Thursday, 28 May 2020

Coronavirus, Some Thoughts Part 2: Cummings and Goings

Dominic Cummings, what is he like eh?
Remember what seems like years ago when everyone was baying for SG medical advisor Cath Calderwood’s blood because she traveled 30 miles to Fife to ‘check on a holiday home’ taking hubby, kids and dogs with her, on two separate occasions? Roll on to this week when we discover that PM advisor Cummings suspected he had the virus and then drove 260 miles to his parents on the basis of needing childcare while he and his wife isolated.
Suddenly many of the people who though Calderwood was right out of order are falling over themselves to excuse, defend and justify Cummings’ goings. Yes it's a different set of circumstance but a fair chunk of the population still sees the two as equivocal, and wether we like it or not it's perception that counts in politics.

The Dominic Cummings story has turned into a media circus (#cumgate as one of the Twitter hashtags would have it!), this is regrettable, unseemly and given the likely level of punishment that would have been meted out if the police had decided to issue a fine, somewhat out of proportion. And yet….

He hasn’t broken the rules they say….No? As far as I can remember the government advice until recently has been:
Self-isolate at home 
Don’t undertake any unnecessary journeys, (particularly long distance ones

Here’s a screenshot from NHS.uk on 23 May even after movement restrictions were eased in England:



That’s pretty clear, about staying at home.
Of course within a few days of the Cummings news breaking the advice had changed, decide for yourself if that is coincidence....

What did he do?
Cummings and his wife apparently both had Covid symptoms, so Cummings popped his kid in the car and they all drove from London to Durham (lets be honest, that’s a long distance by anyones measure) so that he could isolate on his parents property and his family could look after the kid if required, although I believe it then transpired that he and his wife actually looked after the kid (although that bit of the story is murky).
Its frankly pretty unbelievable that he couldn’t have arranged for the kid to be collected and taken to the relatives if and when he and Mrs Cummings were too seriously unwell to do it or that a family of their means and connections couldn’t have found an alternative solution; or was it just too inconvenient,compared to a few hours drive to a cozy family cottage?

So what's the problem?
But from a political point of view his actual actions pale into insignificance compared to their impact once they came to light. This was all so bloody predictable, the PM should have realised where trying to shrug the episode off would lead (perhaps if he spent less time listening to Cummings advice he might of!). The problem is not particularly with what Cummings did, which was to a degree understandable, but rather in the way he and his boss have reacted to it becoming public. I personally don’t really care much about Cummings choosing to relocate his family to an empty cottage on his parents ‘estate’ so that they could isolate together somewhere where family were nearby to assist if an emergency required. What I do give a stuff about is how this and the Government response will be exploited by opponents such as the SNP, and the fact that the PM has handed them a weapon to use against him, his party, and for the SNP at least, by association the UK.

Many thousands in a similar position to Cummings didn’t have the luxury option of an cosy free estate cottage, or even if they did have an alternative place to go they still tried to follow the spirit of the government guidance i.e. “STAY AT HOME” and made other arrangements that were perhaps much less convenient to them personally, and they did it because they thought they were doing the right thing as per government guidance.

I have read arguments that Cummings son was autistic with special needs who 'might' have been traumatised if he was not cared for by specific relatives.  I haven’t heard Cummings use that as a specific reason though. Is his son autistic? and if he is then how traumatised by unusual arrangements under lockdown would he be? To be cold about it, frankly it’s tough, loads of people are upset and distressed by this pandemic, he’d be joining a club of hundreds of thousands of other children and adults similarly traumatised living under 'lockdown' rules. People that couldn’t be with dying relatives or attend their funerals, lonely pensioners who have forgone social contact for months, vulnerable people who have struggled to get provisions and services or who simply don’t understand why their routines have been so badly disrupted and their friends and family don’t visit, cancer sufferers who have had their treatments disrupted, people awaiting medical procedures, forced to wait for extra months in pain and discomfort because they can’t go where they would otherwise have gone, lots of people have been inconvenienced and worse, we used to be "all in this together".

It seems to me that Cummings decided to break lockdown and drive while infected not because it was his only option, but because he could, and because it was much more convenient for him to do so. In point of fact he did it for selfish reasons because he wasn’t prepared to endure the inconvenience of additional difficulties and worries of staying at home (as the government he works for was telling people to do. I’m unconvinced by his supposed fears of being doorstepped by protesters, I’m sure he had threats and abuse long before Covid and ironically (and unfortunately) if anything it’ll be worse now if the angry baying mob outside his door this week is any guide. Besides, when we were in full lockdown any protester would be easy to spot in an empty street and the lack of traffic would have ensured a rapid police response, particularly if his friends in high places had already told the police of any security concerns. Frankly in my opinion it’s a convenient smoke screen.

One of the additional embellishments to his story that attempts to explain another sighting of him on his grand tour of County Durham, (I.e. his appearance in Barnard Castle at a later date) is frankly bizarre.  He claims that once recovering from the virus they contemplated the return drive to London but poor Dominic felt his eyesight was a bit dodgy and he might not be up to the drive. So what does he do? He takes the family for a 30 mile drive to ‘test’ his eyesight and see if he’s safe to drive. Now let’s not forget that a primary premise of the defence offered is that this is a man who cares so deeply about the wellbeing of his child that he prioritises that over the lockdown rules, and yet we find him admitting he’s happy to chuck the kid in a car and go for a country drive to see if his eyes work. Either he’s an idiot or he thinks we’re idiots (which to be fair he probably does have some supporting evidence for!), and that's before we consider the potential motoring offences he might have just admitted to committing, if were true.

The most galling thing for me about this debacle is that his movements are at worst a relatively minor offence (recently confirmed when Durham police said that the Barnard Castle trip probably broke lockdown rules but that he'd have got a ticking off and so long as he returned to the house no fine would have been issued), no worse than what tens of thousands of others have done during lockdown, some of whom have been fined, and some not. But it’s not what he did that is the problem, it is his attitude to it, and worse it is the Prime Ministers attitude to it (and by extension many of his party colleagues). Health minister Hancock was caught slightly off guard at ta recent Coronavirus briefing when asked if they would now review all the cases of fines for people breaching lockdown in similar situations, he said he’d look into it! What on earth? It’d be a lot simpler, cheaper and expedient to just review one case rather than all of them, don’t police and other public employees have more important stuff to be doing in the middle of the biggest crisis since World War II than rearranging mountains because someone important is in the shade? 

What DC and his boss have now created is a situation and a story that will be used continually to beat the government with, and will be cast up whenever convenient further down the line as clear evidence that this is a government run by people who think rules are for the plebs and that the elite can and do as they damned well please, and worse will just shrug it off brazenly when found out. It's ironic given Cummings' alleged 'anti-elite' approach (a fabrication seemingly as hollow as Trump's 'drain the swamp' slogan, but that some voters eagerly lapped up) I honestly hardly give a toss if Cummings traveled to Durham to safely isolate, I do give a toss about the utter PR disaster its mismanagement has created, Labour, SNP and just about everyone else must be rubbing hands in glee at this mismanagement sh*tshow. Certainly opinion polls appear to support that assertion! 

It didn’t have to be like this, The PM could have come out and said something along the lines of "Dominic is very sorry and has apologised to me personally, he panicked for his son and made a rash decision that he thought best at the time and in retrospect he regrets that decision. I still highly value Dominic’s advice but both he and I realise that it would be inappropriate for him to continue providing official advice on the pandemic crisis so I will be moving him to focus on (blah blah Brexit and anything else)".
Yeah he’d still get flack but he’d of acted, Cummings would have apologised and be seen to at least suffered some minor punishment, then government could get back to business as usual having neutralised the worst of the story. Then in a few months time Cummings can be wheeled back into whatever position the PM see’s fit in true Mandelson back from the dead fashion. Besides the way things are going in a few months time Boris may be dealing with much bigger PR problems as the results of his Covid management strategy become clearer.....

What they have done instead is dig a great big hole, stood in it, and handed hoses of sh*t to let their opponents fill it up. 

We’re in Scotland where the anti-tory machine is permanently in overdrive, they just provided it with lots more fuel. It's not as if the way things are currently panning out that Boris has bags of goodwill to spare in this Covid-19 crisis. either here in Scotland or in the wider UK, and the Cummings affair is already having an impact on his popularity (see below), maybe temporary....maybe not:

But rest assured, unless action is taken this will be brought up again and again....

















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Saturday, 28 March 2020

Coronavirus: Some Thoughts Part 1


Where to begin?

It would be fair to say this has not come out of nowhere, we’ve known about the spread of Coronavirus (or more correctly Covid-19) in China since last year. However over years we’ve become accustomed to outbreaks of infectious respiratory diseases in various parts of the world and related concerns about pandemics (e.g. SARS in 2003 and Swine flu more recently) but they’ve never really amounted to much in global terms. Thus people have become complacent about the real and genuine risk to us all.

It’s all very well to blame governments for failure to prepare, but they are always prisoners to economic reality, and the immediate concerns of the electorate. It is probably true that prior to this outbreak the NHS could have used extra some extra ventilators and other equipment if ithey were available, but how many extra, 100, 1000, 10,000? If government bought that many in normal times would most just sit on a shelf underused?  There would have been many who would argue that there was other equipment/drugs or services that the NHS needed more, and they would have been right.
Governments cannot have every single bit of equipment they might need for every conceivable situation readily to hand in the volumes required, there is quite simply no money for that. Thus they have to ensure there is some equipment and that there are contingency plans in place for the rest.
The electorate as a whole might never have countenanced a government stockpiling tens of thousands of expensive ventilators, oxygen cylinders, and additional millions of facemasks and other PPE ‘just in case’, when the NHS needs so many other things. Hardly anyone alive has experienced a global pandemic like this and few would really appreciate how bad it could be or the speed at which it might take hold (we do now). Arguably we are very lucky that this virus is not so deadly in the grand scheme of things, and yet that is of little comfort to the tens of thousands who have got seriously ill and the millions in vulnerable groups among whom the risk is much higher. It would be true that many have foreseen this type of event and argued strongly that we should be more prepared for a pandemic, but you will find that is the case for most disaster scenarios and most have never happened (yet).

Having been involved in government contingency planning in the past I am well aware that unless a plan has been tested for real it is unlikely to work like clockwork or anywhere near it,  so the fact that not everything goes well is just the nature of the beast. All of these plans undergo desktop exercises to some degree but such testing is of limited usefulness. One can be sure that after this the next pandemic contingency plan will be much much better, but that is of little help now.

Currently Twitter is bouncing with accusations and counter accusations about whos fault this is, the media is full of all sorts of stories, good and bad to prove a political point. My own experience, particularly in relation to what government is doing (and I mean at all levels, i.e. UK, SG and councils) is that in these situations external commentators and journalists alike are rarely in possession of all the facts or aware of all the approaches government is considering and investigating, particularly given the situation; information and advice is constantly changing and being updated. It’s almost certain mistakes will be made, and when it is all forensically reviewed in the aftermath some of these will be picked on and pursued relentlessly to make political points. They key response of government should be to stick to the scientific advice when it is clear and when it is not strive to obtain consensus agreement for any approach, oh and for god sake don’t take advice on a science matter from a political advisor, unless it's about how to sell what your actual scientists agree you need to do to the voters (even then it might bite you back).

The UK gov is getting a lot of stick from the usual suspects, and by that I mean the people who would be attacking it anyway and who are attempting to use this crisis to further their own agenda. The Scottish Government is similarly being criticised (and I admit, sometimes by me). In the context of Scottish politics there is a bit of a tit for tat going on between hard core independence supporters and hard core supporters of Scotland's place in the UK as to who’s administration is more incompetent. But few of these people have access to what is going on and being discussed; for example what has been agreed in COBRA and the associated advice both in UK gov and SG. The UK strategy is SG strategy for now, although Sturgeon has on occasion seemingly chosen to be out of step in the timing of some interventions, arguably this looks to many cynics as if that could be more of an attempt to appear to be ahead of the UK in taking the initiative, but time will tell.

The recent announcement that Sturgeon's administration is setting up a new advisory expert group for Scotland at first just appears to be yet another attempt to look as if SG is autonomous and in control. However, on reflection it is perhaps an admission that its current advisors might not the be quite the right people for this crisis. This doesn’t mean that Chief Medical Officer Cath Calderwood (a obstetrician/gynacologist with much senior health management experience) or the Chief Scientific Advisor Sheila Rowan (a gravitational physicist) are incapable, only that in terms of immediate disease control strategy their own areas of expertise may not be so useful (particularly Rowan’s!). Calderwood’s experience in health management and in-depth first hand knowledge of the NHS is almost certainly very valuable in terms of NHS operating procedures and how it copes with what is happening/coming so she absolutely has a role to advise there but she is not an epidemiologist, unlike for example Chief Medical Advisor to UK gov Chris Whitty. In terms of considering appropriate courses of action to tackle the disease spread the SG may have found itself a little short and having to defer to UK advice, hence the expert group being drafted in to reinforce current advisors. Inevitably this will lead to disagreements with UK over certain points of strategy or the interpretation of data, whether these will be used constructively in a spirit of cooperation, or milked for the purpose of fostering yet more anti-UK grievance and promoting differentiation and division remains to be seen, but many of us aren’t hopeful.

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Sunday, 2 February 2020

Xenophobic UK? Another Scottish nationalist exaggeration.

How racist and intolerant is the UK?

Well according to many in the Scottish separatist movement, it’s some kind of xenophobic racist intolerant land of bigotry (all words I’ve hear to describe it and it's citizens, well, those south of the tweed of course....), and this is one of their excuses for demanding Scotland leaves a brexiting UK and rejoins the EU, which as you’ll see later does make one wonder if they’ve ever spent much time in much of Europe, other than briefly as a tourist….



Statements such as the one in the image above are bandied about as ‘fact’, unquestioned by those who willingly lap up anything that reinforces the nationalist narrative, that anything to do with the UK is bad or broken. Sadly this is how low the debate has sunk for the some of those sucked into the nationalist vortex, yet more ‘othering’ of our fellow UK citizens is fine if it’s in support of the cause.

On one occasion I argued with an individual who literally described the UK as a “hellhole of intolerance”, such comment reveals a stunning lack of awareness of the situations that much of the world’s population finds itself in. One has to wonder if the originator had ever travelled beyond the Auchtermuchty city limits, although to be fair a more likely explanation is simply that they are prepared to lie and exaggerate in order to try and ‘persuade’ people to their cause. Quite simply most of the seven billion plus people in the world live in far worse conditions, under far worse political regimes and with far fewer opportunities, rights and services than the majority of UK citizens, many of them also live in societies less tolerant of those who are ‘different’ in some easily identifiable way.

Lets have closer look at the implications of the above tweet from @Meljomur: Firstly is Britain xenophobic? Well, I suppose we must be slightly as there are undoubtably some xenophobes living here, as there are in most countries. But how many intolerant bigots does it take to define a  country as ‘xenophobic’? I doubt she’s quantified it. 
If we were to put a value on it then @Meljomur might be surprised that many of the ‘EU citizens’ who she implies might at least be able to escape it by going home would actually end up going somewhere potentially more xenophobic! Of course I doubt Mel did much research before typing her tweet. Do I have any evidence for this assertion that much of Europe is more xenophobic? Well yes:

The map on the following link is derived from research into white attitudes to black people across Europe and shows that while the UK has some racist attitude, it is one of the lowest; lower than most other European countries (including France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Finland, the Baltics, Czech Republic, Hungary and many others)

In the map the shading goes from blue (less racist) to red (more racist), low and behold the UK is comfortably on the less racist side of the scale, although admittedly still racist. I suspect this is hardly a surprise to anyone who has spent a lot of time on the continent away from tourist areas, and mixed with the locals.

In terms of immigration, a study by the EU themselves looked at attitudes to immigrants among member state populations. Again the British came in at the higher end of the scale in terms of people being comfortable interacting with immigrants:




What is also interesting if you examine the chart above, is that even in the few countries that had a higher percentage of people ‘comfortable’ with interacting, most of them had slightly more proportionally that felt ‘uncomfortable’ (as opposed to don’t know) in fact looking at the chart Britain has the second lowest percentage of people who feel ‘uncomfortable’ interacting with immigrants; what a bunch of xenophobes we are eh?

There are lots of studies that illustrate that Brits are not really any more racist or xenophobic than our European neighbours, and that there are many countries in Europe that often have far worse attitudes than us. Where the UK falls in these studies obviously varies, but it’s often in the upper (more positive) half of results. Here are a few examples:
Above from a Chatham House RIIA survey, UK had the second lowest proportion of respondents who think we should ban muslim immigration.

Above, from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey, UK attitudes to refugees and whether they are perceived as terrorists, criminals or job stealers seem quite enlightened compared to some of our EU friends.

 Above, another Pew metric, combining various views on immigrants, religion, nationalist sentiments and attitudes toward minorities. The UK is very much in the middle, with a number of EU countries scoring higher on the scale towards 'intolerance',

Above, More Pew research on whether populations view immigrants as an economic burden or make our economy stronger. Italy looks like a fun place to be an immigrant

In short there is plenty of evidence that the tweet pictured at the top of this post could reflect a poor understanding of the nature of xenophobia in the EU, or indeed that they just make stuff up to confirm their own bias. The worrying thing is she probably believes it.

Here's an interesting view on British 'post Brexit vote' xenophobia, written by an EU resident in the UK:

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/are-the-british-really-as-xenophobic-as-they-ve-been-made-out-to-be-since-brexit-1.3910892

This particular quote says it all really: "statistics now suggest that the Brits are broadly less racist than some of the people they're supposedly racist against"

Those who play the xenophobia card in order to virtue signal to the EU and smear the UK might do well to bear that in mind.
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Thursday, 28 November 2019

It's Fracking Hypocrisy!

This week we saw Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson take the SNP to court and succeed in getting a court order to stop a leaflet that the SNP candidate distributed and which contained inaccurate information and claims about her. The SNP were ordered to withdraw the leaflet, the Royal Mail were to stop circulating it and the SNP pay her legal costs.

 The leaflet claimed she had taken £14,000 from a fracking company. Her lawyers argued that it was not from the company, but from one of the directors of the company donating in a private capacity and that the money was used to fund her constituency office. While most people might be tempted to conflate the two, the court seemingly agreed there is a difference, and that the way in which the information had been inaccurately presented by the SNP and used to justify calling Swinson a ‘hypocrite’ was defamatory.

 It’s worth noting that the company in question (Warwick Energy) although it holds some fracking licences, is apparently not involved in any drilling in relation to fracking at the moment and that such activities are claimed to make up only a small proportion of the company’s interests. Other activities include offshore wind generation, conventional gas recovery and power generation, offshore drilling and gas storage, may of these things the SNP actively support. Swinson’s lawyer points out that 80% of the company’s energy production is from renewable sources.

 (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/26/jo-swinson-wins-court-order-against-snp-over-election-leaflet)

 Now that’s all well and good, you will have your own opinion as to whether Swinson is a hypocrite to oppose fracking but to take a substantial donation from someone who happens to be a director of a company that has had some involvement in the industry at some point and might again. What I’d like to examine here is not Swinson’s position, but the SNP’s own hypocrisy in calling her out on this matter, and as usual with the SNP their own hypocrisy appears to be on several levels.

 First there is the matter of being on the receiving end of benefits implied to come from a company involved in fracking. I encountered a number of SNP supporters who in the wake of the court judgment implied that there was no difference in the cash coming from a director than from the company itself (or words to that effect), and that even if the company wasn’t doing any fracking the fact it held licences to do so was bad enough. I’m not making any judgement here on Swinson and whether taking the donation makes her a hypocrite, but many SNP supporters were. 

 So let's look a little deeper at the SNP position:

 SNP Fracking Hypocrisy Part  1:

 As the Green Party handily points out, SNP held a conference earlier this year that included an event sponsored by BP (https://greens.scot/news/snp-climate-conference-sponsored-by-heathrow-and-bp ). They also note that under the SNP another multinational petrochemical company (Shell) is providing funding to Forestry and Land Scotland (snp-reforesting-plan-paid-for-by-oil-giant).

 How does that potentially reek of hypocrisy? Well BP have substantial involvement in fracking
(https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-6000769/BPs-8bn-bet-fracking-Oil-giant-snaps-5-500-wells-marches-US.html,
https://www.ft.com/content/beb54fda-a1c2-11e7-9e4f-7f5e6a7c98a2,
https://www.behindthelogos.org/bp-starts-fracking-argentinian-carbon-bomb/).
Shell also have involvement and have made extensive investments to exploit shale gas output (https://e360.yale.edu/features/a-fracking-driven-industrial-boom-renews-pollution-concerns-in-pittsburgh)
Now just like Warwick Energy, fracking related activities are only a minor part of all of BP and Shell's activities, although they maybe can’t claim their energy production to be 80% renewable like Warwick Energy! However their investment and involvement in the fracking industry dwarfs that of Warwick Energy. And here's the SNP actively reaping benefits from them and at same time slagging off the Lib Dems for taking money from an individual who works for a minor industry player while they partner up with two of the biggest players. Rank hypocrisy from the SNP it would seem. 

 SNP Fracking Hypocrisy Part 2:

 Taking cash from individuals with links to fracking and related industries.

 It’s not that long ago that SNP were in the papers for receiving donations from a minor company that had been linked to fracking or potential fracking by journalists:

 “Motherwell-based Hydracat Limited donated £3,750 to Neil Gray, SNP MP for Airdrie and Shotts, as well as £17,500 to the SNP.
Electoral Commission records also show the company’s director, Bobby Hill, handed over £6,500 to the SNP’s Airdrie and Shotts branch in 2011.”

 https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/holyrood/763553/snp-mp-critised-over-donations-from-fracking-company/

 And also

 “THE former cabinet secretary in charge of planning took thousands of pounds from a family business linked to fracking for his re-election campaign, it has emerged.
Alex Neil accepted almost £3000 in donations from the family behind a leading drilling company that stands to benefit if the SNP allows fracking in Scotland.”

 https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/14566316.SNP_planning_minister_took_cash_from_pro_fracking_drilling_company/

 The details of donations to Alex Neil are interesting: According to official election records, Hydracrat Ltd donated £490 to Neil on March 21, and five members of the Hill family then gave a further £2420 between them over the next few days.
Bobby Hill, the company’s director and sole shareholder, gave £485;
his 80-year-old mother gave £495;
his wife gave £470;
and his 24 and 21 year old sons  gave £490 and £480 respectively.

 Given that the threshold for reporting donations to the Electoral Commission is £500, you might be forgiven for wondering if the amounts donated to Neil by the Hill family were specifically chosen to be just below the reporting threshold and you might conclude that it looks for all the world as if someone thought it might be better if a larger donation was broken up to be less prominent and attract less attention. Now why would that be? Nothing to see here? Then why the odd pattern of donations?

 SNP Fracking Hypocrisy Part 3:

 Just a few months ago the Scottish Government handed out an extension to a fracking licence held by INEOS in Scotland. You may well find this quite bizarre that while with one face the SG are maintaining their supposed opposition to fracking with a moratorium on it, while with one of their other faces they have agreed to extend a licence for exploratory fracking in Scotland rather than just saying 'no' to the renewal request.
One has to question if this is any more or less ‘hypocritical’ than the SNP saying that the Lib Dems have been by claiming to oppose fracking while taking a donation from someone who's company holds some fracking licences they haven’t used. Green MSP Mark Ruskell is somewhat puzzled by this position too: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/snps-environmental-commitment-called-into-question-after-extending-fracking-licence

 SNP Fracking Hypocrisy Part 4:

 Here’s what senior SNP minister Mike Russell has to say in his book ‘Grasping the Thistle’ about dodgy underground mining activities in Scotland.  In his vision for an independent Scotland:
“Underground coal gasification is particularly suited for Scotland’s offshore deposits where redundant oil and gas facilities could be converted to drilling and igniting underground coal and piping the gas to shore for electricity generation and hydrogen production”.

 Oh dear, does that make him a hypocrite, given that his party sort of oppose this sort of activity? (I say sort of, because sometimes you wonder).
Coal gasification is where you drill into a coal seam and set it on fire, the ensuing combustion (which can continue for years) produces all sorts of gasses which can then be pumped up and utilised, clearly there are all sorts of environmental question marks over it, and it's potential to affect underground water and other things, just like fracking....

 For more on Mike’s interesting views and their stark contrast with claimed SNP policies see my previous article: when-grasping-thistles-be-careful-of.html

Summary:

Those are four potential examples of why the SNP might be deemed a wee bit hypocritical for attacking Jo Swinson on this issue. I don't suggest that anyone has done anything wrong, as far as I know all donations were perfectly legal, but you can judge for yourself what it tells you about those involved. 
However whether you agree with fracking, vehemently oppose it, or are undecided, I hope you’ll agree that not every issue is as simple as politicians and parties think we are. 
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Sunday, 17 November 2019

When Grasping Thistles, be careful of the pricks....

There is a commonly held belief that the SNP are left-wing, after all, they frequently tell us they are; lots of progressive virtue signalling as they decry the big bad Tories with their nasty privatisation and free market agenda, 'ready to the flog the NHS to the highest bidder'.
And yet there is evidence past and present that the SNP's socialist credentials are more of a thin veneer on some of their members than any deeply held key values.
The SNP were once known as ‘the Tartan Tories’ ( a phrase coined by Willie Ross, Harold Wilsons Secretary of State for Scotland) but they have worked hard to expunge that meme essentially by stealing Scottish Labour’s cloak of mild mannered socialism as it was hanging on the peg during Blair and Browns sojourn at number 10. Although the process started forty years ago with the ’79 Group’ agitating within the party for a more left-wing approach to policy (to the objections of some more established members), something that then developed through the late 80's and continued when Salmond took control in the 90’s, although Salmond then veered off rightwards, but without really giving up claim to the progressive left label.

Many who have looked at SNP policies and practice have pondered just how left wing they really are, and if this claimed progressive left position is really a carefully considered sham designed to poach all those old labour voters to the cause. The fact is that the SNP contain a wide group of people of quite differing views but who all share a desire to see an independent Scotland and are prepared to a greater or lesser extent to hide their true political leanings to present a united front. While this is to some extent true of most parties I believe the degree to which it accurately describes the SNP is much greater. Jim Sillars and Fegus Ewing are a paired example of the dichotomy of the SNP, one of the socialist left and the other considerable further right, both pretending to be in the middle, (although Sillars rarely plays ball these days) with only a shared goal of independence binding their like together.

It matters a lot because this united front is unlikely to survive much beyond any success in a future referendum, once their shared goal is achivied then all bets are off on policies for a new nation. Within a couple of elections, if not a lot sooner, I would expect to see a significant split perhaps with far left SNP coming together with some from Labour, SSP and perhaps Greens, the right wing of the party would have more in common with Tories, and the middle ground of the party with the Lib Dems. The question is really how many in each loose group. Voters should consider this if they are tempted to vote for independence on the basis of being promised some sort of cuddly socialist utopia, the differences are so great they may not withstand the opportunity to shape the policies of a new state, and there is a significant chance that what emerges is a party of the right that is able to dominate a slightly smaller centrre party and a a slightly smaller again party of the left.

In the past when I’ve expounded this idea that there are right-wingers hiding out within the SNP I’ve been told I’m talking mince and that there is no evidence.  Thus I present exhibit one in the case that exponents of right right-wing conservative politics are lurking within the SNP biding their time and biting their tongues, just waiting to enact their vision of Scotland:

Michael Russell is a major figure in the SNP, he was chief exec of the party for the latter half of the 1990’s and was first elected to Holyrood in 1999, losing his seat at the subsequent election before reappearing in 2007. Since then he has held a variety of ministerial roles under both Salmond and Sturgeon and since 2016 has been the Cabinet Secretary for Government Business and Constitutional Affairs, which means we see him on the telly whining about Brexit a lot. In times gone by some even saw him as a possible future leader of the nationalists, I suspect his time has passed, but make no mistake, as one of the party’s ‘elder statesmen’ he still has a fair amount of influence and support within.

It’s time we examined what Michael Russell’s vision for a future independent Scotland is, as set out in his 2006 book, co-authored with the Late Dennis MacLeod (that's mining millionaire Dennis Macleod). Let’s see if it matches up to the vision that so many in the ‘YeSNP’ movement say sets them apart from the Conservatives and their evil Tory ways.

The book is called Grasping the Thistle: (2006 ISBN 1902831861) just in case you fancy getting a copy, although you’ll be lucky, I got mine when it was withdrawn from library circulation after only three people borrowed it in well over five years!

For simplicity I’m just dealing with topics as they crop up in the book, but rather conveniently given Russell’s current position it’s the topic of the EU that first raises its ugly head.

  • The EU (page 13): Russell makes a rather telling comment in the introduction that hints at his own view of the EU, and it appears somewhat at odds with the SNP’s current perceived position: “ We have as a country, to put it simply, traded away far, far too much of our own sovereignty first to the UK and then to the EU”, does that sound like a man who will quickly be looking to cheer Scotland back into the EU on a similar basis to the UK, but with fewer opt-outs and veto powers plus a compulsion to join the Euro? Now that doesn’t mean he’s a Eurosceptic, because he isn’t, but it shows that his thinking may not be so far from that of many UK citizens (and over one third of Scots) who voted to leave the EU, they weren't all racists, some just thought they were taking back sovereignty!
And now the rest
  • Currency (page 99+):  On the issue of currency “A country without its own currency is a country not only without a steering wheel, but also without brakes and an accelerator” a statement that should make it quite clear where Russell stands on keeping the pound or joining the Euro. The indication from the book is that a Scottish currency initially pegged to the pound is desirable. There is even talk later of deliberately devaluing a new Sottish currency against the pound, although a footnote states that this is the suggestion of MacLeod and that Russell ‘as an SNP candidate asserts the SNP view that devaluation wouldn’t be required’. This is interesting on two points, firstly the wording suggests that Russell might actually agree with MacLeod, but secondly as an SNP candidate he better cover his back in case he gets a leathering from Salmond for saying embarrassing stuff…. Which makes it all the more surprising that most of the other suggestions in the book don’t come with such a disclaimer so we can assume MR is in full agreement with them, or indeed they are his opinions, and also that they are less likely to upset the SNP high heid yins!
  • Deficit (page 131) They discuss Scotland’s deficit, (even back then we were spending way more than we took in, and to a greater degree than UK), after adding some oil income and massaging the figures by deducting Scotland's share of UK debt repayments MR admits the figure is still too high So comes up with a number of solutions on the following page, here are the most interesting four :
  1. “Freezing and cutting government expenditures including freezing of recruitment by government and quangos”: Known to most people as ‘austerity’ and something the SNP have shouted the loudest against when practiced by UK government since 2010.
  2. “Boosting growth by reducing corporate and personal taxes” : Sounds like they just mugged a tory and stole a policy
  3. "Improving government efficiency by exposure to the market economy": yeah the book really does suggest this, even some Tories might baulk at this!
  4. “Building the number of economically active citizens by facilitating the transfer of civil servants to the private sector as well as boosting immigration”: Last bit is fine, the first bit is a hilarious euphemism for ‘privatising parts of government’, something the SNP have continually slammed UK governments for or have fear-mongered about Tories doing.
  • Defence (page 135): As the book struggles to work out how to balance the finances it proposes reducing defence spending from the current (at the time of the book’s writing) 2.7% down to 1%. No word about how that might sit with NATO.
  • Subsidies (agriculture, fishing etc) (page 135): There is some discussion of removing all subsidies to these sectors, although another footnote states that MR supports the SNP policy of retaining them but that an ongoing debate is essential. Given Russell’s constituency he clearly didn’t want to frighten the sheep, or the voters… Interestingly there is no discussion of how such a policy would sit within the EU framework, but then there isn’t much discussion of the EU and one is left with the impression that MR an DM might have assumed that the newly independent Scotland ain’t in it.
  • Corporation tax (Page 137): The book discusses the taxation of capital and states: “One means to address this problem is not just to cut corporation tax, as has already been correctly suggested by the SNP, but to go further by eliminating it entirely”.  Hallelujah say all the big businesses, Tories nod enthusiastically in agreement.
  • Inheritance tax (Page 139): Russell clearly buys into the old chestnut that (as he puts it): “Inheritance tax is a tax on monies that have already been taxed” (pretty much every tax is, because as money circulates it is constantly taxed). But they don’t like it at all as this indicates “ It is a tax aimed at preventing the build-up of wealth in the hands of the people…”. Er most people in Scotland don’t actually have enough assets in their estate to pay one penny of income tax, so one assumes that the “people” that Russell and MacLeod are concerned about are other moderately wealth and very wealthy top 10%ers like themselves. So what do they propose to do with inheritance tax? They clearly state “It should have no place in a country like Scotland”, jolly good that’s their personal wealth protected then.
  • Capital Gains and other taxes (Page 139): Inheritance tax isn’t the only tax they aren’t keen on, the same page details their distain for aggregates tax, capital gains tax, air passenger duty and agricultural levies. And they say “elimination of such taxes is also necessary as a step towards an ultimately simpler tax system”. Simpler in that wealthy individuals like Michael Russell and Dennis MacLeod would have to contribute less you’ll note, for the rest of us probably just a few quid saved on a holiday abroad once a year. Oh and the appearance of aggregates tax first in that list was the authors order, I’ll remind you that DM made his money in digging stuff out of the ground so clearly he’d of been really keen on scrapping that one, for the good of the country of course….
  • NHS (Page 155): This particular snippet has had a bit of exposure via Twitter as it reveals Michael Russell as holding beliefs pretty much diametrically opposite of those the SNP claim for themselves, how many other SNP’s MSP, MP’s and party apparatchiks concur with him is impossible to say, but he’s definitely not alone. Here’s what his book has to say on NHS provision: “We would encourage the private sector to compete with established NHS hospitals, clinics and other services. We would encourage NHS management and staff to buy out existing NHS facilities and services under favourable financial terms and join the private sector”. Sounds like the sort of thing Sturgeon constantly fear-mongers that the big bad tories will do if you don’t vote for independence NOW, and yet here’s one of the most senior members of the SNP and Scottish Government proposing it (and the book has no caveat footnote with this either!). But Russell goes further he then says: “We would require NHS facilities that remained in government ownership to be run at a profit however modest”, yes you read that right, and maybe you’re wondering ‘what happens if they aren’t profitable?’, well Russell has a solution for that: “Those that failed to maintain profitability over a reasonable period of time would be privatised”, He goes on but you get the idea. If vouchers for paying for your health treatment at competing private clinics sounds like something you fancy, Mike Russell’s yer man.
  • Schools (page 161): Having accepted the case for universality in education the book says: “Nonetheless some competition is essential to get the best out of our tax revenues”. It then brings up education vouchers saying: “These would provide the full cost of education on an annual basis for all those who eligible [sic], at every educational level. The consumer - the child along with his or her parents, the student seeking to go to college or university and the mature student, seeking to improve his or her qualifications - would be able to force new provision onto the market by means of their purchasing power, provided by the state”. So there you have it, Mike Russell see students as ‘consumers’, education as a ‘market’ and wants the state to provide ‘purchasing power’ Not exactly the usual language of the SNP when pontificating about education is it? But wait for it, MR goes further, on the subject of private education where currently parents pay for both that, and via taxes, for state education that they don’t use, he says: “These vouchers would be issued to all, indeed to do so is only fair. Parents who wish to continue to use their own resources to fund private schooling might also have them, and will therefore no longer be paying for the cost of education twice”. So there he is, suggesting saving the wealthy the cost of private education, again maybe not a policy that most SNP voters are thinking of when casting their ballot
  • Universality (page 164): Having accepted that universality is a good thing in education (after all it’ll save wealthy people like Mike and Dennis a packet if they want to send kids to private school), as a general principle Russell’s book frowns upon it: “Put bluntly universality - one size not only fits all, but will be given to all - now drags down both quality of service that can be provided to those most in need, and the ability of government to provide such services. However our political parties do not have the courage to address the issue for fear of losing votes”. At this point the needle on my ironyometer is springing into the red zone! Given the SNP’s predilection for handing out/promising free stuff. On the next page after suggesting a universal basic income Russell and MacLeod say: “…we should say clearly that we want means testing as at present to be abolished” Thus ensuring any handouts are available to even the wealthiest!
  • Infrastructure and private funding (page 167): by now it will come as no surprise that Russell is a fan of private companies and the market. On funding, building and operating infrastructure such as roads the book says “…we would wish to see a much increased role for pension funds and other such investment vehicles and particularly our proposed National Pension Fund. By such means our citizens would have access to long-term stable investments, indeed they would be a large part of the ‘private’ in what would be in essence PPP projects, but with a much wider economic base and a much wider sharing of profits”. Hmmm PPP, (Public Private Partnership), well the SNP have had plenty of criticism of that when it was practiced by Westminster governments, although truth is they’ve overseen a fair bit themselves ( SNP Hypocrisy ). You’ll note that Russell doesn’t say what benefits accrue to pension funds if the project or service isn’t profitable, a problem a number of ‘Private’ components of existing deals have encountered. Also if you think having a National Pension Fund pumping its cash into such infrastructure projects is a great idea then you may want to consider the dangers of ‘Dutch disease’ and the additional risk of future politicians using it or pressuring it to fund projects that other more savvy providers wouldn’t touch with a bargepole.
  • Coal gasification (page 175 to 176): Given the background of Russell’s co-author in mining it’s no surprise that they’ve got lots of plans for exploiting holes in the ground. They are particularly keen on Scotland’s “vast reserves” of coal, especially underground gasification.  A process, which while not quite ‘fracking’ does have similar environmental question marks: essentially drill into a coal seam, set it on fire underground, then pump out the gas that is produced. Here’s what they say: “Underground coal gasification is particularly suited for Scotland’s offshore deposits where redundant oil and gas facilities could be converted to drilling and igniting underground coal and piping the gas to shore for electricity generation and hydrogen production”. Anyone who obtains their water supply from underground aquifers may be rightly concerned, although to be honest Russell and MacLeod ‘ignited’ this proposal while energy prices were high, they are possibly not so viable now, lucky we didn’t spend a fortune developing it perhaps?

That’s just a selection of the proposals in Michael Russell’s book, he may when questioned claim he’s changed his mind on some or all of those topics since it was published. However you may wish to ponder if it's more likely that he's realised it’s expedient to keep his trap shut for now in the hope that if a united SNP front can achieve independence by pretending to be a left of centre progressive party then all bets are off and he and others of similar mind can push for their right-wing market led vision of Scotland the moment the mask is whipped off.

For a more general essay on the SNPs left/right split personality I suggest: Heart on the left, head on the right by David Torrance: SNP left and right

I don't disagree with all of Russell's proposals, I do disagree with some, but what I really want to draw attention to is what may lie beneath the SNP's left of centre facade, if people are considering voting to support their claimed vision in a referendum on the basis of getting a progressive socialist utopia. Remember there's no money back guarantee with votes, even when they promised you money back....










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Thursday, 10 October 2019

The Merry Mystery of the Missing Marchers

Another month another march. The group calling itself AUOB (All Under One Banner) that has been organising marches in support of independence recently held an event in Edinburgh. Claims for attendance have been all over the place from those taking part but with one common theme, they are rather ridiculously high.

The Background
It is pretty much standard practice for people organising marches, particularly political ones, to overstate attendance as it makes their cause seem more important and probably massages their ego too, but AUOB seem to be taking this approach to extremes. Often their numbers are quoted by the press as if they are factual accounts rather than pure guesswork, grossly over-optimistic delusion or indeed intentional big fibs (pick your interpretation) This rather unquestioning acceptance of the exaggerated figures seems to have emboldened AUOB to increase the estimates to new and ridiculous levels.

AUOB have been around a while, for much of the last year or so they seemed to be a slightly chaotic group of debatable competence.  There were questions being raised by people from both outside and within about how they operated, in particular where donations from marchers went and what they were used for (Refs 1,2,3). But after a split between some of the main players things seem to be running slightly less chaotically (although not completely, as a recent 'see you in court’ response to a bill from Aberdeen council shows! [Ref 4]).

Attendance figures at most of their marches have been questioned at some point, in 2018 they claimed 100,000 in Edinburgh but the Council later estimated that there was around 20,000 (Ref 5). More recently those who oppose their separatist message have started to look a bit more closely at the marches and indicate where observations and evidence don’t seem to support the supposed attendance figures. The two most recent examples being the March in Aberdeen in August 2019, as examined by Roger White (Ref 6), and the March in Perth where a couple of videos of the whole March passing through the city  suggested it to be much smaller than the organisers would have had you believe (Ref 7).

The Edinburgh March
Saturday the 5th October 2019, AUOB have been trailing this event well in advance suggesting that 100,000 were expected to attend, and then as if that wasn’t enough upping their predictions as high as 250,000! Newspapers gladly repeated the predictions (Refs 9 & 10).
AUOB also told of another plan by some activists, to do something ‘record breaking’; “the worlds biggest human saltire” no less! All it required, apparently, was 44,000 folk to gather in Holyrood park and stand in a formation marked on the grass (Ref 11). This was going to be interesting….
The result was somewhat underwhelming given the amount of promotion it had received on social media, one couldn’t help but be unimpressed. It was also perhaps the first real sign that actual attendance might be far short of what had been touted.

The 'people's saltire'  not exactly a record breaker...


Saltire aside, eventually they were all lined up on the road and ready to go. The bikers all came down Queens Drive from the west and cruised off up Horse Wynd past the parliament,and not long after the crowd sets off behind a pipe band and a couple of transit vans.

There are plenty of videos doing the rounds taken at street level but images or footage that show the extent of the march are few and far between, the best of them is probably one taken by Twitter user Derrick Farnell which was also shown on the BBC website (Ref 12, also SEE NOTE 1 AT END). It is taken from Salisbury Crags overlooking Holyrood and clearly shows the march progressing towards the parliament as it starts off, you can see the two transit vans at the head of the procession appear from behind the trees on Horses Wynd showing where the march (fronted by pipe band) begins and the video also shows the back of the march further along Queens’s Drive almost, but not quite, to the trees west of St Margarets Loch; a length of around 600m. However there are also a large number of people standing around the parliament, many of whom probably join the march and no doubt some people also join on route so while the video probably shows the bulk of the march it is unlikely to show everyone.

UPDATE: Derrick's video was mysteriously deleted (Note 1), however there is some drone footage showing the march just about to start that shows the same view, i.e. Horse Wind/ Qeens Drive Roundabout back to the trees West of the Loch (Ref 20)

My first glance estimate was that there was probably around 10k of people lined up, and allowing for maybe another 5k joining on route and same again going straight to The Meadows that might equate to around 20k attending.

Other people ffered estimates based on some pictures taken from the same vantage point, some were much lower. While reading one of these I discovered a website called Mapchecking.com that has a crowd size estimator, so I had a go. However the difficulty is in choosing the appropriate crowd density, it’s difficult and has to be a guesstimate, although you can use various figures as a guide and there are some helpful websites from experts that explain crowd density in different situations (eg. Ref 13). On reflection the crowd density in Holyrood park is probably reasonably high as most folk are standing waiting to move, however the people who are moving  (i.e. on Horse Wynd) are likely to be at a lower density as they are moving and will naturally spread out causing the crowd to slowly stretch as it sets out, and in fact you can see this clearly in the video (Ref 12 , also SEE NOTE AT END). Hence what begins as a crowd of length 450-500 meters could easily stretch out to double or much more and end up being a kilometre or more long, plus add ons.

Taking a conservative estimate of 2 people per square meter average across the whole area in Derrick’s video (i.e. slightly higher in the stationary crowd, but lower in the moving segment) Mapchecking.com calculated around 16k.  If we allow for the extras seen milling about on the crags and in Holyrood park and around the parliament plus a few late arrivers maybe that would rise closer to 20k actually marching 
I would also assume a good few people joining the march while it’s underway, counterbalanced by a few peeling off, However I suspect a net gain, probably adding a few thousand at any rate, if we generously suggest an extra 20% we get to an estimate of around 24k marchers.

Certainly by the time the march is heading up the Royal Mile the density has dropped considerably. A video shot from above shows the crowd density at this point (Ref 14):  It looks dense when seeing the crowd coming towards or walking away but when you see it straight down from above you realise that it’s actually reasonably loose as most moving crowds usually are.

Now perhaps the static crowd at Holyrood was more dense than 2 per sq m, but realistically maybe not much more, however even if we doubled the density we’d be looking at 32k which with add ons en route might reach 40k of marchers. That still leaves us massively short of the 200k being claimed by many.

Others have tried to calculate the size of the crowd by other quantitative means, such as how long the march took to pass and the sped at which they would have to move, and many of them come out with conclusions in the same ball park as mine (I.e. 15-30k)

However the more optimistic claims for supporters of the marchers tend to revolve around those of the organisers who after the event said there was over 200k in attendance (Ref 5), or was it just 100k (ref 15)? The reports are confused, but perhaps not as confused as MP Joanna Cherry at the front of the march who Tweeted that there was 250k behind her (Ref 16).

Of course maybe the other 60-210k (depending on who you believe) just showed up at the Meadows, interestingly I haven’t seen any pics of the Meadows once they all arrived, more people than Glastonbury, that’d be impressive. (Actually I have seen some Meadows footage now, and it's not very conclusive, but in the high four figures or low five figures at best.

It might also be worth noting that a few days later Scotrail Tweeted that they had 8000 passengers go through Haymarket and Waverley between 11am and 2pm. So it sure looks like most of the alleged 200k didn't come by train! (Ref 18).

All aboard the bandwagon
For what it’s worth I don’t think that the organisers or Joanna Cherry can’t count, instead what is going on here is a deliberate attempt to overstate support for independence to try and encourage the bandwagon effect to do its thing.
The bandwagon effect is a phenomena whereby people are inclined to join a particular group or cause simply because they believe everyone else is. There are a number of psychological explanations for this that you can read about elsewhere but it is a real effect and has been widely studied by social scientists. It has it’s origins in 19th century US politics and the context of this march is almost exactly the situation from which the effect got its name (Ref 17).
It's one reason that political parties get so animated about opinion polls, particularly changing ones, they'll either vehemently deny their accuracy or laud over them depending what the polls say. A rise in our poll rating is portrayed as evidence that people are starting to come to us, and you should too. A falling one is evidence that the polling company got it wrong. It's all about claiming 'momentum'. Political activists always like to portray their support as on the rise and it's in this context that we should view exaggerated march numbers. A march no bigger than last time shows no momentum, and even if there are more folk than last year why not say there's even more, because it makes you look like you've got even greater momentum, and if you've got away with it a few times and the media are reporting your exaggerated figures then hell why not just keep inflating them? Also if you’ve been making ridiculous predictions before the event, to admit you had fewer turn up is going to be embarrassing so in some way AUOB may have painted themselves into a corner.

These numbers matter, if people lie and exaggerate it can have real world effects, which is why they need to be called out and rationally examined. After all, lies and exaggeration are not a good thing to base any momentous and essentially irreversible decision on (look at Brexit!), even if both sides claim that's always what the other side does. So yeah lots of people marched and it was impressive, but nowhere near as many as some would like you believe. 




Note 1: 
When I was finishing off this post I discovered that Derrick Farnell's Twieet  had disappeared, along with his video! how bizarre... Perhaps he was a supporter of independence and suddenly realised that his video exposed the exaggerations around attendance at the March so removed it (and all of his tweets it seems). The embedded tweet on the BBC website also disappeared. Maybe there's nothing sinister going on, but it sure seems like an attempt to erase the evidence. You can see that the tweet with video was still appearing in Google's Cache, but clicking on the link just resulted in a "that page does not exist". 



Note2:
Roger White has also written about the exaggerated numbers, but has used a different method calculate a broadly similar figure. He published his while I was writing this. (Ref 19)


Ref 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fheK-hCAyU (AFFG video of Perth March)
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