There's Grace Kelly...

Well I have to say that there’s a small part of me wanting Celtic to win the Scottish Cup.

Why do we have to call it Scottish by the way – why don’t they call theirs “The English Cup”? But I digress and I told myself I wouldn’t write about politics for a change!

I’m not half Irish or anything like that, though I am in fact half-Welsh and half-Austrian should you be interested in my unusual ancestry.

One of my best friends is a Celtic season-ticket holder. But it’s nothing to do with him having a good day though I hope he does.

I don’t have anything (much) against Motherwell, though the fact that they turned into a bit of a bogey team for Dundee United this season is a unfortunate side-issue. Like most Arabs my memories of the “Family Final” are all of a fantastic day out.

I have every sympathy for Neil Lennon and cannot begin to comprehend how it must feel to be the target of such a campaign of hatred and tribal venom. But no it’s not that either.

It’s just quite simply pure unadulterated self-interest of the Tannadice type! Celtic win the cup….and we’re in Europe next season.

Now it may not last long – our last 2 expeditions have seen us fall at the first hurdle, but to an Arab of my age it rekindles memories of Barcelona, Monaco and Borussia Monchengladbach and the like. So I digress to have a quick listen to Michael Marra’s classic  Hamish the Goalie with its immortal line: “There's Grace Kelly by Taylor Brothers' Coal” and wallow in the nostalgia of times gone by never to return.

Now that I’ve listened to that, six times so far, perhaps I should move on to something of more substance, but to be honest my heart’s not in it today, and I’m quite content to dwell on the past for a while.

And what better to round off this story than a blast from the past which reminds me what my football is all about.  No sectarianism, no religion, no hatred. Just sheer unadulterated joy on this particular day!

Proud to be an Arab! 

Sugar with that sir? Or would you prefer Independence-Lite?

Well I have to start off with a confession. I have my coffee with skimmed milk and sweeteners not cream and sugar these days. I have enough trouble with my waistline without adding to it unnecessarily. But the coffee – well it’s full strength coffee – from a pod – made in a fancy coffee machine. And ever since my daughter got that coffee machine at Christmas I’ve forsaken coffee of the powdered variety. The real stuff wins every time.

I’m sure you can all see where this is going, and indeed you’d be correct, but first let’s get to grips with this astounding piece of Scotsman journalism, from which all that was missing from the title were the wearisome words “accused of”.

And when I read several paragraphs in that Jim Sillars was involved, along with some dubious polling of “1000 SNP members” by the professor, well I have to say my thoughts were “Here we go again”. I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure I haven’t given the SNP permission to share my contact details with any professor. But then I wasn’t asked any questions. Funny that.

However much the Scotsman would like it to be the case, Jim Sillars is no more representative of the SNP leadership nowadays than I am. He was an inspiration to me and many other activists back in 1988, as we battled against huge Labour majorities in the west of Scotland, and I have many happy memories of that campaign in Govan, but it is a whole different world to the one that concluded a few days ago. Jim is very much a voice of the past and from where I’m sitting has proved unable to move on as we have, to a different politics of the 21^st century.

I’m quite happy to nail my colours to the wall. I’ll call them red. You can decide what you want to call them. Cerise? Crimson? Cardinal? Wikipedia lists 52 shades of red  after all.

I’m in favour of full blown Norwegian/Danish/Finnish/Austrian/Czech/Irish/New Zealand type independence. I just plucked some random countries out of thin air. Perhaps I should have included Montenegro.

All smallish countries who don’t fall short of what anyone would define as full independence in a 21^st century context. They have their own armed forces, their own social security systems and pension schemes, their own television channels. Some have their own currencies, others share one. They have their own governments, with their own policies and oppositions, who have theirs. They have elections with fair voting systems. They have Presidents or Kings and Queens. They have seats in the United Nations and on other International organisations. The ones with coastlines are in charge of the oil and gas deposits and the fishing grounds that lie within their territorial waters. They have their own foreign policies, and contribute to international aid.

But of course they’re not random as you probably realised. Every one of them has at some stage in its history, some more recent than others, been a part of a larger unit.

But do you hear a clamour to return to the old ways? Bring back the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway! Let’s be swallowed back up by Russia! The Austro-Hungarian Empire wasn’t such a bad thing! Come back Slovakia all is forgiven! Need I go on?

I really don’t see all this as difficult. And interestingly neither now do a lot of people.

Ian McWhirter wrote an article the other day in which he commented that an independent Scotland would be welcomed into the United Nations and become a successor state in the EU. Not earth shattering stuff to Nationalists of my ilk, but what was more interesting was that those two were taken as read. They would happen if we became independent. They weren’t up for debate.

And that alone is how much the debate has moved on, no matter how much the Scotsman would like to pretend it hasn’t. We’re actually debating what kind of Independence we’d like. But it’s not “Independence-Lite” I can assure you!

The other day at work out of the blue, in the middle of an IT training session, one of the two English trainers, with no knowledge of my political background, asked when I thought Scotland would become independent and the word “soon” was used in that context. There followed a fascinating discussion in which they both agreed that when we do (there was no debate about if) the border posts are likely to be on the English side of the line, and that there was no reason why we wouldn’t be financially viable. They even agreed that it was indeed strange that if we were subsidised by England that voices from south of the border would be so vehemently opposed to us going our separate ways.

That whole conversation could not, in my view, have taken place literally even 2 months ago. We even covered Trident, and here is where I really lose the plot with Sillars and the Scotsman. I’m sorry but Trident is not up for negotiation. It’s as simple as the Russian soldiers moving back home from Eastern Europe. Trident will go. Period. I’m happy to discuss when but there’s no “if” in the discussion.

And when the Scotsman article mentioned English “agreement” for Scottish Independence, I have to say I was almost one window down. But then I calmed down and remembered that they, like much of the Labour Party, have not come to terms with 2007 never mind 2011.

The debate has moved on, and to return to my analogy it’s not about whether we’re having instant or real coffee – there is no debate: real wins every time. The debate is about whether we’re having cream and sugar, or skimmed milk and sweeteners, with it.

Reflections and what lies ahead - analysis and ponderings

Well the dust has settled and the posters have been taken down, for the second time in my case, having made a reappearance on my windows when news came through of John Mason’s staggering victory. The Sunday papers have been read and digested, and not just online for once – I wanted to get my hands on that pull out election map and devour the statistics hands-on so to speak – so I actually bought the printed versions.

As a teenager back in the heady days after the two 1974 elections I developed a fascination for electoral statistics which remains with me to this day. I could have told you the swing required to win East Kilbride or Cumbernauld without a moment’s hesitation, despite having little notion of where they were, and I recall sitting for what seemed like hours on end working out how many seats the SNP would win if the swing was x% from Labour and y% from the Tories. It probably was hours on end!

Of course swings are never quite uniform as Thursday demonstrated. Lots of factors come into play which confuse the issue no end. But having introduced my Dutch friend to the humour that is Jackie Baillie only a few days before the election it was actually with something approaching a perverse sense of relief that I discovered she’d still be around for him to enjoy for the next 5 years. I feel she will provide him a foil for his distaste (and I’m being reserved here) for Sarah Palin.

But back to the swings and my own version of Peter Snow’s gadget in the mid 1970s demonstrated that at a certain level of swing a huge sea-change would take place, and the political map, then overwhelmingly red and blue, would turn yellow from north to south and east to west.

So the events of Friday morning brought many memories flooding back of all those lists of constituencies, many now long gone, turning yellow on my own hand-drawn maps.

Turning to the statistics I dare say others more qualified than I will have their say but one or two interesting nuggets of information to digest before moving on to what happens next.

#BothVotesSNP as it appeared on Twitter (the discovery of the wonders of which I made about half way through the campaign) worked. And it worked spectacularly well. Transfers of votes are never as simple as they appear on paper. I’m pretty sure the SNP picked up a larger chunk of the Labour support than appears the case for instance. But the SNP only dropped 1% between constituency and list votes.

But one third of the LibDem support did not vote LibDem on the list vote. And one sixth of the Labour vote didn’t keep the faith either. Between them these two parties, in government together for the first 8 years of the Parliament, didn’t total one third of the list votes. And that is the scale of the crisis they find themselves in.

Where did these votes go? Well the Green vote had to come from somewhere, but it wasn’t as large as the polls at the end had suggested it might be, and they ended up with only 2 MSPs. That having been said they were within 300 votes of beating the Tories into third place on the Glasgow list, which saw the LibDems trailing in 6^th behind Gorgeous George, who himself secured only perhaps half as many votes as some had thought he might.

However accurate he was about Glasgow’s potholed roads looking like they’d been bombed, he didn’t strike any significant cords with this electorate. Neither did the SSP who secured only 1362 votes on the list and were so far down the list of parties that I feel they will need to do some reflection themselves. I have a lot of time for them and their idealism, and the poster on my window in 2003, though yellow, had a lot of red in it also. The Parliament could do with the colour and vitality that they brought to it for those 4 years when they and the Greens mustered 13 MSPs between them.

So where now? Well others will write, and indeed the “Burd” amongst others, has already written, about Presiding Officers and the like. There has been much analysis of Labour’s campaign, and Gray and Tavish Scott have bowed to the inevitable. Annabel is thus far holding on but I fear her head is in the proverbial sand, and a campaign which saw the Tories drop from a notional 20 seats to 15 cannot be classed as anything to boast about.

But I want to glance forward a whole year to the Council elections, postponed, and quite rightly so to May of next year. To me they now assume monumental importance as they provide the SNP and indeed the electorate a chance to strike a fatal blow at the institutionalised cronyism that pervades a lot of what still struggles to pass as democratic local government in Scotland. The STV voting system makes it harder to extrapolate results from one election to another but if the shares of the votes remain similar the political map of Scotland will truly have changed and possibly permanently so.

John Swinney announced before the elections his plans to legislate against the practice of paying councillors sitting on ALEOsLibDems on this matter if it makes it to a vote anytime before legislation is passed.

And another electoral victory on the same scale as this one would undoubtedly mean that CoSLA would take on a different hue and this could well be crucial as we move towards that referendum.

A lot will depend on whether the feel-good factor about the SNP administration is translated into support at council level but I see no reason why it shouldn’t, as if nothing else proportional representation has allowed communities to be served by SNP as well as Unionist members. And in many cases the difference between the two is of a striking nature!

Returning to Glasgow, last time round the SNP pitched their campaign and indeed number of candidates just right, and unless I’m mistaken every one got elected. Next year I suspect their ambition will be of an altogether higher level!

Post-election thoughts

I didn't see this coming!

Stop the world - we want to get on!

 

As a teenager developing an interest in politics in the 1970s, those words of Winnie Ewing in 1967 always inspired me. I was only 6 at the time of course and so too young to be aware of that famous by-election (ever since which the SNP has had continuous representation in the House of Commons). My first vague political memories were of my father being pleased Labour had lost in 1970 (or was it that the Tories had won – ah the political spin of that one!) and another vague but definite memory of Margo McDonald speaking in Govan on the television in 1973.

So when my life took one of its unexpected turns (as it has over the years) and my first job after qualifying was in Lanarkshire, until then merely a county name on a map, home to football teams such as Airdrie and Motherwell, it was natural that I would gravitate to the SNP and its Hamilton branch. So you can imagine my disappointment when I walked into a meeting attended by 8 or 9 people at which the main order of business was a forthcoming jumble sale.

I don’t mean to denigrate the people involved. They were all genuine enough and meant well. But mostly they didn’t have ambition. The fact that within months of joining I had been selected as a candidate for one of the three Regional council seats spoke more about the lack of ambition that permeated the party than it did about my abilities.

And that’s the difference between then and now - that one small word: ambition.

It’s been shining through the SNP campaign from start to finish this year and is in marked contrast to the doom, gloom and positive disaster that has been the Labour campaign, which seems to be a re-hash of what we fell for in 2010 – that only Labour could stand up to the Tories.

But this time the electorate appears to have actually listened to what is being said to them. That doesn’t mean that at other elections they have been stupid as some on the Nationalist fringe avow. It just means that this time the SNP has pitched its campaign correctly and has struck a cord with the electorate. And guess what? The electorate has realised that there are precious few Tories and the chances of Annabel Goldie becoming First Minister are as slim as Dundee United winning the SPL.

So there isn’t actually anything to fear – and fear is the lowest common denominator factor running through the Labour campaign: mindless fear at its very worst. Fear of the Tories, fear of knives, fear of unemployment, fear of running our own affairs. It's what Labour are usually good at - I always remember at that very first election in 1986 being told by someone that they couldn't vote for me (in a seat where Labour usually polled 65% of the vote) "in case I let the Tories in". It's gone on that long. But at last the electorate are seeing through it. Mind you someone else announced they couldn't vote for me because I had a beard - but that's another story.

I come now to another word. A bigger one this time: Independence.

I am an unashamedly fundamentalist Nationalist. Running Holyrood is all very well, but as it stands it’s just a bigger version of a council chamber. My ambition is of a nation truly participating in the affairs of the world at large.

I’m not scared to talk about embassies – after all Norway, Denmark, New Zealand and a host of other small countries seem to manage them without much fuss.

Customs and Border posts? I think it’s likely that after Independence the only guards will be found on the English side!

Armed forces? Yes we’ll have them like any other small European country. But we won’t need an expensive fleet of nuclear submarines berthed 500 miles from our capital as we won’t be labouring under the mistaken belief that it’s still 1930 and the map is coloured pink!

So it’s with some relief that at last Independence is being talked about in the campaign. Because that’s what the SNP is all about.

We stand on the verge of an historic second victory, one that will catapult us towards that dream of Independence like nothing in the last 50 years has done. Because I have little doubt that given the platform an Independence referendum will afford us to properly and fairly debate the issue, that the ambition will shine through and finally the fear will be banished.

Tomorrow you have an opportunity as never before – to stop the world and allow Scotland to get on!  Both Votes SNP!

Leaders debate and onwards to Polling Day

Well I forced myself to watch through the leaders debate and to be honest following the #spdebate posts on twitter was more interesting. Though pain drying came a close second.
Bernard Ponsonby ably demonstrated that he is no Gordon Brewer, and although the latter gives me the "dry boak" as they say at work, I'd vote for him over Ponsonby any time.
The audience weren't much better and quite how STV gathered a collection of folk so caught up in their own individual tales of woe is beyond me. I have every sympathy for the woman and her daughter on her on-off apprentice scheme (I bet the real story isn't so straightforward as she makes out), and for the supply teacher (and at this point fair do's to Bernard for trying to get Gray to admit that 2/3 of the teachers jobs cut were by Labour councils), and for NHS folk caught up in job vacancies not being filled and all their assorted concerns, but they were very much caught up in their own lives and were allowed to dominate proceedings and sadly Bernard didn't redirect very well back to the bigger picture.

Unless things have changed very much since I was politically active, and I admit that was a generation ago, most people have made up their minds by this stage anyway and the "don't knows" in opinion polls are merely reflecting "won't vote anyways" or indeed "I'm ashamed to say who I AM voting for". Which does lead me to think the Labour vote won't quite be as low as the 27% in the STV poll on Thursday itself. But on the other hand their leader did them little service by getting aggressive with the audience - that rarely comes over well.

I am not known for having being a fan of Alex Salmond . He has many faults as do we all and his biggest failing in my opinion has always been his assumption that anyone proposing the opposite point of view to his is automatically wrong. I worry about the "one man band" perception that some have, despite the first class team of senior ministers that surround him: Nicola Sturgeon, Kenny Macaskill, Alex Neil stand head and shoulders above their Labour counterparts. But Salmond is, in my humble view, truly a politician who has finally found his era and if ever an SNP politician leads us to Independence in the way that once I thought Jim Sillars might have, then he's the man to do it.

So on to Polling Day. Rain forecast I believe - the commentators will have a field day predicting the effect of that - I don't think anyone has every researched it properly though. I do think it will be closer than the polls are suggesting but I'd be delighted to be proved wrong. A majority in favour of an Independence referendum will do me whether that involves an influx of Greens or Tavish doing a somersault. On one thing I think most people will agree. Taxi for Gray!

3 days to go!

Till Polling Day of course. And how different it is to the last campaign I had any direct involvement in - my own election campaign in Silvertonhill in 1995! Back then the internet was in its infancy, the founders of Facebook were still at school, and Social Networking was speaking to voters at a jumble sale. We didn't even have a computer but made do with an old ex-BT Telex machine! Reading cards were hand-written and leaflets involved Letraset! It was that long ago that the organiser of my current local SNP campaign wasn't even at school!

But in many other ways the campaigns are similar, with a clearly thought out strategy linked to a high visual profile for the candidate, with a raft of leaflets and targetted supporters and first time voter letters - all very novel at the time but taken for granted now. And a fantastic team of workers - if my memory serves me correctly at one point on Polling Day in 1995 we had 40 people on the ground in two wards. With a Branch membership of 30 that was pretty good going!

It was voter contact and confidence that swung that election, in exactly the same way that those two factors are likely to swing this one. Although my own involvement in this campaign has been limited to the display of window posters and the stuffing of several hundred envelopes, I know from the many emails that there has been a team of SNP activists working away for some years identifying our support and 22,000 targetted items of literature is a staggering achievement and speaks volumes for how things have changed in a generation.

Turnout is likely to be crucial on Thursday - a lot of the polls have expressed percentages in terms of definite voters and if we can get our own voters out in big numbers it will be able to swing things in many areas. Back in 1995 we defied the odds and got well over 90% of our identified supporters out to vote. That on the back of a 50% turnout secured me the seat with approaching 50% of the votes cast, and the same may well go on Thursday.

Swings are of course, despite Peter Snow's machinations, never uniform - Cumbernauld should have fallen to the SNP in 2007 but didn't, so look out for surprises here and there. And although he's spent much of the campaign on the run, I don't really expect the Labour leader to be run out of his own town on Thursday. I do fully expect him to be run out of his leader's job shortly thereafter however.


Other than that I'm not one for predictions other than I do genuinely believe that Thursday will take us one giant step closer to Independence!