Saturday 27 April 2019

Political Sleaze and Scottish (SNP) exceptionalism

Politicians, what are they like, eh?
We hear often enough about how corrupt and self serving our politicians are, how mired in sleaze and scandal they are; liars, cheats and scoundrels the lot of ‘em. Well maybe not quite all, but certainly a fair number of them.
There’s a bit of truth in it, politics like a few other professions seems to attract a bit more than its fair share of dodgy characters, some of whom later get found out, and although many seem to brush it off, a few occasionally get their comeuppance.

In the run up to the 2014 independence referendum, chief Yes-man Alex Salmond frequently intimated that Westminster was full of sleaze and scandal but that an Independent Scotland a would allow us to escape that and would offer some kind of more honest and decent alternative. It’s a meme that still has legs on Twitter and elsewhere to this day among those who oppose the Union. The implication being made is often that British politics is corrupt but Scottish politics is not, and certainly won’t be in the bright new future they promise. It’s just another form of Scottish exceptionalism as frequently practiced by the SNP and some others who campaign for independence. I put it to you that the reality is somewhat different.

Corruption and dishonesty in UK politics
Some of us may remember the big stories of those lying and cheating British politicians such as Tories Jonathan Aitken and Jeffrey Archer both of whom were convicted of perjury. Or more recently Lib Dem Chris Huhne, convicted of perverting the cause of justice along with his (ex)wife over lying about speeding points. A similar conviction took place fairly recently of Labour MP Fiona Onasanya.

Then on the morally dubious side there’s the ‘cheating’, Cecil Parkinson and his secretary, or Paddy Ashdown (‘Pantsdown’) for same, John Major and Edwina Currie at it on the Downing Street desk while the Tories bleated on about morals and ‘back to basics’.  Financial dealings: Labour’s Peter Mandelson and his failure to disclose loans, Tory Derek Conway and his suspension over payments to his sons. There was cash for questions (Tories 1994) and cash for influence (Labour 2008)  and number of other stings by journalists, Oh and let’s not forget the expenses scandal, when it became obvious just how much piss was being taken by our elected representatives. No I won’t argue that British politics doesn’t suffer from sleaze, the issue I have is with the idea that this is somehow unique to Westminster or indeed that Scottish politics or the SNP is uniquely free from this. *

Evidence from around the world rather rather suggests that many other parliaments and governments are far worse than Westminster, and I’m not just talking about the upfront dictatorships.  In terms of world leaders in recent years Jacques Chirac, Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump are just three high profile leaders of mature advanced democracies about whom there are serious questions of probity. A few hours on Google would turn up many many more allegations and indeed convictions regarding wrongdoing and sleaze from all levels of government around the world, MPs, Senators, mayors, councillors and regional assemblies. But if we accept that varying degrees of corruption and sleaze are part and parcel of most governmental structures around the world, does the evidence support the idea that the UK is a cesspool of corruption or that Scotland and the SNP are a beacon of upstanding righteousness? Well let’s see…..

Transparency international create an annual index of corruption perceptions (based on the perceived level of public sector corruption as seen by experts and businesses that operate globally) For 2018 the UK appears at 11 in their ranking of 180 countries (Denmark is number one, i.e. least corrupt, and poor old Somalia is 180th). I’m not sure that being perceived as less corrupt than around 94% of countries is something to be ashamed of, although clearly there is some room for improvement (note that the UK’s score has been improving over the last few years (but fell from last years peak), again not the impression you get from the Scottish nationalist twitterati. (www.transparency.org/news/pressrelease/corruption_perceptions_index_2018 )

So what about Scottish politics?
Let’s tackle the idea that Scottish politics, be it MPs, MSPs, MEPs or local councillors, and those who stand for election as such along with their activists and campaigners are somehow sleaze free.

Party Leaders
The Scottish Parliament has been with us almost 20 years. In that time we have had five first ministers, one of whom had to resign while in office over a minor financial scandal. 
That’s a 20% scandal attrition rate for First Ministers

Of the various leaders of the four major parties we’ve had, if I recall, eight Labour leaders at Holyrood, two of whom resigned their post over financial problems (including above first minister)
Three Tory leaders, one of whom resigned from post over an expenses scandal. 
Three SNP leaders and four Lib Dems.
That’s almost a 17% scandal attrition rate for major party leaders.

I can’t remember anything similar among the UK party leaders or PM’s while in office.

Obviously ex SNP leader Alex Salmond himself is currently facing twelve charges relating to sexual or indecent assault, including two attempted of rape. It could be a year or more before that makes the courts so lets leave it for a judge and jury to digest for now. Once it’s over we can draw our own conclusions on Salmond’s behaviour on whatever evidence is presented.

Convictions and rulings against SNP elected representatives, or those standing

So we can see that the record of Scottish party leaders has been less than impressive in the last 20 years. We can take it as read that Scottish Tories and Labour are bad 'uns, (Eric Joyce anyone?), after all that's what SNP activists tell us. But Is it just Labour, Tory and Lib-Dems? Well my main question is whether there is any evidence that the SNP might be just as sleazy or dodgy as their counterparts at Westminster or indeed any other parliament. Well funnily enough, there is…. (You knew there would be).

First there’s the downright bad eggs:

Lets start with ex SNP MP Natalie McGarry who recently pleaded guilty of embezzling many thousands of pounds from various groups she was associated with, including, apparently,  cash intended to go to a foodbank. Will she go to jail? We wait to find out…. ( https://www.holyrood.com/articles/news/natalie-mcgarry-admits-embezzling-£25000-independence-campaign-groups )

Then there’s Bill Walker, notorious violent wife beater and MSP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Walker_(Scottish_Nationalist_politician)

Alex McLeod convicted of electoral fraud and sentenced to community payback, then breached it and was sentenced to more community payback:

Craig Melville convicted racist

Jamie Rae sentenced to 15 months in jail for nine counts of mortgage fraud to tune of £151k and falsely claiming £16.5K of housing benefitshttps:

Bill Holman convicted of kerb crawling for prostitutes in Glasgow red light district: https://www.scotsman.com/news/councillor-fined-for-seeking-prostitute-in-glasgow-1-2951543

Then there’s also the incompetents

Alex Salmond’s ‘buddy’ Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh guilty of professional misconduct by solicitors tribunal (former-perthshire-mp-tasmina-ahmed-sheikh-guilty-of-professional-misconduct). But Tasmina seems to have form for incompetence as evidenced by previous proceedings: 14970256.tens-of-thousands-in-unpaid-paye-triggered-bankruptcy-case-against-snp-mp

How about Humza Yusef, despite being Transport minister he somehow managed to get stopped driving without insurance, or maybe he was doing it because he was transport minister and didn’t think the rules applied to him, who knows? transport-minister-humza-yousef-embarrassed-driving-without-insurance

There’s plenty other dodgy goings on though:

Lewis Ritchie assault and sexual harassment claims

Innes Nelson Charged with assault, then claimed charges had been dropped, it was then discovered that he had paid the victim £200 to drop the charges!

And then there’s the activists

Convicted bigot Sonja Cameron (Dr). who has a conviction for plastering anti-english propaganda across Deeside and also had links with SNLA terrorist Andrew Macintosh was approved by the SNP to stand for selection to be a council candidate, thankfully she didn’t win selection, but wtf were they thinking? 

Brian Gillies convicted rapist

General miscellaneous Dodgy dealings and hypocrisy

Dealings with Cambridge Analytica revealed as their MPs tried to badger other parties about their links to the firm!

Angus MacNeil.  Cheats on wife at taxpayer expense with several people including young girls

Deputy leader Stuart Hosie cheats on wife

Mark McDonald, ‘resigns’ as a minister over sexual misconduct and then suspended

Caroline Stephen, ran up £4k of council tax debts and then SNP bailed her out using members subs so that she could take part in a vote.

Steve Cardownie, failure to declare links to lobbyist in regard to planning proposal

Jim Orr, Standards commission found he had breached code of conduct in writing defamatory allegations about the deputy provost.

Andy Doig, suspended from SNP after homophobic comments.

Then there’s expenses…

During one particular period Alex Salmond claimed £116,000 in expenses as an MP even though he only turned up at Westminster six times (includes £14,000 flat rental and £18,591 incidental expenses).

In another examination of his records Alex Salmond was found to have claimed the full (unreciepted) monthly food allowance of £400 as an MP including two months when parliament was in recess and despite spending most of his time on FM duties at Holyrood.

Alex Salmond spent £259 of taxpayer cash on some tartan trousers then his staff went to extraordinary lengths a year and a half later to avoid admitting he hadn’t paid it back, while he then hastily did so https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10359238/Alex-Salmonds-secrecy-battle-over-250-tartan-trews.html

There's an entire book to be written on the expenses claims of both MPs and MSPs (and no doubt councillors too) and that includes the SNP, but sometimes the claims aren't s excessive, For example some people on the gravy train claim for the most petty things, I’m sure some of us remember Labour MP Jim Murphy’s pounding from SNP over a quite legitimate (if petty) £1.30 claim for Irn-Bru. Ironically the SNP aren’t above similar claims as Richard Lyle’s claim for a £1.80 bag of chips shows: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-backbencher-richard-lyle-billed-4411584


To Sum Up
Basically at whatever level you examine it Scottish politics and the SNP has its fair share of dodgy, self-serving sleaze, and frankly voting for independence is unlikely to change the nature of some of those who are attracted to politics as a job. SO next time someone tells you independence means sleaze free politics, remember the delightful Scottish politicians and activists above. Oh and especially remember the hounding that Charles Kennedy received prior to his death and Ian Blackford MP's role in that: snp-s-ian-blackford-accused-of-disfiguring-last-months-of-charles-kennedy-s-life-1-4776721

* NOTE strangely  at the time of looking the wikipedia page on UK political scandals seems to have had all SNP scandals edited out, almost like someone doesn't want you to know about them!