who simply weren't interested and wouldn't attempt to read it, didn't order it.

Stuart Campbell has started taking the UK information to pieces and analysing the content in his usual style. Clearly he does it so much better than I do, so I won't even attempt it here. 

I would however like to point out that as I don't want to booklet, I will not accept it.

It will be sent back to Better Together so that they can send it to someone who wants to read it, or recycled to save a tree.

The address to send it to is:

Better Together
FREEPOST RTAU-ZCRB-TELS
5 Blythswood Square
Glasgow
G2 4AD

You may prefer to hand it in at (or send it to):

Scotland Office: Edinburgh
1 Melville Crescent
Edinburgh
EH3 7HW

There may be other addresses to which you could return unwanted copies rather than cluttering up your rubbish bins with them.

I'm sure that the government, or Better Together will be happy to pay the postage on what would be considered junk mail by many.

Of course if you want to read it, write a funny crit of it  and send it (by email) to Munguin as a guest post, I'm sure he would be delighted to publish it, for the usual fee.

MR SALMOND IS A BULLY SO HE CAN'T WALK IN OUR PARKS:

IS MR CAMERON WELCOME?

It seems that even though Mr Salmond was cleared of any wrongdoing, yet again, Aberdeen City Council want to make a name for themselves as anti-SNP council.

They are making a bit of a fool of themselves.

In other news Mr Cameron is threatening trade sanctions against Russia, but a briefing paper being carried into Downing Street shows there will be no trade sanctions. Britain's pathetic mess of an economy quite simply cannot afford to reject any trade with anyone anywhere.

The joke is that this man does business with middle eastern royals whose idea of human rights is making sure that the oil is at the right temperature, and the stones are sharp, and the tanks and machine guns that mow down their own people are made in the UK.

Mind you, the number of times that cameras have caught ministers with briefing papers showing that they have been lying their backsides off, both Labour and this other lot... You'd really think the thickos would learn that if they are going to lie, they should put their papers in opaque folders. Duh.

SHOULD CILLA BLACK GET A BUS PASS?

Following on from the post yesterday about Labour voting against Free School Meals, I thought it worth adding this editorial piece from the Daily Record along with some comments on universality of benefits.

THE independence debate is so fraught that there is a danger of politicians falling into the trap of believing anyone they disagree with must be wrong about everything. 

Labour’s opposition to universal free school meals is a perfect example. Alex Salmond yesterday announced that every pupil in P1 to P3 will get a free hot meal at school.

This has to be a good thing and was widely welcomed. It will mean every child whose parents struggle to feed them adequately is guaranteed a nutritious, healthy meal at a time when getting youngsters to eat healthily has never been more important.

More than that, as all pupils will be eligible, it will remove any stigma from the 20 per cent who already get free school meals.

That too is a step forward.

But despite this win-win situation, Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont still opposed the move. She claimed free school meals would not be her priority as it would largely benefit better off children and the money would be better spent elsewhere.

The respected Child Poverty Action Group and many others vehemently disagree.

They argue that this is a genuine step forward in the battle on poverty.
That is not to say there is no room to criticise the SNP over the free meals issue.

As Tory leader Ruth Davidson pointed out, it is a policy the SNP first promised in 2007 and have had plenty of time to bring about.

But better late than never.

And Labour now find themselves opposing a move welcomed by just about anyone with anything to say about education and the eradication of poverty.

Labour are now at loggerheads with charities and campaigners like the EIS teaching union, the STUC, the Unison union and Save the Children, not to mention the Child Poverty Action Group.

These are organisations Labour should surely be on the right side of.

But in a miscalculation that may come back to haunt them, they have allowed the SNP to steal their clothes.

Leaving aside the fact that if the Record are saying it in their opinion piece, it can be fairly assumed that Lamont has made a pretty serious error there, the vexed question of means testing rears its ugly head yet again. 

I can see Lamont's point of course. The scheme, by not discriminating between poor and rich families, inevitably results in children of rich people being subsidised. 

What's the answer?

There isn't a definitive one. You have to weigh up the pros and cons. 

In this case there's the elimination of the embarrassment of poor children being singled out for free lunches. I can remember how kids hated dinner money being taken at school and some getting a free pass, indicating that in some way their parents were inadequate and couldn't afford to feed them. Making that a thing of the past for kids will certainly be a good thing.

There's the fact that feeding a reasonably nutritious meal every day will improve their health; even reasonably rich parents don't necessarily bother balancing healthy eating with making it tasty (witness the overweight and obese children getting out of Chelsea tractors).

And take into consideration that means testing is expensive and frequently abused. A person who is out of work and applies for free meals (or anything else) may have plenty money in the bank, stocks, shares and a time share in Bulgaria. Or they may be back in work a few weeks after the application, and yet say nothing. Rigorous and regular testing of recipients is expensive, not to mention intrusive. And of course there are people who simply will not beg for help and end up paying although they can ill afford it.

We had the same sort of arguments over free prescriptions when the SNP reintroduced them. 

When Labour brought in the NHS prescriptions were free. Indeed when they

later proposed the introduction of fees, small though it was, Ny Bevan resigned. (Gaitskill proposed prescription fees, dental fees and eyesight test fees to fund, as ever with Britain, yet another war; Korean this time).

With prescriptions we are already subsidising the rich who require expensive drugs. I was recently given a prescription for 100 paracetamol... the commercial cost of this would have been around £1.00. If I'd been in England it would have cost me over £8! On the other hand there are people on massively expensive drugs who also pay only £8. If we were fair, surely we would expect rich people to pay a far greater share of the REAL cost of their medicine.

In the UK as things get tighter... as Mr Osborne promises they will, we will see more of this battle about universality of benefits. 

Richer pensioners may lose the free tv licence (over 75) or the various bus pass schemes that operate in the different countries of the UK.

Again many would agree. Why should Cilla Black or Princess Alexandra have a free tv licence and bus pass or a £200 heating allowance?

And they are fair questions. (But you might also ask if it is right that they should receive a retirement pension.)

Once again, of course the cost of means testing must be taken into consideration. A massive organisation would be required to sift out those who would be entitled. And of course the question is, where would the cut off point be? Income £199.99 per week = bus pass; income £200 a week = no bus pass? Would the cost justify the savings, and how would we deal with people who were 1p above the allowed amount, who would now face bus fares of maybe £15 a week? Also how many cars driven by old people does it keep off the road; how many accidents does this prevent, and how many buses would still run if it weren't for all the old people travelling free?

How many people rich people actually apply for a bus pass in any case? I'd be willing to bet that, although in theory they are entitled to them, neither of the two women above had taken advantage of them.

There is also the inevitability that when you remove the interest of richer people in benefits, these benefits are bound to become squeezed. One of the reasons that we should pay retirement pensions to the likes of John Major is that once benefits of any kind become only for the poor, the standard of their provision inevitably drops. The amount of money put into them diminishes; no one in power has any interest in increasing it.

However, it has to be said that, against all of that, there are undoubtedly billions of pounds, given to people who have absolutely no need of it and which might be better spent on the poor. And that then begs another question: what would the Uk do with that money? Give it to the poor, or start another war?

What do you think?

ELECTORAL COMMISSION WANTS CLEAR ALTERNATIVES LAID OUT

THE UK elections watchdog has recommended the Scottish and Westminster Governments set out what will happen after next year’s referendum by 20 December this year.

According to The Scotsman, a report published today by the Electoral Commission suggests both administrations should publish what their next steps would be should their sides triumph in the poll.

The 20 December deadline was suggested by the commission in an attempt to provide some clarity about what would happen in the immediate aftermath of either a Yes or No vote. The UK Government has ruled out pre-negotiating an independence deal before the 18 September poll.

According to YES TO AN INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND The Scottish Government has already published a wealth of material, all of which is readily available from the Scottish Government website:(http://www.scotreferendum.com/scotlands-future/).

For all the fuss the British parties made about the need for the Scottish Government to follow guidance set down by the Electoral Commission, it is they who have failed to clarify the implications of a No vote. 

On the one hand we have vague talk of further devolution, but nothing is ever defined and there is not even the possibility of a commitment to deliver.

On the other hand, we have unionist spokespersons openly talking of rolling back devolution in the event of a No vote. The talk is of removing powers from the Scottish Parliament or even abolishing it altogether. The wishes of the people of Scotland having ceased to be of any concern once they have voted to forfeit their only leverage.

We know what independence means. We have scores of other countries, comparable to Scotland in various ways and to varying degrees, which we can to look to for examples. What is notable about all of these countries is that the sky has not fallen on any of them as a consequence of their constitutional status. For all of them, independence is normal. Not one of them is seeking to give up that independence. If it was suggested to the people of any of these nations that they might vote to relinquish independence they would think the very notion quite insane.

We also know much of the detail of what the early days of independence will look like. It is not possible to know more because the future will be what the people of Scotland decide. But we know very clearly what the present administration intends as the starting point from which the people's project to build a better, fairer Scotland will begin.

Unionists claim that these plans will be catastrophic for Scotland despite the fact that the main criticism is that, for very good reason, they change very little. In one of their trade-mark contradictions, they say that independence will be both a change too far and no change at all.

Some independence supporters also criticise the SNP for not being sufficiently radical in its thinking. They forget that the current administration has no mandate to make the kind of changes they seek. No government will have that mandate until after the 2016 election.

There are two processes involved here which are too often confused and conflated. There is the process of BECOMING independent, and there is the process of BEING independent. The Scottish Government is charged with responsibility for the former. The latter is the responsibility of the people of Scotland.

What being independent means is limited only be our imagination and our determination. We have no way of knowing where a No vote will take us. But the signs are not good.

PROGRAMME FOR GOVERNMENT

GOOD GIFT TO GEORGIE

Munguin's Republic  heartily approves of the gift given to George Cambridge by the Scottish government. 

He has been presented with a toy in the shape of the thistle emblem of the Commonwealth Games, Clyde, along with two donations to Scottish charities.

The STV Appeal, which helps children and young people affected by poverty, and Foundation Scotland, a community funding charity, will share £50,000 given by Scotland on behalf of George.

The First Minister said: "The birth of any baby is a wonderful event and we want to mark the birth of Prince George with an appropriate gift from the people of Scotland.

"It's only right to continue the legacy of the royal wedding by giving a charitable donation to celebrate Prince George's arrival. Two charities will receive a share of £50,000 on behalf of the people of Scotland, Foundation Scotland and The STV Appeal; charities that make a remarkable difference, particularly to the lives of Scotland's children through the likes of Barnardo's Scotland, CHILDREN 1st and Aberlour.

"We will also make sure that Prince George can be part of the build-up to the Commonwealth Games by sending him a special Cuddly Clyde' mascot of his own, sporting a stylish hand knitted jumper by Doreen Brown who created the knitwear that made Shetland ponies a global sensation."

That makes a lot of sense. I hope the opposition parties would agree that it is money well spent, and one which George and his parents can be proud of.

SOME GOOD NEWS...

Diomhair / Secrets, The McCrone Report, The Truth of Scottish Independence /Oil

I know this is a long video, but it is so much worth watching. It's important that people should see it before 2014. So, I guess I'm just going my bit to get it more widely seen. (I think it will only play in Scotland, maybe the UK because of BBC restrictions, so apologies to overseas readers.)

WE TRUST EDINBURGH FOUR TIMES AS MUCH AS WE TRUST LONDON...QED

Four times as many people in Scotland trust the Scottish Government to act in Scotland’s best interests than trust the UK Government to do so, new research shows.  

Trust in the Scottish Government has climbed from 61% to 71% over the past year, according to the latest annual Scottish Social Attitudes survey. 

Trust in the UK Government, on the other hand, is at just 18%. 

To engender trust in one's ability to govern and do the best for the country is surely the quintessence of what governance is about. The team in Edinburgh has clearly achieved this.

So... when we can just persuade Scots how much better life would be if that level of trust could be justified in ALL governmental functions...in matters, for example, of, foreign affairs, taxation, military and social security... we shall have our country back... 

That should be in 2 years' time...give or take...

INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM: OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE YOUR SAY

I've been tardy (so what's new, I hear you ask), in bringing to people's attention the independence referendum consultation paper launched by the Scottish government. My thanks, as ever, to Cynical Highlander for reminding me.


In a way I'm glad I am late, because James has produced another corker of a set of answers to the questions, to which I can have the pleasure of directing you!


I think it's important that we complete this consultation, regardless of what side of the argument we are on, with the best answers we can give.


I have never made any secret of the fact that I thought that the consultation into our country's future, launched by David Cameron, was no more than 'an exercise in having a consultation', but I think that this one is likely to be a genuine attempt to find the mood of the country, particularly with regard to the "second question". Some have said that the possible inclusion of a 'devo max' option on the ballot paper is a cop out for the SNP. 


But given that opinion poll after opinion poll shows that option to have massive support, it would surely be anti democratic to allow no official discussion of it (on the basis that we want to discover what the people of Scotland actually want, as opposed to what the leaders in Scotland or London prefer for them, or for their careers).


In the Tory referendum of last year about constitutional change in the UK (voting systems), it seemed to me that the choice that most people wanted was left off the ballot paper, possibly exactly because it was the choice that most people would have voted for. (Unscientific assertion there, based on my personal questioning of anyone and everyone I could ask, across a wide range of contacts.) 


I think Cameron banked on the fact that, although many (most?) people  didn't think much of the FPTP system, the only alternative offered was very much more complicated, not much better, likely to produce the same biased results, and had, only months before, been disparaged and ridiculed by its main supporter in the campaign, namely the UK's deputy prime minister. 


It was a "devil you know" situation, as both options would allow some MPs to go on with their "jobs for life" on a minority of votes.

For us Scots this decision is vastly more important than how we elect our representatives. It's our whole entity, our way of life, our future in the world, which could be changed... in my opinion for the better; in the opinion of others for the worse.


I genuinely believe that the government will listen to what we have to say: how we feel about the actual question; whether there should be a second option; the design of the ballot; its clarity, possible bias (or lack thereof); what we feel about the extension of the electorate to include all adults in Scotland (rather than accept the English legal definition of adult), and the timetable allocated to the referendum by the government.


This consultation in and of itself is not the most important decision we will ever make, but it is part of a process that (apart from our very personal decisions) may well be.

SO, WHO, OR WHAT, IS LEFT TO TRUST?

I was reflecting the other day, in conversation with my mother, that there is virtually no one left to trust.


We all know how MPs systematically cheated us out of billions over the last 30 years since Thatcher put a brake on the public perception of their greed, but let the wheels slide over the surreptitious increase in alternative income. And by now we know too that the ridiculous anachronism along the corridor did exactly the same thing. (Wouldn't this have been an ideal opportunity to rid ourselves of this bloated chamber forever)? 


We are aware that despite all the theft, only a few dismal examples at the bottom of the food chain in both houses have been charged, found guilty and spent a matter of weeks, rather than months behind bars, released early, doubtless to write books about their misfortune.


It's become plain too, that members of the royal family, most notably Andrew, have been enjoying the jet set life at our expense, and sometimes at the expense of rich dictators' families, while his daughters fall out of night clubs at 4 in the morning followed by body guards paid for by us.


The tabloid press has made a habit of providing the scandal hungry public with  salacious titbits about their favourite "celebrities" by hacking their phones... or at least the phones of the ones who didn't rush to disclose every detail of dirty doings (read Jordan and Pete). And the Met, England's finest, are complicit in this, having accepted hospitality, and employment from the press, then giving scant attentions to charges against them. (It's only fair to say that the Met aren't the only corrupt police force in the news.)


Banks, the finance industry and the City (the markets) privatised their profits and socialised their losses. Despite the billions we pumped into them, the government is having to guarantee loans to small business, and top up what they loan to first time buyers leaving us to wonder why we continue to have banks, or why we didn't let them fail. They'll all go to Mumbai .... awwww.


The story of HSBC'S selling insurance to vulnerable OAPs make my flesh creep, and despite the names of the executives responsible and their methods being known, no one has been arrested. (I heard this on the morning news programme, but it seems to have disappeared from the BBC site, so there is no link.)

Now today, despite denying it yesterday, the UK government has conceded that the lobbiests have direct access at the highest level to them and can get them to intercede and change policy, overnight in some cases (obviously only when it is in the bests interests of the country!!!). (Excuse me, must run, my hat just blew off.)


So far who is left to trust is the Scottish government.  Don't let us down Alex. If you do you will never be forgiven.

AN OBVIOUS SAVING WITH NO PAIN

Apparently (well according to the Daily Mail on Sunday rag) Labour used to spend £4000 on Christmas trees for numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street.

A large Christmas tree stands each year in the hall of No 11 Downing Street, and George Osborne was asked if he wanted the same as they had every year. It would cost £800. He said “No. I will go down to the market and buy one myself”.

I applaud that Mr Osborne. That will indeed save us £800. However, I suspect that you won’t go down the market. An £800 Christmas tree is something that will have to be delivered, then it will have to be dressed and the lights on it alone will cost a fortune of our money in electricity to run.

And this is for what is essentially an office. Mr Osborne doesn’t actually live downstairs at No 11. There’s a flat at the top (a rather splendid one, but a flat none the less), and the personal accommodation is there. The rest is office space.

So, if we really don’t want to waste money, why don’t we have a policy that no government department, no state office, will have a Christmas tree this year. That will save a fortune in tree purchasing and in lighting. And it has the advantage of being good for the environment.

And no, it's not anti-Christian. People can still have their Christmas trees at home, and if businesses want to buy them for town centres to encourage more spending, then that's fine too. As long as it is not public money being spent on unnecessary baubles.

As a Christmas tree has actually nothing to Christmas, I’m sure that Christ would have preferred the money to be spent on the poor.

I’d encourage our government to adopt the same policy!

I should be the Finance Minister!

Pics: Mr Osborne, and trees, where they look best, in the wild.

......AND ALL THIS MONEY FOR ONE WEE HAT

I read in the Sunday Post this week (yes, I know it’s Thursday, but I’m a slow reader) that the estimated cost of security during the Pope’s visit to Scotland this autumn will be around £70 million.

Now that’s a lot of money in any language (especially if the wee man’s only coming here to give Sophia Pangloss her red hat back).

As this is a State Visit and the Pope is here by invitation of Her Majesty’s government (ie wee Spud) as Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, we have to pick this bill up.

The security money, it seems, will come out of the Scottish government’s budget, despite the Scottish government having played no part in the invitation. And according to the article in the Post, the Scottish government says that it can’t afford it.

Now to be fair the Scottish government can easily afford £70 million pounds; it’s a lot, but in governmental terms it’s next to nothing, but at a time when pensioners are finding that their services have been cut, libraries are closing down, children’s services are being reduced etc, I think that Holyrood is quite right to say it can’t afford the money for a one day visit by a foreign head of state.

I’m not denying that this head of state may be important to a proportion of the Scottish population, and for those who feel that way his visit will be a huge event in their lives. The fact that I can’t see why, after all faith in God, is faith in God, not in a man in a long white garb, is of little relevance.

I’m also wondering who’s making the vast profit out of it. Who provides this security? As popular as the Pope will be with some people, he will be equally unpopular with others, I accept, particularly given his personal involvement in the scandals that have surrounded the Church, but £70 million... for one day?

The British Government invited the man on behalf of the British Queen. They should pay. And, as the Post suggests, it wouldn’t hurt if the obscenely wealthy Vatican City State were to put its hands in its pockets.

Alternatively Sophia could just nip over to Vatican on one of these cheap flights and get her hat back herself.

Pics: Sophia's hat (modeled by an elderly citizen of a small Mediterranean country), and an example of some of the Vatican's wealth that it might conside selling to pay for the Pope's security (in fact Michelangelo's Pietà which is in St Peter's Basillica, Vatican)

Minister and Convenor Open New Dundee Housing Project

Something cheered me hugely today. Alex Neil the Housing Minister and Dundee’s Housing Convenor Jimmy Black, opened the new building project in Mains Loan, Dundee, and laid the first stones. This project will build the first council houses in Dundee for 20 years. Initially seven family homes will be built and three wheelchair friendly units, with more in the pipeline.

Councillor Black said: "It is a significant event, marking the start of Dundee's first new council house builds for at least two decades and the Scottish Government funding will help the city achieve its aim of providing more than 70 new council homes over the next few years.

"The new homes that are planned will help address a shortage of family homes and houses that are designed to make life easier for people with disabilities.

"All the houses have been designed to provide high standards of energy efficiency through increased insulation levels which exceed current building regulation requirements. This should mean lower heating costs for tenants, better noise insulation and help achieve carbon-saving targets."

According to Joe Fitzpatrick, one of Dundee’s MSPs, in the last year the Scottish Government has provided local authorities with £75 million to build 2,300 new council houses and the planned radical legislation to end the right to buy for new social housing will ensure that those new homes remain accessible, affordable and available for future generations.

For far too long, in my opinion, the standard of council housing in Dundee has been too low. The best ones were long since bought and profits made on them. What has been left was the slum property in the least desirable areas, and some semi derelict multi-storey properties. There was a desperate need for new council housing. It is good to know that once they are built they will not be sold off cheap.

As an added bonus this project is providing employment opportunities for the builders, a local construction firm. It’s just a win win win situation.

Well done to the Scottish Government and Dundee City Council.

Pics: Jimmy Black; Alex Neil; Joe Fitzpartick

ENJOY THE NEXT FEW WEEKS BEFORE THE "EFFICIENCIES" START HITTING YOU

Thank you, Gordon Brown. Thank you very, very much indeed.

Scotland faces five years of real-terms cuts in public spending and may not get back to today’s levels until 2025.

According to a forecast made by the Scottish Government an incredible £35 billion of public spending could be lost over the next 15 years. That is more than the entire budget for a year.

The government’s chief economic advisor Dr Andrew Goudie estimated average cuts to expenditure will be 3% a year until 2014-15 and it could take between 12 and 15 years before spending returns to levels in the last financial year.

The Scottish Parliament officials are already preparing for 15% cuts over the next three years.

Of course no one wants to talk about that kind of cut before the election, do they? They’ll argue about all manner of other stuff but no one will tell us the truth about just how hard the axe will fall on May 7. But this time, I feel sure, we are going to really notice savage and swinging cuts. We will pay for the bankers’ greed, while their bonuses go up again.

The trouble with this kind of cut (for they can call it efficiency till they are blue in the face; it will remain a cut. Pigs and lipstick come to mind) is that it inevitably means vast numbers of redundancies, and that adds to already massive unemployment. A few more on the dole may not make too much difference, but large numbers on the dole and you have depressed areas. Shops close, pubs, sports and leisure facilities. That, in turn, causes more unemployment and it’s not hard to see the spiral of depression.

In this atmosphere Mr Brown says he is going to provide jobs for anyone who has been unemployed for a year. Yeah right. Let me tell you he hasn’t a hope in hell. It’s all talk. It won’t happen.

You can only make so many cuts to staff before the public starts to notice that the quality of service, not high at the moment, has become even worse. What will he do, replace all the sacked public sector workers with his new scheme workers on minimum wage and with attitude.

Cutting public services is all very well, but that means fewer libraries, fewer sports facilities for kids, just when old Tessa Jowell told us that we were going to benefit from the London Olympics with more sporting opportunities. It means longer waits for services already stretched and it means fewer things for kids to do; fewer facilities for pensioners.

The government report says, “While exact details of the size and composition of tightening in the UK are not yet known, it is clear that public spending will be subject to a period of significant constraint in the years ahead. Scottish Government expenditure will not be immune from these pressures.”

What a bloody future. An oil rich nation like no other. How they must laugh at us in Norway.

NOW THE TORIES BACK MINIMUM PRICING FOR BOOZE

It seems that I am going to have to revise my thinking on the question of Minimum Pricing.

I have always felt that putting the price of the very cheapest alcohol up will not stop people who want to drink or who rather, are determined to drink come what may.

The government in Scotland have been for it and have proposed legislation. The Labour and Tory oppositions in parliament were against it. The Tories (with whom I agreed) suggested that if police used the power they already had that would be sufficient. (Well, I don’t know that it would be sufficient but it would go a long way to clearing up the streets.) The Labour opposition opposed it, because someone said to Iain Gray, “You are in opposition, so you must oppose stuff. OK?” And he blinked and nodded and blinked again and... he opposed, albeit ineffecually.

Last week it became apparent that the Labour Party in England had decided to include a minimum price for alcohol in their manifesto for this year’s election throwing the Scottish Labour position into somewhat embarrassing dubiety.

Now it seems that Ian Duncan Smith says that David Cameron should impose significant increases in taxes on beer, wine and spirits if elected prime minister. In an interview with The Times, the Tory’s social policy supremo accuses the supermarkets of “being as close to immoral as you can get” by selling alcohol so cheaply, and of “creating alcoholics”.

He says that the political parties are “in the grip of cowardice” for failing to advocate a big jump in the cost of alcohol for fear of alienating the voters before the general election. “We are into unpopular territory, but to deal with something like alcohol that is damaging the fabric of the nation we need to raise prices. There is a direct connection between the price of alcohol and consumption.”

With the Medical Officers of Health from both Scotland and England backing this policy, along with the BMA and the Royal College of Physicians not to mention the NHS Federation... and now, the English Labour and Tory parties seeming to come behind it, I think that I’m beginning to be a little outnumbered.

Needless to say, the drink manufacturers and the supermarkets were down on Mr Duncan-Smith like a ton of bricks, claiming that their selling of drink at rock bottom prices has nothing to do with the problem.

I’m going to give some very careful consideration to my views... and I may come back red faced and offer the Scottish Government a full and wholesome apology.

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