The "original" BondBloke

Another fine mess....

2008-02-14T12:58:00.002Z

Who would want to be a Tory or Lib Dem in Scotland these days? Not only does our redoubtable First Minister appear to be positively steaming ahead in opinion polls, but now poor Nicol S and Annabel G find that they’ve been mugged by the inability of Wendy ‘Shreek’ Alexander to deliver her much-lauded Constitutional Commission. How so?

Dream sequence: let Scotland’s unionist parties take the wind out of Ecky’s burgeoning nationalist sails by announcing the setting up of a new Constitutional Commission which will consider what further powers (including over taxation) should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. And let that project invoke memories of the Constitutional Convention of the 1980s where a united Scotland stood firm in its determination to take on an unpopular Tory administration in London. Rekindling that spirit of national defiance against Thatchers’ “over-centralisation” of UK Government will effectively kill Salmond’s National Conversation for the “over-separation” (i.e independence) of Scotland’s Government. That will see off his so-called national conversation once and for all…

Horrid reality: not only are Wendy’s well-trailed ambitions for further devolution of powers subject to extensive criticism by the UK-wing of her own party, but the Constitutional Commission project is taken over by the UK Government and managed by a senior civil servant whose professional coordinates lie somewhere between the UK Ministry of Justice and the Scotland Office. It quickly becomes crystal clear that not only is bailiff Brown really in charge of this Commission, but he is ready to leave no one in any doubt that he is in charge!

The fine mess: Nicol and Annabel stick with this ill-fated Commission venture and find they are captured by the UK Labour Government. Self evidently Brown’s terms of reference for the remit of the Commission differ fundamentally from Wendy’s and, all the more so, from the terms that Nicol and Annabel thought they’d signed up to with such inelegant haste back in November. As rulers do, the bailiff has ruled. But he’s ruled out key reforms that Scotland’s unionist parties had persuaded themselves ('cause Wendy said so) had been ruled in! One can’t really imagine that being instructed the bailiff as to the conclusions this Commission will not be permitted to reach ahead of any meeting taking place is a situation that either Nicol or Annabel (or their UK masters) is likely to enjoy. But walk away from Wendy’s Commission on the grounds that you’ve been misinformed on its remit and scope, and the inability and incompetence of Scotland’s unionist parties collectively to discuss further any serious constitutional reform is laid bare for all to see. Upshot – not only is the constitutional debate handed back to the SNP – to be engaged through its still active national conversation – but the SNP Government emerges as the only political party capable of engaging this debate.

And all this begins with an idea from Wendy who, we are constantly assured, has a brain the size of a small planet.

The Peter and Wendy show...

2008-01-25T12:16:00.000Z

In March 2007 the Association of Chief Police Officers for Scotland and the Electoral Commission agreed a Concordat covering, inter alia, procedures should potential violations of the rules on Parliamentary candidates’ spending and donations be uncovered. Appendix E, point 7, of that concordat states the following:

“In cases where the Electoral Commission has…information that indicates that criminal offences may have been committed…and the Commission has considered that the breaches are of sufficient severity that they believe prosecution action to be necessary…” these will be reported to the police.

The key words are, of course, “…sufficient severity…” - this presumably being in the opinion of the Electoral Commission, notwithstanding any advice it may receive. RRR finds it somewhat strange that crime (and the law of the land) is to be enforced subject to what is, essentially, a de minimis test to be applied by a quango. But whether we approve or not, this process might well determine the fate of Wendy’s political career.

Three men in a newspaper...

2008-01-18T14:00:00.000Z

Today's Hootsman carries three stories that RRR thought worthy of comment.

First, the great whinge by everyone's favourite pundit, Dougie Donnelly - recently removed Chairman of the Scottish Institute of Sport. A full 2 pages worth of interview, plus great big happy photo. My sole question in all of this national wailing and associated carfuffle about Dougie's dismissal - and one that has not yet been addressed - is whether the aforementioned Institute actually provided value for money in terms of the performance of our elite athletes? In short - was it doing a good job? Has anyone asked him? Not his pals on the beeb, that's for sure - pace GMS appallingly fawning interview on Thursday's show. And not the redoubtable Hootsman interviewer either. As far as I can see from its annual reports, it certainly was doing a good job of appointing experts - so full marks on the input (spending money) side. But what about outputs? No one seems to have had the audacity to actually ask Dougie to defend the "value-added" record of the Institute in terms of overall performance by our elite athletes. I don't know the answer, but for goodness sake would somebody please pose the question?

Second, and this is a very unnerving moment for RRR, top marks go to Bill Jamieson for a very well written, sensible and balanced (yes, that's what I said...) piece on the Trump issue. I can't believe I've just written that...I'll stop now lest I begin again to believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. But read it yourself.

And finally we turn to Corporal Jones (CJ), hubby of Groaner Brankin, writing on how an issue (inward investment) described as one of the Government's strategic economic objectives. As per usual, in his haste to bash the incumbent government CJ's logic goes somewhat awry:

'...in the Government's budget statement there is the following strategic objective: "We live in a Scotland that is the most attractive place for doing business in Europe"'

While this text indeed does appear in the budget statement (see here p46), it is presented not as an objective - I'd have thought the syntax kinda gives it away - but as a National Outcome to be delivered via the implementation of the 5 strategic objectives set out in the much earlier Government Economic Strategy (seemingly CJ doesn't know how to read a matrix). As usual, in his haste to catch out our new national government poor old CJ stumbles. And if that wasn't enough, he then undertakes some comparative analysis (sic) and compares the inward investment (under-)performance of Ireland with that of London - needless to say one is a country and one is a city. Following some very basic back-of-the fag-packet arithmetic (long-division, multiplication - that sort of stuff) and confused argumentation that I'll spare you, CJ comes to the breath-taking conclusion that "...the idea that tax cuts are a magic bullet for fixing the Scottish economy does not...stand up". Er, excuse me, but who said it did (stand up that is)? Like it or loathe it, I think the Government economic strategy is just a tad more sophisticated than that. Sadly, perhaps, CJ isn't.

I never thought I'd come to the stage when I'd be awarding top marks to Bill J for his objectivity in comparison to other scribes on the Hootsman. Strange days indeed....

Alf's Oafishness

2007-09-07T15:52:00.000+01:00

There are many aspects to the copy that the Herald’s Oaf Young has been writing ever since a SNP victory began to look likely that are deeply irritating. Perhaps the most irritating is the intensely anti-intellectual stance he adopts over the matter of addressing Scotland’s contemporary economic performance (although a close second is his primordial west-of-Scotland Labour sectarianism). There are two aspects in today’s Herald piece that demonstrate what I mean.

First, the attempt to entirely undermine the new Council of Economic Advisors some 2 weeks ahead of its first meeting as reflected in the utterly contemptible comment that its composition “…gives independence an inbuilt majority on the 11-strong group” – this because Messrs Mathewson and Beveridge have come out in favour of independence; Professors Hughes Hallett and Kay “…avowedly favour Scottish independence”, and Professors Kydland and Ruane “…would not be minded to deprive Scotland of what their own countries have so long enjoyed”. Oh - and do you really think the CEA will decide on the basis of a vote for goodness sake?

Let’s look a bit more closely at our Council. Both Mathewson and Beveridge worked at various times in very senior public sector positions to improve the economic performance of Scotland. Both have concluded that Scotland lacks the necessary economic powers to achieve this – a conclusion also reached at by Robert Crawford, another former Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise. RRR knows none of these individuals, but he’d be most reluctant to cast aspersions on their analytical abilities. RRR does, however, know the next two – Professors Hughes Hallett and Kay – and can assure Oaf that neither has an overtly political bone in his body. Both – and for entirely different reasons – have come to conclude that Scotland’s economic situation can be improved under a changed constitutional arrangement. Of the two, Hughes Hallett is driven by some heavy-lifting economic analysis. In a number of peer reviewed articles he has shown why Scotland’s economic performance is likely to be improved under an assignment of more economic powers to her government - it is the prevailing (mis-)assignment of economic policies, rather than independence per se, that is his starting position). Can this body of work simply be dismissed out of hand – or has Oaf read these and found the flaw in the underlying economic reasoning that other economists have missed? If so he’s keeping remarkably quiet about it. And as for his speculations on the independence-minded psychological state of the other two whom he seems not to have encountered (Kydland, because he's Finnish, and Ruane, ditto Irish, one of whom won the Nobel prize in Economics)…well, utterly pathetic really. One can only speculate why the remaining 3 economists – Jim Mirlees, Francis Cairncross and Alex Kemp – escape adverse comment, although if the afore-mentioned seditious-six are to get there divisive way they have to negotiate around these three…has Oaf ever met Jim Mirlees?…not something I’d be tempted to try).

The serious point of course is that Oaf is systematically aiming to throw doubt on the integrity of some highly eminent individuals (who, unlike Oaf, have reached the very top of their respective professions) by implying they have reached their professional conclusions on the underlying causes for Scotland’s relative economic performance as a consequence of a political predisposition towards the SNP, rather than (if at all) the other way round. This is the very epitome of the ‘old’, bitter and ugly politics of Scotland, and demonstrates why Oaf is no longer fit for purpose. (Though RRR is willing to wager a large sum that Oaf would be entirely sycophantic and grovelling to every one of them if ever he met them…)

The second irritating aspect of today’s piece is the oh-so-clever-clogs bit about the quality of the economic data on which any advice made by the CEA will be based. Here Oaf invokes the recent study by McLaren and Harris which raises a few very well founded doubts about the quality of the current economic data in Scotland, and which attracted intelligent comment yesterday from Gavin McCrone. But rather than criticising the quality of data produced by a string of previous occupants of New St Andrews House (most of whom were the political brethren of Oaf), he opts instead to try and be clever with words. I’ve lost count of the number of economists who have pleaded with officials to improve the quality of Scottish economic data. To set achieving this as an acid test by which the CEA will or will not be judged is simply bonkers. Statisticians in the Scottish Government will need to develop a range of new survey/sample methodologies to deliver a comprehensively solid set of economic data for Scotland, and I doubt this will be done before 21 September. I don't think this will prevent the Council from having an informed and useful debate.

Wendy (Shreek) Alexander clearly is trying to begin the long process of returning Scottish Labour to the position in which it has policies that the public want to vote for. And RRR wishes her every success in that quest. Everyone benefits from having a credible opposition. But the type of political carping that has become Alf Young’s stock in trade will not help. This is a throw back to the era in which political bigotry ruled the roost; the “better dead than SNP” type of politics so characteristic of the deeper recesses of West of Scotland labourism. It is the same mind set that delivers the religious bigotry that has come to scar our national sport week in. week out. Alf Young clearly despises the SNP as Rangers "fans" despise Celtic "fans" and vice versa. RRR would like to see that this form of deep-seated journalistic sectarianism rooted out and exposed for what it is.

The Sad Tale of Dr Jones and Mister Brankin

2007-09-04T14:25:00.000+01:00

Is Peter Jones losing it? In today’s Scotsman this formerly balanced reporter is trailing a new conspiracy theory as follows:

Is it part of the SNPs plan to deprive Scotland of the kind of big improvements that are eminently achievable now so that we become convinced that we must have independence in order to get them? In other words, is the SNP taking our toys away from us now and saying we’ll only get them back if we do as we’re told?

What has prompted this bizarre outburst is a “contradiction” which Mister Groaner Brankin has detected “at the heart of SNP’s programme”. He argues that because the SNP accepts the proposition that better transport infrastructure will improve Scotland's economic growth rate, it is acting in a contradictory (read "conspiratorial") manner in axing the Edinburgh Airport (vanity) rail project.

Upon interrogation on this by our redoubtable reporter, Enterprise Minister Jim Mather is quoted as having two responses explaining the Government’s position: first the Government needs control over income as well as expenditure if they are to embark on such huge capital spending programmes; second that the project is too risky under the current constitutional settlement. Mister Brankin finds neither explanation acceptable – on the basis that he sees no reason why this decision should have a “constitutional” dimension – and this leads him to his conspiracy theory as set out above.

Let’s just unpick the conundrum which leads him along the false trail towards his conspiracy story. Both of Jim Mather’s responses are easily understood in fairly basic economic terms;

(i) Controlling income as well as expenditure gives a government access to the full range of taxes (including - and this is crucial - future taxation) in order to fund capital spending programmes that are characterised by long pay-back periods (which is why the private sector won’t step in). Under the present fiscal arrangements the ‘block grant’ is set in London with scope for raising additional funds in Scotland solely via higher income tax (the ‘tartan tax’). Is Peter J suggesting that income tax in Scotland should be increased now to pay for a project for whom the main beneficiaries will be future generations? As matters stand the Scottish government’s task is to select spending priorities subject to the ceiling set by Whitehall. They cannot breach this ceiling – their budget has to balance. The Government has to select spending priorities within that ceiling, and the SNP made no secret of the fact that the rail project was not a priority. Other wealth-enhancing projects are of course being prioritised:

(ii) Under the current arrangements a Scottish government has no scope to raise revenue by borrowing (i.e. by issuing government debt). The bailiff’s golden rule when at the Treasury permits the UK government to borrow to finance capital spending (e.g. railway projects) – which it does – but not current spending. (Does PJ really believe that the 3 billion Euro he reports the Irish government will spend on a rail link to Dublin airport is coming out of the current spending account?) Scotland is unable to operate a golden rule, and so is further handicapped when it comes to funding expensive investment programmes, even where these are deemed desirable. Independence would enable a Scottish government to borrow in international capital markets and close this gap. In other words it can borrow now against higher revenues accruing in the future:

(iii) “Risk” is a complex issue, and every investment carries with it some element of risk. Indeed, it is the existence of risk that requires governments to step in and invest where the private sector will not – because a private company will be spreading the risk over a small number of current shareholders while a government can spread the risk over the current and (crucially) future tax payers as a whole. If there was no risk then there would be no obstacle to the rail link being provided privately (the channel tunnel is a good example of what I’m driving at!). When we consider “risk” in this way it is clear that the degree of “risk” attaching to capital investment spending by a government indeed is directly linked to the constitutional situation. At present the risk attaching to the rail link falls entirely on this government and this Scottish population. The government cannot borrow against benefits accruing from the project in the future. This changes fundamentally if Scotland was to become independent.

The type of conspiracy theory being pedalled by Peter Jones is feeble and reflects poorly on him. As someone who once worked for the Economist, one might have hoped he’d be better versed in elementary economics. But maybe Peter Jones is gone, and all we're left with is Mister Brankin? I really hope not...

Yet more Tory Euro-tosh

2007-08-22T15:58:00.000+01:00

Oh dear, here we go again. Ill informed drivel coupled with wilful mischief making by politically reactionary forces in Scotland - a combination certain to get RRR irritated. I am referring to this report from "the Tories" which is headlined: "An independent Scotland would be forced to use the Euro if it wanted to join the European Union as a sovereign country, according to the Scottish Conservatives." The content is cited in the following terms:

“It is now clear that we (i.e. Scotland) would have no choice in the matter and that membership of the Euro would be an automatic consequence of independence. There is absolutely no guarantee that the special status enjoyed by the UK would automatically transfer to an independent Scotland. This would create a very damaging situation for Scottish businesses, where they would be operating with a different currency from their major markets in the rest of the UK. Alex Salmond needs to stop misleading the Scottish people and now come clean, admitting that as an independent Scotland, we would have no choice but to join the Euro.”

It is, in fact, the Scottish Tories who should stop misleading the Scottish people.

First: the facts. It is entirely true that all countries acceding to the EU since, and including, those who joined in 1995 have been obliged to sign up for eventual membership of the euro - the EU´s single currency - this being an integral part of the EU Treaties. The opt-out from the requirement to participate in the EU single currency which both the UK and Denmark secured in the run-up to the signing of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) back in 1992 has not been available to any country subsequently joining the EU. It was only agreed back then because of the particular circumstances of the day. It is highly unlikely (though not impossible - we are back in "successor state??" territory) that a comparable opt-out will ever again be available to a prospective EU member state (if that is the position in which an independent Scotland finds itself). However, even although obliged by the EU treaties to become a member of the euro-zone, a member state will only be permitted to adopt the euro if it meets the so-called convergence criteria as set out in the TEU, the most difficult of which traditionally has been reducing its budget deficit to below 3% of Gross Domestic Product. For the record, Slovenia became the 13th member of the euro-zone from January 1st this year, and Malta and Cyprus will take the number participating in the euro-zone to 15 from January 1st, 2008.

Second: the actual position for non-members of the euro-zone as we know it to be. The UK and Denmark retain the opt-out and so are under no legal obligation ever to join the euro-zone. Both countries currently hold to the position that whilst in no sense ruling it out, they will not join unless this is supported in a national referendum. For the rest, and this includes Sweden where just such a referendum held in September 2003 went against joining the euro-zone (despite the fact that Sweden met the convergence criteria), there is simply no question that any country can be - or ever will be - forced into joining the euro-zone. Any suggestion to the contrary (including that made by Scotland´s Tories) is arrant nonsense and reveals a truly worrying degree of economic, political and legal illiteracy. The question as to whether an independent Scotland should exercise its right to join the euro-zone (subject to meeting the convergence criteria) is, of course, quite a different matter and (for the record) one on which RRR remains agnostic, this being a matter requiring further research.

The apparent content of this report truly is bewildering and deeply troubling, and suggests that one or more of the following propositions must be true;

ONE; that the Scottish Tories collectively are sufficiently stupid and ill-informed to have been duped into believing that an independent Scotland would be dragooned into the euro-zone against the wishes of either or both the Scottish government and its electorate;
TWO; that the Scottish Tories´policy-ideas cupboard is so bereft of constructive policy proposals that might help Scotland that they are reduced to wilfully misleading the Scottish public of the true situation vis-a-vis the Euro;

THREE; that the Scottish Tories have just discovered that all new member states (and not only those joining since 2004 but also those who joined in 1995) have had to sign an accession treaty committing them to eventual membership of the euro-zone. (Hell, if the Tories think that the SNP Government could have saved some money by not publishing the White Paper on Scotland´s constitutional future, RRR could have saved them a few pounds in consultant´s fees if only they had phoned him on this matter.)

Fit to govern...?? Scotland needs an independent think tank on EU policy so that the type of rubbish coming out of this so-called "investigation" can be debunked as soon as it´s published!

Jack Straw: what a waste of an expensive (legal) education

2007-08-21T23:02:00.000+01:00

D'ya know what? When Jack Straw was away from the Home Office and the administration of justice which he now taints, I actually missed him. No, seriously. Somehow my vision was tainted by the successive horrors of David Blunkett, Charles Clarke and John Reid, and I really missed Jack Straw's apparently reasonable approach to things. Not any more, not after today. I am pleased to see that Straw's Wikipedia entry refers to my favourite snippet about him - namely that the Students' Union in Leeds, of which he was once a sabbatical officer before becoming President of the NUS, banned him from the student union building after taking exception to his illiberal policies. I remember seeing the lovely plaque outside the main entrance to the building. I am sorry to see that the policy has now apparently lapsed. However, the historical record appears to state that Straw took a law degree at Leeds University - my former employer... I am sure it was a very good law degree - all Leeds law degrees are. But it clearly appears to have gone to waste, because it was apparently his "expectation" that Chindamo could be duly deported from the UK once he had completed his prison sentence. So now I mourn the passing of Charlie Falconer, who - as Lord Chancellor - would never have said anything so legally idiotic. Now, funnily enough, Jack Straw was Foreign Secretary at the time when the Citizens' Rights Directive was passed by the EU legislature, and as such he was effectively the UK's leader on all EU policy-making through his membership of the General Affairs Council. It is so blindingly obvious, I'm afraid, that the UK could never have an expectation of deporting Chindamo on release under EU law, and at most a hope that such an objective could be achieved, that one has to ask oneself the question whether (a) Straw has any understanding of the measures the UK is bound by, by virtue of EU law, and (b) whether his legal skills have so wasted away that he is no longer able to appreciate the clear effects of the provision of the Citizens' Rights directive which I cited in my last post on this matter. Anyway, it leads me to conclude that it was certainly a waste of an expensive (legal) education to send Jack Straw to Leeds University.

Leftist Pinko Liberal

2007-08-20T22:15:00.000+01:00

I've been involved in a bit of a debate with BondBloke over the last few days about which of us is more liberal. I think there is no contest, and now I intend to prove it, by blogging on a legal development which apparently receives universal condemnation by "right-thinking" members of society. This is the ruling by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal that Learco Chindamo, who convicted of the murder of the Headteacher Philip Lawrence in 1996, a murder he committed when he was 15, should not be deported when he is released from prison (apparently this is expected some time in 2008). Reports state that this has been done on "human rights grounds", but in reality, I suspect that it is more a matter of applying EU law. As an EU citizen who had resided in the UK for more than ten years before his conviction, and the lawfulness of whose residence does not appear to be called into question, Chindamo benefits from the protection of Article 28 of the Citizens' Rights Directive.

This provides:
1. Before taking an expulsion decision on grounds of public policy or public security, the host Member State shall take account of considerations such as how long the individual concerned has resided on its territory, his/her age, state of health, family and economic situation, social and cultural integration into the host Member State and the extent of his/her links with the country of origin.
2. The host Member State may not take an expulsion decision against Union citizens or their family members, irrespective of nationality, who have the right of permanent residence
on its territory, except on serious grounds of public policy or public security.
3. An expulsion decision may not be taken against Union citizens, except if the decision is based on imperative grounds of public security, as defined by Member States, if they:
(a) have resided in the host Member State for the previous 10 years;...

Of course the text of this measure, which the UK has accepted as an incident of its EU membership, may be grist to the mill of those calling for withdrawal from the EU, on the grounds it contaminates "our" sovereignty. On the other hand, people should recall that these things work both ways: there may be people in the prisons of other Member States who are not deported back to the UK when released, on exactly the same grounds that Chindamo is arguing he should stay in the UK. Namely that his "family and life were in the UK".

Unless one denies entirely the possiblity of rehabilitation, it also strikes me that such policies on expulsion are entirely rational. It can never be guaranteed, as I hinted above, that reform is "complete". But if one thing is likely to ensure than any rehabilitative effect of a prison sentence and any educational measures that have accompanied it is **not** successful, it is deportation to a country where a person has not resided since they were a very small child, the language which they may not speak, and where they lack family, other support mechanisms, and - crucially - employment opportunities which will reintegrate them socially and help to ensure that they do not reoffend. David Davis describes Italy as "his [i.e. Chindamo's] own country". But on what grounds is this so other than on the basis of holding a passport - which is something, effectively, he has been bequeathed by his parents (Chindamo was a minor at the time he was convicted and could not, therefore, have previously changed his nationality through his own actions)?

Moreover, it strikes me that there is a more general moral argument to be made about foreign prisoners. Frances Lawrence has always struck me as an interesting woman, motivated amongst other things by her faith and her underlying liberal principles. Yet in the BBC report I linked to above, she is quoted as saying that she is "unutterably depressed", "depressed" and "devastated" by the ruling. These seem understandable personal reactions on the part of a victim, yet in the Guardian article I linked to, she is shown struggling with the contradictions between her personal feelings and her underlying liberal beliefs. It is hard, and wrong, to generalise about foreign prisoners and deportation, but I think one point should be made - not least because it is probably an unpopular opinion drowned out by the cacophony of hardline views especially on the internet. This is the point that each individual foreign prisoner deserves to have individual consideration of his or her circumstances, in order to ensure that deportation does not become an arbitrary extra punishment imposed specifically upon them (and not upon nationals) not by the decision of a jury to convict and the decision of a judge to impose a particular sentence, but by an executive which claims the right to determine which persons who do not hold the magical badge of nationality are permitted to remain within the jurisdiction and which are not. Such an assessment is not a "human rights" issue as such, but rather a means-end calculation done on an individual basis. Interestingly enough, this is precisely what EU law mandates. Decisions on deportation must be based precisely on the risk which an individual poses to the host society, and not based on general precepts, and the decision must take into account issues about integration - not for human rights reasons, but for the perfectly good utilitarian reasons about propensity to reoffend if individuals are thrown into unfamiliar and hostile surroundings and are denied any meaningful support of family and friends. The UK and its residents no more wishes to see the mirror image of a UK passport holder in Chindamo's situation thrust upon it, than Italian residents would wish to see Chindamo sent there, despite his lack of a connection with the place other than the magical badge of the passport.

I strongly suspect that this leftist pinko liberal sentiment will show BondBloke in his true colours. I await his reaction...

Update: First, I have to report that entirely unsolicited BondBloke expressed a similar view to mine when he first heard this story on the Today programme this morning. So, I'll have to try harder. **This** isn't evidence of my being more liberal than him, but rest assured I will find evidence. Second, I am glad to see that I am not alone as a pinko liberal (armchair variety only) - see here. Perhaps predictably Jailhouse Lawyer takes a similar view. And a utilitarian view on the "sharing" of those with criminal backgrounds is put forward here.

Further update: a few more voices raised. They'll be shouted down by the "moral" majority.

Final update: A good fisking, by Chris Paul, of a typically rubbish post on the issue by Iain Dale, definitely appealing to the "moral" majority, which I won't link to. In fact, a surprising number of dissenters amongst the commentators on Dale's blog, suggesting that some sensible people still do read it (I would have deleted him ages ago from the sidebar here, except that the blog settings have malfunctioned and I can no longer change the template, sidebar, etc.).

Enough is enough.

Red's Rage

2007-08-17T16:51:00.000+01:00

Seems to me that an occupational hazard in all of this blogging is that one easily can begin to obsess about particular issues and/or individuals. In RRR case, this risk is particularly acute in the case of ‘Red’ Midwinter and his regular interventions on the topic of Scotland’s budgetary position and prospects. Yesterday’s performance, as reported here, reads like vintage Red. The trademark authority, the political side-swiping, the “we’re doomed I tell ye” predictions. Let’s face it – an optimist he is not. But particularly worrying is that he is quoted by the ever-fawning Hack MacMahon as repeating a comment he first made after the FM announced his Council of Economic Advisers – this being that the Executive has "no responsibility for managing the Scottish economy… and only has microeconomic powers". Of all the assertions he has made recently, this has to be one of the more revealing. As any first year student of economics (hopefully) will tell you, economic growth is defined not as year to year changes in GDP (which records the growth of aggregate demand and is heavily influenced by macroeconomic – fiscal and monetary – policy changes over which the Scottish government presently has virtually no control), but is defined as the (long term) growth of potential output of the economy. And the growth of potential output is substantially influenced by (supply side) microeconomic policy decisions over which the Scottish Government commands considerable policy authority. It is therefore incorrect, and indeed economically illiterate, to argue that Scotland's government has no responsibility for managing the economy because it only has control over microeconomic policy levers. These are the principal levers required to manage the economy in any meaningful sense.

Such ignorance of an elementary proposition in economic theory might be forgivable if coming from a journalist, but is deeply worrying when made by Scotland's "leading" expert in public finance. And this isn’t entirely a matter of point-scoring vis-à-vis Red, fun though that is. It is also a reflection that in some of his pronouncements, as here, Red is simply confused and wrong (i.e. he doesn't know what he's talking about). Which itself suggests that the multiple “papers” of which he is an author (and which are devlishly hard to find in the public domain) have not been adequately reviewed by Red’s academic peers – peer reviewing being an entirely “normal” practice within the industry. As elementary an error as this one would certainly have been picked up in a proper peer review exercise. It is indicative of an approach to public policy commentary that is at best cavalier and at worst intellectually dishonourable.

University as Lobbyist

2007-07-27T10:40:00.000+01:00

Those who, like RRR, have an interest in the Caledonian MacBrayne tendering issue should have a look at this blog, section headed "The EC-subsidised private lobbyists".

Having read the "academic" report in question, RRR would have gone much further in his condemnation of the so-called Professor who, in exchange for the 40-pieces-of-silver, evidently was happy to sell to private shipping concerns the last remaining vestige of any intellectual respectability he may once have commanded. As far as RRR is concerned, those undertaking such crass political lobbying from within a Scottish University are guilty bringing the academic profession as a whole into disrepute and do not deserve the title of "academic" far less that of professor.

Ring the Changes...

2007-07-25T08:18:00.000+01:00

RRR was delighted to learn yesterday that Professor David Bell of the University of Stirling has been confirmed as adviser to the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament. This is, to be sure, a first rate appointment. As our regular readers will understand, RRR is equally pleased that - in this publicly funded capacity at least - Red Midwinter has been kicked into the long grass from where, no doubt, he will continue his role as adviser to the West of Scotland's Anti-Democracy Party.

Fishing for a fight

2007-07-12T16:44:00.000+01:00

OK - he's been in Brussels, he's met the EU Fisheries Commissioner and already Groanar Brankin is baying for his blood. His crime? That is to insist that Scotland takes the lead on behalf of the UK in future Council of Ministers sessions dealing with the Common Fisheries Policy. Outrageous, screeches Groanar by way of measured response. She continues:

"The UK coastline is shared between Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland - all with major fishing industries. So the notion that Scotland should have the sole right to speak for the UK on fisheries matters is fanciful nonsense."

In fact it is Groanar who, in her unseemly though entirely predictable haste once again to pounce on the elected government of Jockland with all the elegance and grace of an elephant wearing wellies, is getting this wrong - possibly because she has never had any reason to read what the relevant concordats actually say (well, much easier to be told by London), far less that what it was that Ecky actually said last evening.

On the latter, it is clear that Ecky was seeking the right to 'lead' the UK delegation at the aforementioned Council, not be a substitute for it. And under Article 203 of the EU Treaty this is pefectly permissable - this Article having been inserted by the Maastricht treaty revision back in 1993 to placate the irritated (and more mature than Groana) German Lander who were seeing their legislative powers gravitate to Bonn as more and more devolved competences came under EU policy activity.

On the more esoteric issue of the procedures elaborated in the 1999 Memorandum of Understanding to ensure Scotland's EU-policy related voice is heard in Whitehall when UK Government is shaping the national negotiating position viv-a-vis an EU proposal it will represent in the Council of Ministers, Articles B4.12 to B4.15 clearly provide for attendance by Ministers from the devolved administrations at these Council meetings. But here control matters - not rights - in that the decision as to who appears where and when in EU Council meetings rests entirely with UK Government. Scotland's Ministers with responsibility for the devolved matters under EU-level discussion have to be 'invited' to attend the EU Council meeting by the lead UK Department (Minister) on a case-by-case basis. They have no right of attendance. This seems to RRR the imperious language of a by-gone era. Surely it is entirely wrong that the decision as to when a Minister from the Scottish Executive attends EU Council meetings rests solely with Whitehall? It must be for the Scottish Executive to rank EU-related issues according to their domestic importance, and attend when s/he decides this is necessary? After all, I can't imagine there will be an excessive enthusiasm for enduring hours of multi-lingual debate unless the matter is a pressing one. BMI is unlikely to profit much from that particular gravy-train!

Ms Brankin clearly is from the old one-party-state school of thought, of which the established doctrine is that "whatever you do, do nothing". Heavans, even Donald Dewar accepted that the inter-governmental arrangements involving the governments of this Queendom would have to be adapted to suit new challenges and different contexts. We have new challenges and we are in a different context: and there is an urgent need to re-visit these EU-related concordats in order that Scotland's voice is properly heard in the corridors of Whitehall and the EU Council in Brussels. If not, then it won't be a case of Ecky picking fights with London, but rather the Bailiff's London team picking fights with Ecky. After recent head-to-heads, and on present form, not a smart move Bailiff.

Passchendale blues

2007-07-11T17:00:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow Queenie Brenda Windsor will travel to Ypres where she will form part of an international gathering to mark the 90th anniversary of the third battle of Ypres – more popularly known as the battle of Passchendale. She will be accompanied at this event by representatives of the devolved administrations. Oor Eck is already in Brussels wining and dining with the EU's big Commissioner boys and girls in readiness for the day when he rules the roost in an independent Scotland. And as a consequence of Rhodri M’s unfortunate health blip, the devolved Welsh government will be represented at the commemorations by the newly sworn-in deputy first minister of the Assembly and leader of Plaid Cymru, Ieuan Wyn Jones. RRR is unsure if Northern Ireland will be represented at the event – though if so then Brenda might well find herself accompanied by a Scottish nationalist, a Welsh nationalist, and quite possibly a former leading light in the provisional IRA. As Ollie might be heard to muse on the vagaries of constitutional reform...“that’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into Mr Blair.” All of this to be followed next week by a meeting of the British-Irish Council...strange, though interesting, days.

Whinge

2007-07-03T21:49:00.000+01:00

Bondbloke and I are somewhat peeved to discover that we are sharing our hotel for the last couple of days of our mixed work/holiday stay in Malta with an EPP-ED Study Day on EuroMed, Maritime Policy and Immigration. Admittedly the former two headings are not areas of European politics where I could legitimately claim to have more expertise than most MEPs, although I am supervising a thesis which is empirically, if not theoretically, focused on the Euro-Med. However, what peeves us most is that we have just returned to our room to find a card from the hotel management pushed under the door, informing us that our normal breakfast restaurant is unavailable for the next three days (this only affects us tomorrow as we are away early on Thursday). Ordinary hotel guests are going to find their buffet breakfast served in a smaller restaurant, which doesn't open out straight onto the pool terrace, and is infinitely less pleasant for breakfast. If we can't have our breakfast outside under a nice umbrella tomorrow morning, toys may be thrown... European politicians...who'd have 'em in the same hotel?

Always check your sources...

2007-07-03T11:48:00.000+01:00

With the creation of a raft of new Ministers for the (English) Regions, it is becoming fairly clear that Bailiff Brown is determined to review (and revise) the basis of the current intra-UK financial allocations to the devolved administrations. Just how he goes about this is unclear, although it is likely to be based on a UK-wide ‘needs assessment’ exercise. Despite the fact that we know from past experience that this type of computation is bedevilled by methodological difficulties, even those with no political axe to grind are coming to regard Barnett’s demise as inevitable – e.g. see here.

Developing a successor to Barnett will require clear thinking concerning the economic and the politics involved – the type of approach that is hardly apparent in this astonishing rant by President Bruce in today’s Herald. Have the Liberal Democrats lost their collective marbles entirely? But my favourite bit in the piece is the quote attributed to (right wing historian) Arthur Herman by a smug President Bruce where Herman opines:

"By surrendering her sovereignty the first time in 1707, Scotland gained more than she lost. She has to be careful that, in trying to reclaim that sovereignty, she does not reverse that process."

This the same Arthur Herman whose book on Joseph McCarthy published in 2000 was somewhat critically reviewed by Ellen Schrecker in the following terms:

"For the work under review, the European historian Arthur Herman did not gain access to any important new archives or uncover any new aspects of McCarthy's past. On the contrary, his research is perfunctory, to say the least. With a few excursions into some Army files and oral history interviews, he relies almost entirely on the standard published sources. There is nothing new here-and more (I assume) sloppy factual errors than a reputable piece of scholarship should contain...But, sloppiness is hardly a cardinal sin. Far more unsettling is Herman's misuse of his sources...Rather than scholarship (or at least adequate scholarship), this volume seems to be an exhaustive attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of "America's Most Hated Senator," as the book's subtitle describes him."

Ouch...Read the remainder of the review here. Quite - let's just switch "McCarthy" with "Union"...RRR would suggest that President Bruce checks out the credibility of his sources before citing them as self-evident truth. As EH Carr said, if you want to understand history first you have to understand the historian!

Fanfare for the common (wo)man

2007-07-02T17:11:00.000+01:00

Before the news broke about the horrific attack on Glasgow airport, RRR spent a pleasant, if somewhat damp, day enjoying the festivities that surrounded the opening of the third session of the Scottish Parliament. In part as a diversion from the rain, RRR decided to rank our political parties on a ‘mingling index’ according to which their score is determined by the number of a party’s politicians (relative to their overall parliamentary representation) spied mingling in the worsening weather with the great Scottish public in preference to partaking in the various ‘official’ receptions which were available indoors! The highest score by far was achieved by the governing party, with many SNP’s MSPs (including those occupying the very highest office) opting to brave the increasingly inclement elements and enjoy the entertainment on offer outside the Parliament building. While the Liberal Democrats’ score was buttressed by what seemed to be hordes of young Stephens, nonetheless the timely appearance of Cpt. Mainwaring did much to lift them into fourth place behind the Tories (3rd) and the Greens (2nd) – the latter managing to have a staggering 50% of their elected number out and about (Mr. Harvie – Patrick, that is. Sadly RRR's 'law of small numbers' denied the Greens top spot - they'll understand). Labour came in a lowly fifth as RRR saw just one member of the Labour opposition taking the outdoor air, and he didn’t look too happy (must have been the weather…). On the individual rankings RRR’s highest score – a perfect 10 – goes to Rob Gibson, MSP. For Robi G not only braved the hostile elements for the entire afternoon, he remained out there in front of the stage supporting the entertainers as the rain lashed down and men and women of lesser mettle (RRR included) huddled some distance away sheltering under the Parliament’s protruding roof. And this stunning performance comes only a week after the same Robi G had been spied by RRR stoically braving the even more miserable weather (not to mention mud) to take in much of the splendid music (though criminally high refreshment prices) on offer at the Outsider Festival in Aviemore. Well done Robi G!

Regional Ministers - a clarification

2007-06-29T16:28:00.000+01:00

Following this post over on Holyrood Chronicles, RRR can perhaps offer some clarification - eh, maybe. This from the PM's spokesperson at yesterday's No 10 briefing;

"The role of these Ministers was to act as regional champions within the Government, and to represent the Government on parliamentary debate and other forum focussed specifically on regional issues."

When pressed by the assembled hacks, this clarification was offered...

"Asked to say more about the Regional Ministers, and was it right that they would be championing their regions in the Government and not the other way around, the PMS replied that the idea was to ensure that the regional dimension was properly factored into the Government's decision making process in a cross-departmental way. Asked if it would therefore be more bottom-up than top-down, the PMS replied that it was more about ensuring that the regional dimension was joined up across Government. Asked if the Regional Ministers would all have other responsibilities as well, the PMS replied that everyone would have to wait for the detail tomorrow to see exactly how these posts related to other junior Ministerial positions."

Ok – got it?

Red's Rag

2007-06-29T10:51:00.000+01:00

RRR’s favourite, and entirely non-partisan, academic expert on all things economic in Scotland ('Red' Midsummer) is riding to our collective rescue again. This time Prof Red has, amongst others, a couple of economic Nobel laureates in his sights. In response to the FM announcement on his Council of Economic Advisers, Red opines in today’s Scotsman:

"This is a waste of public money. The announcement is symptomatic of the SNP having greater concern for the trappings of office than problems of governing. Hopefully, Mr Salmond will soon stop the gesture politics and make a statement on matters for which he has responsibility,"

That’s the boy Red - go get ‘em. Professors Mirrlees and Kydland (afore mentioned Nobel laureates) will be sorry they ever showed their faces in this town…What would they know about economics anyway? Professor John Kay – founder of the universally praised Institute for Fiscal Studies – a total joker, right? And as for the economy – well, I ask you – just what has improving the state of the Scottish economy got to do with the job of being First Minister of Scotland? Jack never saw it that way - right? It gets even worse. What an outrageous waste of public money - they are each being paid (and I hope you're all sitting down) the preposterous sum of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING...unlike the adviser to the previous Finance Committee as indicated (para 17-19) here. Hum-de-hum...

Coffin lids creaking...

2007-06-27T13:56:00.000+01:00

As can be seen here, yesterday the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament convened in private to consider who should be appointed budget adviser to the committee. Delphic or what? RoadrunnerReturns wonders who got appointed...they wouldn't, would they?

Blog Outing

2007-06-20T21:57:00.000+01:00

We interrupt this programme (or should I say succession of rants (I mean, fully reasoned arguments) by RRR) to bring you news of a Blog Outing. Having been visited in March by Pat the Chooks and Her Maj, we decided last weekend it was time to return the favour. So weary of the incessant rain and grey weather in the East of Scotland, we decided to try our luck in the West. Occasional perusals of the BBC Weather website and reading this blog and reports on this blog about beautiful weather on Skye in the last couple of weeks, had convinced us that we should head west. This is, of course, counterintuitive, because typically the East of Scotland does have more sunshine than the West, but not - apparently - this year. We also needed to do a dry-run for the tent, as we shall be spending next weekend in it at this Festival, along with RoadRunnerReturns, the Queen of Scots, and others. Well thousands of others, actually. However, we are also braving the MacNasties and staying in a tent, which may prove a foolhardy decision. In fact, we did manage to put the tent up in Pat the Chooks' garden, but the MacNasties were sooooo bad, that we gave up on the idea of sleeping out, and gratefully accepted a proper bed for the night. No such choice next Friday and Saturday. Anyway, we have a lovely mini weekend, with a visit to the Bonawe Iron Furnace in Taynuilt (where I decided not to buy the latest CD release of the Taynuilt Gaelic Choir in the local shop....), a drive down Loch Awe and a splendid reception at The Grannary. Saturday was not so good, but Sunday dawned bright and sunny and we ventured straight out the back of The Grannary, onto the hills and away, to enjoy splendid views at the top of the local mini summit, from where we could see Arran, Colonsay, Mull, Ben Cruachan, the Arrochar Alps, and many other sights near and far. Sadly, we had to come back soon after lunch, but it was a real tonic to the system.

UPDATE Gordon Bennett. Tetchy or what? First I have RoadRunnerReturns on at me about how I describe his flood of posts, and then Bondbloke gets on his high horse about not getting a mention in this post. Well, yes, BB was there. For record. End of update.

Chris(t) returns

2007-06-20T20:47:00.000+01:00

Although entirely unreasonably, nonetheless it has been put to Roadrunner that since his return to the blogosphere his posts have been characterised by a certain sympathy with - if not predisposition towards - the new SNP administration in Scotland. While confessing to a growing unease that Scotland was coming perilously close to resembling a one-party and fundamentally clientilist state under the previous regime (a view partially confirmed by Labour's on-going inability to come to terms with being in opposition) and thus delighted with the change in government, RR emphatically denies any specific political affiliation. As evidence of this, let RR alert you to this feature in yesterday's Education Guardian which seems to be taking self-delusion, self-importance and self-promotion to new heights. And this from a new intake SNP MSP who has only (partly) returned to the best small country in the world after an absence of 25 years. Oh, and who commutes here from Aberystwyth. But apart from the sheer scale of the ego that is evident from the quotes attributed to Christ, RR is left musing that whilst Tübingen University - one of his current employers - might be "proving flexible about his political involvement" wherey he continues to combine a professorship there with his new job as an MSP, one wonders if the Scottish electorate - his other current employer - will be just as philosophical if not flexible about having a part-time politician looking after their interests.

Lowering corporation tax?

2007-06-20T20:30:00.000+01:00

RoadrunnerReturns was interested to read this report about an independent tax and budget review for Wales which has been agreed to by Members of the Welsh Assembly. It is fairly well established that - in comparison to Scotland and Northern Ireland - Wales does less well than could be expected from the Barnett formula, at least on the basis of an objective needs assessment. But what continues to baffle Roadrunner is the persistence of the view that corporation tax rates could legally be lowered in some parts of the UK (Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland) but not in others (England). This is wrong, wrong, wrong. European Union law regards any such infra-national variation in rates of corporation tax as state aid. Unless the UK can persuade the European Commission that regional reductions in corporation tax are justified on a strict economic development needs basis, which is highly unlikely in the cases of Scotland and Wales (and probably also in the Northern Irish case), then for right or wrong this policy is a non-starter.

Devolution's big stick

2007-06-19T12:09:00.000+01:00

In all the media coverage of FM Salmond’s away-day to Stormont, little explanation has been offered as to why his visit was so appealing to Dr Paisley and Mr McGuiness. After all, they did invite him. The Scottish media's uniform take on matters thus far revolves entirely around the potential irritation that his visit will cause Whitehall, with the usual spin being that Wee Eck again is just keen to pick a fight with Number 10. By stepping into international relations (rather than continuing Labour’s tradition of running Scotland as a glorified town council) he will do that. Our lamentable media also seems perplexed that a Scottish nationalist should be able to make common cause with a staunch defender of the union of the parliaments, and an Irish Republican. Again what passes for the political analysis here in Scotland misses the point. The leadership in Northern Ireland (and doubtless Wales too in due course) regard (and always has done) Scotland’s First Minister as ‘first among equals’ across the devolved administrations. This reflects the fact that, under the devolution settlements, Scotland emerged as the most powerful of the three devolved administrations. By aligning itself with Salmond, Northern Ireland's leadership can punch above its weight in dealings with London and so get more out of UK Government than otherwise (although EU state aid rules will almost certainly prevent them getting what they want on corporation tax). Seems that the only administration not to have worked out how to deal with the new political angles thrown up by May 7th historic result north of the border is, well, the one in London.

Rank awful

2007-06-15T15:36:00.000+01:00

Now as a music fan of some vintage, I rather like it when newspapers produce this type of review - a selection of so-called "classic" albums which, in the views of a cross-section of today's well known (or if not well known then certainly credible) musicians and/or record producers, maybye weren't that seminal after all. So, have a read and see what today's crop of music-makers consider to be the less than enduring efforts of their forebears. Oh - and spot which participant is the odd one out. Don't have the time? Oh well then, let me tell you. It's that well known, all-singing and all-dancing top-of-the-pops egoist, Ian Rankin. Not only does he not make music, by selecting the Velvet Underground and Nico as his example of an over-rated classic, he demonstrates that he knows nothing whatsoever about music. As anyone with even a passing knowledge of modern music will attest, had that truly brilliant album not happened, then virtually nothing of merit (or interest) in contemporary music would have happened thereafter.

The empire strikes back

2007-06-15T11:38:00.000+01:00

The institutions of the British state (this time the BBC) are not taking this SNP government thing at all well. Last night's interview of FM Salmond by the vacuous Anne MacKenzie on BBC's Newsnight Scotland has to go down as one of the most inept pieces of television journalism since - oh I don't know when (no, just remembered, since crunchy Kirsty's seething attack on FM a week earlier - hey, maybe it's a Thursday thing?). Forget that it was an opportunity of asking our new leader about the 'vision' stuff, or even spending a decent amount of time talking about substantive policy issues. No, let's instead continue to present London's total cock-up over Libya memorandum as nothing other that Salmond picking fights...how dare he upset the British government in such a way. Oh, yea, right Anne. Good one. And just how up to speed on the wording of the concordats are you?

Anne MacKenzie and Gordon Brewer really have to ditch their personal attacks, hide their own politics, or be replaced. We deserve better. Before May 7th 2007 I had lost count of the number of times I heard a Newsnight Scotland package being introduced by the comment - "we asked a member of the Executive to participate but none was available". I have heard that only once since the election - and that was the aforementioned AnneMac's entirely gratuitious side-swipe on last Thursday's programme that Salmond had been asked to appear but that "...he never writes, he never phones...", this coming immediately after he'd been so appallingly treated by crunchy Kirsty on the other Newsnight. Who writes these comments - or are they left to ad lib?

It's way past time BBC Scotland reviewed the manner in which it is presenting news and current affairs in a devolved Scotland. This is not about supporting, or opposing, the current Scottish government. It is simply that what we are being served up as current affairs by BBC Scotland is no longer fit for purpose. Changes have to be made or any remaining vestige of credibility BBC Scotland has in presenting and analysing political news in an objective and mature manner (i.e. Brian Taylor) will be lost forever. A very old and dear friend of mine (one AYL) used to describe Scotland's then ageing and quite unprofessional crop of football commentators as "fans with mikes". The same unprofessionalism now characterises much of the political coverage in Scotland. It's time for a total overhaul.

'Snow Wark-ing, so it isnae

2007-06-14T15:20:00.000+01:00

I don't know how many saw this package on Channel 4 news last night about Barnett and all that, but what a muddled presentation it was by the usually excellent Mr Snow. First there was (again) great confusion about what the Barnett formula is - it is not the formula for assigning monies to the devolved administrations. It is the mechanism for adjusting the block grant annually in light of annual changes made to the funding of counterpart (to devolved administration) Whitehall departments. Second, under the 1998 Scotland Act it is for the Scottish administration to determine Scotland's spending priorities for devolved policies, not UK Government. That's what devolution was all about. If the Scottish administration decides that reducing the obstacles preventing students from disadvantaged backgrounds entering the University sector (or to provide free care for the elderly) is a desirable policy, it is for the Scottish electorate to judge whether this is a good or bad use of resources. After all, asigning monies to that end is not a free good - a consequence is that some other policy is not being financed. Of course it was Michael Forsyth's persistent interruption of John Swinney to make the point (sic) that per capita public spending in Scotland was 20% above the equivalent in England that was explicitly intended to whip up the fabled "English backlash" - not the education policy of the new Scottish government. Third the present discussion masks the fact that students ordinarily domiciled in England and Wales have been discriminated against in the Scottish university system since 2001. That was when up-front fees in Scottish Universities for Scottish domiciled students were scrapped by the Labour-led Scottish Executive, but continued to be applied to students domiciled in England and Wales. We heard nothing from the current critics of SNP policy back then, when Labour introduced this element of discrimination. The point being - never believe the Lord Forsyth is worried about discrimination. Had he been he'd have been sounding off way back then. Instead, this is just another simple case of attacking the SNP policy, regardless of what the people of Scotland want or what they voted for. Finally, if English and Welsh voters want University education south of the border to be offered on the same terms as Scotland's then let them campaign for that. I for one would support that. A number of European countries have either no, or merely token level, fees for students attending University. Why not the UK?

I share the concerns of many that the discrimination that is now a feature of the Scottish university system is not desirable. But unless and until there is a change of heart in England, the only way of avoiding this would be to return the Scottish system to that prevailing before 2001. Permitting students domiciled in England and Wales to have access to Scotland's university sector on the same terms as locally domiciled students is just not practical - the system would be swamped. That it is not swamped by non-UK students who, under EU law, are able to access the system under the same terms as locally domiciled students is easily explained by a combination of obvious informal barriers to trans-national student mobility and the existence of cheaper alternatives closer to home.

Instead of engaging the debate with the SNP over higher educaton on essentially sectarian terms, critics would be better advised to enquire just how the SNP intends to fund Scotland's University sector over the longer term. For if we consider that timeframe, then under the current situation the higher fee-funded Universities in England stand to benefit considerably from a flight of Scotland's best academics to better remunerated and better appointed posts in the University sector south of the border.

Very finally, wouldn't it be really nice if that, for once, a journalist working in a UK-networked current affairs show could be properly briefed.

Hasn't FM Ecky done well??

2007-06-14T09:38:00.000+01:00

Those with good eyesight will note that the fifth-from-bottom currency listed on this exchange kiosk in Vancouver is none other than the Scottish pound. And all this after only 4 weeks of a new administration. They are doing well...

Blair's inter-governmental mendacity

2007-06-14T08:59:00.000+01:00

Try as he might, and he continues to so do, Tony Blair just can't get around the simple fact that he erred in not informing Scotland's First Minister of the talks with Libya before concluding the Memorandum of Understanding. Getting the devolution project up and running was one of the very first acts of the in-coming Labour Government in May, 1997. Indeed the first weekend of that administration saw a group of civil servants gathering at the behest of the then Lord Chancellor, Derry Irvine, to begin working on possible post-devolution arrangements for managing relations between UK Government and the soon-to-be-devolved administrations. One of the key principles elaborated then, and which informed the discussion all the way through to 1999 when the inter-governmental concordats were published, was that of "no surprises". In other words if the UK Government was about to embark on a new initiative on a reserved matter which would touch on a devolved competence, the UK Government was bound to give the Scottish (devolved) administration prior notice - it must not come as a surprise. Undeniably this Memorandum came as a surprise to FM Salmond. It is entirely typical of Blair that he now seeks to spin his way out of the trouble his high-handedness has brought him. But of course the former Scottish government must take some share of the blame in this. George (Lord) Foulkes spilled the beans when he opined that all this carfuffle could have been avoided by a simple call from FM Salmond to Downing St once he'd got wind of the Libyan Memorandum. One is left with the deep suspicion (nay, certainty) that such retrospective briefing (rather than genuine prior notification and discussion) had become an all-pervasive feature of inter-governmental relations during the McConnell era. If that is the case, then Jack-the-knife must accept his share of the blame for this muddle by failing to require UK Government to honour what is a central tenet of devolution. On the bright side, I guess the current tenants of Bute House must daily wait expectantly for the postman to arrive to see what presents Tony has sent them this time...

Taking devolution seriously

2007-06-12T13:23:00.000+01:00

RoadrunnerReturns was delighted to read that soon-to-be-PM 'Baliff' Brown is considering re-establishing the post of Secretary of State for Scotland - that which presently is handled on a part time basis by Paisley toughie, Dug Alexander brother of Shreek of that ilk. No doubt this is motivated by the Baliff's desire - nay, obsession - to get Scotland firmly back under the control of the one-party system that has served successive Labour Party leaders so well over generations. But of course this also means that FM Ecky will need to bestow upon one among his ministerial number the title Cabinet Secretary for England and charge her/him with the duty of leading inter-governmental coordination between Victoria Quay and Whitehall. After all it would be most unseemly if, in the context of the friends-and-family phone calls that must be positively flourishing in the current climate, any call from our First Minister to Downing St were to be taken by some minion (let's call him Dug) rather than by the Baliff himself.

Prof 'Red' Midsummer

2007-06-12T10:52:00.000+01:00

Well, well, well. It hasn't taken Visiting Prof 'Red' Midsummer long to come out of the woodwork to launch his post election campaign to make Scotland ungovernable by our duly elected government. As many will know, Red was the member of the Academy who, in the run up to the May election, offered up the highly objective academic opinion that "the SNP is not fit to govern" (love the picture). Not content with bringing the Academy into disrepute by such self-evidently politically motivated rhetoric, Red has now proposed (Scotsman, 12 June) that the Standing Orders of the Scottish Parliament should be changed to enable "...committees to be allowed to make amendments [to the budget] rather than make [non-binding] recommendations". This would, of course, rob the governing party of the right to set Scottish spending priorities to the extent that these did not chime with the majority on any specific committee. But wait - has Red considered the melee that will ensue should his latest attempt to undrermine Scottish democracy be accepted? There are to be 15 Commitees in the new Parliament, which gives scope for 15 non-coordinated revised budget proposals. To say that financial chaos would ensue is to put it mildly. But, of course, that is quite probably precisely his aim. I so much wish that Red would simply accept his retirement from active service and surrender the title (sic) that the ever-fawning former Labour spin-doctor Peter MacMahon bestows upon him at every turn - Scotland's leading public spending expert...doesn't seem that smart to me.

Almost like back on Islay

2007-04-01T16:59:00.000+01:00

Well not quite. It wasn't quite the Islay Jazz Festival revisited, but yesterday evening at the Bongo Club (not entirely our scene...), BB and I went to see the Haftor Medboe Group, which was one of the standout acts of the Islay Jazz Festival 2006, as far as we were concerned. The sound was not quite as 'clean' as it was in the remarkable surroundings of the Laphroig Distillery Board Room on Islay, given the background noise provided by the huge extractor fans that inevitably present in a venue such as the Bongo Club, but the inventiveness and the mixture of dissonance and harmony was there just as it was when we first saw them in September. It was the second great gig which we saw in March 2007, in Edinburgh, the first being the Burt/MacDonald Quintet playing with Keith Tippett, by whose lamb chops I was most impressed. I was even more impressed by the fact that Roadrunner (late lamented of this blog) was most impressed that we had been to see Keith Tippett, and rather irritated by my supposed failure to tell him about it. I reminded him that he had announced, a priori, a propos the particular evening that Tippett was on, that he was watching the footie and was not to be disturbed. That was before I had chosen where to take a visitor from the US who was giving us a few lectures and seminars, and who has a known fondness for jazz (so fond is he, that he once filled in on drums for a regular jazz set in a Dubrovnik bar, when the drummer failed to turn up; we were only supposed to be the audience...). Anyway, as regards Roadrunner, how was I to know that I was supposed to reconsult him once I had made the choice of where to go, in case he wanted to dump his footie evening?

Anyway, one good gig often leads to another, and going to the Bongo Club last night drew our attention to a gig by Moishe's Bagel, Scotland's very own Kletzmer Band, who are launching a new CD at the Bongo Club on Easter Saturday. That's a yes from me, and a yes from BB once he discovered that Mario Caribe, his favourite bass player from the Islay Jazz experience, is the bass player for Moishe's Bagel (wonderful soft musical tone...). No question. I'll report back afterwards.

But is it really institutionalised wife-swapping?

2007-03-20T20:24:00.000Z

Encouraged by Anonymous (who are you???) who commented on the previous post that s/he was pleased I was back, I felt inspired to write another post. You'll be intrigued by the title, doubtless, but it refers to the Bridge Class that BB and I have been following for the last few months, to the amusement of many around us. I played quite a lot of bridge when a teenager, at home, and reckoned myself to be quite competent, but I was entirely self-taught (or taught in a totally unstructured way by watching my parents and grandparents play), and so I am ignorant of most of the "rules" of bidding. I'm slowly getting to grips with that, but my-oh-my there is a lot to remember. BB is also finding it hard going some times. However, we both enjoy the card play aspect, although I sometimes feel that BB feels a bit overfaced when acting as declarer. As we progress in Bridge, he will need to find ways of curbing his give-away facial expressions. I can always tell from the way he looks whether he is contemplating whether to use his ace this time, or next time, so that way I know where the ace actually is! Anyway, after Easter we are going to be continuing not, this time, in the salubrious surroundings of the James Gillespie High School, but in the plusher environs of the Melville Bridge Club in Edinburgh's West End. I'm looking forward to it. One of the reasons for playing bridge is part of a mental keep-fit regime. I suppose I don't really have to worry about that much, given my job, but it is important to have a variety of mental stimulations. With a mother, an aunt and a grandmother who all suffered from relatively early onset dementia, I feel very sensitive about these issues. If anyone notices me going "off", you will tell me, won't you?

Blog-meeting

2007-03-18T15:55:00.000Z

It's hard for me to claim to be a 'proper' blogger, having committed so few of my thoughts to this website over the last few months. While sometimes it all seems a chore, at other points - like this weekend - it certainly seems worthwhile. Having met Pat the Chooks at the Glasgow Blogmeet some time ago, BB and I were delighted to receive a 'royal visit' from PTC and Her Maj this weekend. It was a hectic 36 hours or so, fuelled by a fair amount of alchohol and food, but taking in also visits to galleries, the watching of a modicum of rugby, some listening to a jazz trio, much intense discussion and a fair amount of fun. A great weekend all told. Collapsed into an armchair this afternoon, to be entertained by the newspapers and the not terribly welcome news that Brian Souter on the pro-Clause 28 campaign fame has donated money to the SNP to fight the May elections, to follow the England/Canada World Cup match online, and to watch most of the Hibs/Killie CIS Cup Final. Hibs are our local team and we keep meaning to go and see them. We will soon. And I will blog again properly. Soon.

A desperate Greater Manchester Police

2007-02-26T15:14:00.000Z

This smacks of desperation on the part of Greater Manchester Police.

"District Judge Wendy Lloyd told the youngster she had been "concerned" that he had been kept in custody for possession of such a small quantity of cannabis."

All because a young person was a bit cheeky and made a gesture behind a politician's back, unable to resist the temptation of being on TV or in the papers.

A search warrant and a weekend in custody courtesy of Greater Manchester Police. I am sure the young man concerned is no angel, but I am concerned that he has been treated differently to others found with very small quantities of cannabis for personal use.

Update 2 April 2007

An anonymous commentator provides a very important update about Ryan Florence, the teenager in question. Very clearly possession of cannabis was just the tip of the iceberg, and doubtless those residents of Wythenshawe who are law-abiding will be relieved to know that Florence is off the streets for a while, although doubtful that his ways will be changed much by a prison system concentrating on containment rather than rehabilitation at the moment. If I knew how to do that very clever thing where you cross out what you have written and replace it with something else, I would do. I would replace "no angel" with "criminal"; and "bit cheeky" with "arrogant".

The power of publicity

2007-01-07T09:27:00.000Z

Toys 'R Us, that magnificent emporium of Chinese-manufactured goods, decided to award a $25,000 baby bond to the American first child born in the US in 2007. It turned out that the child, Yuki Lin, was the child of undocumented Chinese immigrants (restaurant workers since you ask), although she herself is a US citizen, by birthright. Toys 'R Us decided not to award the prize to her, citing small print in the prize specifications. Bad publicity for Toys 'R Us ensued, not least as the result of an email campaign started by members of the powerful US Chinese-American community; this led to a reversal of the decision, or at least a fudge because the company decided to award three prizes instead of one, including Yuki Lin, and two others who arrived at precisely the same time. What happened originally was that the names of the three babies who arrived at the same time were put in a hat, and Yuki Lin's was drawn out. She was then disqualified by reference to the small print, and another child Jayden Swain was given the prize. Now all three will be given bonds. Around 6 out of 10 children born in New York now have parents who are immigrants. A very high proportion of them are likely to be undocumented.

Original story via.

Girl Power

2007-01-04T12:29:00.000Z

This one is especially for BondWoman! I noticed this article when trawling through Reuter's Oddly Enough this morning. Just what is the world coming to when such bastions of male supremacy are falling under the spell of allowing women in? (Tongue firmly in cheek BW) Well, apparently she has to be called a girl; make me laugh why don't you, all candidates 'must' have at least 22 years army experience, and you can't tell me that a female of the species who has been in the army for 22+ years is a 'girl'. This is someone who has definitely been around the track a few times, and then some...

Out with The Old in with The New

2007-01-01T17:27:00.000Z

It was a quiet new year in 'Bond-world' last night. After the excitements of last year when we chased all over Edinburgh with a couple of friends, this year the prospect of the bad weather already put a bit of a dampener on proceedings, even before the cancellations set in. We spent the evening with a friend, and decided not to even attempt to go out and see if there were any fireworks. In the end, the moment passed with the immensely civilised Radio 4 Big Ben. Very fine.

2006 was not too bad a year for me. People have been occupied in recent days blogging their top achievements of last year and reflecting upon the year just past, both in political and personal terms. Personally, there have been some good things (in no particular order):

The completion of a book manuscript, set to appear in 2007, publisher willing...
The purchase and refurbishment of a flat for Junior Bond to live in (thanks, BB)...
Taking up blogging, reading blogs by others, and meeting a few bloggers, not once, but twice, and being invited to join the revitalised, relaunched Sharpener, which led to a post of mine being mentioned in the Times Comment Central...
Going to the Isle of Skye Music Festival (and staying in our tent!) and going to the Islay Jazz Festival, the latter involving visiting and photographing each of the distilleries, in absolutely fabulous weather; there will be more festivals next year, Islay for sure as it coincides each year with my birthday, but others as well, I hope...
Doing my inaugural lecture, which was a professional occasion, but one which involved a very substantial personal element as it was attended by a whole range of friends and professional colleagues from many walks of life, not just academia...

There have been bad things as well, notably that in the latter part of the year BB has not been feeling too good. However, one thing which was singularly lacking throughout 2006 was painting - either by me or by BB. We spent quite a bit of time talking about it, but somehow what has been a pleasurable activity for us to engage in both separately and together never quiet happened. But...it has, already, in 2007! I kept saying to friends, before the break, that we were definitely going to get round to painting during the holiday period. We engaged in a fair amount of distraction activity, including photographing and re-wrapping our entire existing oeuvre (hopefully with a view to effecting some sales in 2007). I even marked more than half the examination scripts which are sitting in my study, and which need doing before 4 January. We read books. Ate meals; drank wine and beer. Washed up. Ironed. Took Junior to the airport,sent him on his way, and fetched him back again several days later. Anything, really. But finally, on 1 January 2007, we did it. Both of us. And here are the results.

First up, my picture. This is my first real attempt with acrylics, and I am reasonably pleased with it, although by my standards it is pretty traditional. We were both working from photographs, both taken during the same short break at Lunga in April 2006, with my cousin and family. The one I used was taken in the morning light, and shows the view across to the Isle of Mull, with a dusting of snow on the hilltops. It's done on board, 20 cms x 40 cms. Don't think the photo really does it justice, but there you go. However, I felt that just like riding a bike, painting is something you don't really lose, although it is certainly true that practice helps make you better. But it was wonderfully engaging to be focused on just the paint, the paintbrush and the canvas again. I have really missed it.

Second up, BB's effort. This is a fairly typical 'BB', and all the more lovely for that. An atmospheric sunset.

It's an oil, and it's rather bigger than mine - a canvass of 12 ins x 30 ins. It is interesting to see not only how different the two views can be, because of the different times of days when the photos were taken, and because of the different mediums we were working in, but also the subtly different approaches we take in our work. What we each choose to emphasise or to downplay.

Anyway, enough wiffling on about the pleasures of painting. This has been a mega post, and it must stop now!

HNY everyone.

Over at the Sharpener - and other news

2006-12-27T16:44:00.000Z

A post about boxing, would you believe it.

In other news, we had Britain's quietest Christmas here, with no Christmas decorations, no cards sent and relatively few received, and a general feeling of unreality lent by the fact that I didn't get back from my last pre-Xmas trip (to Malta) until late on Saturday. I had intended to come back on Friday, but that would have been via Heathrow, and due to the complete inability of British Airways to run anything approaching a 'service', would probably have led to me spending either 12 hours in a coach from LHR to Edinburgh, or a very uncomfortable night on the floor in Heathrow. It seemed, therefore, infinitely more sensible to spend an extra night in Malta, and come back on Saturday direct to Glasgow in a virtually empty Air Malta flight. I did have to pay a bit extra to alter the flight, but given that it meant me giving up my BA segment from Heathrow to Edinburgh, and given that I didn't clutter up LHR on Friday and Saturday, I frankly think BA should have paid me to go on the Air Malta flight. Anyway, it was nearly 20 degrees in Malta, and just as soon as I upload a picture, you will understand my willingness to spend an extra night there, rather than in grey and foggy Edinburgh.

Aside from blogging (when I should have been marking), today has been a day of planning and booking travel. First, to Leicester tomorrow, on the train, to honour the memory of this friend, whom I have known since my days in Exeter in the 1980s. Second, to Montreal in May, for a conference (and a few extra days). And finally back to Malta in July, for another stint of examining. In the latter cases, I will be accompanied by BB. The trip to Montreal will be BB's first venture across the Atlantic, and I fear that it might not be the most relaxing trip I have ever made, as he is a notoriously bad traveller. That is just about tolerable on a short hop to Ireland, or even a slightly longer hop to Croatia via Frankfurt, but across the Atlantic. I fear I may have been less than sensible.

Finally, out of loyalty to my co-resident at the Bond, I should note that BB has another venture. The aptly named Rantorium. I will update my blogroll just as soon as I finish the Giant Kakuro in The Guardian, which was confiscated from me earlier on, in order to give me an incentive to do some blogging. It appears to have worked.

The tipping point

2006-12-16T14:44:00.000Z

It has been fascinating to see reactions to the spoof announcement of the break up of Belgium broadcast by RTBF, the Belgian French language state broadcaster on Thursday evening. In the programme, which many viewers apparently thought was for real, it was announced that Flanders, the richer, Flemish speaking, part of Belgium had announced its unilateral separation from Belgium, leaving behind Wallonia, and the French speaking part of Brussels (oh and the German speaking bit) as a rump Belgian state. Now, as it happens, Belgian federalism is so fearsomely complicated, with both territorial and community elements housed within it, that the constitutional ramifications of a split in Belgium are rather complex and could not be so easily effected by the simple secession of one territory within the state. But that is not the main point of the story, which was rather about shocking Belgian people, especially the French speaking community who were necessarily the primary audience for the programme, into thinking about issues that might be rather closer to reality than they thought, given the general election due in June 2007 and the current unhappiness in Flanders about what are thought to be subsidy junkies in Wallonia.

Now, where have I heard that before? Ah yes, in the UK. Could one imagine a similar situation arising in the UK, but not - paradoxically - with a unilateral secession by Scotland, which is what has always been posited as the most likely option, but rather by England, the richer part of the Union? It's hard to imagine, but one thing that emerges from the discussion is that Belgium is certainly getting much closer to the tipping point after which the slide towards the break up of the state could be inevitable and unstoppable. However, given the depth of the federalisation of Belgium, that tipping point is a rather long way down the line from where the UK stands at the present time. Here is a quote (handily translated into English by the German euro-topics service) from a report in the French newspaper Liberation:

"The increasingly affirmed desire for independence of The Flanders region, the most populated and richest region of the kingdom, is no longer really anything new. But the French-speakers (Brussels and the Walloon regions) have for a long time refused to look the problem in the face, believing that they would manage to hold 'Daddy's Belgium' together by giving away more and more power to regions at each election. The problem is that, henceforth, after 40 years of federalism, Flemish demands, notably in social matters, bare more and more resemblance to a real dismemberment of the State. The 2007 spring elections are therefore going to be tense and no doubt decisive for the country's future."

This got me to thinking about where the 'tipping point' might be in the UK, the point of confrontation or constitutional change beyond which the slide into the break up of the state would become inevitable, and it seemed to me that the answer lies somewhere in the English responses to the West Lothian question, and especially in the idea of an English Parliament. This is not because of the relative wealth of England in comparison to Scotland, or the rest of the UK (although this should be posited more accurately as the relative wealth of the south east of England in comparison to the rest of the UK, because of the persistent failures of UK regional economic policy), but because of the difference in size between the different component elements, so that a full federal system with a UK parliament for certain matters, plus regional parliaments for each of the four nations of the UK for others would not create a viable and durable federal state. Thus the situation differs from that pertaining in Belgium, where the main components of the federal settlement are more or less equal in size.

Anyway, I look forward to BBC Scotland's response to the challenge thrown down by RTBF.

The fate of the Union

2006-12-04T21:14:00.000Z

Things seem to be hotting up in Scotland in the advance of next year's election, with polls showing the SNP currently ahead of Labour. The nastiness of last weekend's Scottish Labour Conference attacks upon the nationalists, with John Reid continuing to spout the most idiotic nonsense about how independence could be a sop to terrorist (I mean, please....) throughout the last week has brought some unlikely defenders of sense rather than nonsense out of the wordwork, as these reports show. Possibly the most thought-provoking piece of commentary I have read is this comment in the Sunday Herald, by Iain MacWhirter, which focuses on English nationalism as much as it does on the Scottish variety:

However, I have been acutely aware in recent conversations with metropolitan editors and commentators of a resentment, an irritation with Scotland right now which is as unmistakable as it is puzzling. It is not my perception that Scotland is going through one of its anti-English phases, yet I keep being told the Scots just won't stop moaning and attacking the English. That we ask for more and more subsidies and then claim London is responsible for all our problems. That we "run" the Cabinet and are over-represented in Westminster. Yet, Scottish public spending is in relative decline and Scottish MPs were reduced by one sixth after devolution.
This has little to do with the Barnett Formula or the West Lothian Question. It's personal. Simon Jenkins wrote in The Guardian that: "Gordon Brown, probably the next prime minister, wears his distaste for England on his sleeve, and English voters sense it." That was an astonishing thing to say, when the chancellor has gone to such lengths to stress his love for the union and support for England in events like the World Cup.
There is a note of condescension, even contempt, creeping into a lot of media commentary which is becoming more than a little disturbing. This hostility is reflected in rather more Anglo-Saxon terms in emails and internet comments, many racist and unprintable, on my pieces. When will the Scots learn to stop complaining? Why don't you just Jock Off?

Indeed, having done it, having mentioned English nationalism in the text of this piece, I will probably be subject to the same barrage, as Bondbloke has been before, both here and in his other place.

The other thing that struck me recently was the overwhelming hysteria that seems to attend any debate about the future of the Union. It would seem that a vote on the part of the electors of the Scottish Parliament next May is equated in most people's minds with the automatic break up of the Union. This is clearly nonsense. There are many who might vote SNP in May who would do so in order to signal a dissatisfaction with the status quo, without necessarily expressing a firm desire for independence. Moreover, any SNP-led government will be a coalition government, and independence would still be a distant prospect. There is more to the debate about the government and governance of Scotland than simply the question of voting SNP, or not, in May 2007.

Nonsense and hysteria, I'm afraid, also tinged a short conversation I had at a dinner last week with a prominent radio presenter, who is Scottish, but who resides currently in London. I was first told that if I suggested that arguments about the relevance of passports to the issue are made, then such arguments should also include reference to passport unions and such like, then I was being "academic". I plead guilty as charged, if that's the case, but it's still an important argument, because it about using balance in arguments, rather than raising scaremongering which is as likely to drive voters into the arms of the SNP as it is to put them off. Second, when I suggested that the government of an independent Scotland would not necessarily be composed of the current leadership of the SNP, this argument was waved away as truly ridiculous. Who else, I was told, could comprise the leadership of Scotland? Well, I suppose the argument does need to be made that an independent Scotland would have political parties, and would be a liberal democratic state, so who knows who its political leadership might be, especially if a form of PR is used for national elections. Oh well, at the end of the day the significance of my views (bear in mind, please, that I still remain pro-Union) was dismissed because I've only been here two years. Consequently, I am not only "academic", but also "romantic". Oh dear. Good job said radio presenter tends to use stronger arguments when broadcasting.

Musings from an armchair football fan

2006-11-24T11:41:00.000Z

I've watched far too much, often not very good, football this week - it being both a Champions' League and a UEFA cup week. Bondbloke and I were both very amused last night by the ramifications of the ban, applicable in relation to matches played in France, of the ban on advertising alcoholic drinks on shirts. Rangers' normal shirt sponsor is Carling, although they are capable of dropping the sponsor's logo on shirts for Muslim fans. They also had to drop it last night when playing in Auxerre. So having just heard this little snippet about the Rangers' shirts on BBC2, towards the end of the half time chitter chatter, we howled with laughter, on turning over to BBC1, where the second half was to be broadcast. Welcoming the new viewers from BBC1, we heard the presenter saying "Welcome to Auxerre, in the Burgundy region of France, where tonight Rangers are playing...." Now he would hardly be likely to have said this if he hadn't been given this 'feed' in an introductory pack, supplied by the hosts. Obviously, getting a bit of alcohol advertising in, so long as it is associated with French regions which are also types of alcoholic drink (Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne, Armagnac, Cognac, and the rest) is fine. It's just brands which are the problem, it would seem. By the by, we wondered whether or not the French team should not have required their player "Pieroni" to change his name by deed poll, because this might be dangerously close to advertising an Italian brand of beer.

Blogging service should soon resume

2006-11-01T20:28:00.000Z

I hope to find a little more time for blogging in the near future. I've had a succession of things keeping me away from the blog, such as delivering a big lecture (thanks for the plug, BB), finishing a book manuscript, taking a trip to Croatia where I had suboptimal internet access, and various other bits and pieces. Today has been a funny old day. I feel as if I have cotton wool between the ears, but on the other hand I feel as if a series of weights have been lifted from my shoulders. Anyway, a good night's sleep should sort that out. So, I hope to "see" you all soon. Although it will probably be inconsequential posts about plumbers, rather than weighty stuff.

No, they're not

2006-10-14T11:35:00.000+01:00

Plumbers, that is. All the same, that is. Lukos is here. Toilet number one is fixed and toilet number two is being addressed as we speak. Lord knows, it will cost. But it's worth it not to have to put a rota on the toilet door this evening. We didn't want to have to insist on people booking in for a pee at 15 or 20 minute intervals during the evening, with only the possibility that those in significant personal relationships would be able to follow each other without flushing...thus speeding up the whole process.

Plumbers, they're all the same

2006-10-13T20:08:00.001+01:00

Here at BondBloke we have been pleased about the arrival of the sizeable Polish contingent in Edinburgh. It makes our friend Madry feel less lonely. It should, in principle, improve the service provided by plumbers. Except, it would seem, they quickly fall into the same old habits as British plumbers. Lukos the Handyman first came round to our flat when I called a firm, which has since folded, which supplied people to fix very simple straightforward jobs really quickly. It wasn't cheap. But my, was it quick. He was round at our flat tightening our plumbing under the kitchen sink within twenty minutes of me speaking to some Australian bloke on the phone...

Anyway, he left his phone number, saying he would be cheaper than the people who employed him...

Nuff said. Over the summer, we needed some work doing on Junior Bond's flat, so we called Lukos. Reasonably satisfactory job done.

And now, we have defective toilets (ball valve it would appear), beyond BB's plumbing skills, anyway, and a party tomorrow evening. Oh dear. I call Lukos. He says he's now very busy, he'll call back on Tuesday. He didn't. Because, on Tuesday, I thought BB would be able to fix the problem, I didn't bother chasing him. On Wednesday I was in London, and BB was...well I'm not quite sure where he was. Peebles and out and about, he said. Anyway, Thursday lunchtime and he's trying to fix the plumbing. Doesn't work. Call an emergency plumber, he says. Yeah, funny, I said. I'll try Lukos again. I did. Lukos says - oh dear, I forgot. At least we still have honesty. British plumber would have said "I said I would call back on Tuesday. I didn't say which Tuesday..." Lukos says he will come tonight at 5.30pm. I rush around at work, cutting things short and am cycling down Leith Walk at 5.25pm, braving the rush hour traffic which makes for a much more unpleasant journey home than an hour later. Phone goes. Lukos: am stuck in Musselburgh. Can I come tomorrow just after 9am? Well, there's not much I can say, except yes.

So...will we have properly functioning toilets tomorrow evening? Who knows? But one thing I am sure of. There is some sort of norm to which all plumbers, whatever their nationality (we used have a South African plumber when we were in rented accommodation in South Edinburgh and he was just the same...) will revert in time.

More or less sleeping city

2006-10-11T21:36:00.000+01:00

I had an interesting cycle ride up Leith Walk this morning, to catch an early train to London. I would have blogged it earlier, using the GNER advertised free wireless access, except that it didn't exist, despite announcements and adverts on the window either in the train on the way down, or the one on the way back up.

Coming out of building at 5am this morning, I had to manoeuvre my way around a taxi. Revellers (there are lots of *young people* in our building), I wondered, or someone making an early start? It would appear the latter as it was empty, and seemed to be waiting for someone. Cycling through Pilrig Park in the dark was a spooky experience as ever, but I am too lazy to cycle round. But I do have a feeling that it might be cycling through the park, and the access path to the park, which is responsible for at least some of my recent flat tyres.

Along Balfour Street, it was interesting to see the number of lights in windows. Up late, or early, I wondered again? What were the people there up to? Out onto Leith Walk, though, the difference to the day time or the evening was most stark. It was quiet enough that I could hear the shoes of a man walking up the opposite pavement scuffing the pavement; and the squeaking of a car door as it closed was deafening. Further up, there was a young man drinking an energy drink (breakfast) before getting into a battered Astra and driving away. I thought he looked perhaps Polish. What looked like a duty manager at the Tesco halfway up was just opening the door to receive a delivery from a truck parked on the Walk. They'd both had early starts to their working days. And there was the tramp whom one often sees on Leith Walk, who looks like a proper traditional 'gentleman of the road', sitting minding his own business in the bus shelter, drinking a cup of something steaming in a styrofoam cup from the early opening cafe. As I cycled past, he watched me rather deliberately, and with a certain curiosity. And...no buses! Normally Leith Walk is awash with buses. A few people were waiting for them, as opposed to occupying the bus shelters like the tramp. But I wasn't passed by a single bus before I got to Princes Street. Remarkable.

The higher I went up the Walk, the more normal the sounds became. Although, not quite. As I said - no buses. But the sights and sound of the quiet street almost made up for the rather truncated night's sleep suffered in order to make the early train.

Does my tyre look flat in this?

2006-10-09T09:56:00.000+01:00

What, oh what, have I done to anger the god of punctures? Another one this morning, and a knackered tyre to boot.

At least my bike doesn't quite look like the one in the picture.

Yet.

Busy Busy

2006-10-08T12:05:00.000+01:00

Am thinking of using this blog in the future more as a sort of conventional record of what I do and what I think, and not worrying so much about the high falutin' content of posts. So here goes. Busy, busy. Went to an 'Enlightenment' lecture with Professor Tom Devine at the University yesterday. We both thought he was fab. He spoke for 35 minutes, basically without notes, kept a thread, kept a structure, informed and entertained, and was just incredibly impressive. We weren't so sure where the panel discussion which was following on afterwards was going, so since we had to catch a train to Glasgow, we slipped out after a couple of rounds of discussion, hoping to be unnoticed, only to run into a woman from the press office at the doorway, who said... "you're going" as if our presence amongst about 1000 really made a difference...

Went to Glasgow in train with small number of members of tartan army. Blogmet. Met old bloggers (see blogroll) and new bloggers, some of whom we had read, some of whom we hadn't. Was informative and entertaining, and alcoholic (at least for both of us), as last time. BB made himself be sociable. I guess it wasn't always so easy for him.

Came back from Glasgow by train, this time surrounded by hundreds of jubilant and drunken, but ultimately apparently harmless, members of the tartan army. There was a lot of singing, and a fair amount of drumming of hands against the ceiling of the train carriage and the perspex carriage dividers. Consequently, we were glad to be off the train in Waverley, but escaped with nothing more serious than a bit of a headache from the noise. I have to say that this is the first time I have ever willingly been in the vicinity of that number of football fans before, and I wonder whether, had they been English fans travelling from Manchester to Leeds on a train, similarly pissed up, it would have been such an entertaining experience. Perhaps most remarkable is that no litter to speak of was left on the train, and the train was in a fit state in Waverley Station to go straight back to Glasgow, presumably fetch another load of them.

Now we are off to do help a friend negotiate the catering for his upcoming 60th birthday party, see a new baby, and generally rush around Edinburgh, whilst still not managing to do the one thing we *always* get done at the weekend, namely our supermarket shop.

Oh well, it's probably better to be busy than bored.

BW in NY

2006-10-01T02:10:00.000+01:00

Weehee. I can still remember how to blog. I was starting to wonder, and I guess so were any others who happen to stop by this blog. Anyway, finally, I'm going to manage a post, but only really for the most trivial of reasons, namely to blog some photographs. I am, as the photos show and the title of the post reveals, in New York, and in fact this is a first for me. I spent six months in Boston in 1998, but never managed the short trip down to New York to see the Big Apple, as they call it. So when I got an opportunity to come to a conference here (they flew me across the Atlantic for an eight minute contribution...), I took it. The conference has been interesting, and the trip overall worthwhile, although it will mean I am a bit wrecked next week, and I also had to rearrange some teaching to accommodate this. C'est la vie. Everyone has to suffer for their vocation.

I got here on Thursday afternoon, and 'enjoyed' a rather nightmarish journey in from Newark Airport, which at least has direct flights from Edinburgh. There was vast quantities of traffic, and I found it deeply unpleasant coming through the Lincoln Tunnel onto Manhattan Island from New Jersey in an overfull overhot Super Shuttle van with the windows open. I have now worked out how I can back to the airport by train tomorrow and I shall be taking that option, to be sure. Unfortunately, no one told me about it in advance.

I haven't really had an opportunity to take photographs until this afternoon, when the conference had ended, and sadly this afternoon did not display the bright blue skies which were in evidence this morning when I walked from the hotel to the conference. Undeterred, I found my way across Central Park to Fifth Avenue and walked all the way down there (passing a well known landmark - see above, BB!) to the Empire State Building.

I then did something I would never do if I had been with BB. I went up the Empire State Building. I know, very sad, but it fits well with my obsession with maps and stuff like that that I really like viewing cities from high points. When in Boston, I used to inflict a trip up the Hancock Tower on all visitors from the UK, to the point where even Junior Bond was heard to reflect that there must be other sights in Boston that we could go to with our visitors. Anyway, BB wouldn't have tolerated the queues (I did Kakuro whilst waiting), the lifts, or probably the vertiginous sights. I loved it.

And when I came down (much quicker than going up, which is curious because the same number of people have to come down as go up, in the same number of lifts...) I took another picture of the Empire State Building just to remind me.

Perhaps more serious service here, and on the EU Law and Politics Blog, might be resumed soon. You never know.

o

What's in a name?

2006-08-20T22:38:00.000+01:00

Andy Roddick. Andre Agassi. Andy Murray. Would Brad Gilbert be any good with anyone who wasn't called Andrew or a variant thereof?

Criminalising cyclists

2006-08-18T18:27:00.000+01:00

It's taken a cycling issue to get me blogging again. In this story, well known speed freak District Judge shows his true cyclist-hating colours.

What's Polish and what isn't?

2006-07-25T20:13:00.000+01:00

A bit of gardening on the blogroll earlier. All the links should now be live, and hopefully most of the people linked to are actively blogging. If you want a link, please let me know.

I was surprised that nobody (at least not the poeple I read) has apparently blogged about the G2 Polish Special last Friday (21July) (for a sample, see here). With an excellent mix of cultural, political and economic pieces, I found it an excellent read. It not only covered some of the huge variety of issues raised around the recent post enlargement mass migration to the UK from Poland, but also referred back to earlier waves of Polish immigration, and the issues of cross cultural encounter engaged there. However, I was particularly interested to see in today's Guardian a letter from yet another type of Pole, who were not referred to in the G2, even though they exist here in quite large numbers: those who were born in this country of Polish immigrants in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. As the letterwriter says:

"[we were born] during the communist regime in Poland, when even telephoning, let alone travelling there, was difficult. We grew up hearing about the mother country, but without grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. The English treat us as Poles, but when we visit Poland, we are treated as English."

He concludes:

"Our cultural heritage is complex. I am proud to be of Polish origin, Lancastrian and British (but curiously not English)."

Interesting that.

Because there are others who feel the need to pick out the Poles amongst us and make a point about it. I refer here to that venomous and increasingly unfunny Guardian sketchwriter Simon Hoggart, who wrote - in a recent sketch about the absence of "English" MPs in Scotland when there are lots of "Scottish" MPs in England - that

"It is almost impossible for any English person to become a Scottish MP (I can find only the MP for Edinburgh North, and his name is Lazarowicz), but at least 22 Scots sit for English seats. They run the place."

Mark (or Marek) Lazarowicz is my MP, and it seems to me that it matters not whether he is of Polish origin (clearly he is), 'English' (born in Romford), or of very substantial Scottish connection (30 years, since University, in Scotland). What matters to me is his competence, and his effectiveness as an MP. But that little vignette, combined with the sensitivities of the Guardian's correspondent, highlights how quickly prejudices and assumptions about origins and who belongs where and why (and what they should and should not be allowed to do) slip into the language of commentary.

PS There are certainly 'English' MSPs. Mark Ballard is one. Went to school literally half a mile from where we lived in Leeds, and where Junior Bond was going to do his sixth form studies had we stayed in England. And he was elected to be Rector of the University of Edinburgh earlier this year.

Blogging trivia

2006-07-20T17:52:00.000+01:00

Over on my blog on EU law and politics, I see that someone, whose server identifies them as being in the UK, reached my blog, and specifically a post about Gibraltar and Commonwealth citizens voting in European Parliament elections, via a google search on "is the netherlands part of the commonwealth"....Mmmmm I wonder.

Europe's Islamic and Arabic Heritage

2006-07-18T21:41:00.000+01:00

Right, now I've finished my 2006 tour of the southern Mediterranean, I'm in a much better position to make a comment about Europe's Islamic and Arabic heritage, and the relevance of said heritage for Turkey's EU accession talks.

First up, BB and I visited Dubrovnik at the end of February/beginning of March. No picture of that, as it's been well documented on this blog already, for example here. Fiercely independent, the Republic of Dubrovnik, or Ragusa as it was known in the Middle Ages, worked hard to balance between competing powers in the form of the Ottoman Empire and Venice. Trading with the Ottomans was clearly a way of life, and a way of staying prosperous.

Second on the list was last week's trip to Malta, a country distinguished in the European Union by the fact that its language is Semitic in origin, and closely related to Arabic. (I should note that this picture dates from an earlier trip in 2004).

During the Convention on the Future of Europe, the first 'official' speech in Maltese within an EU institution was given in 2003 by Maltese Government Representative at the Convention Peter Serracino-Inglott (pdf), who is a mighty interesting person as you can see from this link. This was an important breakthrough, first because in advance of Maltese accession, the EU authorities and the interpretation services were very reluctant to allow the use of accession state languages, except in controlled circumstances where they provided the exact text in advance, and second, because it was the first time that a Semitic language was used in the EU context. I remember him telling me, when I was lucky enough to meet him, that when he stood up to speak, it was not what he said that mattered, but the language in which it was said (otherwise he always spoke in English). On this occasion, he said, all the other members of the Convention put aside their headphones and just listened to the original language, to appreciate its cadences and its profound 'difference' from other indo-European languages (and Finno-Ungric) languages represented in the Convention and in the EU.

And now, finally, to Ronda, which may date back to Celtic times, but saw its first heyday as an Arab town, until 1485, and the Christian reconquest of Spain. The building you see photographed on the left is the Minaret of San Sebastian (scroll to the bottom), original the tower of a mosque (you see the window at the top for the calling of the faithful to prayer). Showing flexibility, those who came afterwards later used it as the tower for a now disappeared church of San Sebastian, and now it appears to be attached to residential property.

Anyway, does this tell us anything about the issue of Turkey's candidacy for EU membership, and the possibility that it may be admitted. As is well known, France has already decided that any future accessions (after a putative Croatian accession) will be subject to a national referendum (as indeed the UK, Irish and Danish accessoins were - although that referendum was of an advisory character only, and a Turkish accession one would be binding on the French state). So, many might say that discussing Turkish accession is a largely academic exercise - even more so than discussing the Constitutional Treaty. Moreover, if you regard the case for Turkish accession as fundamentally geo-political in nature, and related to (a) its strategic position in the middle east and (b) its current occupation of a pivotal position within NATO and the Western strategic alliance (not to mention its very large and professional army...), then the fact of historic European engagement with Islam, Islamic cultures and what one might regard as the quintessential Islam language perhaps matter not one jot. However, in practice the popular case is always made about the difference of Islam, and the fundamentally Judeo-Christian heritage of Europe. Not entirely true, as the Spain, Malta and the Western Balkans undoubtedly tell us. Time for a rethink, I would suggest.

Update: the morning after writing this post, I listened to an extensive presentation and Q & A session with the controversial Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan. BB wants me to blog about it. We'll see whether I get the time before my memories fade.

We interrupt this programme to bring you the weather

2006-07-18T15:29:00.000+01:00

We learn on the BBC, that - shock horror - it has been hotter in the UK than on the Spanish costas over the last day or so. I can confirm that this is the case, having travelled to Southern Spain yesterday. Certainly, it is sunnier in Edinburgh today, or so people tell me, than it is in Ronda in Southern Spain (see left for the evidence). Believe me, that picture was taken this morning. Since then it has rained. Yes, rained. Both last year and this year, despite some rain earlier in the year, there have been severe drought conditions in Spain. I doubt if the relatively few drops which fell today will make much difference to the overall aridity, but they certainly made for humid conditions outside.

In the meantime, from what little I have seen so far, given work and the weather, I can categorically say that Ronda appears to be everything it is cracked up to be, so I hope that if things brighten up a little this afternoon, I might be able to take some pictures with blue sky to embellish them.

As this is a EU-related piece of academic tourism, I should also report that I heard some interesting background, from someone high up in the EPP, to the Conservative decision not to leave the EPP (at least until 2009). More on that, when I find the time to revitalise the blog, on BloggingaboutEULawandPolitics, which is currently on hiatus.

Too hot to blog

2006-07-16T16:32:00.000+01:00

As in previous weeks, I've not really been in a position to post. I was in Malta for the week, doing some work for the University - yes, there is a University of Malta and it has a Law Faculty. However, I did manage to get a couple of swims, in the sea of fthe rocky beach I could see from my sixth floor hotel room (see left). So life wasn't too tough. It was however very hot (at least by my softy northern standards).

I've been at home for the weekend, washing and ironing, helping with the painting of Junior Bond's flat (it's been a seemingly interminable project) and also visiting the East Neuk of Fife yesterday, to view it for the first time in full summer sunshine.

The East Neuk of Fife is really one of the UK's hidden gems. Literally, it is "nook", the final corner of Fife jutting out into the North Sea. So, imagine my delight and surprise when I came across the scene you see on the left, which can only mean one thing to me. That the new blessed Margaret is taking her annual break (and giving the G8 a miss at the same time) in East Neuk, just near St Monans, along with her security detail who are now themselves discovering the joy of caravan holidays.

Off again tomorrow, I'm afraid. This time, it's another holiday destination, and for the second time in just over a week I will be sitting in a plane jam-packed with holiday-makers, with my bag full of work clothes. This time is Malaga, where part of the point of the trip is to have a meeting with some researchers at the University of Malaga who are working on some research which is closely related to my own. Yes, it came as a surprise to me too to discover that researchers at the University of Malaga were prepared to have a meeting at 3.30pm on a late July afternoon.

However, this mention of Malaga gives me an opportunity also to link to something I read on the plane to Malta last week in the Observer about British expats in Spain and their experience, in particular, of accessing the Spanish healthcare system having failed to learn the national language. If you went through that article doing "global search and replace" replacing references to Spain with references to the UK and references to the British in Spain with references to immigrants of pretty much any nationality into the UK, it might make people think a little harder before they condemn either attempts which are made from the UK end to accommodate non-nationals and non-English speakers, as well as those immigrants who fail, for whatever reason, effectively to master the language. As this story shows clearly, integration is a two way process and raises complex challenges and questions, which in turn demand complex answers.

Separated at birth

2006-07-08T21:59:00.000+01:00

We saw the Third Place play off this evening - Germany vs Portugal. Good result! I think we are both rooting for France tomorrow, but I will actually be in Malta by the time of kick-off, and I suspect that given historically close ties between Malta and Italy, I will probably be in the minority and so should best watch the match in my hotel room. It was 32 degrees today in Malta today. A tad warm for BW I have to say, but I'll try not to be a wilting flower all next week. Hope to blog from there, but who knows.

And no, I'm not on holiday. Will be very very busy.

Anyway, returning to the football, further similarities emerged between a certain player who got his chance tonight because of the 'generosity' of a fellow squad member and a certain fairly famous "knight of the realm". See it for yourselves.

On another matter, I didn't report on the fact that Sakchai Makao, the Thai facing deportation from the Shetlands, had been given bail in the context of the deportation proceedings against him (under the "clear 'em out" initiative aimed at former foreign prisoners by the beleaguered Home Office). That was already good news. Even better news is that the deportation proceedings themselves have now been dismissed by a three judge panel sitting in the North East of England, and Makao has now returned home to Shetland for good. All I can hope is that there have not been similar cases to Makao's which have gone unnoticed because the beneficiaries of the Home Office's attention have not been part of such a close community, willing and able to mobilise effectively to defend one of their own.

And since you insist on asking, yes, my hat is very well thank you very much. It is currently residing on top of the bookcase. I cannot predict when its next outing might be. It could, I suppose, be a while.

Buy a Hat - See the Queen...

2006-07-06T13:09:00.000+01:00

Make the most of this bit of embarrassment folks as it may be deleted when BondWoman sees it! This is the very hat that attended yesterday's Garden Party, yes THAT Garden Party!

Personally I think it is truly awful, and am wondering if my camera will ever work again after such a traumatic experience as photographing that hat; hopefully I will be able to provide some good counselling and coax it back into service once more...

Dead Ringers

2006-07-05T22:15:00.000+01:00

It was suggested on the BBC this evening that Raymond Domenech, the coach of France (see left) most resembles Eddie Jordan, the former racing driver and now racing car team owner (see below).

Is it the glasses? Or the hair? Or the general demeanour?

No, I would suggest that the first coach to take France to a World Cup Final since 1998 (hey, that's not so long to wait!) is a dead ringer for that famous cartoon character Joe Ninety. Judge for yourselves.

Living up to the challenge

2006-07-05T19:13:00.000+01:00

In comments today, HW cries out: "I expect you to rise above the detritus of today's news and to give us some intellectual stimulation."

If only.

Instead you are going to get the height of kitsch for an incomer to Edinburgh. Attendance by Bondwoman this afternoon at the Royal Garden Party at Holyroodhouse, along with 8000 people (and Junior Bond). What a wonderful experience for a unionist! What can we tell you? Well not much. The blogger's favourite instrument, the digital camera, is banned. As is the mobile phone (but that didn't stop people). The Queen wore some sort of pale green with a sort of salmon pink top to her hat (and she is so short you can definitely see that). Phil the Greek was in grey, and looks quite grey. The Queen is much as she looks on the telly, but then we were about the same distance away from her... Couldn't see any other famous royals, but I'm quite sure there were many many pillars of Edinburgh and Scottish society there...

Junior Bond saw, and chatted to, people he knew. He is obviously integrated in Edinburgh society. I saw someone in my School at a distance, but no one to chat to. I am a failure.

It rained, it thundered, and people got quite wet. We had some sarnies, some mini scones, and some profiteroles, drank a couple of lemonades but none of the de rigueur tea, contemplated the long queues for the "luxury" portaloos, and split the scene after a couple of hours to go to the Regent, up Abbey Hill, which I have visited previously with BB. We chilled out there for a while, and then found a taxi home.

Actually there is another post in the making on what is "left" and what is "right" in Central Europe these days, after the Polish, Hungarian and Slovakian general elections. That'll have to wait until after the France/Portugal match. We're rooting for France. Unsurprisingly...

This Blog is not Asleep - But it is close to Dead!

2006-07-05T11:16:00.000+01:00

I think that a wake up call is needed here, before this blog retires to that great blogyard in the aether! Ye Gods, I turn my back for a few minutes and what happens? NOTHING! That's what happens; the posts are so sparse here these days I am amazed that there are any readers at all. At least before my old mate BondBloke retired from here there was a bit of liveliness, winding up the loonies and what not. Maybe I should take up where he left off, or maybe start a campaign of some sort to help the intellectually challenged, but perhaps they wouldn't understand the principles involved. Ah, I know, how about an RFG campaign? Any supportes will be welcome...

This blog is not asleep

2006-07-02T21:58:00.000+01:00

Well, not quite. But almost completely, it would appear. It would seem I am hitting some sort of "wall" in terms of keeping the blog going when I am short of time and substantially distracted by other things. We'll have to see.

Anyway, here are two things which caught my eye together in a rather cursory review of the Sundays today. This (scroll down to: "Off-duty taxi driver fined after daughter lights up") strikes me as the unacceptable face of smoking ban enforcement. Taking the facts at face value, a one-off offence where the parties in question genuinely thought they were outside the limits of the law and in a truly "private car", and over-zealous officials apparently enjoying exercising petty powers. I *still* think the ban is a good thing, though. It was great to watch a couple of World Cup matches in smoke free pubs.

And in a comment piece which is only on the Scotsman premium content, Fraser Nelson writes about "Protest voters play the anti-politics card". The snippet here which interested me was that he pointed out that the May 2009 European Parliament elections fall on a date which might prove convenient for the then Prime Minister (he assumes Gordon Brown) to call a general election. Result: UKIP get the platform they want not only to take loads of Tory votes in EP elections, but in the Westminster election as well, and David Cameron is left fighting on two fronts as Europe becomes a "big issue" in a Westminster election. Interesting, and possibly quite a big gamble for any UK Prime Minister. For myself, I wonder whether or not Blair will go early enough (or late enough) to make 2009 a sensible option. An early departure, and we could well see a snap general election in Autumn 2008. A late departure, and we could be looking at an almost five year Parliament with perhaps late Autumn 2009 or even February 2010 a better option.

In the meantime, on in the background as I have been writing has been Big Brother (yes, apparently it has been continuing right throughout the World Cup and it is still a preferred TV watch of Junior Bond) and we watched in horror as one of the contestants managed silent disco-dancing to the same three songs, standing on a tiny mat (yes, that means no toilet breaks, no nothing) for *nine hours* all to get a small trophy for his pains. Puts the World Cup in context, to my mind...

The State of politics in the UK

2006-06-28T08:10:00.000+01:00

Is not good. A propos Cameron's call for the repeal of a the HRA 1998 and its replacement with a British Bill of Rights, and his spat with Ken Clarke over this, MatGB comments:

"We're screwed, arent' we? To get rid of Blair's New Labour, we need to get people to vote Tory. How can we do that when Dave just hasn't got a clue and plays to the gallery?"

Indeed, given the present electoral system and especially given the current state of the liberal democrats which does not inspire confidence. However, my total abhorrence for Blair and his nasty policies has never led me to the conclusion that voting for the nasty party was the right way forward. I was frankly never under the impression that Cameron would do anything other than play to the gallery. So, no simple answers it would seem. What a surprise.

Oh, the acclamation

2006-06-24T19:13:00.000+01:00

I think that's how it's spelt. Anyway, in a comment Martyn says...
'Bondwoman is missing !Come back :-0'

No she isn't really. It's just that after a burst of blogging energy on Tuesday, her mind has since been full of unbloggable things, like too much football on which she has nothing sensible really to add to the mass of comment, although many of her friends agree with her that she would make a damn good commentator, reading too many postgraduate scholarship applications, writing letters to random ambassadors to invite them to speak, writing random papers for random meetings she doesn't particularly want to trek to Oxford for next week, and various bits and pieces related to the renovation of Junior Bond's flat (although BB takes pride of place here).

I've been politically animated, of course, by the things that we've all read about this week, such as Blair's enthusiasm for "summary justice". There was a marvellous cartoon on the topic of "summery justice" in the Scotsman today, but sadly it's not online. However, Martin Rowson's take on the "fightback" of the judges in the Guardian thankfully is. I've also noted with trepidation Irn Broon's dour commitment to renewing the "independent" nuclear deterrent (and presumably locating it in Scotland), as well as Barnett's recanting of Barnett. We watched a great programme about the Union Flag on BBC2 on Wednesday - very stimulating, although we agreed with Sam Wollaston, the Guardian TV critic the following day, that the fact that the voice over was by Tom Baker made you think you might be watching an episode of Little Britain.

Anyway, enough of this. A bit of a non-post really. But Argentina v Mexico calls!

Poland qualify for World Cup Second Round

2006-06-20T16:58:00.000+01:00

Well, Polish strikers, anyway. Five of Germany's eight goals in the group stage have been scored by 'Polish' strikers, that is strikers born in Poland.

Good news on Sakchai Makao

2006-06-20T12:08:00.000+01:00

The BBC reports that Sakchai Makao (see here and here) has been released on bail from Durham City Jail, pending an appeal against the deportation order served on him on 7 July. Hopefully the corner has been turned.

Would we see this in England?

2006-06-20T10:39:00.000+01:00

Found on Berlin Daily Photo this morning, a picture of Das Pallasseum, a postwar block of flats in Berlin's working class Schoeneberg district adorned with all 32 flags of the participating countries in the World Cup, and especially large flags for those countries which have one. The only clue that there is a partisan element to this display, which includes the words "The Pallasseum greets the participants and guests of the World Cup 2006" is the large question mark under the German flag. Might Germany win in 2006?

Would we see have seen this if World Cup 2006 had been held in England? Perhaps on a public building (and then the accusation of political correctness would probably have been made), but not as part of a private initiative of a group of tenants/owners of a building. A short spiel about it can be found here, in German, for those able to read it.

Catalans vote for further autonomy

2006-06-20T10:37:00.000+01:00

Is this the future for Scotland? However, this report in the Financial Times (may go behind subscription wall) warns of the knock on disruptive effects of such moves towards decentralisation, especially if they appear to be ad hoc in nature.

Little pesky things

2006-06-20T10:20:00.000+01:00

Over on the "alternative" (sic) BondBloke you will find a short piece about our visit to the Isle of Skye Music Festival (as festival virgins aged 44 and 55 respectively...) this last weekend. There are also links to pictures. 'Twas great. Well most of it was. Although the weather was distinctly iffy this at least kept the midges away, and we didn't get particularly wet or muddy. However, this morning we did discover that we had brought home a couple of friends from Skye: two ticks. A happy half hour was spent this morning removing these. It's interesting that we had one each. It's as if they'd seen us and said, "right, lads, one each". I had the bigger one, and BB had the smaller one. Yuck. Here are some nice pictures.

It's official. The best women have balls.

2006-06-15T15:54:00.000+01:00

Now you know what the best sort of woman for a Tory is. It's one with balls. Don't believe me? Go ahead and read it yourself.

Edinburgh 'one of UK's most car friendly cities'

2006-06-15T15:42:00.000+01:00

Edinburgh 'one of UK's most car friendly cities'. I often feel this to be true when they come past me on the bike so close that they knock my elbow with their wing mirrors...But I don't think that is what the article is really getting at.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

2006-06-13T13:30:00.000+01:00

Or...the inhumanity continues. See here.

I think the Home Office have finally lost it.

"Mum-of-five Nikki Fetzko says the Home Office has written to 22-year-old James Ailmore informing him he will be re-arrested at the prison gates and put on a plane. Ailmore is due for release on July 7 – having served half of a 16-month sentence for affray and theft. Miss Fetzko, of Wartnaby Road, Ab Kettleby, said: "James was born in Germany because his dad was in the Army and was stationed in Fallingbostel at the time. "We lived there for a couple of years and then came back to Melton where James has lived ever since. He isn't German. I can't understand why the Home Office wants to send him there. "We can't find his birth certificate but I am almost 100 per cent sure it says he is a British national. James has been a bit of a nuisance and I think that's why they are doing it."

I'm not an expert on German nationality law, but I do know enough to know that theGermans have not got a system of ius soli (that is, acquisition of citizenship by birth in a place - the Irish broadly have such a system, with some exceptions, and so does the US). That is, there is absolutely no chance that James is German by birth (and he is certainly British by descent assuming that his parents are British).

The most spooky bit at the end is this:

A spokesman for the Home Office refused to comment on individual cases, but said: "We would never seek to deport anyone who is a British citizen. When someone is subject to removal proceedings they need to provide evidence to prove they are a British citizen."

Looks like there is going to be a presumption that all prisoners are not British unless they can prove otherwise. Keep your birth certificate, and that of your parents, etc., handy, just in case.

A map of Europe

2006-06-13T08:35:00.000+01:00

I put this on the EU law and politics blog as well, but I decided it was ok to cross post it here as well. It plays to two of my pet interests. Maps *and* Europe. I've visited 30 states - that's 70 per cent according to the map.

Found via Sam.

create your personalized map of europe
or check out our Barcelona travel guide

Lack of attention

2006-06-12T21:28:00.000+01:00

Oh dear again. Tells you everything you need to know about this household for you to know that by 9.15pm, at the instance of a returning Junior Bond (who is keen on his footie but who is a history student) we were watching BBC Four's account of the Scottish Enlightenment.

But then, not that long ago all three of us were to be found at Tom Devine's lecture about 200 years of the Anglo-Scottish Union.

World Cup Compendium

2006-06-12T20:19:00.000+01:00

Actually Bondbloke and I are watching quite a lot of World Cup matches. I'm quite keen on football per se, and would probably watch a Vauxhall Conference relegation play off on a wet Thursday evening if I trusted myself to have Sky Sports. Thankfully, I haven't and I have to go round to RoadRunner's for his Wednesday evening football get together with "the boys"(Sky Sports and a 42" plasma - how vulgar but how nice darlings...) (BTW to maintain his comparative advantage both RoadRunner (and Madry) has got himself Hi Def for the duration of the World Cup, which in practice means buying it for 12 months). BB is not so keen on football. His normal comment is 25 men (he includes the ref and the assistant refs) chasing a bag of wind on a field. But this seems to do it for him, as did the African Nations Cup earlier in the year. I think it's the capacity for global upsets which engages him, rather than tribal loyalty. I am supporting England, but not fervently, and I likewise enjoy these global engagements (waiting for Iran vs US... but it's not going to happen). Anyway, we use a complex set of rules about imperialism and underdogs and favoured regions of the world to decide which teams we are supporting. So...great entertainment at the humbling of the US by the Czech Republic (population just over 10m) (whaddya mean - a "world" series in which other countries can compete?). Excitement at the end-to-end entertainment provided by Argentina and World Cup debutants Ivory Coast on Saturday night. Currently we are enthralled by those other World Cup debutants Ghana and Italy - we are most impressed by the Italians having "Totti" on the field. Is this to put the opposition (most of whom are presumably straight) off? Anyway, said Totti is doing a good job, and Ghana are surving courtesy of small matters like the post (and some erratic but periodically excellent goal keeping).

Anyway, I'll be back with more "live-blogging" (there'll be at least a couple of readers I hope...) before the end, but I'll sign off this segment by commenting on the shame of English fans. I loved Shuggy's comment about support for England in Scotland today.

"As well as a certain benevolence towards their genetic inferiors, the English can count amongst their qualities a certain ingenuity - which this World Cup season demonstrates very well. Think about it: they tell people from other countries what team they should cheer for and if anyone should disagree, they are accused of racism. Genius - I bet no other country on the face of the planet thought of doing that."

Indeed. Well even when they are left to their own devices the English (remember: I am supporting England) supporters seem to score own goals (emulating Paraguay no doubt). The BBC reports that

"Live football matches will no longer be broadcast on the BBC big screens in Liverpool and London after trouble flared during England's first match."

Oh dear.

Oh bugger, Italy have just scored. Shall publish now.

More on Sakchai Makao

2006-06-12T18:03:00.000+01:00

Spies in the European Parliament tell me that Alyn Smith, MEP for the Highlands and Islands, raised the issue of Sakchai Makao (see my earlier post) in the European Parliament plenary session this afternoon, as a sort of point of order. As far as I can tell, a verbatim text should appear in due course here in the section "P-T", by MEP surname (Update: actually it is precisely here (word document). It was not a remarkable intervention; a speaker has about 60 seconds to make his point in that context before the microphone is switched off, but it was a brief resume of the facts by someone who is a pretty effective political speaker. The issue has certainly galvanised the community in Shetland, with rallies and other public activities in addition to paper and online petitions. It is interesting to see this (and I have seen it because many many Shetlanders have visited my site via a link on "Shetlink", and I have obviously followed the links back again courtesy of my site meter) and discovered in the process that there will be "a peaceful demonstration outside the Scottish Parliment building on Tuesday 13th of June at approximately 11AM to highlight the injustice of Sakchai's deportation. We hope to bring the Shetland for Sakchai campaign to Edinburgh and raise awareness of the unreasnoble treatment of Sakchai on Scottish soil to the MSPs." Further info or messages of support to chrisjam82 at gmail.com.

Apart from the Herald, which can generally be relied upon to cover this sort of Scottish matter, the only substantial coverage of this issue in the MSM has been a comment by Gillian Bowditch in the Sunday Times. The Shetlanders suggest is it broadly accurate, although their beef would be that it suggests they (deliberately?) understated the severity of Makao's original offence, which they claim is not true. It is interesting because it suggests that such a deportation should not occur for reasons of community sovereignty: politicians praise close communities, and claim that they design policies intended to foster such communities. In that case, it ill behoves them to ignore a powerful expression of community solidarity, as in this case.

Fine, ok. But what if such a community is not in place. What if no-one is mobilised to argue that to deport such and such a now released foreign former prisoner is unjust? Is it then ok to deport with impunity? Clearly not, in my view. Each case must be judged on its own facts, taking into account all the factors including, but not just, the degree to which an individual is in different ways integrated into his or her many communities. But in my view there is an (individual) human rights issue here (and believe me, I am very reluctant to invoke human rights arguments), in cases where there is no substantial connection between the person subject to a deportation order and the place to which they are likely to be deported and - especially - if they are not (any longer) proficient in the language, then it will be hard to argue the case for deportation. Except, of course, and this is implicit in so much of the comment about these matters, you at heart believe that foreigners, and foreign lives, are worth less, just because they don't have the passport. If you did not believe that, then you would be arguing for the deportation of anyone who was foreign born, not just those without British passports. And that does not appear to be the common view.

Spot the difference

2006-06-11T11:16:00.000+01:00

I used to love those spot the difference games when I was a kid. You know - two pictures of Janet and John in their perfect domestic bliss with 15 subtle differences between the two pictures for you to circle, before sending in the two pictures to get a Blue Peter badge or something. Seems you can play them on the internet now. Well here is something similar. Two pictures of the "Great British" police, purloined from the BBC. First up, PC A.N.Other accompanies Muhammad Abdul Bari of the Muslim Council of Britain when he visited Forest Gate before the weekend, in the context of the aftermath of the bungled chemical weapons raid which left one man injured and longer term will leave the police with a hefty compensation bill

Next up we have an example of the police officers who are apparently "charming" English football fans in Germany during the World Cup.

Can you spot the difference? Pretty much the same hat. Same gender and colour (still the dominant ones in the British police, of course). Slightly difference colour shirts, I grant you. And they are probably from different police forces, and therefore have on different insignia and badges.

But to me the biggest single difference is that the police officers in Germany, with their probably equally charming German counterpart, have taken off their anti-stab vests. I have to say, this is the first time I have seen a police officer, other than a plain clothes officer or someone obviously wearing dress uniform like Sir Ian Blair when facing the press, without a anti-stab vest for a long long time.

It can hardly be that those police officers are in significantly less danger than their counterparts patrolling the streets of the UK. On the contrary, I would have thought that Germany during World Cup is a place where there is a high risk of low level disturbance and, unfortunately, also a risk much more serious incidents including significant riots or fights between rival groups of fans, as well as - sadly - a terrorist attack. However, it has presumably been reasoned by someone in authority that police officers not wearing protective clothing look considerably more charming than those who are. I can only assume that the reason for the difference is something to do with perceiving the role of the police officers in Germany primarily as a propaganda exercise, and only secondarily as law enforcement officers there to protect the public.

Interesting, though, isn't it?

Roll of Shame

2006-06-08T12:44:00.000+01:00

Via Norm, we learn of yet another person to add to the roll of shame (combined credit to the Home Office, the IND and the police) which represents the ill-considered overreaction to the foreign prisoner deportation scandal. This time the "victim" of the close attentions of a large number of a police officers taking him back into custody is a 23 year old man of Thai origin, Sakchai Makao, who has lived in Shetland for 13 years, and has never lived in Thailand (his parents live in London), who was convicted of fire raising and sentenced to fifteen months in jail. So successful has been his rehabilitation that he has been given his old job back and is now receiving significant local support. In contrast, unless the campaigns of a small number of MPs are successful, it would seem that if you are a (British) member of the House of Lords and you serve time for fire-raising, you get your old "job" back automatically and by definition cannot be deported. In fact, you will be relieved to know that the "apologetic" "Lord" Mike Watson thinks that he is still fit to govern, after spending some time examining the inside of Edinburgh's Saughton jail after being convicted of arson at a dinner held at one of Edinburgh's more sumptuous restaurants (which I shall be having the privilege of visiting for the first time this evening, by strange coincidence).

In contrast, as the cases of Sakchai Makao and Antonio Guarita show, no matter how much you seek to atone for your past sins, or show a changed orientation towards society through your life and your work, if you lack the passport, you could be out on your ear in discipline and punish world of John Reid and Tony Blair.

For earlier comments on this topic see here and here.
Update: for further an update on this see also here, and for comment on another case see here.

My Political Profile

2006-06-06T21:16:00.000+01:00

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 10% Conservative, 90% Liberal

Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

I wasn't going to post...

2006-06-05T21:59:00.000+01:00

...but I couldn't resist this:

"Patriotic drivers showing their support for England with window flags during the World Cup will pay more in fuel costs...An average car with two flags attached burns an extra litre of fuel per hour at an average of 70mph...500,000 drivers all doing the same will create 2.8m kg of carbon dioxide emissions. The extra fuel consumption is caused by the flags creating drag."

So in addition to wasting their own money (while kindly contributing more excise duty through fuel tax to the treasury), they are also imposing additional, unnecessary costs on the environment.

Perhaps this is additional evidence of the proposition I heard during the last World Cup. Namely, that those little white and red flags you see attached to cars are a bit like either the red L signs or green P signs you sometimes see on car. That is, a warning of a particular quality possessed by a driver - that is, a learner or someone who has recently passed. In this case, it is a warning that the driver is, how shall we put it, somewhat intellectually challenged....a special needs case, perhaps. I'm sure you get my gist.

Fun with maps

2006-06-03T09:00:00.000+01:00

I liked this, which I found via Freedom and Whisky. BondBloke, in all his guises, will tell anyone who cares to listen that I am obsessed by maps.

I appear to be missing a couple of outlying islands - Isle of Man and, more seriously for someone now resident in Scotland, Na h-Eileanan an Iar (so much more exotic than the Hebrides), and Shetland.

The university exam boycott, top-up fees and the research assessment exercise

2006-06-01T16:33:00.000+01:00

Sorry. This post is a bit niche.

This issue has been bothering me for some time, and I need to get it out of my system. During this dispute, the AUT/NATHFE action has been discussed in the context of the introduction of top-up fees in England and Wales (and the compensatory funding for Scotland), and not in the context of the Research Assessment Exercise, which is used to quantify research quality in the higher education institutions of the UK. See here for an example - the discussion of both the boycott and the future of the RAE at the AUT conference earlier in May. The claim to redress historic underfunding of academic salaries in the university sector has already been discussed here on this blog (see in particular the contributions from RoadRunner in the comments section), along with the 'morality' of taking action which affects students.

I was thinking we were likely to get an offer earlier this week which would be acceptable - probably a two figure offer over two years, and an agreement to look favourably again in 2008-2009 when the impact of three years worth of top-up fees in the system is looking clearer. Unfortunately this has not been forthcoming, and a slightly improved offer of 13.1% over three years appears to have been rejected out of hand by AUT/NATFHE, in particular because it offers nothing better for 2008-2009. I make no comment on this except to say that given that VCs were bleating about a previous *final* offer being at the limits of affordability (while remaining well below the annual increases that many of them have trousered year on year), it is a little less than convincing when a higher offer is made, again at the *limits* of affordability. So which one was at the limits of affordability? You get the gist: people start to believe that if there is another 0.5%, then there might be a little more in the system. Who knows? I think reactions to this have to be read in the light of what I suggest here.

VCs would say that their increases have been justified on the basis of productivity and performance, and because there is a lively, if niche, market for the best VCs. In a way, the same can be said for many academic staff. Since I joined the academic profession, something over 20 years, promotion prospects have accelerated massively, especially in shortage subjects like law or economics. People reach the "pinnacle" of the profession - a chair - much, much earlier on the whole than they used to do. Whereas 20 years ago, the "career grade", i.e. that which all reasonably successful academics could aspire to, was the senior lectureship. Today, in many, if not most, subjects, it is the chair. To put it another way, academics in many subjects have offset the effects of the gradual downgrading of pay scales by moving more rapidly up them, or by negotiating individual settlements on the basis of the mysterious arrangements that universities have for professors, once they reach that level.

This has not worked for everyone, not because those people are poor academics, but because they prioritise some values (e.g. family life) over a willingness to work very unsocial hours to finish all the work they have before them or a willingness to move institution (which historically has been the best way of pushing your way up the pay scale). In addition, there are some subjects where the market forces which apply in law or econonomics or management studies just don't apply in the same way. There are also some who are in secondary labour markets on serial short term contracts, who never ever get annual increments. And finally there are the new starters, who find that the starting salary for an academic falls further and further behind those, for example, of teachers, who frankly won't have done the years of training (minimum 3 year UG degree; 1 year Masters; 3 year PhD) which a lecturer starting out will have done. And that is without mentioning those on academic related scales, who are not involved in research, and are therefore unable to use the market forces argument of moving their labour and their publications and grant income to another university.

What has happened is greater inequality across disciplines, and a massive stretching out of the pay scales from the top points which some professors might expect to get paid, versus the rates of pay for lecturers just starting out, or many many contract researchers. That is pretty obvious if you look at the charts which appear periodically in the Times Higher Education Supplement under which Universities not only declare how much their VCs earn, but also declare how many staff they pay £120+, £100+ and £80+. It's illuminating, believe me, even if you factor in the medical academics who are in an entirely different stratosphere to us ordinary mortals.

So....before I lose you completely....where does the RAE come into this? Well, because I have a hunch that VCs are hanging on to at least some of their pennies, unwilling to commit them to a national settlement which will benefit everyone (and remember this is already basically a percentage based settlement which benefits those on higher wages than those at the bottom, although there are some minimums built in at the bottom to protect the absolutely worst paid) in order to buy off the relatively few. In the last RAE, which concluded in 2001, there was a date some eighteen months before the so-called census date (which is the date when you do a count up of every one in your institution who is research active and who can count for the purposes of measuring how much research income should come to the department or school) after which those who moved to another university basically counted half for that university, and half for the previous university. That was, in my view, a fair arrangement. If you lost key staff eighteen months before the census date, you could at least make a fair stab at recruiting new people, even though it would usually cost you more to recruit them than the cost of those who left. So it was already market forces in action, but constrained by the sharing rule. You can find the details here, at para. 3.8, so-called A* staff. For this RAE, there is no such rule. See here (pdf file). It does not say explicitly that the rules are different, but because there is no mention of any A* staff, we know that the sharing rule is not applying.

So...what do you think is happening? If universities risk losing key staff, and all their publications (but not at least their accrued grant income), at any point right up to the census date (31 October 2007), then there is obviously going to be a problem. There is no chance at that point of recruiting to replace key staff. A department's, and indeed a whole university's, research profile could go down in the pan if another university swoops in to poach the best staff at the last minute. And who has paid for these staff right throughout the previous six years, the reference period during which publications are developed which are the basis for the future funding for the next six years or so? Not the new employer, that's for sure. Remember, such staff might have been given special study leaves or grants in order to allow them to finish important projects to generate publications. In my own subject, I can already see that not only are institutions alive to these possibilities and dangers, but individuals are as well. Universities may have to react defensively and offer very substantial pay rises to individuals to stop them leaving. Then others will complain, of course, about equity, and so they will also need financial placating. And so on, and so on.

All of which leads me to conclude that the rule devised by the Higher Education Funding Councils for the 2007/2008 RAE is having a negative impact upon the available funding for paying all university staff in the 2006-2009 pay negotiation round. Once again, the money is likely to go to the few, and those in secondary labour markets or less fashionable disciplines will bear the brunt.

I thought from the start, when the RAE rules for this time round were announced, that it was a stupid rule. I made enquiries of a friend who is on an assessment panel this time round, and who was also on a panel last time, and it was intimated to me that there were administrative problems with running it last time and that's why the sharing rule was not used this time round.

The administrative tail is wagging the market dog. And it is one of the important unspoken contexts of the divisive action we are seeing at present. If people addressed this issue directly, perhaps we might more readily find solutions to the dispute between the unions and the employers.

Update 3pm Budapest time
If you have got this far then you are obviously interested in the content of this post, which means that you might be able to answer this question. I got a sudden spike of visitors from academic domains between 10am and 11am this morning, but none of them have a referring URL. Usually other spikes can be explained by appearing in google searches, which appear on the visitor stats as the referring URL. Has the URL of this blog post gone round on an email to AUT activists and if so, can someone please tell me what you think of it. Not one of these academic visitors made a comment. Most un-blog-friendly.

More on prisoner deportation

2006-06-01T12:57:00.000+01:00

Oh how terribly, terribly easy it is to make others the scapegoats for your bureaucratic incompetence and your need to seem tough. After this further news on prisoner deportations in the Guardian, I feel all the more vindicated about my earlier prognostications on this.

Strange facts about Budapest

2006-06-01T12:30:00.000+01:00

Actually, I can't tell you anything strange about Budapest itself (which is its normal bustling self), but I can tell you something strange about my stay in Budapest, which not even BondBloke, in any of his many manifestations, knows, and that is that I am sleeping on a waterbed. Yes, a waterbed. For the first time in my life. It's a strange experience, particularly if you arrive in your room at 11.30pm, no one has warned you, and you lean on the bed to put the light on above it. And not only discover that the surface is by no means firm, but that it makes a disconcerting slushing noise every time you touch it. Actually, since you ask, yes I have slept reasonably well. As well as I ever sleep when away from the comforts of the Bond residence, and in the middle of a city. But I am not sure it is an experience I would repeat, and certainly not one I would like to try when sharing a bed with someone else. Anyone else.

I suppose the other strange fact about Budapest, at least in relation to me, is that this is the city my son's father lives in, and once in the 1990s when I was here for work with Junior Bond, we ran into his father on the street by pure coincidence. In a city of I don't know how many million people. After all, the world's a village.

What is your Monster Name?

2006-06-01T08:25:00.001+01:00

Your Monster Profile

Behemoth Chemist

You Feast On: M&Ms
You Lurk Around In: Swamps
You Especially Like to Torment: ~~British~~English People

What's Your Monster Name?

They got it SO right!

The fate of the elderly

2006-05-31T11:47:00.000+01:00

Martyn describes himself as "man from York; writes stuff" on his blog. Typically self-deprecating. This morning he has posted a story about his paternal grandmother, which I fear is not that remarkable, but is immensely sad. A story in which a very vulnerable woman was faced with leaving the only place she could call home, because an "institution" was closing. The power lies in Martyn's telling - as ever. Please go and read it. As ever, it made me think, especially about the fate of my own grandparents, and indeed my mother, although they fortunately never found themselves in that position. And then, I found this, a brief report on Guardian Unlimited, about another elderly woman forced to leave the place she felt was home, a care home, and moved to another care home, because the first one closed. She died of an overdose shortly afterwards. And then I realised - we really are bastards to elderly people, aren't we? Do we really care at all?

Anyway, thanks, Martyn - for making me think.

Changing the subject - am posting from Budapest, from a wirelessly enabled cafe. Appear to be more of those in Budapest than in London, where you always have to pay for wireless access. Photos later.

Suspending University Exams

2006-05-29T13:57:00.000+01:00

As one university exam boycott (by staff) meanders to a close, another is just getting going. In view of Bangladesh's participation in the World Cup, students at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology are refusing to take their exams, so long as their team is still in the cup. After a siege on the VC's office (we haven't had to resort to that but apparently there have been similar scenes in other universities where the authorities have been more heavy-handed), the students' requests for the postponement of exams have been acceded to.

What will be the response?

2006-05-29T09:55:00.000+01:00

There has been a spate of fatal or near fatal stabbings/knife attacks recently. Perhaps the most shocking was the fatal stabbing of a student on a train at the weekend. This is in the same week that the police are holding a nationwide knife amnesty, offering people the opportunity to drop knives into special bins in police stations, with no questions asked, whilst presumably being video-ed by the ubiquitous CCTV. What is the next step we can expect as a result of these awful crimes? Airport-style (and, I should say, public-building style) metal detectors at the entrance to every train and school? What is the correct balance here between the risk of harm to individuals as against the general restriction on liberty posed by enduring endless personal and property searches? And will policy responses be considered responses, or the type of knee jerk reactions of which we have seen so many in recent weeks?

What is the Guardian's policy on the Union?

2006-05-28T16:48:00.000+01:00

I didn't know it was the Guardian's policy to foster the break up of the UK. However, after yesterday I have to say I am compelled to conclude that it is. In the print edition, in a perhaps little read corner, there appears "what we've learned", which I think is a sort of compilation of bits of rubbish read by the editors during the week. I suspect the bits of rubbish include Johnny Grimond's rant against Scotland in the Economist, as we can read here that:

"The English subsidise the Scots by roughly £1,000 per Scot per year."

Now, even if public spending per head is higher in Scotland than it is in England, in fact it has been rising more slowly in Scotland (a part of the UK which is indubitably poorer than average) than in England (a part of the UK which is indubitably richer than average) since devolution. All of these figures, of course, conceal the fact that there is massive diversity in wealth, etc. within England and Scotland, which mandate fiscal transfers within those parts of the UK, as well as across the UK as a whole. However, public spending allocations in Scotland are the result of political choices made in Holyrood and Westminster, not the result of some sort of structural bias against England or the English in public spending allocations across the UK.

It seems to me unarguable that the current state of political arrangements across the UK cannot be the final settlement. Devolution has produced some interesting outcomes, especially for Wales and Scotland, and potentially for Northern Ireland, but it has also thrown up the as yet unanswered "English question", which politicians in Westminster, of all parties, routinely shy away from.

What is equally clear is that an unwillingness amongst politicians to grapple with difficult issues can give rise to negative reactions, and the unleashing of forces which are inimical to the long term survival of the United Kingdom. It seems to me to be irresponsible journalism to describe the issue of public spending outcomes in the UK in terms of "the English subsidising the Scots". The Guardian, the Manchester Guardian as was, would doubtless shy away from a headline or trailer that read "the southerners are subsidising the northerners", and would want to see a complex argument developed instead of idiotic simplicities which recognised the differing levels of deprivation and the differing needs of the north and the south of England. Why then should they not apply the same degree of care and caution when describing the relationships between public spending in England and public spending in Scotland?

Me, drunk? Never

2006-05-26T20:04:00.000+01:00

Instructed by Numptie, I took this test. It bears no relationship to the "truth". As all my friends will know.

You're a Depressed Drunk

You know that distinct taste of tears and vodka real well.

What Kind of Drunk Are You?

Dogs & Beer

2006-05-26T15:39:00.000+01:00

Apologies to regular readers for my absence, lots of things to do etc.. I am known for my love of dogs; in fact I like them much more than I like many people, some of whom I am not allowed to mention here on pain of death (BondWoman is a hard task master) but they know who they are! I am also known for my love of beer and it has been said, again by BondWoman, that my natural habitat is the pub; well today I found this which combines both passions...

"The Soft Underbelly of Devolution"

2006-05-26T09:18:00.000+01:00

Over at The Sharpener, my second post on "The Soft Underbelly of Devolution" (phrase courtesy of Brian Taylor of BBC Scotland).

The Village, Leith

2006-05-25T22:35:00.000+01:00

Continuing our series of "pub of the week" posts (see here, here and here), here is a quick post on the pub which is effectively our "local", The Village, on South Fort Street in Leith. It's an interesting place, although I couldn't recommend visiting it for the ale. Deuchars IPA handpumped and Belhaven Best on electric tap was about the limits of that. But it certainly has quite a funky atmosphere (much improved by the smoking ban IMHO), with art on the walls, interesting colour schemes, and - above all - a reputation to maintain as the venue for the weekly gigs hosted by the Leith Folk Club. Now here we are really getting to the nub of the matter. It is a great little venue, and somewhere where you can go and see bands like the Tannahill Weavers, as indeed we did this week "en blog famille" as it were, in very intimate and knowledgeable surroundings. Crazily, after living here more than twelve months, this was the first time we had frequented the Leith Folk Club. I have no doubt we shall go back.

Immigration and Citizenship

2006-05-24T14:22:00.000+01:00

Anti-immigration campaigners seem to like to have it all ways in their campaigns. They object to 'floods' of immigrants, saying it is not what people 'want'. They object (rightly, in my view, as it happens) to the Home Office unilaterally increasing the qualifying period from four years to five before a non-EEA national working in the UK can apply for indefinite leave to remain. As fees are payable for the necessary visas and work permits, they denounce this as an egregious tax on those who have taken the lawful route to immigration, when those who have taken the unlawful route apparently enjoy unlimited state handouts (I think those in asylum detention centres or receiving below subsistence levels of welfare benefits might beg to differ, but there we go). But now, as it is reported that levels of citizenship acquisition are at record levels, they denounce Government's policies on allowing access to UK citizenship by non-nationals, even though this is precisely the lawful route from immigration to integration praised in the previous article. Mere inconsistency, or full-blown hypocrisy? I leave you to decide.

Heard on the Today Programme

2006-05-24T09:06:00.000+01:00

I'm not always fully awake when listening to the Today Programme, but something jolted me out of my slumber today. For once it was not the desire to strangle whichever politician was adorning the 8.10 slot, but instead something very funny. Bizarrely, the Today Programme decided to fulfil its public service mission this morning by sending out a reporter to try and smuggle a garden gnome into the Chelsea Flower Show in order to test out its rule banning said gnomes from its "naice" gardens. There was then an interview with a very posh gentleman clearly implacably opposed to garden gnomes as a fundamental lapse of taste. The interviewer pressed her case - would it be the case, she enquired, that other ornaments such as toadstools and fairies would be unacceptable and should be banned. Without missing a beat the posh gentleman replied: "If you ban fairies there wouldn't be any gardeners...."

The programme proceeded sedately on its course.

More lazy photo blogging

2006-05-22T19:20:00.000+01:00

It's been a funny few days chez The Original BondBloke. First, we had a tremendous peak on Friday with lots of extraneous visitors stopping by because I blogged the piano found on Ben Nevis earlier in the week. It later became big international news, provoking masses of google searches. Even today, Bondbloke is on the first page of the search results. I wonder what the visitors thought when they arrived...

But mainly, the Bonds have been very busy recently refurbishing a flat for Junior Bond, and I find it surprisingly difficult to compose posts when I have sore hands from handling a wallpaper scraper in anger for two days. We are making reasonable progress on the destruction phase of the refurbishment so far, but there is a long way to go. Pictures below...I forgot to do the before ones, so there will only be during and after.

Anyway, I thought I would resort to some lazy photo blogging to make up for the lack of proper input, but forgot that I find it damn difficult to position photos easily on blogger, so in fact I have spent longer on this post than on many of my more substantial ones!

Anyway, above you will a picture of part of the Sultan's Elephant street installation, which brought London to a halt a couple of weeks ago. I was intrigued to find this outside the British Academy when I went there for a meeting.

And then all has not been lost on the walking and exercising front. Although the weather has been deteriorating, we managed to have a lovely day out a week last Sunday on a walk over Arthur's Seat, with a friend this time, to the Sheep Heid in Duddingston. The Sheep Heid is another one of my google search favourites. Brings a lot of passing trade to this blog. Again we are on the first page of the search results, for my very affectionate review.

This weekend, with the same friend and her partner, we took to the car and went over towards Loch Lomond, to find better weather than the dreich rubbish we were experiencing in Edinburgh. We succeeded, and had a lovely drive ending up at Inversnaid Pier overlooking Loch Lomond from the east, and walked up to Rob Roy's Viewpoint to take snaps. I hope that Bondbloke will blog this properly on the "outdoor" blog and put his photos (much better than mind) on flickr. But he is dog-tired from a surplus of very physical work on the new flat. So I leave you with a couple of gorgeous pictures of that for your delectation and delight... You won't believe just how much input into previous renovations on that flat the famous firm of "bodge-it, leave-it and hope" has had. Or maybe you would. I'm sure everyone has seen it before.

Bondbloke contemplating what to do about the fact that the glass window between the kitchen has simply been covered up with linoleum tiles and hardboard and painted/papered over. He attacked it - violently. It doesn't look anything like that now!

The corner of the small bedroom. Just a smidgeon of the acres of yellow-painted wallpaper we have all been busy removing. Stubborn stuff, thick stuff, with goopy glue. Not like modern wallpaper at all.

How to Clean your Toilet

2006-05-20T10:50:00.000+01:00

This was sent to me by someone who thought I would find it amusing; actually I found it hilarious and present it for your amusement:-

Instructions For Cleaning The Toilet

Lift the lid on the toilet and fill it with 1/8 cup of animal shampoo.
Take the cat in your arms and stroke it gently while slowly moving in the direction of the toilet.
At a suitable moment, throw the cat into the toilet bowl and close the lid quickly then either stand or sit on the lid.
The cat will now start the cleaning process and will produce plenty of foam. Do not be concerned about the loud noises coming from the toilet; your cat is enjoying himself.
After several minutes flush the toilet to start the ‘Power Wash’, pre wash and then flush again for the main wash cycle.
Ask someone to open the front door and ensure that no-one is between the toilet and the front door.
Get off the toilet seat and from a safe distance open the toilet lid quickly. The cat will dry off naturally due to the high speed he will be moving from the toilet to the front door.
The toilet and as a bonus, the cat will now both be clean.

With best wishes
The Dog
And here are the photographs:-

The Cat

The Dog

Potty Training

2006-05-20T10:19:00.000+01:00

I found an interesting piece of video which I think brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "potty training" and here I present it for your comment.

There will be a follow up piece to this when I can find it...

Pig Olympics

2006-05-18T19:35:00.000+01:00

I found this earlier and thought it rather interesting; but then I am a great pig lover! I will say nothing other than to say that I know a few people that these porkers may have given a run for their money...

Piano found on Ben Nevis

2006-05-17T16:50:00.000+01:00

Perhaps Roadrunner, who is one member of this blog team who has been up Ben Nevis and who has a demonstrable interest in music, can shed light on this...

Truly wierd.

"Illegal" Immigration

2006-05-17T15:44:00.000+01:00

Regular readers of this blog may be aware of my aversion to using the term "illegal" immigration, because it is not clear to me how humans can be "illegal". I also think it is unnecessarily emotive. But this is not meant to be a serious post about immigration policy, or about the case for open borders, for example, which is canvassed in an interesting way at Stumbling and Mumbling today. Nor is it a commentary on the rather entertaining performance of IND official Dave Roberts before the Commons Home Affairs Committee yesterday.

No, let me content myself with this homily. Once upon a time there was a moment when the UK was "pure". Somebody somewhere knew where everyone was, and who everyone was. There were no "illegal immigrants". And then someone put the Home Office in charge, and everything went wrong. People forgot that if you didn't brand foreigners with a big "F" on their foreheads when they came into this marvellous country then you might reach a stage where you didn't actually know how many of them there were, and where they were, and you wouldn't be able to distinguish between those who are "nice" immigrants, with "decent, hardworking families", to coin a Blairite phrase, and those who are "nasty" immigrants, who are "illegal", who abuse the health service, cost us taxpayers money, dirty the streets, etc. etc. (you get the picture).

The offensive thing about Blair's and Reid's reaction to this whole pallaver is that they have not gone on the offensive and made the obvious point, namely that only totalitarian states know for sure how many foreigners there are in the country, what status they have, and can act easily to get rid of them if they want to. The USSR, for example, or the DDR. No, on the contrary. They make clear that they actually want to turn the UK increasingly into a society which, if not quite totalitarian, is certainly one that is so surveillance dominated that the differences become increasingly hard to spot. Because what do they say is the answer to all of this? At PMQs today,

"Mr Blair also outlined two measures to help the country reclaim control of its borders.
He said: "First of all, we need to introduce electronic borders.
"And secondly, we need identity cards both for foreign nationals and for British nationals if we want to track people coming in and out of our country and know the identity of people here."

Goody goody. That's just exactly what we all want.

The thing that makes me sick about the Tory Party is that they seek to set a repressive and restrictive agenda on immigration, and the management of non-nationals, and yet proclaim that they are a party to protect our ancient civil liberties. I don't normally use naughty words on my blog, but that is the biggest load of bollocks that I have heard in ages. Liberties apply to all, not just to some. There are a few bloggers out there as well who would do well to remember that point.