Forward

Save Diageo Jobs in Scotland

2009-09-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

Here is a short video with some of the Diageo workers from Port Dundas and Kilmarnock who lobbied the Scottish Parliament today to get behind the campaign to save their jobs. They were supported by MSPs of all parties:

It's a form of socialism without the politics

2009-08-31T05:26:00.000-07:00

Liverpool's Bill Shankly once said he was the best manager in the game because he was never devious or cheated anyone. To me, he summed up what made football beautiful:

"Train the right way. Help each other. It's a form of socialism without the politics."

Shankly knew what he was talking about. He came from the Ayshire mining village of Glenbuck and started his working life emptying coal trucks.

The local team, the famous Glenbuck Cherrypickers, produced some 50 players who made it as professionals before they folded in 1931, following the closure of the colliery. Not bad for a wee village whose population was never more than twelve hundred.

They included Bill's older brother, Bob Shankly, who won the League as manager of Dundee and took them to the semi-final of the European Cup in 1962-63. They defeated AC Milan 1-0 at Dens Park before losing 5-2 on aggregate after a heavy defeat in Italy.

Shankly believed that footballers should help their team mates in the same way that miners looked out for each other in the pit. I wonder what he would have thought of Eduardo?

Compassion alone is not enough

2009-08-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Hamilton MSP Michael McMahon has written an opinion piece for the Scottish Catholic Observer on the SNP Government's decision to allow Al-Megrahi to return to Libya. It is worth reproducing in full:

The emblem on the Scottish Parliament’s Mace contains the word ‘compassion’ to reflect the principles which should guide the deliberations of MSPs.

The words wisdom, justice and integrity are also engraved upon it to indicate the range of qualities which we, as elected representatives, should aspire to. Compassion, however vital it is, cannot be enough.

Tested against all of the values written on the Mace, Mr MacAskill has simply no right to claim that he had to release Mr al-Megrahi to return to Libya.

Then there is the matter of Mr MacAskill’s reference to the involvement of a ‘greater power’, by which we must presume he means God, in this matter.

The Justice Secretary claimed that his decision to show compassion was made on the basis that God had intervened to inflict a terminal illness on Mr al-Megrahi. I do not know what ‘greater power’ Mr MacAskill believes in but I am confident that my God is not such a merciless one.

To suggest that a person who develops cancer can be said to have had it inflicted upon them by God as a sign of their guilt for some crime is offensive and it is unworthy of a Scottish Government Minister.

The suggestion looks like an ill judged message to a stereotypical demographic across the Atlantic. I hope that I would never be so arrogant as to claim to have more compassion than anyone else. I would certainly never claim to have more compassion than God.

In his misguided desire to show that Scotland is a compassionate country he also failed to follow due process and ignored the fact that there were alternative options available if only the Scottish Government had the wisdom, sense of justice and integrity to pursue them.

Instead, as was entirely predictable, they created the circumstances which allowed one of the most oppressive regimes in modern times to embarrass our Country as they jubilantly welcomed home a convicted bomber with Scottish flags.

The sight of Saltires waving on the tarmac at the airport in Tripoli has shamed Scotland and the harm done will take years to recover from.

Make no mistake the Scottish Government’s decision has damaged Scotland. It has damaged the reputation of our justice system and the standing of our country internationally. That this was abundantly foreseeable indicates that Mr MacAskill was lacking in wisdom.

There was clearly a case for providing Mr al-Megrahi with compassion but allowing him to be welcomed back to Libya as a free man should not have been the option chosen.

Palliative care standards in Scotland are of the highest anywhere and can be delivered in a variety of settings. Hospice care does not have to be provided solely within the confines of a hospice building. Greenock Prison was not a suitable location in which to deliver the level of care required, but neither is Libya given the poor level of palliative care available there. A suitable, secure location should and would have been found in Scotland had it been properly considered.

We are also required to ensure that justice is served against those who harm others. Not retribution or vengeance but fair punishment for the crime committed. While I do believe that Mr al-Megrahi was entitled to have the best care possible in his illness, having only served 11 days in jail for every victim of the Lockerbie Bomb, I do not believe that Mr Megrahi was yet entitled to clemency.

Equally important was the need for integrity when deciding on whether compassionate release was warranted. Unfortunately, the entire handling of Mr al-Megrahi’s release has been typified by media briefing, leaking and spin from the Scottish Government. Honesty and truth have been lost in the decision making process in this case.

The Scottish Government has misrepresented the medical evidence, it has misled the public as to why Kenny MacAskill decided to visit Mr al-Megrahi in prison and it has manipulated the opinion of Strathclyde Police in order to create the impression that keeping Mr al-Megrahi in Scotland, but outwith prison, was not a viable option.

It is important to me that Mr al-Megrahi was seen to be treated with humanity and it is absolutely right that he should be allowed to see out his days with the dignity that was not afforded to the 270 people who died when Pan Am flight 103 was brought down.

Mr MacAskill may argue that his decision was based on compassion but it should also have been a wise, just and honest one. It was not. The Scottish Parliament must now try to repair the damage that has been done and MSPs must do all we can to make it clear that this decision was not made by the people of Scotland and that it most certainly does not have their endorsement.

Willie Bain - The Local Voice for Local People

2009-08-29T03:12:00.000-07:00

Labour's candidate in Glasgow North East explains why he is standing to be the MP for his local area.

Due process

2009-08-28T16:39:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week Kenny MacAskill defended his decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi to fellow members of the Scottish Parliament. His primary defence was one of ‘due process’.

However, as the evidence unfolds it is becoming increasingly clear that the decision to release Mr Al-Megrahi has all the hallmarks of an irrational and ‘Wednesbury’ unreasonable decision for want of due process.

If there had been time, I believe both the decision to release, and the decision to allow Mr Al-Megrahi to return to Libya, could have been challenged on a petition for judicial review. Consider some of the facts we now know.

The decision to release Mr Al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds was made upon medical evidence that he had less than three months to live. This week it became apparent that four prostate cancer specialists refused to say that Mr Al-Megrahi had less than three months to live.

It is understood that the Justice Minister disregarded four expert opinions in preference to the judgment of a prison GP with little experience of prostate cancer. If that is correct, that in itself would have given grounds for challenge.

The decision authorising Mr Al-Megrahi’s return to Libya was made because remaining in Scotland was ruled out as ‘Clear advice from senior police officers [was] the security implications of such a move would be severe’. That advice became opaque this week as Strathclyde Police disclosed they had not been asked whether they could manage the security implications of trasferring Mr Al-Megrahi to a secure residence in Scotland. If they had been asked they could have done so.

I have already flagged up other major contradictions in Kenny MacAskill’s judgment in my The Firm blog earlier this week. The ‘due process’ defence - now threadbare – is looking ridiculous.

For example, Mr MacAskill’s visit to Greenock prison continues to be hailed as necessary under ‘due process’ of consideration of the prisoner transfer application. Yet that application should have been automatically rejected as premature under ‘due process’.

At the end of the day all that remains is a legally flawed decision made on the grounds of political expediency.

Fraser Nelson to edit the Spectator

2009-08-28T16:05:00.000-07:00

Fraser Nelson is to become the new editor of the Spectator. The former Political Editor of The Scotsman is living proof that the devil has all the best tunes.

A convinced Conservative with a public school accent, he is quite possibly the best political journalist of his generation. This correspondent first met him when he was learning his trade as a student hack at the Glasgow University Guardian.

Channel 4 News reporter James Blake was part of the same generation of Glasgow students who now work in London.

It is disappointing that, after ten years of devolution, our best talent still goes south and we have no equivalent of the Spectator, the New Statesman, or even a Radical Scotland.

A Valley in Spain called Jarama

2009-08-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

STV's documentary on the Spanish Civil War has been a real treat with some wonderful archive interviews with Scots volunteers. The bravery and idealism shown by these old men who left their homes and families to fight Franco was inspiring.

Alan Clements, a history graduate who STV poached from the independent sector to become their Director of Content, was the programme's Executive Producer. He told The Times he wants the station to be "the broadcaster of choice for the people of Scotland". If this is how he intends to succeed then good luck to him.

Yousuf has a good posting on his blog so I won't go on about it at length. Instead, here is Pete Seeger's version of Jarama Valley. The song was written by Alex McDade, a soldier with the British Battalion who came from Possil in Glasgow.

What the Tories really think of the NHS

2009-08-14T03:24:00.000-07:00

This video shows Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan running down the NHS on American television.

The cruel logic of America's private health care system is that if you can't afford to pay then you will be treated as a charity case and not as an equal.

I wonder how many other senior Conservatives share Daniel Hannan's extremist views about the NHS and want to undermine what Labour created in 1948?

Building for the Future

2009-08-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

Cathy Jamieson makes the case for a step-change in Government policy to build more affordable homes for rent, on a visit to open a new development in Maidens, South Ayrshire.

The Kerrs

2009-07-21T06:13:00.000-07:00

From time to time I intend to use this blog to publish articles, or extracts of Tom Johnston's journalism.

Perhaps his most famous work is Our Scots Noble Families, which was first published in 1909.

This classic text on land ownership in Scotland was so controversial that the newsagents John Menzies refused to sell it. 100 years later it has sold over 120,000 copies and is still in print.

The political climate of the day put the great aristocratic land owning families centre-stage. Johnston's polemic aimed to show that the aristocracy had only gained their wealth and power by exploitation and robbery on a grand scale.

I thought I would begin with a topical name, so here is what he had to say about the Kerrs:

"It appears that not only the wicked but their descendants are allowed to flourish like the green bay tree. Here, in the Kers, we have the descendants of savage pirates, men who literally washed their hands in blood, men who stole without ceasing, and murdered without compunction, rewarded generation after generation with an annual payment of £145,554!

"The founder of the Ker estates seems to have been a huntsman or forest-rover, who was taken under the patronage of the Douglases, and was, for some reason or other, given a charter of the lands of Altonburn and Nisbet. In 1451, James II gave the Kers the lands of Auldroxburgh "for payment of one silver penny at Whitsunday if demanded" and in 1488 James IV handed over "Roxburgh with its patronage of Maisondeau" for payment of "a red rose at the feet of St John the Baptist." It is well to have these accounts exact: they may be useful when the State demands restitution and the Duke makes an outcry for "compensation". The two supporters on the Roxburgh crest are "savages, each holding a beacon", and I can imagine nothing more appropriate, for with the Scotts and other robber clans, they were eternally at feud, and they carried their moonlighting and murdering right up to the streets of Edinburgh."

"At the Reformation of Church plunder period, the Kers absorbed the whole of the great property of Kelso Abbey, miles and miles of rich lands, baronies, lordships, mills, patronages, everything they could lay their hands upon, and the sole excuse given for this shameless rapacity is that "Sir Robert Kerr of Cessford was a great favourite at Court." These estates are today enjoyed by Sir Robert Kerr's descendant, although we are told in Crawford's "Peerage", that the Kerrs were forced to hand back about 20 churches and their tithes to the Crown. The first Earl was Privy Seal to Charles I, was notorious for his cruelty, and was long remembered for his discgraceful betrayal of Montrose. They specialised in open rapine, these Kers."