IndyRef# -both sides should learn lessons from the AV referendum

I find myself in a position were I’m neither full pro-yes or indeed for that matter pro-no at present. My political instincts have always believed that a federal path would be the best option for Scotland, however it is not actually going to be an option that this referendum will serve.

I don’t intend on blogging about the pros and cons of independence at present, but merely the way the arguments and facts should be presented to allow the public to make a genuinely informed decision… and to learn the lessons of the AV referendum – both the positives and the negatives.

I personally will face a similar dilemma at the independence referendum as I did at the AV referendum – in that I in that my preferred option is not one that the Government will allow me to have in front of me. Even if I viewed my party being defeated in a contest using the Single Transferable Vote system during the recent council elections, it is my preference of voting system in that it gives a fair and legitimately proportional result without detracting the direct link between constituents.

At the last election I did in many ways grudgingly vote for AV given that it was better than the status quo – however it was not proportional. The reason I voted for it was that there was a logical route and debate that could then occur afterwards.

However, the lessons I learned was that the argument presented to the electorate was either “all politicians are scummy” (Yes to AV) or that “Your going to kill the children” (No to AV). .. Ultimately the scarier and most negative of the two campaigns won it due to negativity. 

Sadly the independence referendum so far is shaping out to be, whilst drastically more feeble thus far, the same negative drivel - The yes to independence mob (Yes Scotland) camp seems to be portraying the fear factor argument “All politicians south of the border are scummy and are going to make you all jobless” and the no camp portraying the argument of “you can’t do maths”.

It has not really got into full spin yet, but there is a very different way of handling the referendum – whilst taking the positives of the AV referendum to fight the battle.

Positives

Both the No AV and Yes AV managed to become a clear and distinctive campaign force distinctive from political party, however did manage to utilise talent wings from most mainstream political parties and independent minded individuals to a yes (and indeed no) campaign. A clear example of this was the differentiation between “Labour Yes” and “Labour No”.

I would like to hope this kind of interlinking a sharing of skills and ideas does come around in this referendum – as I know for a fact there are a few individuals within the Scottish Liberal Democrats, such as my friend who is ex-Scottish Parliamentary candidate and self confessed “Pro-indy” Lib Dem, who, whilst I don’t agree fully with him on a number of topics, could most certainly provide a few sensible suggestions to the pro-indy lobby. If there are some lib dem members for independence Im certain there will be a few labour and conservative members who will also be for it.

There are some serious concerns so far that the “Yes Scotland campaign” seems to be alienating the Pro-independence green lobby by putting key SNP personnel in charge of strategy and logistics – and whether the interlinking and co-operation aspect comes into force or not remains to be seen. Patrick Harvie’s Scottish Greens and ex-SNP member and current independent MSP Margo McDonald are most certainly people that the pro-indy lobby should be getting around the table if they are going to get their sales pitch right.

If the SNP are going to push non-snp members to the side it will most certainly be used by the no-campaign. The headlines will be all along the lines of “El-presidente’ in power-mad struggle for separation”.

 I have a lot of respect so far in this debate for Green MSP Patrick Harvie who seems to be suggesting the argument for and against should be taken to the backbone of the argument – as to avoid confusion on policy decisions.

How the argument yes-no arguement should be presented

 I don’t know if anybody actually watched the BBC big debate, or whether you foolishly left the TV on channel (like I did) to watch Nicola Sturgeon MSP (SNP) and Ruth Davidson MSP (Conservative) ramble at and over each other like two children squabbling in a playground.

If you did keep it on the channel, I hope you agree that both failed to achieve anything other than utter confusion about what independence would mean for Scotland.

The SNP and Torys tried to utilise the show as a Policy Hustings to promote their own parties – please keep in mind that there is a separate election process for defining the policy position which will occur at the next Scottish Parliamentary elections

The independence referendum is about what will happen if we are declared independent, what is the process of becoming independent and whether constitutionally it is better than the status quo.

It is not a referendum on whether you think David Cameron is a knob (definition - A rounded lump or ball, esp. at the end or on the surface of something)  or whether you prefer SNP to the Labour party, Lib Dems, Greens, Tories, Scottish Socialists etc. If it was a referendum on whether you thought Cameron was a knob – I think most of Scotland, myself included would probably vote yes. If it was a Scottish parliament election id probably vote for my party – unless the candidate was not the best.

The Yes independence Scotland group need to be able to present costings on re-establishing Scottish versions of organisations like HMRC, Home Office, DVLA etc. Ironically the UK Labour party previous quite liked centralising things to save money so a lot of this and the skills required for some of the functionality might well need to be imported from England, Northern Ireland and Wales. They also need to clearly define income and clarify legal wrangles surrounding income.

The No campaigns, and there will most certainly be campaigns, need to similarly provide costings and get details to clarify legal wrangles.

The campaign should be fought on the backbone of what happens if Scotland was to become independent – Alex Salmond needs to avoid being the figure head in the same way Nick Clegg should have avoided being the figure head for AV to attack.

In the mean time whilst this car crash is going on I hope that Devo-Plus present a positive alternative so that if there is a NO vote there is not an end point to this argument in the same way the electoral reform argument has faded after the last election.

My issue is whether I believe that voting NO will kill off the progressive devolution argument and whether the costs and arguments for independence outweigh the risk of waiting and hoping for my preferred choice.  As there is no option for further devolution – I like many others have to decide – which option is the second best thing?

Separation, which could apparently lead to chaos, uncertainty and financial repercussions or waiting in hope that there will be another chance to see a sensible transfer of powers whilst maintaining a position and say on NATO, UN etc.

Although there is probably a logical argument for abstinence in the process, the group that most positively provides me of their credentials that I can verify or see logic may get my vote.

I am undecided but if I had to vote at present id probably be very slightly more inclined to vote no.

IS Beercroft Bonkers?

Workers Rights should be enhanced – not removed

I think Vince Cables reaction to a suggestion of reducing working rights was similar to most liberal democrats – that of absolute astonishment.

Creating the image of small businesses having the ability to chop and change “lazy” employees will be the direction the conservative will try to take the argument they've choosen to stir, such an approach fails to properly analyse the social and financial impact of such a system upon the UK. I hope Beercroft remains as a recommendation and is not moved upon at any point in the history of the UK.

The Social impact of such proposals is rather obvious – uncertainty, stress and unhappiness. There are very few well regarded takes on management theory that suggests that uncertainty, stress and unhappiness leads to a productive workforce or a happy family for that matter.

Unfortunately I’ve experienced the uncertainty of a family actually trying to prepare itself for the dramatic change of losing a regular income – when my father was made redundant at IBM when I was in High School. It was uncomfortable, uncertain, concerning and darn scary – and I can’t imagine what it was like for my dad but we did come out of the other end as a family that respected each other greatly.

One thing that would change in this speculative scenario would be the period of notice. My dad was informed in advance when he would be finishing, giving an ample opportunity to look around for another ship to jump to.

Conservative-supporting venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft might think this is a great idea to dramatically cut notice for redundancies etc – or no doubt some unscrupulous employers would utilise the "under performing" staff angle to dodge redundancy payments and costs associated with reliving “human resources”.

I work for a FTSE 100 company that has just recently been in the Sunday Times best big companies list – and I don’t think we got there by accident. Whilst the market place is uncertain we know that our employer has and will continue to treat us fairly. Given the environment we work in it is expected that there will be complaints against us for doing our jobs and doing what is required. If you have no certainty or loyalty to a company and have to depend on cushy contracts, are you going to think Long Term or Short Term?

When I was working for my previous employer, I as a human resource was subject to a "TUPE" – under Beercroft proposals I would not have been able to carry my rights that I did at that point transfer - another stupid proposal on the list.

Putting all of this to the side, as I could most certainly go on and expand on the social harm this would create, I will actually highlight my views on the purpose of this report and their economic and financial flaws.

RISK

The most fatal flaws are with the risks that Beercroft fails properly to acknowledge – but the risks that financial institutions would most certainly have to.

If you are applying for a mortgage, the underwriter of that mortgage wants to assess the appropriate risks – are you employed? Is your employment situation stable? How much do you earn? How much do you spend? Etc

If in the Beercroft proposal scenario your employment status becomes less stable – should a bank, such as RBS for example, not understand that there is an increased risk in their lending you could see massive losses and massive re-possession rates. In order to substitute the risk they will likely require bigger deposits and lower spending to balance the risks – and your product rate might become a bit less favourable.

General Banking – Credit cards, loans and overdraft facilities would have to be reigned in. Why would a bank want to lend somebody on a lower uncertain salary want to accept the increased risk when a considerable number of their establishments have suffered heavy losses?

Economic picture on mortgages and general lending on their own suggest that the poorer end of society would become more conservative in their spending (as if the cost of living has not already made them become so?) and have less flexibility in lending. This would surely mean less money being spent on non-essential goods.

I could go on to analyse how it would impact the insurance market, but that’s a bit close to home… so maybe I’ll analyse how it would effect bigger household ticket items. 

For an extreme “what if” example, I will use a finance arrangement on a sofa – in England and Wales an unsecured financial arrangement would still have the risk of somebody coming around to grab their items back. In Scotland, you would already be at an increased risk with the finance arrangement; however an unfair and increased risk would be likely to push up with APR etc on the finance arrangement all over the UK to account for this. As a result of the sofa becoming more expensive to sell the sales rep may struggle to hit his targets and then end up being disposed of for being a “lazy” employee, his mortgage may stop being paid as he will be out of a job etc. (Somebody will say this is not a realistic scenario)

It might not be quite as “cool” a scenario as Karl Marx using coats to describe the value of an employees labour (reference for anybody who has read Kapital) but I could go on highlighting just how ludicrous the Beercroft proposals are.

The Germans have for the main part managed to maintain employment rights and maintain a reasonably fair redundancy arrangements for the most part, so would it make sense to make British employees the whipping boys of Europe? No!

If you use the examples from other countries it would be more of a viable situation for the UK to give their employees more working rights – which would give employees more certainty to go out and spend, and also give them better time to prepare for change in any situation they may become redundant. More employment rights would reduce the risk financial institutions face when lending and as a result boost growth by economic activity. Foreign investors want to invest in an economic community in which things are happening, not in one in which everything is shutting down.

In uncertain unstable markets, the markets want to find stability and certainty - the beercroft proposals would throw everything up in the air.

I agree with Vince Cable! The Labour party ignored him after budgets for years when he predicted the original financial storms, Northern Rock etc… the Conservative party should not make the same mistake when he highlights the serious stupidity presented by Beercroft.

Why Im going to hold off criticising Hollande... at the moment

In last years Total Politics I was awarded the title of 76th Best Lib Dem Blog – given that this is only my second post of 2012 I don’t think I will be getting any honours like that this year.

In January, I made a judgement call that I could either be a commentator or actually try do it for real, the “doing it for real” hasn’t turned out as well as I had hoped so I’m back!!

Ironically my first chosen topic on my return will be Greece – and maybe a touch of France to get a nicer taste on the palette. Sadly, I’m not referring to food on this occasion.

Greece has via its democratic process ultimately declared its distaste for its current situation by spitting in the face of the previous government – which isn’t in itself much different from Europe a hundred years ago or indeed what much of Europe is likely to do over the next few years.

It’s easy to understand why a nation like Greece has gone so extreme with its electoral choices given the desperation of people. Its also easy for some to compare the German situation which catapulted Adolf Hitler into rule Germany as a man who offered desperate and suffering people some optimism… although the situation in Greece probably isn’t quite as bad as that (yet?).

The extreme neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, with almost 7% of the vote, is on course for at least 20 seats in parliament… not quite Hitler representation yet but most certainly something to keep an eye on. 

Comparing situations makes it easier to understand the mindset of these 7% of Greeks who voted for this mob... and the many others who voted for similarly extreme political groups.

So far today the Greek Markets have dipped severely by 8% this morning – the markets don’t like extreme politics and uncertain scenarios. 

Most of the European Government will understandably draw fears that whatever new government is formed, it may well take the polite option of sticking two fingers up at the rest of Europe and their creditors.

Don’t blame Hollande… yet

The French Elections, partially due to their electoral system have been protected from Le Pens “Front National” – who got 18% of the first round votes, have chosen Francois Hollande of their socialist party.

The percentage of the vote given to Le Pen should give some serious cause for concern and reflection for France, but the rest of Europe will probably rest a bit easier knowing she has been defeated.

Pro-Sarkozy supporters and indeed pro-conservatives around Europe will be desperate to pin some of the blame on the dip of todays European markets on Hollande, but we shouldn’t blame him yet.

His election party should be very short… and not particularly pleasant as now he has to lead other than talk. 

Given some of the conservative policies that Sarkozy brought in to discourage ex-pats to go home instead of use the French NHS, I do seriously hope that Hollande can’t be any worse than Sarkozy.

Hollande isn’t the most charismatic figure in French politics, but even the showmanship of Sarkozy was not enough to stop the French people voting against him. I think a sizable proportion of the Hollande vote wanted Hollande (from the first round) but given the way Sarkozy tried to run the country I can’t help but feel a chunk of the Hollande vote was probably more of a vote against Sarkozy.

The Financial Markets will understandably want clear signals of policy from any government, but for some of the news sources having headlines such as:

“Stock markets fall as Greek and French elections renew fears that Europe cannot solve debt crisis” Telegraph

 

“Asian shares slide after French election” CNN International

 

“Euro drops to three-month low as election results in France and Greece spark fears about Europe's ability to solve its debt crisis” This is Money .co.uk

 

They don’t really show the full picture of what is really going on… and in respect of CNN their headline fails to highlight the Greek involvement. The world needs to look behind the sensationalist headlines and judge for themselves... and I hope you do likewise.

My take on the today’s events are:

1. Hollande has a task ahead, judge him on his workmanship or otherwise.

2. Give the next Greek government an opportunity to remove themselves from the Euro and use their own currency to boost growth.

Review of 2011 – MY Liberal take

2011 in terms of politics has been a painful year for Liberal Democrats in Scotland, but it’s also been a year in which a new leader of the Scottish Party has revived the optimism in the grass routes. There is a great belief that in the Scottish Parliament and at local council level that we can be a catalyst for change even if we are not the main opposition.

I will start off with my review of International news then work my way into more local and national matters of importance.

International News

The Key news of 2011 from an international standpoint would be “the Arab Spring” and the Euro zone crisis.

Arab Spring

The Arab spring is something that I think our media has actually failed to tell much of the story about, most notably in Bahrain which has had largely passive coverage for most of the year. Despite the news of atrocities taking place the bulk of the coverage centred on corporate stories, such as the Formula 1 Gran Prix being cancelled/delayed.

I would post links to some videos of the situation in Bahrain but I don't want my blog to be shut down for explicit content (or links to it).

In Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Libya (countries in which we are more likely to have been on holiday to), there has been quite lengthy coverage whilst the violence takes place. Whilst the problems continue in most the Tunisia story seems promising – although yet again when there is relative peace it is not a great story to pop in to a your coverage when trying to sell a sensationalist newspaper.

The Colonel died in Libya, and instead of this being treated a failure by the rebel forces it seems to have been treated as a success. The man should have been tried at The Hague, but with his death dies as yet untold secrets of power abuse and stories of extradition.

Syria is becoming an example of how order doesn’t include progress and if a leader can not lead by example his “power” will vanish as the trust of a nation deteriorates. The situation in Egypt is slightly more promising, but requires patience from the people and genuine promotion of reform from the temporary government.

Euro zone and the EU

It’s a serious blow to Britain if the euro zone was to collapse, jobs would be lost and we would most certainly spiral into a long and strenuous recession. Whilst the UK political view on Europe is generally Euro sceptic it is the job of a PM to look past a narrow minded opportunity to absorb support for his own party and very much the job to look at the economic interest of the UK.

Thanks to the recent “veto” he has spat in the face of 26 nations, damaged the likelihood of the UK from drawing in jobs and investment from Europe and potentially sent the UK on the road to being just another small country of the world stage.

Whilst it is undeniable that there are problems in the Europe, I can’t help but feel the body language of our PM when vetoing was not that of a negotiator but more like that of a stubborn school boy who doesn’t actually want to play ball.

Ever since the UK Conservative party moved out of the moderate conservative wing in the European parliament in 2009 they’ve been increasingly alienated. Although creating a group of extreme conservatives was always likely to do that I had hoped the PM would have seen sense in co-operation in Europe for the sake of jobs and economics.

In my opinion, the problems with the EU centred on its economic controls, shabby auditing of member states fiscal responsibility and also the failure to properly ensure that new entrants to the EU were genuinely compliant with entrance criteria.

It is for this reason that I think Merkel and Sarkozy are correct in wanting tighter rules and regulations around member states borrowing and financial responsibility – in fact it should have been something that the UK should have been trying to push into play years ago. I thoroughly believe that had this new legislation that has not yet been fully implemented been in action from earlier in the 21st centaury the problems we are facing just now could either have been spotted sooner (in relation to Greece) or drastically reduced.

The fact the even the Lithuanians now seem to have a more relevant position in the European union is no laughing matter, and I hope the Liberal Democrats in Europe can draw the attention of the other 26 nations to the fact that there are co-operative elements within the UK government and that we are open for business.


Credit Ratings and Global Employment issues

The big news briefly brushed over by our media was the reduction in the USA credit rating to AA+, meaning that the UK (with a AAA rating) is viewed by agencies such as S&P to be less of a risk that our friends in terms of lending substantial sums of money to our treasury.

The USA employment statistics are also in a slightly worse position than ours in terms of unemployment rate, despite this being reduced to 8.6 percent in December 2011.

Whilst it is easy to solely look at the horrible situation at home, if we are to properly assess whether our uneasy coalition in Westminster is truly achieving its main aim to balance the books and return the UK economy to a healthy position, it is on these matters that Liberal Democrats in particular will assess the situation.

Alex Cole-Hamilton (Scottish Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate) said that if his loss was in May was in some way a down-payment on ending child detention then he accepted it with all his heart, and I feel that the majority of the Liberal Democrat Membership both north and south of the border feel that if the Economy is revived they will accept the reduction in seats at council elections and Scottish Parliamentary elections as a down payment for the creation of prosperity and fairness in the future of the UK – though the Scottish Membership may not accept this as a down payment for Alex Salmon’s flawed plans for independence if it means fiscal hardship for services such as the NHS.

It is a painful experience with great uncertainty but proper analysis of the Global situation will allow us to analyse the key performance indicators of the UK government and also to analyse whether the future economic returns were worth the party’s pain.

I stated previously back in July (http://gordonanderson06.blogspot.com/2011/07/historic-self-destruction-of-liberalism.html) that I felt that there were many parallels between the current situation of liberals and that of the predecessor party back at the beginning of last Century.

Scottish Affairs

The Situation in Scotland is unusual but treacherous since Mays election in which the SNP claimed the first majority of Scotland Parliament.
Prior to the election the Scottish Liberal Democrats went into deconstruct mode with fiasco after fiasco, even with the Scottish Party and Tavish Scott clearly distancing himself from Nick Clegg there was no stopping the self harm that the party would do to itself – and which I feel lead to the untimely death of a very good man in charge of the campaign co-ordination.

It may not be fair for me to personally blame the death of Andrew Reeves on the train wreck of a campaign but I don’t think that Hugh O’Donnell or the clearly unintentional quotation from John Farquhar Munro helped matters in a politically and financially challenging election.

In a situation in which Mr Munro was utilised for spin purposes for stating “In a race between Iain Gray and Alex Salmond, then I’d clearly choose Alex Salmond” and then the number one list candidate for central Scotland Hugh O’Donnell decides to resign from the party just days before the election your always going to be damaging the brand but the candidates were not financially in the best positions to battle out elections either.

With little financial assistance from the party many candidates struggled to compete with the trade union funded Labour party of the financial superiority of the SNP (backed by people such as stagecoach owner Mr. Brian Souter) and Conservatives. My Friend Andrew Page for example must have got around £30 worth of generic election materials from party coffers to battle in Renfrewshire North and West – even the most modest SNP or Labour candidate could clearly not deny that this would give a clear disadvantage to such a candidate when their candidates have their names plastered across almost every lamppost in sight.

Things did get worse before they could possibly get better – with exceptional talents such as Jeremy Purvis and Ross Finnie losing their seats in the most devastating Scottish Parliament election thus far.

Accountability

The accountability of the Scottish Parliament came into question very quickly after an SNP MSP was selected to become presiding officer over the SNP Majority controlled parliament.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/11/alex-salmond-row-snp-presiding-officer

Having watched Numerous FMQs I can’t help but feel that the time slot has started to become a weekly Party Political Broadcast in which many of the questions have no or little relevance to holding the First Minister to Account.

The Turn around

From even the darkest hours can draw hope, an individual I have admired for sometime has in a very short space of time since his election turned the Scottish Liberal Democrats back into a liberal machine for Scotland – I will take some satisfaction for the fact I tipped him to be an MSP on my twitter feed in May 2009 in the wake of the General Election results.

Willie Rennie is a very genuine and intelligent man who will further the influence of the Scottish Party. Even though we have been reduced to 5 MSP’s, Willie Rennie as a new MSP and the new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats has managed to do what would have been unthinkable back in May this year.

He has managed to strike blows in Salmonds drastically flawed plans for a single police force, the SNPs failure to utilise the powers that would be provided by Scotland Bill for economic recovery and most recently challenge the arrogance of Salmond on job creation, university funding and the utilisation of devolved powers.

The Other New Leaders

Whilst Lamont and Davidson would not have been my first choices for leaders of the Labour party or Conservative party I do think they will start to energise those in their own ranks, but not necessarily those who are not core voters.

I was surprised that Lamont managed to become leader of her party, although I do think she was somewhat assisted by the slip up of “Red Ed”, who despite having defeated his brother to the post of the UK Labour party leader is really not that “red” at all.

In my opinion, Ken Macintosh was clearly the most open and pro-change candidate they had to choose from and would have opened up their party to new ideas and alternate ideologies.

Despite this, other than allow Salmond the opportunity of going “WHO ARE YOU? Even Ed doesn’t have a clue!” (**CHUCKLE CHUCKLE CHUCKLE) they played safe and choose the second least effective candidate they had.

^P.S Salmond hasn't actually said the above comment

Davidson of the Conservatives is not actually that bad a PR performer, and will be a fairly straight swap in calibre from their previous leader Annabelle Goldie. The only supposedly unusual thing is that Davidson is a lesbian, but in my opinion that is completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

She has had a little more time to be assessed than Lamont and she looks comfortable on issues such that you would have expected Goldie to go for the “short and curlies” of Salmond, I believe she will go for the Jugular at some point in a similar fashion to her predecessor but is being polite at present to get her feat under the table.

Inverclyde

Inverclyde stayed “red” this year despite a very close call in May which could have knocked Duncan McNeil off of his pedestal but Labour managed to survive the test by a few hundred votes, despite this when it came along to the unexpected by-election caused by the death of David Cairns the Labour party triumphed in a more comfortable fashion.

The Future Operational Model fiasco was certainly one of the noteworthy stories of the year at the council, along with the temporary switch in council leaders between Stephen McCabe and the now MP Iain McKenzie.

The Future Operational Model led to approximately £650,000 being paid to PricewaterhouseCoopers over the failed £1.9m authority cuts plan, which also lead to 4 council officials being suspended. I sadly don’t really think this story is over.

Despite pouring money down the drain the Labour Led administration still seems to be failing to provide value for money, though to be fair the SNP run Scottish Parliament is hardly helping things by unfairly cutting the regeneration budget of Riverside Inverclyde.

Ironically SNP Councillor Chris Osborne, a key critic of his party’s plans and in my personal opinion by far the most hardworking of the SNPs ineffective Inverclyde council group, will not be standing at next Mays local elections having failed to be selected for the seat he wished to contest.

Floods have again sparked anger as another row between SNP and Labour develops over funding for flood defences, but when the Inverclyde Liberal Democrats repeatedly proposed flood prevention amendments to the council budgets over the last few years the amendments have gone largely ignored.

The Council budget remains frozen by the SNP meaning that the council in real terms has to do more with less flexibility and in the midst of things such as the Future Operating Model fiasco.


2012?

There is a lot of speculation over whether the Euro zone will break up and the EU take a step back to a more basic trading block and given the concerns surrounding Italy, Ireland, Spain and Greece its understandable that concern exists – however, I don’t believe the crumbling of the EU to be in the UK interest or indeed the interest of most member states. The currency is too big to fail and will damage a lot of jobs and prospects if it does fail.

In Westminster, the economic stats will continue to judge the decision and condition of the coalition.

Scotland needs to be more flexible and utilise the powers it does have, grasp the offer of a historic increase of powers through reviving the Scotland Bill implementation and using the extra money given by the UK government to enhance the job situation.

Salmond can’t be complacent and foolishly ravel in scoring points against the Labour run welsh assembly, the most recent employment statistics should be a stark reminder that people are more important that polls.

Inverclyde Council needs to be more responsive, more effective and drastically more efficient. The council needs to claim money it should be entitled to before deadlines. If the Scottish Government continue on their current path it the next council administration may need to be more aggressive in the manner it negotiates agreements with COSLA.

From a PR standpoint, no Council wants to be the first to say no to a COSLA agreement but just like in a trade union there is much greater strength in numbers than going it along, this council should be brave and be prepared to work together with others that are not being treated fairly by the current COSLA agreements to negotiate more preferable terms in future agreements.

The Council elections in May 2012 will be a test for alternative thinking and dragging politics back to its core of representing the interests of the electorate ahead of anybody self righteously defending the status quo of the COSLA Agreements financial settlements and council tax freezes. More needs to be done to force the SNP back into their 2007 pledge of reforming council tax – the freeze is not fairness!

In the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Liberal Democrats will be served well with an energetic and pro-reformist Liberal in the form of Willie Rennie MSP. In the wake of a potential merger between James Watt College and Reid Kerr, Scotland needs to know whether the SNP will be fair an utilise the extra money from the UK government to reverse the SNP led cuts.

To quote Aristotle “Rule will show what man is”, with the options Salmond has the electorate might not initially be aware enough to judge but if he fails to grasp the extra powers being offered by the Scotland bill and utilise the extra money from the UK government then history will expose the flaws of his Government.

Update - 11/12/11

It has been a while since I posted a blog and also my face has probably been out and about less over the last month than at any other time in the last year. My surveys and petitions are still landing on door mats and being pushed through letter boxes, and for that I am grateful to the team for agreeing to continue to put out my literature in my absence from the local Inverclyde Liberal Democrat Association.

I am thankful to the association to once again re-appointing me to the position of vice-chair of Inverclyde Liberal Democrats at last Saturdays AGM – even more so given that I was unable to attend in person.

As my Gran passed away last Saturday my personal input of campaigning time has dipped somewhat – though ironically the weather would probably have stalled even the most gung ho leafleting team in Scotland, with the extreme wind and rain bringing parts of the local economy to a near halt.

I’ve been advised that my company had to send people home on Thursday this week but as I was on “annual leave” I did not have to experience the problems of the Insurance world at that point.

Obviously my main thoughts recently have been that of my Gran, I know she would not want me to sit silent and I don’t intend to so I will be back.
She was a great asset to our family and everybody who knew her, she will be missed greatly.

Week Ending 20th November

This week

After a week of being fairly invisible to the general public, through the luxuries of a 12-8 shift I’ve had a very busy and productive end to the week.

On Friday Evening, I went for a non-alcoholic beverage with a colleague from work and friends from Gourock. It was an interesting day on Friday, in which I got to talk to a variant of different trades. The night ended young but its always good to talk to colleagues outside of a work environment in which you can relax a wee bit more naturally.

From around 10am til half 12 on Saturday was spent getting out my surveys, although I did kind of cheat by calling in reinforcements – i.e. asking my dad if he was interested in helping out.

After doing this popped into office for about an hour and went along to my grans for a short visit.

Mid afternoon, around 3-ish, I had a pre-arranged appointment with a resident who had responded in detail to my survey about local matters. It was a very interesting discussion on a wide-array of different matters, both local and national. I would have stayed longer but had other engagements in the evening and had already stated to my mum that I would indeed be back for dinner.

It was a very productive meeting, although I did lose track of time and nearly knocked my schedule out for the rest of the evening. I left just after 5 but managed to fit in shower, clean up and dinner before becoming the freshest smelling chauffer in Inverclyde at 7pm and travelling up to Glasgow for an old school friends Birthday bash –which ended up in the Garage.

I didn’t get home until late in the morning, after a slight matter of somebody losing the ticket for their coat and our party wanting to be charitable in giving them a lift home – my trusty Skoda is generally a more preferable option to the alternative of waiting on the 4am bus but wasn’t on this occasion.

Today has been spent catching up on about a months worth of Ironing, and an enjoyable short break for watching the Green Lantern.

Next week

I have diarised an attempt to go to the Gourock community council meeting tomorrow night, which will be a challenge to be down the road for but if I am I intend on going.

The other noteworthy event in my diary is the monthly executive meeting of Inverclyde Liberal Democrat Association – our AGM is next month so will be interesting to see if there is any advanced indication as to whether there may be changes in office holders.

Silvio and Eurozone - My Thoughts

The big political chat of this week has to be the Italy debt crisis; to be honest not many folk could really claim to be shocked.



Silvio ran a debt ridden country whilst floating about like arrogant womaniser. The “smile incident” between Sarkozy and Merkel from a couple of weeks ago highlights just how well regarded the man was in the rest of Europe. The problem is that Silvio has created a bubble that is too big to burst, and the markets know that just as much as the French and German governments.

Italys problem with Berlusconi has really been the lack of a credible opposition for many years, for example Prodi came in and then vanished because he was weak and overly left leaning.

Regardless of what anybody thinks of Prodi, they Italians have treated many matters irresponsibly such as immigration and the mistreatment of their own deprived communities – in aid of the titan gap between rich and poor. Its fair to state that the gap between rich and poor got bigger under Labour, but to be fair to the Labour party it never really got as big as the Italian gap.

Economically the Italians will now have to both introduce austerity and taxation measures, but as wealth lies in the hands of a very wealthy and mobile section of their population it has to be at such a level that the wealthy don’t try to flee from their obligation to the country that has gifted them their opportunities.

The yield on the Italian bonds is cause for concern and only a fool would pretend that this will have no impact on the UK economy when things really start to hit the fan.

Politically, there is no sizeable moderate force in Italian politics, its built of political extremes.

Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and Greece all have problems that they should not really have been allowed to get into.

I view this situation a wee bit differently from a conservative anti-europe stance though, in my opinion, the problem could have been reduced by a more co-operative and reformed European Union and would not have been helped in anyway by a protectionist battle.

The greek crisis would have exposed the rest of Europe to risk based on business transactions (such as the Belgian economy) regardless of whether it was in the EU.

The problems surrounding the crisis through being in the EU, means that the economic policy enters into a balancing stage as the Eurozone has to ensure its currency doesn’t go into an extreme inflation or deflation mode – which is why we have seen Germany bailing out Greece.

Without the Eurozone the greek economy would have defaulted and the impact would have knocked on to European businesses.

Having had a conversation with George Lyon MEP, when he was merely trying to gather support for becoming an MEP, I started to recognise that joining the Euro just for sake of joining was not the right thing to do. George Lyon was very much taking a stance of pro-reformist whereas I at the time was a younger romantic pro-European idealist.

George Lyon stated to me at a local hustings event prior to being selected as the Number 1 Liberal Democrat candidate for Scotland that he was not at that point in time favourable to us joining the Euro. I had been very surprised about until he explained the economic argument and the value of being in control of inflation and deflation of our own currency in the dawn of any impending economic storm – which he believed we may be walking into and sadly turned out to be very correct.

In terms of the crisis, we are currently watching from the sidelines, the devaluing of the Eurozone currency would not help the UK. Devaluation of the Euro would take away growth from our market if commodities and goods were cheaper overseas, as has been shown by the strength of the Swiss currency when it is “too strong” its population ends up making a decision to buy things within the Eurozone (such as from Germany) and in turn over the long term damages Swiss business and jobs which can’t properly compete against a weaker currency.

The irony to which Anti-European union supporters are failing to recognise is that the European Union has rather ironically given the UK a leg to stand on by keeping the currency markets fairly competitive for UK based businesses – at the moment.

My take on the matter is that inflation will happen at some point in the not so distant future from both the Eurozone and the UK, it just depends how much by and also what decisions are made by the debt ridden countries and the IMF. Things are getting uncomfortably interesting but things are just starting to unfold.

Regardless of the scramble, I don’t think a properly constructed Eurozone is a dead ideal… but this crisis severely highlights the need for the European Union to be more pro-reform and more pedantic in its auditing of eurozone states to ensure a properly balanced fiscal zone.

Liberal Democrats (and indead liberals of other nations) in Europe should be pushing for this reform and challenge any perception that things would be better off without the European Union – highlighting how the mechanics that have been set up over many years are stopping this problem from spreading too fast and allowing countries to develop action plans instead of being punched very quickly in an unexpected manner and then having to pick up the peaces.

This has a long way to run but we need to educate people about the European Union and what happens in the European parliament instead of allowing the anti-european scaremongers to spread their spin and gain support… the argument will not be won unless people are freed from ignorance and empowered by the knowledge of what the European Parliament and European Governments are doing.