The Independence

Argument
-

HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD

Ronald Young
25 September 2014
Transylvania

Dedication
To my daughters Hilary, Jan and Susanna
And in memory of my parents and the home they built in Greenock

Preface
Why would someone who has been out of both Scotland and the UK for 24 years want (let alone feel
entitled) to offer some thoughts on the debate which has gripped this small country of five million
people for the past decade but particularly during the last 2 years of the run-in to the
Referendum on Independence which took place on September 18 th 2014?
I had no vote in that referendum and no recommendation to offer. I knew my countrymen and
women too well to try that one on! But I had increasingly in the last month or so, felt a very real
concern about the direction so may appeared to want to take...It was, therefore, with a
considerable sense of relief that my click on the Guardian website revealed, at 05.00 on the 19 th
that the trend (with less than half the results declared) was for an 8% lead for what I regarded as
the sensible way ahead.
I have been blogging (intermittently) about the issue. I had found it useful, earlier in the year to
collate posts I had done on Romania and develop them into a little E-book - Mapping Romania notes on an unfinished journey. Why not do the same for the posts on Scotland? I knew that my
posts would have no influence the blog statistics told me that my readers are in the States and
Central Europe.
So why bother? The answer is contained in a lovely quotation - from Henry James apparently which sits at the masthead of a rather specialised economics blog by a German Professor "How can
I know what I think until I read what I write?" Collating these posts gives a nice opportunity for
me (let alone anyone else) to think a bit more deeply and add a few final thoughts and bibliography.

Background
Ive been writing from a base in the Carpathian Mountains and in Sofia for the past five years as
Ive been slowly withdrawing from consultancy work on developing the capacity of public institutions
in central Europe and central Asia.Dealing for more than 20 years with questions of what the
dreadful jargon called governance
My whole life since 1968 at any rate - has been spent wrestling with issues relating to the
operation of government institutions and of democracy. The first two of the following decades with
the opportunity to study and reflect at very close quarters about the processes of British and
Scottish government since 1990 advising a variety of governments about how their new public
institutions might be made more accountable.
Like a modern Candide, Ive published over this period quite a volume of provocative reflections
starting with my contribution to the famous 1975 Red Paper on Scotland edited by Gordon Brown
and a small book called The Search for Democracy.
My first experience of local government (in a shipbuilding town) had made me a bit of a radical
community activist and elevation to a senior position in a new Scottish Region in 1975 the
opportunity to try to straddle the 2 worlds of strategic management and community
development. For most of the time I was still operating as an academic in urban management.
Another opportunity gave me a way not only out of Thatcherism in 1990 but into project work with
the EU, working with those in new Ministries and local municipalities, initially in central Europe,
trying to find a different way of working. It was a question of the blind leading the blind and I
soon started to share my concerns.

It took some time to adjust my role from that of political bureaucrat into that of a consultant
and you will realize my ambivalence about that new role when you read the entry about consultants
in my attempt at a modern Devils Dictionary - Just Words.
But trying to see the lessons from my local and regional experience through the eyes of those
trained in ex-communist systems was a great incentive to the crash course I was giving myself
about how government systems were changing in Europe as a whole. And, from 1999, the focus of my
work on civil service reform (in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan) gave me yet another amazing
opportunity to read about European systems and experience of public administration reform.
By 2005, it was time to switch back to local government and to learn about training in Kyrgyzstan
which had some similarities with my own Scotland. This served me in good stead when a training
project beckoned in Bulgaria. After 8 years in Central Asia, I was keen to see how countries like
Romania (where I had bought a house in 2000) were coping with the new challenges
When that project ended, I started a blog (and website) and have continued both since then the
former with more enthusiasm than the latter. But the website has given the facility for lodging the
papers I have been writing with increasing frequency.

Purpose of this booklet

Over the past 5 years Ive published almost 1000 posts on the blog about 50 about the Scottish
question most during 2014. My most faithful readers are in the States (30,000 clicks, that is,
not readers!) followed by Russia (6000), Britain (5000), Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Germany and
France.
I realized in the spring that this was probably the only blog written by a Scot which was still openminded about the issue of independence. It was so for three basic reasons
Ive been out of the country (Scotland and the UK) for 24 years almost as long as I was
politically active within Scotland
I came late to the discussion
I am a natural sceptic particularly of conventional wisdom; and most Scottish scribblers
seem to be separatists
At the end of April I summarized (as much for myself as my foreign readers) what I understood
from the debate - in the following way
A significant amount of power was passed to the Scottish Parliament and Government in
1999
More will pass when the 2012 Scotland Act is implemented
The Scottish government has still to use its existing tax-raising powers let alone the
additional offered by the 2012 Act
The Scottish Parliament and its people can be proud of the way the new policy-making
capacity has been handled. Distinctive policies have been developed and the respect of its
citizens earned.
It has still to build on some of that innovative work eg in the fields of community
ownership of rural land; and of renewable energy
The post -2007 Nationalist government is hardly nationalist it stresses the importance
of remaining within five of the six on the Unions which it has suggested it is currently
associated with

and, ideologically, it seems more social democratic than anything (although its absence of a
tax base means that it has not really been tested on this count)
the uncertainties and risks associated with negotiations with the UK, the EU and other
bodies are generally ridiculed by the yes campaign.
The Scottish and UK media do not support the idea of independence but journalists
generally have given an increasingly sympathetic treatment to the yes campaign and found
the No campaign negative
It is indeed now difficult for anyone with a different view to be taken seriously
The betting is now that the vote will be for separation

Collating the posts I thought might be useful as a historical record

To give a sense of how a Scot expat had responded to the (growing) prospect of separation
To list the readings which I had found helpful as I struggled both for myself and for my
foreign readers to identify (and comment on) the key issues
To try to link all this to the experience I have had since 1968 of leading and managing
people involved in systems of government
The booklet is simply a record of the reverbations of the debate which has reached someone who
loves Scotland but who has been absent for 24 years. At the best of times, we hear what we want
to hear; and, in my case, I was hearing the debate via the internet.with echoes from the memory
chamber of the 1970s and 1980s.

What Now?
I complete this preface a week after the vote - finding myself, in the last few days, even more of a
devils advocate and increasingly aware of the contradictions between the social democratic
rhetoric of the Yes campaign and the neo-liberal reality which would flow from the currency union
with the rUK to which the First Minister committed Scotland
Although the campaign was a long one it seems it wasnt long enough most of the significant books
about the issue appeared, curiously, only in the last 6 months of the 28-month campaign (see the
readings at the end). And the surge in the Yes vote came only in that last few months.
You could argue that independence has been on the agenda for more than a generation. But the
overall majority of the nationalist government came only in 2011 in the aftermath of the Con-Lib
Coalition which was clearly the clincher for so many erstwhile Labour voters to switch to the SNP.
However, it was only in the last year that left intellectuals in Scotland got round to setting out
their various stalls whether in blogs or books, whether separatist, unionist or neutral.
Ive been a socialist all my adult life - who came to political awareness in 1956 in the days of the
Hungarian and Suez misadventures; and of the New Left; and then got caught up in the
modernising mood which culminated in New Labour. Ive always been broad left opposed to the
paternalistic and centralising part of the Labour tradition but always (if reluctantly) impressed with
the coherence of the hard lefts analysis. But, these days, the strongest critique of the power
structures of the corporate system is mainstream from the likes of David Marquand; Wolfgang
Streeck; Mark Blyth.My blogposts as a whole reflect this global concern.

I sense, these days when the dust is still settling, a new determination. The focus of the British
class may now be on constitutional aspects but my sense is that the next year will see a renewed
attempt by the broad left to set out a realist leftist vision for Scotland. The blogpost of 22
September gave some evidence for this and promised that
Although the blog will now return to other themes, it will follow events in Scotland with more regularity.
What happened there these past few years is part of the outflowing of anger and hope we have seen in
other parts of the world in recent years as citizens have taken to the streets to object to the way their
world was being governed.
Each outburst whether in Turkey, Ukraine, Egypt- had its specific reasons and shape but all
focused on the misuse of power. My new readers in Turkey and the Ukraine know they belong to a wider
movement which may use slogans but know that social change needs more than that. They are keen to
learn from one another and to go beyond the simplistic manuals of protest and regime change that
people like Gene Sharp perfected (with American cash) a decade or so ago.
I remember tantalising the Uzbek officials who attended my classes at the Presidential Academy in
Tashkent with what I called the opportunity theory of change namely that political change happens
suddenly and fortuitously and requires individuals (who may not fit our images about leaders) who have
prepared rigorously and who have the capacity both to inspire followers but (most difficult) to manage
the building of the organisational capacity which will follow success.
Social change requires a challenging combination of emotion, preparationand opportunity. The
emotion has to be channelled; the preparation both analytical and political; and the opportunity
calculated and managed. The new website which I will (hopefully) be inaugurating in October when I get
back down to Sofia will be focusing on social change initially the more neglected analytical elements of
that process..

So watch this space

RGY

CONTENTS
Preface
Dedication
Organizing local services
Trouble in small countries
West of Scotland Bard, Comics and Painters
Lessons from Scotland?
About Small Nations
Scotland as a Fortress against Neo-Liberalism?
Social Democracy alive and well?
Scottish Exceptionalism?
Why Should Scots support the Union?
Another New Nation?
Social Democracy
Lets Talk about Scotland
Drifting Apart
Hanging Together
Deepening the Scottish Debate
A Challenge to the Separatists
Sleeping or Slipping?
Scotlands Default Position
The Games a Bogey
Ideology not nationalism
Wealth Creation the elephant in the Scottish room?
I only asked
Whas Like us!
Keeping an Open Mind
The Breakdown of Nations
Getting to the Heart of the Matter
Serving
Its the Economy Stupid
Sublime writing
Scenarios after an independent Scotland
Caledonia Dreaming
Avoiding the Mitterand Curse
Nearing the End
Money,Money.Money
Rare Sense
How Late it Was .How Late
Separating
The Sirens
Time for Some Culture
No Way Back
Claritybut confusion
In Praise of Doubt
The Last Golden Summer
Checking the Scenarios
Exit, Loyalty and Voice
Roundup
Last Days of a Nation?
When Scotland Leaves.
Holding our breath

The Aftermath
7

DEDICATION
We are all shaped by our upbringing
family; neighbourhood; and education.
My father was a Presbyterian Minister
(in a Scottish shipbuilding town) my
mother a Manchester lass who found
herself staying with a rather strict
stepmother in Glasgow in the 1930s and
found herself, to her subsequent
surprise, engaged to a divinity student,
son of a Helensburgh Headmaster
whose inscribed memorial inkstand is
one of my prize possessions.
Just before war broke out Eileen and
Callum married and set up home in the
manse at 74 Finnart Street Greenock
my fathers first charge which he held until his retirement at age 75. He died only three years
later but my mother continued living there or (in the last decade) within walking distance of our
home until just short of her 102nd birthday and only in the last 3 years in a nursing home
She was the rock around which my father, my sister and I lived our (fairly independent) lives
thats me on the right in about 1947..
I may have been out of the country for the past 24 years but the scenes of the West of Scotland
are imprinted in my memory as if it were yesterday.
Which is why I have included photos in this little book
which, in its own way, is a tribute to my mother and
father and the country in which they brought me up.
A few years ago, I found myself discussing the
possible establishment of a series of lectures (better
perhaps conversations) which would celebrate my
fathers passions and values.
These can be tentatively but not adequately
expressed in such words as understanding.. tolerance..
sharing.... service....exploration.... reconciliation.... and
also, in pastimes, such as "boats, books, bees and
bens".
The discussion involved me drafting the following
thoughts - partly in an effort to clarify why I felt my
father's memory deserved "resurrection"; partly
because I was aware that he represented a world we
have lost and should celebrate.

And partly, I realise, because I was trying to find out what being Scottish now means to me.
Scotland's Minister of Justice suggested - in his defence of his controversial release of the socalled Lockerbie bomber in 2009 - that there are distinctive Scottish values....
Memorials are normally for famous people but the point about my father is that he had no
affectations or ambitions (at least that I knew about!) and was simply well kent and loved in
several distinct communities. It was enough for him to serve one community (Mount Pleasant Church
in Greenock) for 50 years although I do remember he caused quite a stir in my breast when he
threw his cap in the air (sometime in the 1950s//) for the prestigious St Ninians Cathedral in
Kirkwall, on the island of Orkney, north of mainland Scotland.
He used his time on earth to try to open up (to a range of very different types of individuals) the
richness of life and various fields of knowledge. He was (rarely for a Minister) an elected councillor;
a prison chaplain; he was chairman of Greenocks McLellan Gallery and Philosophical Society; he
tutored in ancient languages and history; latterly he was a lecturer on a British circuit about his
travels (which included an expedition to Greenland in his sixties!). In all of this, of course, he was
quietly supported by my mother.
His well-known passions for books and travel were expressions of his passion for the world. His
service as an independent (progressive) councillor (and Baillie) on Greenock Town Council equally
showed his lack of dogma and his openness. When, in my late teens, I became both an atheist and
socialist (offending some of our West-end neighbours), I felt only his quiet pride that I was, in my
own way, searching for myself and, in different ways, living up to his values and passions which can
be grouped into four categories -.
1. Serving the community love and professionalism
My father was much respected by people the support and service he offered to his those in
trouble; his modesty; the quiet way he wore his learning. Like many other similar people he received
little official recognition. Strathclyde Regions first Convener, Geoff Shaw, was also a Church of
Scotland Minister who struck a chord with so many people in the mid-1970s coming into politics
late from a "community-based" ministry - but then died so tragically early. Just as appreciated
but behind the scenes - was the old miner (Dick Stewart) who actually led the Region politically for
its first decade.
They were perhaps the last generation which made Scotland what it is. The last 25 years have
celebrated a different more ambitious and greedy global ethic.
I noticed a wonderful piece in Scottish Review in 2008 - by Kenneth Roy - about how people like the
radical Rev George McLeod influenced the shop steward Jimmy Reid who led the Clyde shipyard sitins in the 1970s. We need more of these intellectual vignettes.
The importance of such role models has, of course, been rediscovered recently and integrated
into government strategies. And the importance of communities and service has been stressed
incessantly by government agencies for 30 years in Scotland but perhaps government is now too
dominant and impatient a partner?
Like other sons (and daughters) of Scottish Presbyterian Ministers, I threw myself into politics
but this took an unconventional route as my mission was to try to reform what I saw as a
centralised system which denied a voice to many people. Community development was the name of
the game for me.

I continued my belief in social engineering in the new career I developed from 1990 as an EU
adviser to central European and Asian governments as they tried to restructure their systems of
government. Very much moving on the periphery - a balancing skill I learned at my parent's Westend house as I cultivated the East end!
There is a lot of talk about the cynicism with politics and politicians Robert Michels warned more
than a hundred years ago of the dangers of professionalization. Perhaps, however, some of the fault
lies in the arrogance embodied in the ideology behind the social sciences which came of age as I did
in the late 1960s and underpinned the claims not only of the new financial system but of the new
public management which was forged here in Britain and has been so assiduously marketed abroad.
Scotland served in the 1990s as an important example to other European countries about community
regeneration; its new parliament took up the theme of social inclusion which some of us started 30
years ago; and Strathclyde University is the centre, for example, of a very important network
which shares information and best practice relating to the massive EU Structural Funds.
But what does this all really mean for the hopes and dreams of the people a parish Minister or
priest deals with? The language in which the business of government (and think tanks) is conducted
excludes many people. And there can be no communities without shared language one of Greenocks
most neglected figures WS Graham - was very eloquent about this. And much policy discussion is
conducted without reference to lessons from previous periods or places.
Theres an issue struggling to get out here I cant quite define it How to act when we are aware
of the counter-productivity of good intentions? How inject dose of humility into political and
administrative class? Evil in government?
2. Reconciliation and understanding
My father was one of the first Scottish Ministers in the late 1940s to establish contact with a
German Presbytery (Heiligenkirchen; Detmold; Bad Meinberg) and to organise mutual exchanges.
The network this created continued until my mothers death in 2005.
Now such European exchanges are two-a-penny, institutionalised and achieve exactly what? Their
equivalents these days would be exchanges with mosques in Bosnia, Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan and
Uzbekistan whos game?
One of Scotlands self-acknowledged weaknesses is reflected in the Whas like us! cry. Of course,
we refer with pride to the Auld Alliance and the links we established with the European
Commission in the 80s as signs that we are better Europeans than our southern neighbours; and a
Scottish Parliament and Executive is able to give Scotland a more official range of international
contacts. But perhaps they are being used for too selfish and immediate ends? Of course Scotland
has become home to various refugee groups and their support and integration is taken very
seriously by statutory and voluntary agencies. But, as a society, have we really embraced and
learned from them?
My father was a passionate (and single) traveller almost in the mould of Patrick Leigh Fermor
certainly in his travels (with camera and in kilt) in the hinterlands of Greece in the 1970s - when he
had to update his biblical Greek!. Austria was also a favourite haunt although more sedately with
my mother. Not content with the voyage itself, he wanted to pass on the experience to others and
arouse their interest in others. And so he photographed and became active in a national lecture
circuit. He passed these passions to me and was, for example, indirectly, responsible for me being

10

there on the wrong side of East Germany as the Soviet tanks sped to support the building of the
Berlin wall in August 1963.
To him I also owe the passion for travel and photography which seems to have been passed, in turn,
to my daughter Hilary. Jan and Susanna probably share more of my mothers genes with their
sensitivity to beauty and order in the design world of which they have become part.
The 1990s opened up Central Europe to me what a shame he was no longer there to share the
discoveries with me. I was very taken to discover the role which a Scotsman - Robert SetonWatson - had played in the early part of the 20th century in creating the 2 countries of Slovakia
and Romania which have become particularly dear to me.
He would also have been fascinated with my seven years in Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan
where the Scottish track is not so easy to find. But the UK Ambassador in Tashkent (Craig Murray)
was driven to his confrontation with the Foreign Office by Scottish values and people and songs in
poor and mountainous Kyrgyzstan have such strong similarities with Scotland!
But how can travel give such meaning in these very different globalised and ecological times? What
can Scotland contribute?
3. Bees, bens and boats
Coming to Greenock (from home inKilcreggan and Helensburgh and divinity studies at Glasgow
University) just before the outbreak of the second World War, it is hardly surprising that my
father developed a passion for boats and, during the war, served on the small naval boats which
patrolled the River Clyde and Scotland's west coast. Apparently my birth was announced to him on
one of these patrols. And one of my first holiday memories is a small boat he had hired (The
Elspeth) to take us to places like Tighnabruaich!
There was also the motor-boat which was our life-line for 4 glorious summers in the early 50s
between Calve Island in Tobermory Bay and the shops. Colonsay was another site for memorable
childhood holidays.
Another memory is his tending his bees at the bottom of the manse garden.
And my father was not only a keen hill-walker but knew and climbed with some of the early writers
about Scottish Mountaineering such as Bennie Humble and WH Murray. Needless to say, he never
had a car.
Now we have writers and books such as Robert McFarlanes Mountains of the Mind which
rediscover the meanings behind such passions.
4. Mapping, collecting and sharingAnd of course Greenocks McLellan Gallery and Library with which my father was actively involved
for how so many years! This marked his passion to share the beauty and richness of the world.
I noticed the books then more than the paintings. Now I can appreciate both.
I remember a shop in Venice in the early 1980s which had been making paper for 6 centuries as
well as a small print shop which I stumbled upon in 1989 in Berlin which had, above its entrance, a
poem celebrating bookmaking (in the non-Greenock sense).
To him I owe the love I have developed for visiting European art galleries particularly the lesswell known of Germany and Belgium. Recent examples are encounters in remote Slovak and Bulgarian
villages with custodians of amazing collections of paintings eg Moymirovce and Smolyan who have

11

no resources for their preservation let alone websites. And the incredible, unknown Uzbek art
(bought up now undoubtedly by Moscow (snake) oil tycoons.
Why, I wonder at this stage of my life, do we take so long to appreciate our fathers? When he was
alive I found it difficult to communicate with him at any other than a superficial level. That was my
fault.

The painting which tops this text is of my father - commissioned from Yuliana Sotirova of Sofia
(who worked only from a black and white photo!)

Sunday, April 11, 2010

organising local services

Another interesting organisational perspective from BBC World Service in the first part of a
series on the Ganges River whose magic qualities have been worshipped by pilgrim bathers for
centuries. But all is not well since many dams have been built for purposes of irrigation or general
water management. Youll forgive me, said one polite Indian, for saying that the English have a lot to
answer for!
Water resource management apparently used to be handled by small communities along with many
others such as cultural life, etc Then the Brits came to India and split everything into specialised
functions with irrigation being a separate function from water resource management and from
cultural traditions. A crucial holistic dimension was lost as a result.
If you look at local government systems, the Brits certainly seem to have caught the rationalistic
addiction much more strongly than their European neighbours. I have to confess that I was part of
the first such on onslaught in the 1960s when as part of the critical mood then in the air about
our institutions - independent commissions in England and Scotland examined the local government
systems in those countries and came up with radical solutions which found their way into legislation.
Scotlands was more radical Adam Smith ghost of specialisation perhaps? 625 municipalities of
different sorts (large towns, small towns, Counties and communes) were converted into a two-tier
system of 65 municipalities. Literally a decimation with 9 Regions, 53 Districts and 3 Island
Authorities coming into being in 1975.
As a councillor in a large burgh of 65,000 souls (whose educational, police, water and sewage
requirements were taken care of by a County Council coveting about 300,000 people), I was a
strong advocate of their replacement by a District of 110,000 people and a Region (Strathclyde) of
more than 2 million whose destinies had been strongly linked by the River Clyde. But people believed
then in economies of scale.
In fact, the Region functioned remarkably well with the development of a new strategic dimension
into policy-making which tried to pay proper respect to political, professional and community
perspectives; its scale making it the first municipal body to forge a relationship with the European
Commission and also making it easier to advance the internal arguments for experimentation and
decentralisation at both the county and community level.
Recently Kenneth Roy suggested that the leakage of power from the Scottish towns in the 1970s
was responsible for the poor shape in which they find themselves now and he made a good case (as
he always does). I was glad to see, however, that Alex Wood at least put up a rebuttal, arguing how
corrupt and complacent town government had become in those post-war years. And, he might have

12

added, the County Councils had already taken their power away and were not directly elected! This
was the critical note I struck in my contribution (What sort of Over-government?) to the Red Book
on Scotland which Gordon Brown edited in 1975.
However, it is true that Scotland is now at the far end of the spectrum of the European scale as
far as municipal size is concerned with a one tier system of 23 Districts having been introduced in
1999. A major restructuring every 25 years does not seem a good approach! The French have a
reputation for excellent public services and have held on to their small communes. And their
engineers, of course, are still held in higher regard than managers!
However French and German municipal services are now threatened by the credit crunch.
Friday, July 16, 2010

Trouble in small countries

Many people (including myself) see small
countries as hopes for civilisation. One of my
blogs summarised the powerful arguments of
Leopold Kohr more than 60 years ago on this
theme. 20 years ago there was talk of Europe
of the Regions. The new conventional wisdom,
however, is that the global financial crisis has
shown the incapacity of small countries like
Iceland. A referendum on whether the Scots
people wanted complete independence which
the (devolved) nationalist government of
Scotland was supposed to hold this year has
disappeared from the agenda. Belgium, in the
meantime, is tearing itself apart - and showing
little sign of the solidarity which is supposed to
be one of the EU values.
A new pamphlet by centre-right think tank Policy Exchange, The Devolution Distraction, by Tom
Miers savages most of the assumptions and emotional supports of the last 10 years of devolved
government which Scotland has enjoyed. The Miers thesis is that Scottish devolution has been a
spectacular failure on the economy and public services, driven by an obsession with constitutional
change. This reflects that Scotland has a political problem, not a constitutional one.
Gerry Hassan (about whose pamphlets I have written recently) has a good blog on this today.
Miers apparently makes the case with five key points: that the Scottish economy has grown much slower
than the rest of the UK since devolution; entrepreneurship is low; health and education underperform in
comparison with the rest of the UK and are increasingly losing ground; and public spending higher than UK
levels per head. The first two are long-term historic trends; the last complex; but the latter two have an
uncomfortable truth which needs serious debate.
The conventional devolution class response to the failure Miers argues are two fold. The first is to deny
failure altogether the politics and mindset of self-denial. The second is to invoke from failure and lack of
results that the answer can be found in the argument that Scotland needs more self-determination.

Miers writes in The Scotsman on this:

13

The history of democracy is full of examples of political elites that do not respond to evidence of decline,
however obvious. So what is it with our own political class? What makes Scottish politics so deeply
conservative, so hostile to the notion of reform, so defensive about the performance of Scottish institutions
Just before the Scottish Parliament was established in 1999, I wrote a Fabian Society pamphlet, The New
Scotland which explored the potential and limits of devolution. Its argument can be summarised in five points:
1. Labour were driven onto the devolution agenda with the intent of a politics of maintenance and
conservation; one of the central paradoxes of devolution was that the party which introduced it would
have its one party old state politics slowly undermined;
2. Devolution for all its hopes and rhetoric was always fundamentally about a politics of reinforcing the
internal status quo in Scottish society: one characterized by inertia, lack of dynamism and absence of
policy innovation;
3. The forces for devolution were marked despite their radical language by a profound sense of
conservatism; this combination of radical hope and conservative reality concealed the limited prospects
for change under devolution;
4. Democracy has been late coming to Scotland and the main forces of progress: the Liberals in the 19th
century and Labour in the 20th century have colluded with and used the professional elites and castes
which dominate and disfigure Scottish society; Thatcherism disrupted part of this, but devolution was
never intended to fundamentally shift this;
5. Scottish civil society shorn of all its illusion and romance about itself has been characterised by a
lack of diversity, pluralism and ideas. This raises the question where were and are the original, challenging
ideas for devolution going to come from? All of the above coalesced in the mainstream version of predevolution which stated that the Parliament was going to be the vehicle of Scottish radical opinion and a
body born from the flowering of civil society and thus likely to be a bold, imaginative institution giving
expression to progressive imagination. Instead, I argued that this very idea of the Parliament as the
creation of civil society (or even worse, civic Scotland: the well-mannered, middle class chatterers of
institutional opinion) made it inevitable that the Parliament would be the voice of closed, complacent
Scotland. And so it has turned out to be.

Where Miers is on less secure ground is when he comes to solutions. Here he ventures onto
predictable ground as he outlines in his conclusion, a new approach which entails:
1. The constitution: a generational truce; advocating that we need to stop seeing the solution to
Scotlands problems in some inevitable slippery slope to more powers for the Parliament; instead
we should implement Calman and then call a halt for a generation or so;
2. Measurement: a new honesty; challenging our state owned national monopolies to stop
changing and fiddling figures of measurement;
3. Reform: a new radicalism: declaring that all the parties should seek to recast their policy
positions from a foundation of recognition of the problems faced and genuine intellectual
curiosity.
Hassan outlines in his conclusion:
The combination of economic and social decline, conservative policy making and endless constitutional
debate in Scotland cries out for a new approach. Those who rst articulate it persuasively will set the
agenda for many years to come.

14

Hassans take on this is that

This is broadly correct as a general description, and also in the opportunity it offers to whichever political
force can seize the radical agenda. Where he is wrong is that his new approach and radicalism is centred
on old solutions: of free market ideas, fragmentation, marketisation and deregulation. It is a view of the
world which isnt evidence based as it claims addressing Scottish failures in comparison to England, but
ignoring English problems and pitfalls. It is as if the last few years havent happened or the fallout from
New Labour approaches.
Following on from my New Scotland thesis of over a decade ago here are six points for beginning to
explore a more far-reaching, radical, new agenda:
1. Labours old style hegemony is as predicted slowly eroding leaving the party rudderless, directionless
and without any sense of anchor beyond maintaining the rump remnants of its patronage state and its
oppositional, opportunist detesting of the Nationalists;
2. Labour, SNP and civic Scotland ideas on economic, social, cultural and political change have shown their
commitment to the forces of conservatism and inertia; none of these bodies really has any radical notion of
how to deliver change in Scottish society, rather than just presiding over the internal status quo;
3. The forces of the new conservatism which have critiqued the entire first decade of devolution from
beginning to end advocating a reform and modernisation strategy need to be scrutinised and challenged;
4. Equally problematic is the typical centre-left and nationalist response to calls for change invoking a
defensive politics of resistance and public sector institutional conservatism;
5. Mapping a path between these two cul-de-sacs involves embracing the politics of self-determination. Not
the constitutional version, but at a societal level, shifting power and challenging elites both in the public
and private sector in Scotland;
6. This self-determination should inform and influence a genuine politics of self-government which can be
summarised as post-nationalist Scotland comfortable with the fuzzy ambiguities and fluidities of shared
sovereignty in an interdependent age.
The Devolution Distraction has done us the service of setting out an analysis of some of the key
complacencies and failures of the last decade. It would be wrong to dismiss it out of hand, just because
some of it is unpalatable and a little uncomfortable to the gatekeepers and influencers of devo Scotland.
Yet at the same time, its message for action is part of the groupthink and orthodoxy which has captured
governments, corporates and think-tanks across the West, and in particular the UK and US.
The new conservatism has to be taken on and defeated not by the forces of old conservatism which it
rightly critiques but the emergence of new voices, ideas and thinking in Scotland. And that requires new
spaces and institutions which so far Scottish institutional opinion has shown no interest in supporting and
nurturing.

15

Thursday, January 20, 2011

West of Scottish bards, comics and painters

First, congratulations to the West of Scotland poet and
dramatist, Liz Lochhead, who was yesterday appointed to
the position of national poet (or makar) a position
invented a few years ago by the First Minister of the new
Scottish Government and held first by Edwin Muir.
Ironically the only poem of Lochheads which seems to be
online is the entitled "Poets need not be garlanded":
All praise to poetry, the way it has
of attaching itself to a familiar phrase
in a new way, insisting it be heard and seen.
Poets need no laurels, surely?
their poems, when they can make them happen -- even rarely -crown them with green.
Anyway, its a nice idea although Im a great fan of Tom
Leonards poetry myself but he generally writes in a strong
West of Scotland accent the good thief will give you the
idea (you need to know that the thief is hanging on a cross
and speaking to Jesus!).
That poem led me onto the Billy Connollys scabrous humour In addition to explaining some of the
words, I also pointed out to D one of the historical specialities of these quality West of Scotland
comics (Greenock-born Chic Murray was the best) who simply took the meaning of common phrases
and words apart eg rang the bell what else can you do with it?. Interesting that the poet WS
Graham (much admired by TS Eliot)who so focussed on words and their fragility should also (like me)
be from that town. And also quite a clutch of writers - John Galt, Davidson, George Blake, Alan
Sharp,Ian Banks (briefly and in Gourock), playwright Bill Bryden and David Ashton(ne Scott) - the
last 2 classmates of mine.
I realised that I will be in Sofia on January 25th the birthday of Scotlands real national bard
Rabbie Burns - and will try to arrange a small dofor my friends there to celebrate the man and his
life and works (and Bulgarian, Italian, Romanian and Scottish poets Italian for my friend Enzo will
be present). Doubtless the hapless Hristov Botev will be one of the Bulgarian poets theromantic
revolutionary (against Ottoman rule) who must vie with Bonnie Prince Charlie for the title of The
historical figure who ca'd least manage a menage (hopelessly impractical in West of Scotland
patois except that I cant find it online!
Haggis then jumped to mind (it has that habbit - as Connolly or Chic Murray might have said) and I
remembered that Sofia had an outfit which delivers British products to the door. Sure
enough Andy was quick to reply and a couple of haggi (??) will duly wing their way to the flat next
week - provided that is that I can find a flat! The local company with which I am working - Dicon has proved very inefficient so far.
And, with 10 litres of good Dealu Mare and Recas red and white wine from Romania, we will toast
absent friends such as Daryoush, Jacek and Zulfiya with whom I have celebrated these evenings.

16

This - plus some Bulgarian wine which I have missed - should be enough for 8 people!!
Bought a copy yesterday of my favourite newspaper Le Monde it said it all that it devoted at
least 5 full pages to the development in Tunisia. Can you imagine a british newspaper doing that??
I was trying to find a suitable industrial landscape painting of West of Scotland online - but
couldn't. Andy Hay did some great stuff a few decades back on shipbuilding (as did Stanley
Spencer during the war) but this is the only painting I could find of his. And the great Stanley
Spencer is very badly served by the War Museum who have all his Port Glasgow shipbuilding
paintings but don't display any of them on their website!
Thursday, March 1, 2012

Lessons from Scotland

My home country, Scotland, is in the news these days. It has had a
Nationalist government for more than 4 years and its citizens will in a
couple of years be asked to vote on independence from the UK.
Somewhat perversely, perhaps, I rarely blog on matters relating to
Scotland - which is most remiss since it has been experiencing some
interesting developments in the past 2 decades.
The debate within Scotland about independence has been going on for
decades - but a new constitutional debate has started recently in
England. Outsiders (of whom there are many amongst my readership)
cannot understand the present debate without knowing something about
the past - recent and not so recent. This post must, therefore say
something about how we got to the present point.
I left Scotland in the early 90s just as a remarkable development was taking place there Scottish
civil society and its establishment (political, municipal, legal, religious) coming together from
disgust with the results of consecutive UK elections of the 1980s which had left the ruling
Conservative government with not a single one of the 70 odd Scottish members of parliament being
Conservative. The Conservative government (which lasted from 1979-1997) - let alone its neo-liberal
agenda - was simply felt to have no legitimacy in Scotland. Bear in mind that the 1703 Union of
Scotland and England had left Scotland with its separate legal and religious systems and an
educational system which also went its own way, helping to forge a strong sense of Scottishness in
schools - whose composition was more mixed and democratic than in England.
In 1988 a cross-section of prominent members of Scottish society came together to form the
Scottish Constitutional Convention - and started a process which lasted a decade. The Convention
produced not just the blueprint for the 1999 Scottish Parliament (which had last met in 1707) but,
perhaps more importantly, the social and political momentum to ensure its achievement and the
creation of a more consensual way of governing. The details can be found on the archives of the
Convention of whcih this is an excerpt In July 1988, a constitutional steering committee, composed of prominent Scots and set up by the
Campaign for a Scottish Assembly, recommended the formation of a broadly-drawn Scottish
Constitutional Convention to make plans for the future governance of Scotland. All political parties
were invited to take part. The Conservative Party declined to participate from the outset. The

17

Scottish National Party, although involved in the initial preparatory work, was ultimately unable to
accept the principles of consensus underlying the Convention's aims, and therefore did not join its
deliberations. It is important to record that many individuals from both these parties have
supported our work publicly or privately.
Nonetheless, the Convention is beyond question the most broadly representative body in Scotland.
It has enjoyed the support of the Scottish Labour Party the Scottish Liberal Democrats, and a
number of smaller parties. In all, the Convention has included 80 per cent of Scotland's MPs and
MEPs; representatives of the great majority of local authorities; and many important elements in
Scottish civic society, including the Scottish Trades Union Congress, the churches, ethnic minority
groups, women's movements, and sections of the business and industrial community. Current
membership is listed as Appendix II.
The Convention held its inaugural meeting on 30 March 1989 in the Church of Scotland's General
Assembly Hall in Edinburgh. It adopted a declaration, which was signed by all its members. This
was a Claim of Right
Those wanting more on the fascinating detail of the process should read here. It is a real casestudy in consensual change - demonstrating that those who want to achieve significant change have
to have patience and humility. Lasting change is never aachieved by slogans and the demonising
which passes for most political activity these days.
I had been one of the leaders of Strathclyde Region from the mid 1970s which included half of
Scotlands population - the Scottish Nationalist party began to win seats and put the Labour
Government of the day under such pressure that a Bill to enact a Scottish Parliament was enacted.
I took part in a referendum in Scotland in 1979 which asked the Scottish electorate whether they
wished the Bill creating a Scottish parliament to be implemented. A total of 1,230,937 (51.6%)
voted at the referendum in favour of an Assembly, a narrow majority of about 77,400 over those
voting against. However, this total represented only 32.9% of the registered electorate as a whole compared with the 40% reuired by the Act. The Labour government accepted that the Act's
requirements had not been met, and that devolution would therefore not be introduced for
Scotland. This led to the withdrawal of nationalist support from the Government, its loss of a vote
of Confidence and a General Election which the Conservatives won.
The emasculation in the late 1980s of local government by Thatcher forced me to look elswhere for
a career. An invitation from Ilona Kickbusch, the Director of WHOs European Public Healths
division came at the right time - to help her construct a network for health promotion in the
countries of recently liberated central and eastern europe. The senior position I held in a Region
had given me access to various European networks throughout the 1980s.
I have therefore had to follow its political developments from afar, in particular
the abolition by the London-based Conservative Government of the Regional system of local
government in the mid 1990s
the election in 1999 (thanks to the New Labour government) of a Scottish Parliament and
Exective which was, thanks to a new system of proportional representation, a coalition of
the Labour and Liberal parties;

18

the increasingly independent path taken by the Executive in matters of social policy eg
ensuring free care of the elderly (unlike England)
the appointment in 2007 of a minority Nationalist government with a pledge to organise at
an appropriate time a referendum on independence
a stunning Nationalist over-all majority in the 2011 elections
its style and content of government which is more social democratic than that of New
Labour eg resisting university fees

postscript
As I drafted this post, I began to feel a bit guilty about going into history. I feel a lot better now
that I have just read today's article from one of the key figures in the Scottish Convention appealing for Scots to cast their minds back to that period - when Scots voted in the referendum
of 1997 they knew they were voting not just for a transfer of powers or for a mini-Westminster,
but for a parliament that had been designed, conceived and carefully planned over six long years of
vigorous and often heated debate. I should know, I bear the scars. It was to be a parliament, we
said, 'radically different from the rituals of Westminster; more participative, more creative, less
needlessly confrontational a culture of openness'.
That vision has to some extent been fulfilled, but it is time to move on. The point is and this is
what Prime Minister Cameron does not seem to get that Scotland's parliament was not a gift of
Westminster. Home rule was home-made. It must stay that way.
Sunday, June 3, 2012

About small nations

Readers may have been surprised that the
previous post on my Scottish visit did not
mention the prospect of independence for
that country after all the official start to
the 2 year debate (more hopefully
discussion) on that subject was made during
my visit.
Perhaps as an ex-pat of 22 years standing
who no longer is entitled to vote, I feel it
inappropriate to comment. But no, it is more a
matter of my own vacillation on the matter. I
have over the piece blown hot and cold on
the issue.
In the late 1970s, when there was a referendum on the issue, I campaigned actively against the
notion of a Scottish Parliament (believing it a slippery slope to independence) but, in the privacy of
the polling both, found myself voting yes! Although a majority of those voting did favour a change,
it was not a majority of those entitled to vote and the status quo prevailed at the time. But, as the
Thatcherism which was so consistently rejected by Scotland, began to bite there too in the late
1980s, I strongly supported the constitutional campaign which got underway then for a measure of
independence - which the Scottish Parliament and Executive has given the country since 1999.

19

In the 1950s we mocked the notion of a country of 5 million people being independent but
Norway and many EU members now demonstrate its feasibility let alone desirability. I have
worked in many of these countries recently Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia. And I
was fascinated a few days ago by an article After the Velvet Divorce by Martin Simecka which
spoke about the linguistic aspects of the two countries which were united until the late 1990s
The two languages, indistinguishable to a foreigner, represent two independent entities in my brain. Czech,
historically more ancient and rich, is aggressive and domineering, words seem to rush to the lips of their
own accord and listening to Czechs speak you feel they are literally revelling in their language and don't
know when to stop. This is a feeling I am intimately familiar with: even if you lack any ideas, Czech allows
you to spout meaningless nonsense or lies, and still give the impression of speaking wisely and truthfully
that's how enthralling Czech is. It has the enormous advantage of a formalized division between so-called
common (colloquial) and standard Czech, both versions of which are acceptable in writing, if necessary.
The richness of the Czech language, however, is sometimes more of an obstacle than an advantage, and
does not make it any easier in and of itself to understand national identity. Havel was right when he
bitterly remarked that "talk of Czech national identity often doesn't go beyond mere chatter".
Perhaps one of the reasons why Czechoslovakia had to split was the fact that the Slovaks felt humiliated
by the verbal dominance of Czech politicians, who spoke seemingly rationally but in reality misused their
language to suppress the budding Slovak longing for equal rights. Even Havel, one of the few people
capable of moulding the Czech language into a most beautiful shape, took far too long to understand the
urgency of this Slovak longing. Slovak is soft and melodious and you can tell Slovak women by their voices,
which are higher and more delicate. It is humble yet it doesn't let itself be violated. Of course, you can
lie and talk nonsense in Slovak, too, but thanks to the sobriety of the language you are soon found out and
your words turn into embarrassing drivel. Lacking a written colloquial form like Czech, Slovak imposes
discipline and accuracy on the speaker.
Unlike the Czechs the Slovaks can now elect their mayors (as well as the country's President) by direct
vote, which has curtailed the excessive power of the political parties; the country has been more
profoundly decentralized; and the prosecutor's office has been separated from the executive (the
Prosecutor General is elected by parliament, whereas in the Czech Republic he is appointed by the
government).
In the fight against corruption Slovakia puts greater emphasis on transparency: all state contracts with
private companies have to be published on the Internet and for the past ten years anonymous firms have
been banned from trading their stocks. In the Czech Republic most companies that are awarded state
tenders still have undisclosed owners, many of whom are undoubtedly politicians.
In Slovakia the fight against the grey economy has even managed to override the traditionally more
relaxed attitude to money mentioned above. In a Czech pub, a waiter will typically add up your bill on a
scrap of paper and you have to rely on his maths skills. On the other hand, even in the remotest corner
ofSlovakia, if you order a beer you will receive a proper receipt from an electronic cash register. The
Slovaks introduced these registers ten years ago as part of the fight against tax evasion, while the
Czechs still keep making excuses, claiming this form of oversight is too expensive.

It was understandable that, in the immediate post-war period, people were suspicious of anything
which smacked of nationalism. Times have changed. Some time ago I resurrected an important book
by Lepold Kohr Two insights I found particularly relevant one which he produces as one of the reasons for the
intense cultural productivity of the small state in a large state, we are forced to live in tightly

specialised compartments since populous societies not only make large-scale specialisation possible

20

but necessary. As a result, our lifes experience is confined to a narrow segment whose borders we
almost never cross, but within which we become great single-purpose experts... A small state
offers the opportunity for everybody to experience everything simply by looking out of the
window" whereas a large state has to employ a legion of soi-disant experts to define its problems
and produce solutions.
The other striking comment he makes is the chief blessing of a small-state system is ...its gift of
a freedom which hardly ever registers if it is pronounced.....freedom from issues....ninety percent of
our intellectual miseries are due to the fact that almost everything in our life has become an ism, an
issue... our lifes efforts seem to be committed exclusively to the task of discovering where we
stand in some battle raging about some abstract issue... The blessing of a small state returns us
from the misty sombreness of an existence in which we are nothing but ghostly shadows of
meaningless issues to the reality which we can only find in our neighbours and neighbourhoods
Most people would probably see this as utopian and yet its argument is ruthless. As he puts it at
one stage in the argument many will object to the power or size theory on the ground that it is

based on an unduly pessimistic interpretation of man. They will claim that, far from being seduced
by power, we are generally and predominantly animated by the ideals of decency, justice,
magnanimity etc This is true, but only because most of the time we do not possess the critical
power enabling us to get away with indecency.Kohrs main challenge, however, is to the principle of

specialisation and you will find in chapter 6 The Efficiency of the Small. There he is merciless in
his critique of the wealth of the modern world daring to suggest that most of is useless and
counter-productive and that people were happier in medieval times! The more powerful a society
becomes, the more of its increasing product instead of increasing individual consumption is
devoured by the task of coping with the problems caused by the rise of its very size and power
This is the bible for both new management and the slow-food movement! The writing sparkles
and includes a good joke about a planner who, having died, is allowed to try to organise the time
people spend in Heaven into more rational chunks of activity, fails and sent to help organise Hell.
Im here to organise Hell, he announces to Satan who laughs and explains that organisation IS
hell.

SCOTLAND - A FORTRESS AGAINST NEOLIBERALISM?

June 4 2012
Neal Ascherson is one of Scotland's few intellectual journalists and visited Greenock last year
during the by-election there whose results seemed to halt what had been the powerful onward
march of the dominant nationalist party there. His subsequent article in the London Review of
Books started with an evocative description of the social changes there and the developed some
useful insights into the country's politics
In my first spell there, the great estuary of the Clyde was lined for mile after mile with clanging, sparking
shipyards, and every shop-sign in West Blackhall Street read SCWS Scottish Co-Operative Wholesale
Society. When I returned nearly 50 years later, the yards had vanished. There were a few charity shops,
an Asda; in grey housing schemes up the hillside, a shrunken population waited quietly for the council to
repair broken doors and fences. The young, it was said, traded heroin if they needed cash for clothes and
clubbing. The young with the energy to get out of their beds, that is. Greenock is struggling into recovery

21

now. It is a place built for outward vision and hope,

a big theatre in which tier on tier of streets look
out across the estuary to the mountains. Not only
James Watt, but many painters, novelists and
poets began here. After utter collapse, small
citizens groups are trying to rub the old town back
to life, to restore hope: a new theatre, the
restoration of the huge ropeworks factory, a
protest (why use cobbles imported from China, in a
landscape of good Scottish stone?).
Apart from independence, the Scottish nationalists
and the Labour party whom they have supplanted
want much the same things. After all, one way to
describe whats going on in Scotland is that a
fortress is being thrown up to keep out the worst of the privatising, state-slashing, neoliberal tide: a
northern redoubt to preserve and modernise whats left of British social democracy and the postwar
consensus. But coalition would have been unthinkable. Too long spent in tribal hatred. And real differences.
Labour in Scotland has a hundred-year history of sacrifice, comradeship and struggle. The SNP has never
been socialist, and came late to social democracy. The paint on its social credentials is still drying. Salmond
was a banker, but his minority government sat helplessly as Scotlands banks and its main building society
went the way of Iceland and Ireland. (Its an unwelcome truth that Scotland escaped the same devastation
only because it was inside the United Kingdom, and Gordon Brown rescued its finances.)The fundamental
perception of British socialism, and Scottish socialism especially, is about wasted lives, the strangled
destinies of ordinary people.
Last summer, I went to Jimmy Reids funeral in Govan. Billy Connolly, once an apprentice in the same
shipyard, told a story about going for walks with Reid in Glasgow. Hed point to a tower block and say:
Behind that window is a guy who could win Formula One. And behind that one theres a winner of the roundthe-world yacht race. And behind the next one And none of them will ever get the chance to sit at the
wheel of a racing car or in the cockpit of a yacht. Does the SNP see its fellow human beings that way? It
certainly sees the nation clearly: it has all the angry confidence, the impatience to get down to the heavy
lifting, the bright-morning optimism Labour has lost. But how about the compassion?
Jimmy Reid began in the Communist Party, moved to Labour but ended up in the SNP. Latterly, whichever
party he was in, he was fond of saying that the rat race is for rats. Alex Salmond might prefer Scotland to
win the race first and waste the rats afterwards. But at the funeral he announced that Reids words, and
the speech that contained them, would be reprinted and distributed to every schoolchild in Scotland. After
he said this, Salmond looked up from his text and added, almost to himself: Whats the point of being first
minister if you cant do things? And Govan OldChurch slowly began to rumble with applause, hands beaten
by shipyard workers, bankers, ministers of the kirk, women and men of all the parties including Tories,
soldiers on leave, families in black who had come from the isles. On this they agreed: in Jimmy Reids name,
they wanted this man to do things. Now he can.

The photograph is taken from Customshouse Quay and looks toward what used to be the site of the
shipyards.

22

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Social Democracy alive and well?

I dont talk enough here about my homeland so I am glad to
devote this post to an important policy issue in devolved Scotland.
Melissa Benn is a name to conjure with in UK educational circles
her mother, Caroline Benn, was the most ardent campaigner for
some 5 decades for good education for all; her father is the
tireless socialist Tony Benn; and she carries on the family
tradition in her role as a radical educational journalist. She had a
platform at this years Edinburgh Book Festival and has posted a
thoughtful piece which points up some Scottish successes in the
educational field which she considers are not getting the
attention they deserve in England.
The most immediate thing to strike a visitor from the English
educational field is how very different the atmosphere and
assumptions are on this subject north of the border. With its proud
tradition of the "democratic intellect", long history of compulsory
education and world-renowned universities, the Scots seem genuinely
to value their school system.
Here one finds very little teacher-bashing and scant reference to market solutions to social problems. At
the Edinburgh event, the overriding concern was how to improve access by poorer students to higher and
further learning and keep universities free, despite considerable pressure from an unholy alliance of
English newspapers and Scottish conservatives. There is a heartening and robust belief in publicly funded,
publicly accountable high-quality education.
Is this perhaps the very reason we in England hear so little about Scotland's education system, bar some
envious carping at its avoidance of tuition fees? While every fashionable free-schooler or educational
conservative has rushed to bash underfunded Wales as proof of comprehensive failure, or bemoaned
attempts in Northern Ireland to eliminate its outmoded selective system, there is little discussion of the
evident strengths of the Scottish comprehensive system.
In fact, Scotland has deliberately rejected what (their Education Minister) Russell accurately labels
the Germ (Global Education Reform Movement) approach so beloved of the coalition, with its commitment
to privatisation, competition and deregulation.
He is rightly scathing of the "three initiatives before breakfast" policy-hyperactivity of the current
English government. At the Edinburgh session he declared himself "stunned" at recently announced
English plans to allow unqualified teachers into classrooms. Rigorous teacher training is at the heart of the
Scottish approach, and there are plans, modelled upon the Finnish example, to require every teacher to
possess a master's in addition to a first degree.
Scotland publishes no official league tables, although individual schools release their results.
(Even Wales now publishes the results of secondary schools grouped into one of five bands.) The Scottish
government is moving towards greater school self-evaluation and has, over the past decade, slowly rolled
out a progressive "curriculum for excellence", in stark contrast to our own government's speedily devised,
overly prescriptive and increasingly contested programmes for learning.

23

And it seems to be working. Results for Scottish highers, a formal examination taken between 16 and 19,
have slowly climbed over the years and are up again in 2012, with no serious claims of grade inflation. From
this year, pilot schemes will be rolled out, with the ultimate aim of each child learning two languages in
addition to their own. And only last year, the Royal Society praised the high numbers of Scottish students
49.7% who study science to the higher levels, and suggested that the rest of the UK should
emulate Scotland in this regard
Scotland managed to keep its separate educational system even after the Treaty of Union with England of
1707 - so we have generally been spared the more mad of the English initiatives. However the development
of the comprehensive school was something which took place in both parts of the kingdom.
The reestablishment in 1999 of the Scottish Parliament and Government has, however, given the distinctive
nature of the Scottish directions in social policy a stronger legitimacy.
I am not a Scottish nationalist. The issue of Scottish independence was a live one at my school in the 1950s
and, when I became active in local and Regional government in the 1970s and 1980s, the Scottish
Nationalist party was always an electoral consideration. As, however, Conservative MPs were wiped out in
Scotland in the 1980s, the legitimacy of the Thatcher regime was called in question by us all in Scotland
(including the churches and professions) and a long (and consensual) constitutional process produced a
Scottish Parliament and devolved powers for a Scottish Executive in 1999.
New Labours policies attracted little respect in Scotland despite the electoral support we gave to Bliar
and Brown.
And the crude neo-liberalism of the 2010 Lib-Con Coalition has increased the support for the apparently
social-democratic core of the Scottish nationalist leadership.
Hence the astonishing ease with which the Scottish Nationalist Party took power (despite the
proportionate voting system) in 2011. Just look at the lecture delivered in London earlier this year (at
the Hugo Young Lecture) by the Governments First Minister (Alex Salmond)
The Scottish Government's policies attempt to protect many values which would be dear to any post-war
social democrat in these isles. For example, we have promoted what we call a living wage - 7.20 an hour.
And we have made a conscious decision to provide certain core universal services, rights or benefits,
some of which are no longer prioritised by political leaders elsewhere such as free university tuition,
free prescriptions, free personal care for the elderly and a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies
across the public sector
And looking at the problems of health reform now, I thank the heavens that Westminster's writ no
longer runs in Scotland on health issues. But the looming issues of welfare reform exemplify
why Scotland needs the powers to make our own policies to meet our own needs and values.
We do this because we believe that such services benefit the common weal. They provide a sense of
security, well-being and equity within communities. Such a sense of security is essential to a sense of
confidence and as we have seen over the last three years, confidence is essential to economic growth.
And the social wage also sets out our offer for people who want to live in Scotland, regardless of their
background. We will provide a secure, stable and inclusive society. And by doing so we will encourage
their talent and ambition. Scotland will be a place where people want to visit, invest, work and live.
An independent Scotland could be a beacon for progressive opinion south of the border and further
afield addressing policy challenges in ways which reflect the universal values of fairness and are
capable of being considered, adapted and implemented according to the specific circumstances and
wishes within the other jurisdictions of these islands and beyond.
That, I believe, is a far more positive and practical Scottish contribution to progressive policy than
sending a tribute of Labour MPs to Westminster to have the occasional turn at the Westminster tiller
particularly in the circumstances of the Labour opposition's policy increasingly converging with that of
the coalition on the key issues of the economy and public spending.

24

Social democracy, then, seems to be alive and well.......

Those wanting to know more about the Scottish devolution experience of the past 13 years can
read a good objective treatment here
And those wanting to get a sense of the sort of discussion which is going on about the future of the
country - read here
Friday, October 26, 2012

Scottish exceptionalism?
I am a Scot although its interesting that I
forgot to include this in the list of ways I set
out in a 2010 blogpost in which I could (and had)
describe myself over the years! Perhaps this
reflects my ambivalence about nationalism.
Most people are proud of their nationality I
certainly am but some are hesitant. We are
told that Germans, for example, associate more
easily with their Land (Province) than with the
country although Peter Watsons recent and
encyclopaedic German Genius sets out in
amazing detail what German culture and science
have given the world. At the other end of the
scale, the Hungarian arrogance I experienced
when I worked and lived there for a couple of years seemed to be a psychological defence against
their feeling that Hungary had failed in everything it had attempted. Emigre Hungarians, however,
have an amazing record witness Arthur Koestler, photographic genius Andre Kertesz, and
economist Thomas Balogh.
Romanians, as I said recently, are a proud people that is not the same thing, I suspect, as being
proud of their nation. Most Romanians I have known are ashamed of how their nations governing
elites have behaved over the years - but react violently to external criticism. They are certainly
proud of the contributions which various Romanians have made to modern life eg the jet engine
(Coanda)
All this is by way of an introduction to the post I did exactly two years ago on the Scottish
contribution to the world at least as seen through the eyes of an American historian, Arthur
Herman in his book The Scottish Enlightenment the Scots invention of the modern
world (200). One of our younger generation of writers summarises the story nicely
The Knoxian reformation of the 16th century had resulted in 100 years of almost uninterrupted violence
and bloodshed. Three consecutive failed harvests at the end of the 17th century, against the backdrop of
England's imperial growth, set the circumstances for Scotland's ruling classes to sell out its sovereignty literally. The Earl of Roseberry was paid 12,000 from a slush fund operated by the London government
to enable the merger between Scotland and England to take place. But rather than suffer the expected
dilution into insignificance, Scotland became proportionately the most significant player in the union's
empire. And through innovations in philosophy, education, commerce, engineering, industry, architecture,
town planning, soldiering, administration, medicine and even tourism, the Scots invented the modern world

25

of capitalist democracy. The springboard for this was the most powerful legacy of the Presbyterian
revolution: a universal (or near-universal) education system.
The Presbyterians popularised the notion that political power, though ordained by God, was vested not in
the monarch or even in the clergy, but in the people. Yes, Scottish Presbyterians could behave like
ayatollahs and the Kirk could regularly incite public executions for spurious blasphemy or witchcraft
charges. But one of the last acts of the Scottish parliament was to establish a school and salaried
teacher in every parish.
The effect of this was that by 1750, with an estimated 75% level of literacy, the Scots were probably
the most well-read nation on earth. The dichotomy between authoritarian repression and liberal inquiry in
Scottish society was embodied in Robert Burns. At 16, the poverty-stricken Ayrshire ploughman was
versed in Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, Locke, the Scottish poets and the French Enlightenment
philosophers. The knock-on effects of the education act were felt in universities and the book trade. By
1790 Edinburgh boasted 16 publishing houses.

I knew about Adam Smith and David Hume (although not properly appreciated the latters
arguments eg reason is and ought to be the slave of passions). I knew about the openness of
Scottish universities in medieval times and their strong links with continental universities (not least
as a final stage of legal education); about the Scots role in the British Empire (and in exploiting the
opium trade); and that most of the stuff with kilts is actually a Victorian invention.
What, however, I hadnt realised until I read the book were things such as
The speed with which Scotland apparently changed from a backwater of Iran-like religious
domination and prejudice to playing a leading role in the development of the study of
mankind
just what a galaxy of stars there were in Edinburgh and Glasgow between the last 2
Scottish uprisings of 1715 and 1745. Frances Hutcheson I had vaguely heard of but not his
core argument that all men of reflection from Socrates have sufficiently proved that the
truest, most constant and lively pleasure, the happiest enjoyment in life, consists in kind
affections to our fellow creatures.
The role Scots politicians played in liberalising British politics in the 1830 period
How major a role Scots played in the American revolution and, indeed (on the downside), in
the development of its revivalist religious tradition!
Many people feel that Arthur Herman has gone too far in his claims - and there is a short
professional piece here which takes a more balanced view and reminds us that most Scots (certainly
in and around Glasgow) are renowned for a strange sense of victimhood and inferiority.
Coincidentally, another book with a similar argument has just appeared - Capital of the Mind - how
Edinburgh changed the World

26

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Why should Scots support the Union?

An update on the situation in a small and
faraway country which has been growing
disenchanted with its larger neighbour in the
last 30 years and could shortly pose yet
another problem for European
constitutionalists Scotland.
The prospect of a referendum on
independence became inevitable when the
Scottish Nationalists won, in May 2011, an
outright majority of seats - all the more
astonishing since the electoral system had
been designed in 1998 to avoid any party
winning such a majority. In the middle of last
year the UK Prime Minister bowed to the inevitable and accepted that a referendum would be held in 2014.
Political grandees from the establishment parties have united to fight for the Union but, as a
powerful article argues today, with little conviction and fewer converts.
Labour has still failed to sell the union on its own merits. Events since then may even have rendered the
task impossible. Unionists have talked loftily about dangers of break-up and separation in a world that is
thirsting for continuity and stability.
Yet we conveniently overlook the fact that London has already broken away from the United Kingdom and
now exists as a world super-state governed by the greed of unhindered capitalism and recognisable as
British only by its taxis and bad service. As the world's most newly minted oligarchs continue to colonise
the independent state of London, it becomes almost impossible for families on less than 250k to live
decently there. Poor London families made homeless by the coalition benefit cuts are being evacuated as
far north as Middlesbrough.
Last week, Goldman Sachs, one of the banks with its fingers in the till when global economic meltdown
occurred, awarded an average bonus of 250,000 to each of its employees. The gap between the richest in
our society and the poorest stretched a little more and we were reminded yet again that the UK
government, despite its promises, allows greed, incompetence and corruption to be rewarded. (How many
people do you think will go to jail for the Libor rate-fixing scandal?) Meanwhile, Westminster politicians are
dividing the poor into categories marked "deserving" and "scum".
The most common wet dream of every Bullingdon Tory is the national lottery. And what a jolly wheeze it is:
get the poor to fund our biggest capital projects in exchange for a cruel fairy story. Now they've doubled
the stake to 2, confident that the benefit cuts are increasing their customer base daily. In Glasgow, the
boss of a council-run regeneration agency was given a 500k pay-off at a time when the Citizens Advice
Bureau is reporting almost 1,000 calls a day from people whose families have been impoverished by the
benefit cuts. Life for millions of people under the most rapacious and reactionary government in 150 years
has diminished. To prevent the peasants revolting, however, they have been treated to exaggerated
displays of unity euphoria such as the Olympics and assorted royal jubilees.

27

Labour in the UK long ago gave up any pretence at being the party of the marginalised and the vulnerable.
Instead, it throws rotten fruit at the SNP when it says what Labour should be saying. Alex Salmond last
week painted a handsome picture of what a new Scottish constitution following independence would look like.
Every Scot, he said, would have a right to a home and free education. There will be no nuclear weapons. And
we'll decide who we're fighting and who we're not. Until Blair, Mandelson, Balls and Miliband hijacked the
party, that was what I thought Labour stood for. Now they simply boo and hiss with the Tories and say it
can't be done.
Earlier this month, the UK Treasury declared that, following a period of intense and prolonged analysis of
the economic numbers, each of us would be 1 a year worse off in an independent Scotland. Put another
way, for 1 a year you will never have to endure the economic privations of a Conservative government ever
again. You will not be penalised for being poor or old and nor will you suffer the pain of watching your
young boys being killed in illegal wars or occupations.
We won't be lacking friends, either. Of matters concerning oil and Europe in an independent Scotland, the
Norwegian government officials I met in Oslo last month were very upbeat. "Come and talk to us before you
commit to the EU," they said, "and let us advise you how to manage your oil fund and how to negotiate with
the oil companies."
With each passing week, it becomes more difficult to support a union that doesn't really exist anyway.
Morally, it may soon become indefensible to remain in a state that rewards corruption and promotes
inequality when you have an opportunity to leave it behind.
However, as my friend and namesake, Alf Young, points out in this article, a declining number of Scots are,
these days, disposed to vote for independence. And the voters will, in 2014, be faced with a very complex
issue as the UK Prime Minister is now committed to giving the British voter a referendum on whether to
stay in or exit from the European Union. So the Scots will not really know what they are voting for next
year - Scotland, the UK or Europe?

The photo is of Helensburgh in Scotland - and is an elevated view of what I could see most days
from my home town of Greenock on the river Clyde.
On July 13th the waters become muddied with Scotlands First (ie Prime) Minister suggesting
that we had six Unions only one of which would dramatically change in the event of a Yes vote.
This political union is only one of six unions that govern our lives today in Scotland and the case for
independence is fundamentally a democratic one. "A vote for independence next year will address the
democratic deficit which sees policies like the punitive Bedroom Tax, the renewal of Trident or Royal Mail
privatisation imposed on Scotland against the wishes of Scotlands democratically elected
representatives."
But that will still leave five other unions intact. We will embrace those other unions while using the
powers of independence to renew and improve them.

"We will remain members of the European Union but with a seat of our own at the top table, and
without the uncertainty of a referendum on membership, as proposed at Westminster.
"We will still be members of Nato co-operating with our neighbours and friends in collective
security. But we can still decide not to be a nuclear power like 25 out of 28 current members of
NATO.
"We will be part of a currency union with the rest of the UK but we will finally have the full
taxation powers we need to promote jobs and investment.
"And we will retain the monarchy making the Queen the Head of State of 17 independent
countries, rather than 16. However, we will adopt a new constitution, written and endorsed by the

28

people, asserting rights as well as promoting liberties and enshrining the ancient Scottish
principle that ultimate sovereignty rests with the people.
"The final union does not rely on the choices made by politicians and parliaments the social union
unites all the peoples of these islands. "People in England will still cheer Andy Murray, and people
in Scotland will still support the Lions at rugby. People will still change jobs and move from
Dundee to Dublin, or from Manchester to Glasgow. With independence, we will continue to share
ties of language, culture, trade, family and friendship. The idea that these ties are dependent on
a Parliament in London are and have always been totally nonsensical."

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Another new nation?

As befits a blog called Balkan and Carpathian Musings, Ive been writing a lot in recent weeks
about the Balkans but I am a Scot (through and through) even if I havent lived in that country for
23 years and have these days to draw attention to the large (670 pages in my pdf version) and
probably unique document which was published yesterday by the current Scottish Executive on
the subject of Scottish Independence or, more literally and prosaically, Scotlands Future. 200
of the pages deal with more than 600 questions which have been raised about the issue of
independence over the past few years.
Ours may be a small nation (5 million) but there is a large diaspora throughout the world (including
me) which takes an intense interest in its affairs and development. The Guardian site gave good
coverage to the publication of the document yesterday
The PM (Salmond) says the white paper is the most detailed blueprint any people have been offered
anywhere in the world as a basis for becoming independent.
Scotland would become independent in better circumstances than almost any other country in the
world.
This reflects Scotland's "vast potential". It has an outstanding natural heritage, and skilled and
inventive people.
With independence, it could build a fairer nation, he says.
But, to maximise its potential, Scotland needs to be able to take decisions for itself.
It needs to be able to develop its productivity and competitive advantage. And it needs to create a
fair society.
Salmond says the white paper answers 650 questions.
But there really is only one question: should Scotland take decisions for itself?
He says he wants a positive debate (before the referendum in September 2014).
The referendum won't be decided by him, or by the media. It will be decided by the people.
Scotland's future is now in the hands of the Scottish people.
The Deputy PM (Sturgeon) says the white paper also sets out the "seamless" process by which
Scotland could stay in the EU.

29

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Social democracy

Neal Ascherson is one of many names I encountered in the late 1970s in the Glasgow HQ of a
Regional government system (responsible then for half of Scotlands citizens) of which (in my early
30s) I had a key leadership role Felicity Kendall, Richard von Weizsaeker, Melina
Merkouri and Paul Scofield were some others (an interesting melange - n'est-ce pas??).
The Liberal leader of the time Jo Grimond with whom (despite our different political allegiances)
I established a quiet relationship actually benignly called me the Gauleiter of Strathclyde. Those
were the days in which the political expediency of a Labour Government led by James Callaghan
allowed a referendum on Scottish devolution which led to a nominal victory but one which failed
to meet (an impossible) legal precondition of 40% support of the official electorate. For my sins I
had been active in the No campaign (with people such as Tony Benn) but in the privacy of the
polling both had actually voted yes!!
Today being St Andrews Day gives Neal Ascherson the opportunity to comment on the Scottish
Executives intentions for the future
Reading Scotland's Future, I couldn't at first account for a faint twinge of melancholy, a recognition.
Then it dawned on me. The Scotland being here described or proposed was the Britain so passionately
hoped for by the millions who voted for Tony Blair, back in 1997.After 18 years of Thatcherism, the
longing was for a return to fairness and a stronger regulating and redistributing role for the state. What
New Labour did with those hopes is another story. But Salmond's "what sort of Scotland" is also a
moderate, statist social democracy that partners the private sector but is not afraid to for example
renationalise the Royal Mail.The yes camp is wider than the official yes campaign.
Around Scotland in recent months, I keep meeting people who would never vote SNP or trust Salmond, but
who are painfully admitting that they may have to vote yes. This is because they are appalled at the way
the British state is heading, under Tory or Labour: the downward plunge into the barbarism of neoliberal
politics, the contempt for public service, the almost monthly advance of privatisation. Wrestling with old
loyalties, they may vote for what Ian Jack called "the lifeboat option" an independent Scotland as the
only way to escape that fate.It's a lifeboat the SNP government has already launched, using devolution to
keep out English "reforms" to the NHS or higher education. Gordon Brown himself used to argue that the
health service and the postwar welfare state were the supreme achievement of Great Britain's history.
And yet it's only the SNP that has embarked on this astonishing attempt to preserve and grow what's
left of that achievement in one part of old Ukania. It hurts to laugh at some of history's jokes, but
here's one: in spite of itself, the SNP is the most truly British party in these islands.

30

POSTS IN 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014

Let's talk about Scotland

It was 21 years ago that Czechia and Slovakia split from
one another to eachs great surprise. I was there in
1992/93 and can vividly remember the political impasse in
Prague and then the celebratory noises in Bratislava. Most
of my friends were Slovak and they all seemed to regret
the split despite the feelings about Czech arrogance.
For the past few years, it is the Slovaks who have had the
most to celebrate with both their economy and politics.
It was all so quickly done deals by the senior politicians with no opportunity given to ordinary people to express an
opinion.
In this sense it is not at all like the Scottish situation
whose referendum in September this year has been
scheduled for more than 2 years.
Ive just had the thought to drive to Scotland via Slovakia and chat to my friends along the
route (including those in Belgium) about the situation.
The relationships are, of course, a bit different both in scale and history. Scotland has less than
8% of the UK population (compared with Slovakias 33% share of the CS citizenry) and Scotland
has been a significant player for 300 years in the story that is British capital and Empire (whereas
Cz and Slo were linked as a nation for only 70 years).
I left Scotland and the UK in 1990 but did participate (somewhat ambivalently) in the 1979
referendum which was slated to give Scotland the devolution the country obtained only in 1999.
My inclination this past year has been to vote yes - like the vast majority of Scots, I simply feel
the political class in London is a different ideological race. And the tactics these past few weeks of
the Westminster (and Brussels) "so-genannten" leaders certainly make me feel a bit stroppy. The
suggestions of cretins such as the EC President (Barroso) and the UK Finance Minister that there
could be no currency link between England and an independent Scotland ; or easy negotiation to EU
membership is pure shock tactics..and so counterproductive.
These idiots dont know my countrymen who will simply come off the fence and vote yes.
The only reason the No vote (which a few months ago was so strong) is collapsing is because the
UK is now ruled by neo-liberal feudalists who, for Scots, are aliens at 2 removes.
The PM (who is not so desperate as his Labour counterpart) has now invited English people to write
to their Scottish relatives to convince them to stay in the Union. Here is one interesting effort.
And also a lovely tongue-in-cheek list of 76 things for the English to apologise to the Scots about
Here is one take on the developing situation 2 weeks ago
We now appear to be entering the third of four phases of the referendum campaign before the actual
hustings in August. Each phase has been dictated by the Nationalists. In the first phase, their task was

31

simply to get people to accept that a two-year campaign was not too much and that the running of the
country would not be neglected. Labour leader Johann Lamont's justified criticism of this simply failed to
resonate. This was followed by the elaborate countdown to the white paper, which seemed to confer Arc
of the Covenant status on this mystical document. It weighed in at more than 600 pages and the No
campaign attempted to smear it as being overly heavy and grandiose.
Yet there was a sense that voters, even those who might never get round to tackling it, were impressed
that their intellects were being taken seriously at a time when the No campaign seemed not to be taking
them seriously enough in trying to persuade us that Scotland would resemble 1970s Albania if it voted for
independence.
Following publication of the white paper, the numbers began slowly to shift. The third phase has seen the
Westminster political and coffee-house set begin to sit up straight and pay attention. This has been
accompanied in Scotland by the long-awaited engagement at street level with the referendum issues.
Here again, the Yes campaign has got its act together far more effectively. It ought to be acknowledged,
though, that the No campaign faces several social and cultural handicaps here that it is powerless to
overcome. Its leaders know, as do the rest of us, that organising rallies and public meetings in the shadow
of the union jack risks them being hijacked by the scarecrow element of Ulster loyalism and the British
far right.
Two weeks ago, I visited the Yes campaign website searching for an open event that I could attend,
preferably off the beaten track. Between the end of January and 1 March, there were more than 200
happenings, a mass engagement that touched every nook and cranny of the kingdom. Seeking a similar
event to attend on the No campaign website, I could find only a handful. I informed a friend of mine who
is close to some senior members of the No team that, if this pattern were to prevail until 18 September,
it would be the difference between victory and defeat for his people.
Within a few days, a glut of fresh activity appeared on the No horizon, but I was not convinced. Yes are
engaging with the common people of Scotland in pubs, fairgrounds and town centres all over the country.
In some of those places, the No response, in the absence of organising their own event, has been to try to
have them ejected under spurious anti-politicisation laws.

Here is one Guardian writer (Jonathan Freedland) also trying to support the No campaign.
But the place to find the real argument is the pages of the great Scottish Review here and here.
I have a feeling that there will be many others like me who worry about the sheer uncertainties
involved in blithely voting "yes" to separation, with all the risks the subsequent negotiations with
the UK rump and the EU would hold.....
I have already confessed that I was an active campaigner during the 1979 referendum for a
devolved Parliament - in the "No" camp - and then, in the privacy of the voting chamber, actually
voted "yes"!
Devolution has been a success

32

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Drifting Apart
Theres less than 6 months to go to the referendum on Scottish independence. The wind is in the
sails of those who want to cut loose from England..a few months back those disposed to vote Yes
to the question about independence accounted for only a third of the electorate . Thanks to what
is widely seen as bully tactics by those with political and financial power, those in favour of
independence are now within a few points of those disposed to say no.
My father was Scottish; my mother English. I left Scotland 24 years ago but still strongly identify
with the social democratic ethic of the nation (and it is and always has been a nation, with its
own legal, religious and educational sovereignty). The different culture is evident from the fact
that only one Conservative politician (out of 75) represents a Scottish seat in Westminster. And all
Scots are increasingly alienated from a neoliberal Coalition Government which has been in power
since 2010 in London. The Scottish Parliament and Government (Executive) which has been in power
in Edinburgh since 1999 has differentiated itself strongly from that ideology not least since the
Scottish Nationalist gained an overall majority in 2007. But is this alienation a sufficient reason to
cut off the ties with England which weve had since 1707?
As an ex-pat who has no vote (no residence) who follows the various discussion threads, I am
amazed at the self-confidence of all who take part. Where is the agnosticism and scepticism which
such a portentous issue requires..??
Donald Rumsfeld is not normally someone I would quote, but his comment about unknown
unknowns deserves respect and understanding. In all the discussion, I have seen no serious
attempt to develop different political, fiscal and social scenarios for Scotland let alone England.
It is obvious that a highly- developed country of 5 million people could operate as a nation state
there are about 40 members of the United Nations and a quarter of EU member states with smaller
populations.
The real questions are more on the following lines How independence would affect the dynamics of trade, currency and investment (public and
private) in Scotland - and in the residual (disunited) Kingdom
With different scenarios for relations with Europe and the Euro
What precise additional benefits will independence give - which the traditional and post
1999 measures of Devolution dont
How these benefits measure against the risks suggested in the first two sets of
questions.
At the personal level, I face a future where 2 of my daughters would have passports from a
different country; in which Im not even sure what form my 2015 passport (and driving license) will
take; nor in which denomination my (yet unclaimed) pension will be paid. All minor nuisances, I
readily agree, compared with the anguishes of migrants in the Europe of the first half of the 20th
century......
One of the few discussions which reflects my concerns was on the site of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh -

33

However, there is much that Scots currently take for granted, aspects of good government at the microlevel, that might be threatened by independence. Will an independent Scottish state have to replicate the
entire panoply of government ministries and public agencies, many of which benefit from economies of
scale and are run relatively speaking cheaply and smoothly as British-wide institutions? How much
would it cost Scotland, for instance, to set up its own equivalent of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing
Agency at Swansea or, alternatively, to contract in to it from outside the United Kingdom? In other areas
of public administration, the costings will be more elusive. By contrast with the humdrum and
unspectacular efficiency of the DVLA, the BBC provides a compelling example of a widely loved service,
whose broadcasting role in Scotland would be precarious in the event of independence.
Moreover, notwithstanding coded talk of a social union, welfare and pensions are, of course, likely to be
even touchier subjects for Scots. Unionists need to capture for themselves the rhetoric of social union.
Obviously, matters of public administration and the distribution of benefits do not capture the
imagination of the wider public in the same way as centuries of grievances or imagined grievances
concerning the overbearing behaviour of a richer and more powerful neighbour.
Nevertheless, such is the complexity of modern society that an interlocking set of effective UK-wide
bureaucracies however dull and uninspiring a subject for campaign slogans is not to be lightly
jettisoned without overwhelming good cause.

The House of Commons Select Committee on Scottish Affairs is chaired by an ex-colleague of mine
who was notorious all of 30 years ago for his duplicity and who does not seem to have improved
much with his added years. This site gives an insight, however, into the seriousness with which that
committee at least has taken the issue of separation and this evidence gives a sense of how the
economic aspects are being explored
Sunday, March 30, 2014

Hanging Together???
Two things you wouldnt pick up from media coverage of the Scottish referendum are that
60% of UK public spending in Scotland is handled by the Scottish Government devolved
since 1999
A significantly additional amount is slated to be given to the Scottish Government under
powers granted in a Bill approved in 2012 which will, however, only be implemented if
Scotland votes No in the referendum.
I had cleared today to look more deeply (as an ex-pat Scot) at the issues involved in the historical
vote which will take place in September. It must be one of the worlds most transparent and
sustained dialogues its been going on for 2 years since 2014 was first announced as the date.
Slovakians were offered nothing similar 22 years ago and the recent Crimean vote was simply a
farce.
A new blog (for me) Notes from North Britain gave me a useful quotation
The choice before us in September is not independence versus the status quo; change versus no
change. A No vote is guaranteed to mean that devolution will change and develop. How do I know this? I
know it because its already been legislated for, in the Scotland Act 2012. This Act, described at the time
of its enactment by the then Secretary of State for Scotland as the largest transfer of fiscal powers
within the United Kingdom in its history, will bring to Holyrood a substantial degree of fiscal devolution.
These new powers as long as Scotland votes No to independence will come fully into force in 2015

34

and 2016. Now, this is not jam tomorrow, as Nationalists sometimes claim: it has already been legislated
for. So the choice we face on 18 September is one between bringing devolution to an end (for there will
be no devolution if Scotland becomes independent) and developing devolution further.

And I was then led to what are clearly 2 key texts the first a statement from the Chairman of
the Yes Campaign which bears the rather Boon and Mills title - We Belong Together. The second is
a more academic approach which also sports a rather curious title Hanging Together . You will find
the voluminous official Scottish Government White Paper arguing the case for independence in a
previous blogpost.
My attention span, however, for such analyses is not what it once was - and I was quickly
sidetracked by a visit to the second-hand Elephant English bookshop a few minutes away. In
particular by a couple of books from the 1990s and 2000s about the Naples Bay area; and by Paul
Therouxs Ghost Train to the Eastern Star (2008) which has him revisit a heroic 5,000 km train
journey he undertook in the 1970s......
So the various papers which the British Government have been publishing in the last year to help
inform Scottish voters about the issues involved will have to wait until I return from my diversions.
Those impatient to get on with things could have a look at this.

Monday, March 31, 2014

The Status Quo is not on offer

The Anthony Frost English Bookshop in Bucharest has quite a few books on the Scottish
Independence debate waiting for me which I hope to pick up later in the week when I make the
(very pleasant) 5 hour drive up there.
In the meantime, I am catching up with the content of the 3 blogs which are dedicated to the
constitutional aspects of the debate.
Notes from North Britain (a blog written by Adam Tomkins, Prof in Public Law at Glasgow University)
is proving to contain first-class material this post from a year ago gives an important bit of the
recent 3history and makes the critical point that a No vote is not a vote for the status quo
The SNP first assumed office following the Scottish parliamentary election in 2007. Alex Salmond
became First Minister as leader of the largest single party in Holyrood. The SNP did not in those days
have the overall majority of seats in Holyrood that they have enjoyed since 2011 but they were, by a
solitary seat, the largest single party. They ruled for four years as a minority administration.
Alarmed at the advent of Nationalist rule, the three Unionist parties in the Scottish Parliament
established an all-party commission to review Scottish devolution and to make recommendations as to its
further development. This review, known as the Calman Commission, reported in 2009. The thrust of its
recommendations was accepted by the then Labour Government in Westminster, and when Labour lost
power in 2010 their broad acceptance of Calman was not reversed by the incoming Coalition. On the
contrary, Calman was embraced by the Coalition as it had been by Labour.
The result was fresh legislation in Westminster to augment the powers of the Scottish Government, to
enlarge the powers of the Scottish Parliament, and generally to reboot Scottish devolution. That
legislation was passed last year and is called the Scotland Act 2012.

35

Lets pause here to notice one thing. If you like devolution (and, indeed, if youd like to see more of
it), note who has delivered it. Labour created it in 1997-98 (with the original Scotland Act 1998)
and the Tory / Lib Dem Coalition, with Labours support, delivered round two in 2012. The Scotland
Act 2012 is not the promise of future powers. It has been enacted. It has been passed. It is the
law of the land. It has been delivered. The Unionist parties all three of them have delivered
what they promised. We have grown so used to politicians failing to deliver on their promises that it
is just worth noting that this failure has not been repeated in the case of Scottish devolution.
And, now, note this. The SNP opposed both the moves to create devolution in 1997-98 and the moves to
enhance it in 2009-12. So, what does the Scotland Act 2012 do?
- Some of the changes are massive. Huge new borrowing powers are conferred on Scottish Ministers, for
example, in order to assist them with the planning and delivery of Scottish public policy.
- And unprecedented tax powers are conferred on the Scottish Parliament, representing the biggest
internal shift of fiscal power away from Westminster since the Acts of Union, no less.
Again, it is important to reiterate that these are not idle promises of what might be done in the future
(vote NO and then well see).All of this has already been delivered (vote NO to preserve whats already
done).
The new powers will significantly alter the nature of the powers which MSPs have. Thus far, their fiscal
powers have been sharply focused on deciding how to spend public money, and a number of the
achievements of Scottish devolution have been decisions to spend public money differently from how it is
spent by Ministers in London. But, thanks to the Scotland Act 2012, MSPs will now also have powers to
decide how to raise public money: that is to say, decisions over taxation. Decisions about tax are among
the most sensitive that politicians have to make.
The aim of the Scotland Act 2012 is that, by handing these powers to MSPs in Holyrood, the Scottish
people will think ever more carefully about the sorts of folk they want to elect to the Scottish Parliament
(with power comes responsibility and all that).
Now, the scheme of the 2012 Act is that the handing over of tax powers from MPs in Westminster
to MSPs in Holyrood will be staggered.
Its not all going to happen at once in a rash fit of fiscal irresponsibility. To start with, the focus
will be on income tax, as well as on one or two more minor duties such as stamp duty and landfill
tax. But and here is the beauty of the Scotland Act 2012 the Act provides that new taxes may be

devolved to the Scottish Parliament without the need for any fresh Westminster legislation. We know,
for example, that Scottish Ministers have said that they wish to be able to set their own rates of
corporation tax. A lower rate (such as Irelands) might attract additional international investment into
the Scottish economy, the SNP have argued. The SNP may or may not be right about that, but let us
assume that they are correct.
The Scotland Act 2012 contains the trigger that can enable the power to set rates of corporation tax to
be devolved from London to Edinburgh without any further parliamentary time having to be taken up. All
that needs to happen is for the Scottish Ministers to make a case to the UK Government that this needs
to happen in the Scottish national interest and, as long as the UK Government is persuaded, the power can
be devolved without further ado.
This is why I say that there is no such thing as the status quo in Scottish politics. Responsibility
for income tax in Scotland is set to become shared for the first time between Scotlands two
governments (in Edinburgh and London). Responsibility for new and further taxes can and will be
devolved to Scottish Ministers as soon as the Scottish Ministers make the case that this should be

36

done. Devolution has always been a fluid and flexible regime. The Scotland Act 2012 makes it even
more fluid and flexible.

The choice that confronts us on referendum day is a choice not between change and no change but
between the SNPs vision for change and everybody elses. A NO vote is a vote FOR the ongoing fluidity
and flexibility, development and growth of devolution. The only party that opposes this vision is the SNP.

Deepening the Scottish debate

Theres been a lot of discussion in the past decade about the extent to which such things as the
social media and blogs are changing the media and politics. I am no fan of newspapers. Indeed I
have not bought one for 20 years. Although I go to The Guardian website every morning, I do so for
its articles rather than news - simply because media coverage of critical issues such as the debate
on Scottish Independence is so superficial. Indeed, lets call a spade a spade - its piss-poor!
The media and politicians are caught in a vicious circle of one-sided simplifications. The marketing
philosophy which is our new religion has everyone convinced that the public does not have the
attention span of a gnat. So we are fed a steady diet of headlines and short statements.
Weekly and monthly journals are not much better The London Review of Books and Vanity Fair are
rare in the licence they (occasionally) give to writers such as James Meek and Michael Lewis to
write 10,000 word articles. For serious writing, you have to go bi-monthly journals such as New Left
Review or The Political Quarterly - although, so far, even these titles have failed to give the issue
of Scottish Independence the attention it deserves.
To get serious consideration, you have to go to a few dedicated websites and blogs. In the posts of
the last couple of days I referred to the website of the UK Government - which has been issuing a
series of issue assessments called Scottish Analysis. The UK Parliaments Select Committee on
Scottish Affairs has also been conducting its own hearings and reports (although the latter are
seen as rather partial)
Probably the most useful website is one set up 2 years ago on the initiative of academics across the
law schools of the Scottish universities. It seeks to provide an independent framework within which
the key questions concerning Scotland's constitutional future can be aired and addressed and is
called The Scottish Constitutional Futures Forum. Its site gives all the key documents, a timeline
and offers links to current debate.

Two very useful blogs have been active for some years Devolution Matters is an individual blog
which

aims to help inform debate about devolution and the UKs territorial constitution, drawing on
my academic and professional knowledge. Much of the debate tends to be conducted in blackand-white terms (devolution versus independence and so forth), when the reality is more
complicated. This blog will try to illuminate current issues, and explain the constitutional,
technical and administrative issues involved. It draws on my knowledge of those matters, which
means it focuses chiefly on devolution to Scotland and Wales, and the implications of that for
the UK as whole. I am less involved in issues relating to Northern Ireland or the governance of
London, and so have less to say about those issues.

37

UK Constitutional Law is a collective blog which gives public law scholars the opportunity to
expatiate on a range of constitutional issues of which the devolution of power is only one.
One important post considered the uncertainties surrounding a yes result looking in particular at
the timetable and the complications which would ensue from the uncertainties about (i) EU
negotiations, (ii) the General UK election of 2015 and(iii) the Scottish elections of 2016.
Finally a new project at the IPPR Think Tank has started to explore a Devo More option against
the possibility that the Scottish people reject Independence but wish to continue (as they certainly
do) the push for greater powers.

This is the fourth in a series of postings this week on the issue of Scottish Independence - a
referendum on which will be held (for those living in Scotland) on 18 September.
Thursday, April 10, 2014

A Challenge to the Separatists

Two books on Scottish issues were waiting for me at the English bookshop in Bucharest the first a
dry technical treatment of the debate on Scottish independence; the second a much more lively and
courageous book which breaks away from the constraints of the yes-no framework and looks at
various local struggles for more power which have taken place in the past few decades in different
parts of Scotland. Housing and land ownership and health inequalities have tended to be the subject
of these campaigns.
In the early 1970s, I was one of a small group which pushed (successfully) for recognition of the
scale of urban deprivation in the West of Scotland. Our strategy of positive discrimination ran for
more than 20 years - with community development as its central accompanying element. The
Scottish government of 1997 took over those commitments - and has continued them since.
In those days, we assumed that the scale of the poverty we encountered within such a significant
section of the population reflected the heavy industry in the area with the insecurity of
employment which went with it. But more recent research has suggested there is a Scottish effect
which affects even those who live middle-class lives.
Various hypotheses have been proposed to account for the effect, including vitamin D deficiency,
cold winters, higher levels of poverty than the figures suggest, high levels of stress, and a culture
of alienation and pessimism
Lesley Riddoch has been an eloquent and campaigning Scottish journalist since the 1980s. Her book
- Blossom - is inspiring, and makes a clear, coherent case for community ownership and more
devolution at a local level.
Since we Scots gained our Parliament 15 years ago, there has been nothing to stop such
developments - except the mind-set of the Scots themselves!
The book is, for me, a unique challenge to explain the persisting disempowerment and inequality in
Scottish society - particularly in the excellent use it makes of comparisons with Scandinavian
countries
Through a thorough and enlightening examination of our history Ms Riddoch argues that Scots have an
inherited tolerance for inequality. Centuries of feudal land ownership and the many social ills that has

38

spawned such as unaffordable housing and chronic over-crowding- have taught us not to expect access
to our own resources.
As a result we are politically disengaged and completely unaware of our own capabilities and capacity for
change. For centuries, Scots living at the mercy of distant landlords meant high rents, bad treatment and
insecurity; feudal landownership created a huge landless class, most of whom had no choice but to inhabit
industrialised areas where they were further exploited. No poor law meant work or die.
However, this was not a universal experience. In Norway and Denmark, many workers were also
landowners- and those who moved with the tide of industrialisation into towns and cities were given
access to allotments and small plots of land by way of compensation. Even In England, where many workers
had historically been freeholders, the urbanised working classes were accommodated in terraced housingallowing them access to a front and back garden as compensation for the upheaval from their rural
roots. The Scottish crisis in land ownership led to a second one in housing and chronic overcrowding in
Scotlands towns and cities.
The Royal Commission on Housing in 1917 found an almost unbelievable density in Scotland compared to
England, a trend that continued to grow throughout the twentieth century.In 1951, census results showed
that 55 per cent of Glasgows population were living in chronically overcrowded conditions compared to
just 0.5 per cent of their counterparts in London. Even in the 1970s and 80s Scots continued to live with
an epidemic of dampness spreading through cheaply built social housing.

The point according to the author is this; we are a nation of people accustomed to bad treatment
and inequality; such a profound experience of deprivation doesnt easily leave folk memory.She goes
on to suggest that behavioural patterns and cultural preferences are determined by the an
inherited template of inequality. Because generations of our predecessors endured some of the
worst living and working conditions, today we tolerate the same injustices in their modern day
incarnations and think nothing of it.The largeness of the country estates owned by a handful of
elites has been transferred onto every other aspect of our lives and we blindly trust in distant
authority and centralised power instead of the capacity of the average person.
Scotland has the largest councils in Europe and the lowest level of democratic activity. Staggeringly, in
France 360000 local councils exist compared to our 32.We dont make decisions about what affects us
locally because weve never owned and controlled the land we live on, and voter turnout is pitifully low
because historically landownership was a precondition of enfranchisement.
Today 25 per cent of Scotlands estates have been owned by the same family for over 400 years, and
tenants of these estates still live in fear of speaking out against landowners should their lease fail to be
renewed.
Poor Scots dont exercise or eat well we are the sick man of Europe and die young because thats the
way it has always been. We continue to live within the fourth most unequal state in the world where the
gulf between the richest and the poorest is obscene by any civilised societys standards.The voices of
women are excluded from public life as if it that were absolutely normal and we tolerate some of the
lowest levels of female representation in our parliament and public bodies. We also let very rich men who
were gifted everything they have by accident of birth tell us that the poor and underprivileged of our
country are to blame for their circumstances and should expect nothing from them.

As a trustee of the Isle of Eigg Trust, Ms Riddoch was involved in the historic 1997 community buyout of the Island. Prior to the buy-out many inhabitants lived within the confines of one room to
conserve heat. Diesel was the expensive and often inaccessible fuel they relied upon entirely. As no

39

land was made available for a rubbish tip, most people shared their already limited living space with
rats, and the majority lived without leases.
After years of struggling to finance the buyout, today, the Isle of Eigg is one of Scotlands most
capable communities, tackling problems such as climate change and depopulation head on. In 2008,
diesel was finally replaced with a mini grid integrating solar, wind and hydro energy known as
Eiggtricity. By 2009, emissions had been cut by a third and the Eiggachs now have a much sought
after and elusive asset affordable energy security.
A co-operatively owned estate near South Lanarkshire is another success story. Tired of tolerating
the damp, badly heated and insecure towerblocks they inhabited, the tenants of West Whitlawburn
formed the Steering Committee of a Housing Co-op in 1989.
Describing her visit to the estate in 2010, Ms Riddoch explains the sharp contrast between the
west and the neighbouring council owned East Whitlawburn estate where icy paths, single glazed
windows and disintegrating brick work were still ubiquitous. In the west, paths were cleared every
morning and alarms fitted in the homes of the most vulnerable tenants. People took it in shifts to
monitor CCTV screens and provide cups of tea in the middle of the night to any of the 70 vulnerable
tenants who buzzed down for whatever reason. 11 deaths have been prevented because of this
monitoring system, and the co-op have produced social accounts providing facts and figures proving
that their way of doing things saves lives and cash for anyone who is any doubt that community
ownership is the way to go.
The Eiggachs, tenants of West Whitlawburn and others like them Ms Riddoch states were only able to
reach their potential once they had full access to their own resources and decision making at a local level.
This is a message which will resonate well with independence supporters, and clearly one that the author
feels is at least somewhat relevant to the current constitutional debate.
Nevertheless, it is an indictment that in a country which considers itself a modern democracy: So much
effort had to be expendedto reach a level of fairness thats been normal in other neighbouring nations for
centuries. Despite the success of the Eiggachs and the tenants of West Whitlawburn, community
ownership is still not a mainstream option in housing provision. The Eigg buy-out put land reform on the
political agenda, and the Land Reform Act was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2003, but very few
communities have taken advantage of the Scottish Land Fund to finance Buyouts. There is a very practical
reason for this the community buyout model is too intimidating for most, and politicians routinely
advocate for community ownership without coughing up the resources to make it happen.
Land Reform is one of the most pressing issues facing Scotland and Ms Riddoch suggests the swift
introduction of a land tax would be the most sensible way to bring that about. However, community buyouts
alone will not rectify the disempowerment felt across Scotland. Although the author doesnt devote too
much time to the explicit discussion of next years vote, there are important messages here for
Independence campaigners. Ms Riddoch warns it is possible that Such a divided, unequal nation is unlikely
to push wholeheartedly for a cause like Scottish independence. why bother when folk have smaller fish to
fry?
She maintains that change will only come when people can visualise things being otherwise this is an
important point which is frequently made by other progressive commentators such as Gerry
Hassan. Knowing what we know about the Scottish psyche, it is essential that the broader Yes campaign
move heaven and earth to spark imaginations and although it is beginning to sound like a platitude
provide a real vision for the future of Scotland. This can be achieved by allowing the terms of the debate
to be shaped by as many sections of the population as possible. In the process people who might now be
disengaged will find the confidence to participate in building the independent country we hope to see. The

40

fact that so many are already by-passing the official campaign in favour of grass roots movements such as
National Collective and Radical Independence is of course the strongest indicator we have that a Scotland
closer to the democratic and empowered one Ms Riddoch provides us with snap shots of here is
possible. Trusting the people of Scotland to build a better society from the bottom up is an essential step
in empowering them to take the leap towards national self determination.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Slipping - or sleeping?
The metaphors we use in our speech betray our political anxieties. During the Cold War, the talk
was of the domino effect as fears were stoked of country after country collapsing into
communism. In the 1970s, when the idea of a Scottish Parliament was on the cards, the talk was of
the slippery slope such a concession offered to Independence.
In the event, the domino pieces collapsed in the opposite direction it was communism which fell.
But, thanks to the Labour Government of 1997-2010, the Parliament (and Scottish Executive) was
eventually established - in 1999 after a successful referendum in 1997. Its electoral system was
designed to be more consensual than the Westminster one and coalition government (Lib-Lab) duly
became the order of the day despite the scale then of the Labour vote. A stronger Committee
system was also created in Parliament to encourage a more open and inclusive system of policymaking.
All of this has helped shape a positive view of the political process in Scotland which is in sharp
contrast with the cynicism and anger one finds amongst the English public.
From 2007 a minority Nationalist government has been in power in Scotland controlling the 60%
of public spending in the country which the Scottish government controls. And in 2011 Scottish
voters were duly persuaded to give the Nationalists enough seats to form a majority government.
A year later, after an intensive process of deliberation in both parliaments a major Bill was passed
(with Nationalists taking no part and abstaining in the vote). The Bill extended the powers of the
Scottish government although few voters understand that since they will not be implemented (if
at all) until after the referendum of September.
The slippery slope may have turned out to be remarkably free from stress or dangerous falls but
is still looking dangerous. As the Notes from Britain blog put it last summer
What is remarkable in the present state of the independence argument is the vast extent to which those
leading the Yes camp are deliberately playing down the very core idea of independence: namely, that
Scotland would be going it alone, as her own new State.
In a speech in the summer, the First Minister made a very curious statement which totally played down
the significance of independence he said that Scotland is currently a member of six unions and that of
these it is just the one from which he wishes a divorce. This one is the political and economic union with
the rest of the United Kingdom.
An independent Scotland will continue to participate fully in five unions, said Mr Salmond: (1) the
European Union, (2) NATOs defence union, (3) a currency union, (4) the Union of the Crowns, and (5) the
social union between the people of these isles (whatever that means).

41

Mr Salmonds new-found, five-fold Unionism is highly fanciful.

While I have little doubt about his commitment to wishing to remain in the EU, that doesnt make him
a Unionist
His NATO policy is new, hated by at least half his own party, and likely to be highly contentious within
NATO given the SNPs determination to rid Scotland of nuclear weapons.
His unreliable assertions on the currency union were exposed months ago as something which the rest
of the UK would not be able to sign up to without imposing on Scotland the sorts of fiscal constraints that
would make her more dependent on London, not more independent (the fiscal crises of southern EU states
has demonstrated the design flaw at the heart of the euro).
His use of the seventeenth-century phrase, the Union of the Crowns, is anachronistic and inaccurate:
what he proposes is that an independent Scotland would become a 17th realm within the Commonwealth
(Her Majesty the Queen is currently Head of State in 16 countries around the world).
And what this amorphous phrase the social union is supposed to mean is anyones guess.

One independent blogger put it rather well when he commented that -

Having listened to the position of those who favour Scottish independence I have reached
the view that they are not arguing for independence but for autonomy within some greater
union which protects Scotland and its economy. I have yet to hear any voice demanding
true independence.
It was only in November that the Scottish Government leaders issued the much-heralded White
Paper on Scotlands future. It may have looked focused (with 500 questions) and well-researched
(with 670 pages) but most of it is aspirational with everything depending on what will clearly be
hard-fought negotiations. About such things as the scale of public debt to be taken by an
independent country; what will happen to the pound; and the terms of entry to NATO and the EU.
The efforts which have been made by unionists these past few weeks to indicate the risks
associated with such uncertainties have, as I indicated at the time, been totally counter-productive.
The problem is that public figures supporting the unionist argument have no credibility. They belong
to a political class which is now totally despised belonging as it does either to rich upper-class,
neo-liberal Conservatives; despised New Labourites who sold out, under Bliar, to neo-liberalism; or
to Liberals who have proved more neo-liberal than them all.
And the elevation of so many Labour MPs to the House of Lords such as The Noble Lord, Baron
Robertson of Port Ellen, The Noble Lord, Baron Reid of Cardowan, The Noble Baroness, Lady Liddell
of Coat Dyke and The Noble LordBaron McConnell of Glenscorrodale now gives even them a
foreign and feudal air which does not sit well in these populist times. Robertson's recent speech is a
classic example. One is tempted to say to him what Atlee famously said to Harold Laski in the late
1940s - "a period of silence on your part would be welcome".
As the "yes" vote swells, it seems almost as if there is no longer anyone serious left to fight!
The slippery slope is no more, it seems. The ground is more level - and therefore even more
dangerous to sleepwalkers

42

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Scotland's Default Position?

The last few posts, I realise, have not actually added much to the sum of understanding on this
thorny issue of Scottish Separation - a more honest term, for me, than independence. Noone
aspires to dependence but separation is a tortuous process, generally involving painful choices and
difficult negotiations.
The Scottish Government of the past 6-7 years has had a very good press but is now, for me,
pushing its credibility - and that of the notion of independence - to the limits.

The Scottish nationalists (for such they call themselves) refused to play any part in the
decade-long process which led to the honouring by the Labour Government in 1997 of its
promise to give the Scottish people a referendum on Scottish Devolution. They simply
jumped on the bandwagon which duly delivered a resounding yes vote then - and the
Scottish Parliament in 1999. And the same was true after 2007 when various commissions
set up by other political parties reported on the feasibility of further powers; and Bills
were debated and enacted. The nationalists sat on the sidelines. Verily they have had it so
easy!
In 2011 they became the majority government and were able for the first time to talk
seriously about a referendum on independence which would not then have suited them.
Westminster could have been difficult (in ruling, for example, that the power to hold such a
referendum fell outside the devolved powers) but the terms of agreement on how such a
referendum would be conducted were concluded remarkably easily- in the Edinburgh
Agreement of October 2012 giving the Scottish Parliament the power to pose a single
option question in a referendum - which would be held before the end of 2014. No sweat for
the nationalists.
They argued in the November 2013 White Paper that little would change neither the
pound nor membership of the European Union or NATO. British Government and EC
responses have suggested otherwise. While I accept there is a lot of grandstanding going
on (particularly on EU membership), it is clear that there could be no monetary union with
England. If the euro crisis has demonstrated anything, it is that that there can be no
shared currency without fiscal union. The choice is then a Scottish pound (backed by a
National Bank, debt recycling and currency fluctuations) or the euro.

It was the Labour and Liberal politicians who controlled the Scottish Parliament from 1999-2007
who gave the Scottish Government its distinctive policies eg of social justice and community
empowerment; free residential care for the elderly (when in England they are charged 300 pounds a
week); free university tuition (when in England they are charged 9,000 pounds a year); almost free
drug treatment; health services remaining in the public domain while the subject of profit in
England; community ownership of rural land. No sweat for the nationalists.
To be fair to the party which is called the Scottish Nationalist party, they have become more
left-wing as the Labour Party became more right-wing. They have indeed inherited the mantle of
social democracy.

43

That is what has changed in the past decade. The Scottish people a social democratic nation
feel betrayed by the Labour Party; and have no confidence in the ideology it shows south of the
border.
The left-wingers in Scotland now part of the yes movement believe this is a unique opportunity to
salvage the post-1945 settlement so badly savaged by Margaret Thatcher. Small Scandinavian
nations have shown that this is possible particularly if, like Norway, they have oil and have set up
Oil Funds and tax regimes to ensure that the benefits flow to future generations. But oil revenue is
now declining sharply
Germany has shown the benefits which federal system brings. Patently Scotland has very different
traditions and culture from the rest of Britain. The majority of Scots would chose to remain in a
Federal system - but have not been offered that option. There is a huge risk they will leave by
default!
The New York Review of Books had a useful article last month which summarised the mood and
arguments nicely. And this neutral post from an English sociologist is a superb take on the wider
British context which gives so many Scots the inclination to go it alone.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The game's a bogey! The Scottish debate

For 9 months I have been boycotting Amazon but I broke that boycott a week ago my Bucharest
bookshop couldnt get me some of the books I needed for the Scottish debate. And so - 17 (!) books
duly arrived this morning four on Scotland; a couple of Sebastian Haffners on 1930s Germany
which had also proved problematic; and 4 on Greece (which I consider a neighbour given my
continuing rent of the Sofia flat).
So many strong opinions about Scottish independence so few people expressing the uncertainty
which I feel. So Im grateful to this (anonymous) respondent to a Guardian discussion thread a few
days back
Personally, I regard myself as just competent enough to realise that I am entirely incompetent to make a
valid, rational judgement on whether independence would be a good or a bad thing. It's just too complicated.
There are too many variables. My suspicion is that 90% of both the 'Yes' and 'No' camps are too
incompetent to realise that they are too incompetent to make a valid, rational judgement. ....
I doubt that anyone is actually competent enough - with enough information and with the brain to put it all
together - to make a rational judgement. And even if there are any such people, the rest of us are too
incompetent to judge their competence. It's a mess. Which is why it is irrational to base one's decision on
what one thinks it will be like after independence. The only rational question to ask ourselves is whether
it's really so bad, really so broken the way that it is, that we should risk changing it.

That's a neat way of putting things - although I would question the comment that we should not
explore the Yes scenario thats precisely the focus which seems to be missing from the discussion.
The different scenarios for a post-Independence world do need to be sketched out - their
probabilities, risks and opportunities assessed. I only see the discussion threads in The Guardian which seem to be 80 % supportive of Yes. It would be useful to do a typology of the reasons which
have driven people to this position.

44

I have the feeling now that the Scottish referendum is a foregone conclusion that mid-September
will see a strong vote for independence. Support for the union is still a few points ahead of the
separatists - but the gap has almost vanished.
A month ago I felt that despite the evidence of the internet which strongly supports the Yes
campaign - the privacy of the voting booth would act as a brake. But these last few days in the
mountains Ive been surfing and simply can no longer find voices supporting the link with England and
Wales. Andrew OHagen, Tom Gallagher and Adam Tomkins are the only independent voices I find
lone writer, historian and constitutional lawyer, respectively. Oh and also this blogger "veering to
no" whom one of the Yes websites, by virtue of her rarity value, rather caustically called his swing
constituency
Other serious websites supporting independence are Thoughtland big ideas from a Small Nation;
National Collective (artists for a creative Scotland); and Common Weal
A rare - but rather unctuous - example of one supporting the union case is A Force for Good. In the
neutral corner The New York Review of Books has a fairly light take on the debate from Jonathan
Freedland
Two strong names supporting separation are Tariq Ali - in CounterPunch - and Craig Murray - the
latter making the good point that the strong UKIP showing in the English local election polls next
week is likely to give an even bigger boost to the ongoing momentum behind separation.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Ideology - not nationalism

How to make sense of the citizens of a country who in the 1960s viewed nationalists as bampots,
55 years later, contemplating separation? A bampot, by the way, is (according to this delightful
small lexicon of the great Scottish vernacular words you find in everyday conversation) a somewhat
combustible individual
I well remember the couple of characters in my (shipbuilding) town of the 1960s who were
prominent nationalists. We regarded them with benign amusement harking back to the 1930s
So why have things changed?
The discovery of oil off Scotlands eastern waters in the 1970s was the game changer which
brought electoral fortune to the nationalists. Its our oil was the simple but powerful slogan which
played a significant part in bringing down the Labour Government of 1979. Actually that was the
electoral arithmetic of the time the wider mood music was an ode to a government and social
ideology which seemed to have lost its way.
And thats the point ideology not nationalism is the issue.
Scotland was left in 1707 with its own proud institutions the legal system (based on Roman law);
its educational and church systems. It remained therefore a nation - and developd a strong
attachment to egalitarian values which have always been more disputed south of the border. In that
sense, its the rest of the UK that changed in the late 1970s rather than Scotland.
Margaret Thatchers pro-market stance alienated the Scots her encouragement of greed
offended us. And, after 18 years of that, New Labour clothed itself for another 13 years in that

45

same neo-liberal mantle. The 1999 devolution settlement gave us the chance to demonstrate a
different type of politics and that opportunity was taken by the much-maligned politicians

It was the Labour and Liberal politicians who controlled the Scottish Parliament from 19992007 who gave the Scottish Government its distinctive policies eg free residential care for
the elderly (when in England they are charged 300 pounds a week); free university tuition
(when in England they are charged 9,000 pounds a year); almost free drug treatment; health
services remaining in the public domain while the subject of profit in England; support of
initiatives in community ownership of rural land. Renewable energy. all legitimised by a clear
and strong commitment to social justice and community empowerment.
Im proud of that record and would wish to see it extended. Its a superb example of the sort of
federalism which has proven so powerful a system for countries such as Germany.
But we can no longer identify with the divisive ideology at the heart of London government. In the
1960s and 1970s the strongest movement I was part of was the anti-nuclear one. The nuclear
submarines were based on my river just across the water from my town. I was part of several large
protests about this. I was also proud to support the plays of radical John McGrath and
his7.84 theatre company.
Lets remember what 7.84 stood for that 7% of the people (ten) owned 84% of the wealth. 40
years later the percentage is more like 1:99.
Thats a critical part of the reason for the current mood in Scotland. The question, of course, is
whether people can stop the world and get off. We are part of a wider system which has to be
changed. Can we do it better in or outside of the UK. And what happens if and when the English
say they want to leave the EU?
The books I received yesterday and which I will read this week are
The Road to Independence Scotland in the Balance; Murray Pittock (2008)

The Battle for Britain Scotland and the Independence Referendum; David Torrance (2013)

Evidence, Risk and the Wicked Issues arguing for independence ; Stephen Maxwell (2012)

Class, Nation and Socialism the Red Paper on Scotland 2014 ed P Bryan and T Kane

Wealth Creation - the elephant in the Scottish Room??

This is probably the only blog written by a Scot which is still neutral about the issue of
independence the subject of a referendum on 18 September. Its neutral for three basic reasons
Ive been out of the country (Scotland and the UK) for 24 years almost as long as I was
politically active within Scotland
I come late to the discussion
I am a natural sceptic particularly of prevailing consensus (and most Scottish scribblers
seem to be separatists)
So far this series of blogposts has made the following points
A significant amount of power was passed to the Scottish Parliament and Government in
1999
More will pass when the 2012 Scotland Act is implemented

46

The Scottish government has still to use its existing tax-raising powers let alone the
additional offered by the 2012 Act
The Scottish Parliament and its people can be proud of the way the new policy-making
capacity has been handled. Distinctive policies have been developed and the respect of its
citizens earned.
It has still to build on some of that innovative work eg in the fields of community
ownership of rural land; and of renewable energy
The post -2007 Nationalist government is hardly nationalist it stresses the importance
of remaining within five of the six Unions with which it has suggested Scotland is currently
associated.
and, ideologically, it seems more social democratic than anything (although its absence of a
tax base means that it has not really been tested on this count)
the uncertainties and risks associated with negotiations with the UK, the EU and other
bodies are generally ridiculed by the yes campaign.
The Scottish and UK media do not support the idea of independence but journalists
generally have given an increasingly sympathetic treatment to the yes campaign and have
ridiculed the No campaign
It is indeed now difficult for anyone with a different view to be taken seriously
The betting is now that the vote will be for separation

As someone who has been a social democrat all my life and not well disposed to the business class,
the following piece in todays inimitable Scottish Review about wealth creation seems a really
important contribution to the debate
As a Scot with almost no sense of being 'British', the Yes campaigners should have little problem
convincing me to side with them. In fact, over the past year, I have become even less enthusiastic about
the idea of an independent Scotland as it is being proposed........If we want to a glimpse into the future,
we need to look not just at what is set out in the white paper but at what the SNP has done as the
Scottish Government in the past seven years. Two specific objections have become clear in the past
year's campaigning; first, the enormity of unravelling a 300-year-long administrative union. Second, the
uncertainty over which currency an independent Scotland would use. Greece has shown how the wrong
currency can destroy an economy and then a society.
More generally, Alex Salmond has championed independence to create a fairer, social democratic
Scotland. This tells us little. Who promises a less fair Scotland? Social democratic has become shorthand
for the society that politicians and commentators the distinction between the two has almost
evaporated would like to create. Sometimes 'progressive' is used in the same way.
Significantly, there has never been a social democratic party in Scotland. Across Western Europe such
parties are common. There, it is understood to involve a productive economy underpinning a welfare
state. The first part has rarely concerned Scottish politicians. In fact, too many Scots have an
instinctive aversion to wealth creation, even as they enjoy its fruits and promise the rest of us we
too will share them.The SNP would deny it, but its track record on wealth creating is on a mediocre
par with the Labour Party.
There is no firmly rooted understanding that a successful capitalist economy is necessary for the future
prosperity of Scotland. In social democratic Sweden or in Germany it is taken for granted.

47

Lacking a coherent view of wealth creation the SNP like Labour fell into enthusiastic support for
prosperity based on financial services. There was no ideological basis for this. It was merely that, for a
number of years, roughly 1992-2008, this sector seemed capable of producing the profits and tax
revenue needed for higher public spending. It also created a large number of clean, comfortable jobs
for people sitting at computers at a time when the alternative was low-paid work in in cleaning, catering
and caring.
While it pays lip service to the idea of a high skill-high wage economy, the reality has been a continuation
of hand to mouth policies that date back to the 1950s.Tax-dodging Amazon is lured here because it can
provide jobs. That these are low-skill jobs, even in comparison with those provided by multinationals in the
post-war era, is secondary. Where previously, NCR and Caterpillar brought skilled manufacturing jobs,
now Murdoch's Sky brings call centre employment.
The promise of low corporation tax is clear evidence that this policy is intended to be a core feature of
the economy of an independent Scotland. (The irony is that Ireland has already cornered this niche
market as a small, English speaking outpost of the European continent. Hi-tech companies choose Ireland.
Amazon chooses Scotland for its giant warehouse.) When it comes to fostering an equal society, the
record of the SNP is similarly poor, even as Alex Salmond laments the fact that Scotland is the fourth
most unequal country in the world.
In the early 2000s, there was such a huge increase in public spending that Steven Purcell, when running
Glasgow Council, could talk of councils 'awash with money'. This spending made little impact of the
endemic social problems of urban Scotland. New entitlements were added to old ones. In almost every
case, the already prosperous gained most. 'Free' university tuition gives more to prosperous East
Dumbartonshire than to Glasgow where a far small percentage of pupils achieves university entrance
qualification although pupils in both areas attend comprehensive schools. (In fact, schools in deprived
areas are encouraged to adopt a non-academic curriculum; de facto junior secondaries.) The area where
the disparity between Scotland as 'progressive beacon' and the less attractive reality stands out most
clearly is in tax revenue raised from oil and gas. This money, 10 billion in 2011-12, is at present shared
between some 60 million Britons. Post-independence, it would be shared between 5.3 million Scots. This is
not my idea of social democracy; it is closer to its antithesis. Professor Paul Collier raised this point in the
Herald and, sadly but predictably, he was denounced online.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Wha's Like Us?

It occurred to me this cold, windy morning in the Carpathian mountains that I hadnt seen any
articles subjecting the discussion on Scottish Independence to discourse analysis cold and windy
mornings in the mountains tend to bring on such thoughts!
When I googled, I found three - but written, it seemed, by undergraduates with all the preliminary
regurgitation this requires of obfuscating theory this ones exploration of the language of the
main campaigns was vaguely interesting. Another papers analysis (in (2006) of ex-First Minister
Jack McConnells speeches was simply inconsequential and outdated
And this ones application of frame analysis to 4 Scottish Leaders speeches was very
disappointing the discussion being limited to the four obvious constitutional scenarios rather than
a typology of arguments which an earlier post of mine had indicated were overdue in the debate
One contribution (in the discussion thread which the Guardian had a few days ago on the issue)
should figure in any such typology. It asked simply why we apparently think that the Scottish
political class will be able to shake off the disease which has afflicted all other political classes in

48

Europe in the post-war period and to which I;ve referred frequently in this blog (in deed only
yesterday)
I'm an Englishman living in Largs. Funnily enough, I'll be voting 'no' in the referendum. I totally understand
the desire of Scots (like many, if not most, non-southern English) to be shot of Westminster, but the
premise that 'we' would be better off governing 'ourselves' is flawed on a number of levels, not least
because it assumes that Scotland doesn't (or won't) have a political class which is emotionally and
practically distinct from the rest of its population. This is arguable, of course; but one lesson of 1707 is
surely that when it comes to realpolitik, Scotland's leaders are historically no less self-serving than anyone
else's.
This won't be popular, either (especially coming from an Englishman),
but part of the problem an independent Scotland faces is that it is a
fragmented country. I would be interested to know what most
Highlanders nowadays think about national identity, but certainly
prior to the Act of Union (and, arguably, for a very long time after
that) most Scots did not consider highlanders to be Scottish at all.
Surely, the actual political (and even cultural) differences (beyond a
simplistic 'Yes' and 'No') between highland and lowland Scots, rural
and urban Scots, or Scots from the industrial West and Lothian are
far greater than any great unifying national identity.
From a purely practical point of view, I really believe that devolution
has allowed the Scottish Parliament the freedom to do the
wonderful things that it has done (from no tuition fees, to freedom
from prescription charges, to consistently higher per capita health spending) without having to face some
of the hardest choices when it comes to the possible risks of independence. In the end, very little about
the realities of an independent Scotland is certain, so it remains a largely emotional debate.
Despite how this post might read, I don't favour the status quo; but swapping one political class for
another (just because they're 'our own') seems self-delusional to me.

Scottish Review is the only Scottish journal I know which gives space to critical voices which
challenge the conventional wisdom (its tolerance knows no bounds they have several times allowed
the murderous George Robertson a voice). Significantly its totally independent and electronic .
And, without the scandalous tone found in newspapers, the Review documents the failings of the
Scottish professional class which holds such power in Scotland .
One of the things which makes me keep an open mind during this debate is the over celebratory
Whas like us? tone of the contributions. True that phrase seems self-deprecatory but in fact we
can outdo the Romanians any day in the scale of our claims to what weve contributed to the
world.
And I find it interesting that when I googled the phrase I came across the thoughtful website of
someone who had been Deputy-Leader of the Scottish National Party. Like a lot of others he has
now parted with the Party although he still favours independence.
My conclusion is that we are disputatious people (don't get me started on religion!) with a
supine media and bloated professional class with a great sense of its self-importance
elements which we need to bear in mind as we contemplate future scenarios.
I well understand that this will be construed as defeatist thought by those who hypothesise that
Scotland will be given a great psychological boost by its partition as discussed in the Volokh blog

49

Defeatist or realist - it would be useful to see some rather clearer assessments of this "separation
boost".........
PS also while googling I found this interesting Guide to the debate.
And also this great background article from Etudes Ecossaises (in English!)
Sunday, May 18, 2014

Scotland - keeping an open mind

I had wanted today to write something about what might be called the separation boost the
social and economic advantage which is to flow from Scottish Independence once it is negotiated
after what looks to be a successful referendum on September 18 th
But I got sidetracked not least by the various websites and articles Id collected over time on the
issue of Scottish separation but not properly looked at
And one of the things which disappoints me as I look at how the great debate is being conducted
is - the absence of websites or blogs devoted to the issue (and there are so many!) which are
keeping an open mind. There are some great dedicated sites.but few quality ones (it seems to me
so far) which try to explore the issues dispassionately.
A rare one which does is the Church of Scotland which ran 32 discussions in its churches in
various parts of the country and produced earlier this year (I think) a useful snapshot called
Imagining Scotlands Future. I'll try to say something about the document soon
And it is that same institution which produced a few days ago a proposal for a reconciliation
service to help Scots on different sides of the barricades deal with one another after 18
September
In that same spirit of reconciliation (which my (Scottish) father undertook in post-war Germany)
future posts on this blog will try to "distill" from
those sites (for the benefit of this blog's global
readers) the essence of the debate.
In the 24 years I've been out of the country, I'm used
to being asked if I'm English. No, I have always replied,
"I'm Scottish". I have never had any doubt about my
identity!
But I am torn in this debate about independence. Last
autumn I was in favour. Now I'm not so sure. And bear in
mind that Ive spent my whole life thinking (and acting)
about issues related to the question of government four years of university study; followed by a combined
career of lecturing about and practising local and
regional development. A useful base, many would see, for
the 20 years which followed - advising governments in
"post-communist" countries on various issues relating to
the reform of their machinery of government. With due
modesty (I hope), I can reasonably claim to be well-read
and experienced in issues of governance. As I don't have a vote in this referendum, I can therefore
continue to be dispassionate in any advice and comment I offer.

50

And let me start with the author of one of the books I received recently in Bucharest - Professor
Jim Gallagher - Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College, Oxford and adviser to the Better Together
Campaign. His book (with Ian Maclean) "Scotlands Choices" is one in the small library I've been
accumulating in recent months on the independence issue. This text is taken from the Polity Press
website.
I warn you it is a long post but its tone makes it worthy of being the first of this series - it will
be duly balanced by the next post
Modern British politics has never experienced anything like this campaign. Governments arguing on each
side indeed the whole resource of the devolved government apparently devoted to little else producing a
White Paper remarkable for its length, at least. Longer even than a US presidential election in reality
stretching back to 2011. High reported intention to vote but so far a remarkably stolid public opinion. One
very striking feature is the willingness of todays UK to empower the Scottish people to decide on their
future by voting for a separate Scottish state. Contrast this with Madrids deep unwillingness to agree that
Catalonia should hold a referendum at all. One might have predicted a bit more sound and fury from the UK
before so radical a course of action was agreed, but the logic that Scotland alone should make this
democratic choice was followed without question. The threat of secession is being contemplated in a very
civilised way, though that does not imply it is in any sense welcomed.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the debate in Scotland is so instrumental. Of course there are Scots
for whom nationhood is a gut question with huge emotional resonance.
My taxi driver the other day who hankered after the Bruce and the Wallace to run an independent country
(honest) was perhaps an outlier, but committed nationalists are clear believers.
Many, perhaps most, Scots however seem to view this as an instrumental question what would work best,
how in reality would things turn out, and how much would it affect Scotlands prosperity? Voters demand is
for more information, as if the referendum were a particularly important exam to study for.
The contrast with Spain is striking. In the week in which it was reported that 1.6 million people held hands
round Catalonia, 8000 hardy souls climbed the Calton Hill in Edinburgh to rally for separation. The former is
a mass movement. This lack of separatist enthusiasm in the electorate might be a weakness for the
independence campaign, but it also defines much of its nature, and the debate. Responses to a now
notorious Scottish Social Attitudes Survey question suggest that 51% of Scots would support independence
if it made them 500 a year better off, while 85% would reject it if they were 500 worse off. So debate
has focused on issues that surface in retail politics jobs, pensions, taxation and public spending rather
than principled questions of independence and statehood.
Nowhere was this more striking than in the Scottish Governments White Paper, Scotlands Future,
published last year. It is notable for length, weight 650 pages long and 3 pounds heavy and lightness. Its
definition of independence is about as light as could be and still merit the name.
Almost as much effort is devoted to explaining the things that would not change as to what would or might.
So an independent Scotland would keep not just the Queen as Head of State, but the UK pound, the Bank
of England, the Prudential Regulatory Authority, the UK Research Councils, the BBC, the National Lottery,
common welfare administrationall the way down, or maybe up, to Strictly Come Dancing.
The political logic is clear: independence is inherently a deeply uncertain and risky project. That is not a
campaigning point, but a statement of fact. It cannot be predicted with certainty how different life would
be in an independent Scotland that depends on decisions that would be taken by Scotland, and in large part
by others in reaction to it. For some voters, making things different may be the overriding priority. But for
most, risk and uncertainty is to be avoided, not sought out.
So the SNPs political imperative is to de-risk independence in voters minds, and present it as simply a small,
logical, step from devolution rather than a disruptive separation. The consequent political tactic is to

51

attack as negative or scaremongering any suggestion to the contrary, and to seek to delegitimise whoever
makes it: thus the Labour Shadow Chancellor is an ally of the Tories, or Bob Dudley of BP not a business
leader but a member of the elite. The suggestion that the interests of rest of the UK could diverge from
an independent Scotlands gets similar treatment. It is an iron law of political discourse that the amount of
emotion and abuse used in defending an argument is in inverse proportion to the arguments strength.
Of course this no more than quotidian politicking, and perhaps that is to be expected in the first couple of
years of a campaign of extraordinary length.
It began as soon as the SNP gained an overall majority in the Holyrood Parliament, and when the UK
government made clear it would ensure the legal obstacles to a devolved referendum did not stand in its
way.
A period of SNP prevarication about what sort of referendum they wanted (one question or two, and what
options) ended in the only way it could with the referendum promised in their manifesto. Beginning during
this period, and subsequently, we have seen policy contributions from the United Kingdom government
weighty in a different sense.
The Scotland Analysis program is a series of papers, avowedly intended to persuade voters of the benefits
of the UK, but extremely heavy in detailed legal, economic and policy analysis of the potential consequences
of independence. These papers are full of expert analysis of subjects as various as international law, the
effects of borders on trade, and the currency options open to an independent Scotland.
Few, if any, policy questions have been subject to such intensive scrutiny. As we approach the final (couple
of) hundred days, and then the (long) regulated period of the campaign, voters will focus on the significance
of the choice which they are to make, and the importance of its consequences. They are sure to realise
that a choice to create a separate Scottish state is not just another issue of retail politics but rather a
profound, and irreversible, decision about where they belong, and how they are governed.
The most significant event of the campaign so far, by some measure, has been the cross-party agreement
by UK politicians that the SNPs model of currency union post-separation is not sustainable, and would not
be acceptable in the interests of the continuing UK, nor indeed in Scotlands.
This is a hugely significant issue in itself no economic decision is more important for any country than
what currency to have, and the implications of the choices which are available for Scotlands prosperity, for
incomes, employment, interest rates and so on go to the core of the economic issues in the debate.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the reaction of Scottish Ministers has been one of emotive
abuse. What is perhaps more important about this intervention, however, is that it is an explicit challenge
to the SNPs depiction of independence, implying that it is not really much of a change at all. As the
campaign moves into its last 6 months, candour is to be welcomed.
The intellectual foundation of the Better Together argument, however, does not lie in the incoherence of
the independence proposition put forward by the SNP. Bolstered by the analytical work of the UK
government, it is possible to see an intellectually coherent and compelling set of arguments for maintaining
Scotlands place in the United Kingdom, as it is today with its own democratic institutions, as well as the
strength, stability and security of the wider nation state.
The argument from economic union is, bizarrely, wholly accepted by the SNP. Everyone in the UK benefits
from being part of a large domestic market, in which not just goods and services but workers and capital
resources can move without hindrance to take advantage of economic opportunities. Independence, which
most economists agree would create a border effect of some magnitude, could only hinder that.
An integrated economy, together with an effective banking union and fiscal sharing, allows the UK to
sustain a single currency, not just a symbol, but an effective sign of economic union. The UK is however
more than an economic union. Economic union, and the fiscal sharing it allows, create the opportunity for

52

social solidarity, so that individual parts of the UK gain security from being part of a larger economic whole,
and can manage economic shocks and volatility in a way in which a small nation could not.
This is shown particularly in the UKs single pension and welfare benefits system, in which the
circumstances of individuals, rather than where they live or their nationality, determine their pension or
support. Independence would certainly end that. Of course in voting to stay in the UK, Scots would also be
voting for continuation of a form of political union which allows for very substantial, and increasing,
decentralisation of power and responsibility to the Scottish Parliament, so that Scots can have greater
control over their domestic affairs without abandoning the benefits of being part of a larger country.

The portrait is of Henry Raeburn - one of Scotland's best painters - of the 19th century
Tuesday, May 20, 2014

The Breakdown of Nations

I appreciate that my (global) readers are not
necessarily interested in Scotland or Romaniaor
Bulgariaor Germany which have all been subjects
of (separate) series of posts in the past year.
Thats why Im rationing such posts choosing a
mixture of representative and original
contributions.
My next contributor, Murray Pittock, was smart
enough to use way back in 2008 the title The
Road to Independence? Scotland in the Balance of one of the books I have been dipping into in the
past month to help my understanding of the issues involved.
I have a revised and expanded version produced last year. And a bonnie book it is!
Pittock was Professor of Scottish and Romantic Literature and Deputy Head of Arts at
the University of Manchester, becoming the first ever professor of Scottish Literature at an
English university and is now Professor of Literature at my alma mater Glasgow Univerity.
He has also been a visiting fellow at universities worldwide including: Charles University, Prague
(2010); Trinity College, Dublin (2008); the University of Wales in Celtic studies (2002)
and Yale (1998, 200001)
He grew up in Aberdeen and attended the University of Glasgow. His parents were both lecturers
in English Literature at the University of Aberdeen).
He is total Celt immersed in cultural studies just as I have been immersed in governance issues
for an even longer period of time
The article from which this is excerpted was written more than a year ago and explains why the
author will be voting yes
Those who talk about dissolving a 300-year-old partnership ignore the fact that the partnership itself
has changed. In days gone by, British imperial markets offered huge opportunities to Scots. Scottish
associations were formed worldwide to promote networks to get Scots into jobs,
The Economist put it last week, there are compelling reasons for paying attention to small countries on
the edge of Europe they have reached the future first. What does that future consist of ?
Alternative energy, for one. The run-down in fossil fuels, even taking into account fracking and other

53

controversial practices, can be seen to have begun with oil at well over $100 a barrel with the world
economy still in rehab.
Scotland has been blessed with both huge fossil fuel opportunities and huge renewable opportunities in
the last 50 years. Are we going to say No to them both? Some will say this is selfish or parochial. Well,
suppose it were: what did Britain spend the oil revenues on, and was the UK as sensible as Norway, whose
oil fund which holds 1 per cent of the global stockmarket on behalf of a country of 4.5 million people is
the economic wonder and envy of the western world?
How can we say the UK spent North Sea revenues wisely in this age of austerity? Did they do better than
other countries than Scotland would have done? But, in fact, Scotland isnt selfish or parochial, its just
small. Small countries are adept at networking, and its a networking age. They are adept at finding new
solutions in education (Finland, for example) or fish farming (Norway) and many other things.
The top five countries in the world for global competitiveness in 2012 are all small, as are four of the top
five for innovation and four of the top five for prosperity. They are interested in themselves, but also
the whole world: and that isnt parochial, its just normal. Scotland isnt a parish, its a country. And of
course its interested in itself, but it is interested in the world too, just like any normal country. As it
promotes itself, Scotland is finding rising markets for its exports across the world, and will find new
markets for its culture too. A Yes vote is a necessary key step forward in that process.
Independence is not separation: it is about talking to ourselves and the world without going through an
intermediary. It itself will be a process: as Jim McColl put it last week a united kingdom but with an
independent parliament.
Ireland stayed in a monetary union with sterling for 57 years. Every case is different, but the point is
that what we will share with our neighbours on these islands will still be a partnership, just a new one. And
we need a new one.
Life is change, and change is gained by how we think, vote and act differently. No change is without risk,
but no change is full of risk. It is indeed voting for nothing, and we will not be offered something for
that nothing.I am voting Yes because I have spent years championing the literature and culture of
Scotland at home and abroad.
There are people throughout the world watching us and waiting for us to join them. It wont be a free ride:
but if we decide we are confident enough to have something to give in trade or niche industries or culture
or creativity, we will get something back.
Does Scotland have the self-confidence to realise what has changed, to realise the opportunities that
there are, and to look to the future? There is much more to our quantifiable economic strengths, exports,
education, energy and innovation than the power of positive thinking, but without it we will not develop as
fast as we need to, or have the voice we ought to, in this rapidly changing world. And that is why I am
voting Yes.

I said in a recent post that I would like to see more discussion of the separation boost the
possible impact (economic, social, political if not psychological which separation from Britain would
have. I have always had a soft spot for the Small is Beautiful argument best represented in
the Breakdown of Nations book produced in 1947 by the Austrian Leopold Kohr. Im surprised (and
disappointed) that no one seems to be mentioning him in the debate.

54

And one of the few systematic studies of the contribution of small countries is this one from the
David Hume Institute
Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Getting to the heart of the matter

I expressed surprise in yesterdays post that so little of
the debate I have seen about Scottish Independence
dealt with the viability and success (or otherwise) of
Small States and referred to a couple of rare
publications on that question one a book from 1947 (!),
the other a more recent paper.
T
his very morning, by one of these typical serendipities, I
came across a new book co-authored by Michael Keating
whom I knew in the 1980s in Glasgow and who, in the
intervening 30 years, has occupied academic chairs on
regionalism in such places as Canada and ?
His co-author has written one of the best posts I have
seen so far In just four months time, Scotland will decide whether to become an independent country or to remain as a
component nation of the United Kingdom. The constitutional arrangement is the only outcome which will be
decided by Septembers referendum. However, the constitutional options are only one part of the story.
For neither a Yes vote nor a No vote will be a panacea, an answer to any and all economic, social or political
issues Scotland faces.
There are, broadly speaking, two distinct model types which inform how states operate on a global stage,
and each entails their own internal logic. The market liberal model accepts the reality of global marketskeeping taxes low to attract inward investment and de-regulating strongly - with a result that social
spending is limited and inequality tends to be high. The Baltics, after independence, moved towards this
type of system.
The social investment model sees public spending as part of the productive economy, levying high levels of
taxation to pay for investment in education, research and infrastructure. Combined with social democracy,
universal services, high levels of social solidarity and low levels of social inequality tend to be the result as
evidenced by the Nordic states.
These are, of course, ideal-types, and no state fits snugly into either model. The Baltics provided some
(albeit limited) welfare spending in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, while the Nordics
(particularly Sweden) have scaled back the breadth of their spending. Ireland operated something of a
hybrid model, though this ran into some difficulties for various reasons even prior to the crash, this
combination of models proved unstable.
While the market liberal model has appeal for some, Scotland appears to be much more inclined towards
the social investment model. The SNP, Labour and the Greens are all to various degrees promoting
variations on social democratic themes, while the Jimmy Reid Foundation has designed the Common Weal
programme to stimulate thinking about a fundamental shift in Scottish political thinking.

55

However, the Scottish Governments White Paper on independence lays out spending plans consistent with a
social investment model but without the taxation levels to support it. Indeed, plans are to reduce
corporation tax and air passenger duty encouragement for business investment, to be sure, but without
asking for anything in return.
Herein, a lack of a bargaining system which in the Nordics includes business, trade unions and the
government is apparent.
Bargaining helps build social cohesion and trust between those institutions, and between institutions and
the public. This is one basis for public acceptance of higher tax levels and without such a system it is
difficult to see how the public might be persuaded of its benefits. Irrespective of the referendum
outcome, the social investment model could be pursued.
If independence is the outcome, a lot of internal change would be required (particularly with regards to
wage bargaining, as alluded to above) and hard policy choices would follow.
If (extended) devolution prevails, social investment could be achieved, dependent on the mechanisms made
available to the Scottish Parliament. However, in either case, a social democratic social investment model is
not cheap, and Scotland would have to pay the cost in order to recoup the benefits. Institutional as well as
attitudinal change would be required would Scotland be ready for such change? Time will tell.

The Better Nation blog on which this appeared is, for my money, the best blog on the Scottish issue.
I particularly liked its statement of intent even the most cursory glance around Scotland shows continued poverty, movement away from sustainability,
a business sector hardly thriving, a nervous public sector, stretched voluntary organisations and
shortcomings in our democracy.
Our MPs and MSPs all seek to improve Scotland in the way they each best see fit, no matter what colour of
party flag they wave or particular leader they serve under. However, for a country of our size, that is a
daunting task, so this blog will aim to be, at worst, constructive criticism of their exploits, and, at best, a
show of support for our politicians from interested Scots. Most in politics do have a genuine desire to
improve how their country runs, and we will try to give a fair wind to their intentions, even when we have to
disagree profoundly with their methods

It has a good list of the blogs worth consulting but does not include several I would recommend - The Common Weal
- Bella Caledonia
- National Collective
- Wealthy Nation

The painting is a Stanley Spencer (an "English" painter as the site tells us) - "plumbers" and I think
its actually part of the Port Glasgow shipbuilding series he did in the war years

56

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Serving

The Open Democracy website is an exemplary source of sensible voices which (in its own words)

challenge the corporate media. It seeks out and debates forms of democratic change. delights in
good ideas vigorously debated and argument backed by investigation..opposes fundamentalisms,
including market fundamentalism.
For some strange reason, however, it is not a site I often choose to access and the same is true of
the equally well-intentioned Social Europe. Perhaps I just find the writing too bland and predictable?
I need something with more oomph.
As a result, I have overlooked one of the Open Democracys sub-sections entitled Scotlands
Future
a platform for the best articles and essays which will cast light on the issues as they arise, and help
people everywhere understand what's really being talked about. .ensuring key voices in the Scottish
debate can be heard outside Scotland; that the plurality of the conversation is heard; and that democrats
from England, Wales, Northern Ireland and further afield who want to understand and discuss have a
space to gather. Independence has profound implications for all of the Home Nations of the UK.

The editorship is shared between a Scot and.. Angle (?) and the site is currently running a series
written by the Scot on 40 reasons for supporting Independence (hes reached the half-way mark)
One of the other pieces which caught my eye was written by an ex-Leader of the Iona
Community John Harvey and his wife Molly whose contribution very much reflects the ethics and
style of the Community
At present, for example, the disgraceful attack on the most vulnerable of our fellow citizens, through the
so-called 'welfare reforms', is something we can do very little about; this could change with independence.
What it will also require, we believe, will be an increased acceptance of responsibility at a personal and a
local community level to address the growing inequality in our society; a responsibility which we have seen
grasped in a number of ways already through bodies like the Poverty Truth Commission.
For too long, Scottish society has lurched between a dependency culture on the one hand and a
scapegoating culture on the other.
The vote on September 18th will entail risks, whichever way the decision goes. We see it as a once-in-alifetime chance to take responsibility for ourselves, in this interdependent world, into our own hands; we
believe that we have in Scotland both the personal and the corporate ability to attempt this with a
reasonable degree of success.
We have to remember of course that even if we do get independence, we may not take this chance to make
some difficult changes; but we believe that we have to take the risk. And we further believe that doing this
will send an encouraging signal to other communities to follow suit, thus leading, hopefully, to a more
appropriate sharing of power and responsibility all round, for the benefit of everyone living in these
islands.

The Iona Community is the radical wing of the Church of Scotland and I first encountered it in the
1960s in the form of the young Minister of a church in the housing schemes of Greenock. (He
became better known in later years as the Leader of the Community in his own right and father of
Douglas Alexander, currently Britains shadow Foreign Secretary).

57

I actually met my wife in 1973 or so in the amazing abbey which graces the tiny Scottish island (off
Mull, itself a Scottish island) and which is at the heart of the Iona Community. I was one of the
invited speakers at a school on community development the Community was running and she was a
community worker in Glasgows East End Anna came from a quaker background whose values are
similar to those of the Iona Community.
As an agnostic for all my adult life, I respect these two organisations very much. They represent all
that is decent and worthwhile in lifeThey honour the word serve
I was indeed happy for almost a decade to be a host in the quaker-based Servas network which
gave me the privilege of having foreign visitors in my home for a couple of days. There were only 3
requirements of them that they (do a basic minimum to) help in the house; that they share some
aspects of their lives; and that they stay no longer than a couple of nights without expressly being
invited!
And during the first decade of my nomadic life (the 1990s) I made use of the Servas network in
Sweden, Russia, Poland and Bulgaria. More about the quakers here ....I had hoped to invite them in
future to my Transylvanian and Sofia bases.......but the local hosts seem so disorganised this has so
far not been possible.
May 23

"It's the Economy stupid!"

Should a country of 5 million souls which currently forms the northern part of an imperial nation
split and go its own way?
Not exactly, perhaps, the question on the referendum paper but Ive chosen this adjective and put
it in inverted commas to give a sense of some of the ideological issues involved in the present
debate which is currently raging in my homeland.
Noone disputes that these 5 million people form a country (it has had its own legal, religious and
educational systems for centuries) nor that they have, in the past few decades, become deeply
alienated from the British political system which has developed since the 1970s.
The new Scottish Parliament which was formed in 1999 has significant devolved powers and more
are coming its way. But that has not stopped the alienation from the neo-liberal ideology of the
British system which has permeated even the Labour party since the 1990s

The question is whether Scotland should tear free from the remaining parts of the Union which
was formed all of 300 years ago namely the economic, welfare and defence parts.

The consensus of opinion in Scotland seems to be that the last two should now also go. The presence
on the river Clyde of the British nuclear submarine base is and always has been deeply unpopular
(with ongoing public protests for the past 50 years); and the Scots never supported the Iraq war
I will elaborate this aspect in a future contribution.
And the last post indicated how unpopular the welfare cuts are in Scotland.
Basically that leaves the economic arguments.
The best of the unionist blogs called Notes from North Britain - is written by the Professor of
Public Law at the University of Glasgow. His latest contribution is a powerful argument -

58

Fully 70% of Scottish exports are sold to the rest of the UK. Just pause there for a moment: Scotland
trades more with the rest of the UK than with the whole of the rest of the world put together.
Scotland's trade with the rest of the UK is worth four times her trade with the EU.
In the last decade the value of Scottish trade with the rest of the UK has increased by 62% (whereas
the value of Scottish trade with the EU has increased in the same period by a mere 1%). Given the eyewatering scale to which the Scottish economy depends on doing business with the rest of the UK, why
would any sane person wish to erect an international frontier between Scotland and the rest of the UK?
Why turn this trade from domestic to international, with all the added costs and disincentives that would
apply?
A "border effect" would inhibit and diminish Scottish trade considerably. Compare, for example, the US
and Canada where, despite commonalities of language, free trade agreements and the relative openness of
the border, it remains the case that Canadian Provinces do twenty times as much trade with each other as
they do over the border in the US.
The border between Canada and the US has been estimated to reduce trade by 40%. Migration within
Canada is fully 100 times greater than migration from the US to Canada.
Here, it has been estimated that the "border effect" could cost each Scottish household 2000
annually. There are 360,000 jobs in Scotland created by companies in the rest of the UK. A further
240,000 Scottish jobs depend on exports to the rest of the UK. That's 600,000 jobs. As many as
200,000 jobs in Scotland depend on the financial services industry. Fully 90% of Scottish companies'
financial services business is with the rest of the UK. Nine out of ten pensions sold from Scotland are to
customers in England, and eight out of ten mortgages lent from Scotland are to borrowers in England.
This economic activity requires a single domestic market with a single currency in a single regulatory
regime.
Scotland's economy is performing well in the Union. Scotland has a higher economic output per head than
Denmark and Finland, and significantly higher than Portugal. And Scotland has maintained a consistently
higher employment rate than comparably sized countries in the EU. Indeed, Scotland has the highest
employment rate of all the nations of the UK -- and there are more people in work in the UK now (30
million) than ever before in our history. We have a higher employment rate even than the USA.Whereas
the EU single market is still replete with trade barriers, in the UK our domestic market sees genuinely
free trade, meaning that Scots have ten times the job opportunities they would otherwise have.
The United Kingdom is the sixth largest economy in the world, despite being only the 22nd biggest
country in the world in terms of population. Who wouldn't want to be part of it?
..Trade and jobs are about economic opportunities. But economic Union is also about sharing risks,
absorbing shocks, and pooling resources, leading to greater stability and security for us all.
Take oil and gas as an example. North Sea oil and gas is a lucrative business, but it is also highly volatile.
The oil and gas is expensive even to locate, never mind to extract, and the price of oil can decline sharply.
Tax revenues from North Sea oil and gas fell by a whopping 4.5 billion in 2013. That is the size of the
Scottish schools budget. That kind of economic shock is much easier to absorb in an economy of 63 million
people than it is in one of only 5.3 million people.
The UK Government supported the injection of over 45 billion into RBS in 2008, and offered the Bank a
further 275 billion of guarantees and state support. This total was more than double the size of
Scotland's economy that year -- it was 211% of Scottish GDP including geographical share of North Sea
oil.

59

The Union delivers for Scotland economic security, as well as economic success. The Union is good for
Scotland. Public spending in Scotland is 1200 per head higher than the UK average. At the same time,
onshore tax receipts are, per person, lower for Scotland than the rest of the UK.
In numerous ways, Scotland does disproportionately well out of the Union. In 2012-13, for example,
Scottish universities secured more than 13% of the UK's research council funding: some 257 million.
This isn't just good for Scottish universities: it's good for Scotland as a whole. It was estimated in 2010
that Scottish universities contributed 6.2 billion to the Scottish economy (not least through the 39,000
people they employ). It is not just in raw economic terms that the Union delivers for Scotland: it delivers
also in cultural terms. The UK's national broadcaster, the BBC, receives some 300 million annually from
Scottish licence-fee payers, but makes nearly 4 billion of programming which is free-to-air in Scotland.

In case my readers think I am being one sided let me offer a stimulating read from the National
Collective website in which a contributor offers us 25 punchy reasons for voting yes
One of the books Im now waiting to read is by an academic who was for many years the top civil
servant dealing with economic issues in the Scottish Office Guy McCrone. Here is an excerpt from
the summary of his book Scottish Independence weighing up the economic issues given by
one reader who, like me, is striving to be balanced.
the economic issues surrounding Scotlands prospect of independence remain too fluid to call. What I
mean by this is that the book (like many other sources) presents historical and contemporary economic
data which is fine and good, but by necessity it is then forced to speculate as to likely outcomes. This for
me is the key problem surrounding the plea by members of the voting public who I have witnessed on
various television debates and investigative programmes surrounding the referendum, who ask for more
certainty.
Neither McCrones book, nor in my opinion any others are going to be able to provide that kind of
certainty. The bottom line is that McCrone helps the reader identify some of the key economic issues in
the debate, but he also highlights how complex and interconnected the range of economic issues are
surrounding an independent Scotland compared to business as usual in the Union.
Given a Yes vote for Independence would have its impact felt for many generations of Scottish
residents, too fine a focus upon the question of whether independence, greater devolution or business as
usual will deliver a better or worse Scotland seems artificial and dishonest to me.
The truth is nobody knows. Voters can weigh up the economic issues and this book can help identify many
of their peaks, but the outcome will be determined by policies and environments that unfold over the
coming decades.
If one looks back at history and reviews the then existing government policies and plans for the
future, most of them turned out to be wrong or were subsequently change to take account of
shifting environments and surprises.
The reality of the economic and political landscape is that whilst one can plan specific projects, such as
whether to build more wind farms or nuclear power stations, it is a very different proposition to try and
plan the likely outcome and impact of proposed macroeconomic policies and expect them to be right.
As McCrones book emphasises without certainty about the nature of a final currency and monetary
structure, then in the event of a Yes vote wining, many of the other economic issues examined in his book
are subject to considerable uncertainty.
However, this is the political reality and anyone wanting to get a handle on some of the key economic
issues at the centre of the Scottish referendum issue is likely to find something of interest here. Just
dont expect certain answers.

60

Friday, May 23, 2014

Sublime writing
These last few days I have been doing something I rarely do I have been savouring a book
word by word as distinct from my usual habit of flicking. ..laughing out loud in delight at the
language; marking sections every few pages with a pencil. And this is a novel not my usual fare! A
detective novel to boot "Strange Loyalties" (1991) - the last of a trilogy. I hinted a few posts back
that the technical aspects of the great Scottish debate were decreasingly to my liking - and
the rare taste of William McIlvanney one of the most underrated writers not only of the British
Isles but perhaps in the English-speaking world! - perhaps shows how words can better be
used. I wrote about him last September.
I start therefore with a few of the phrases I marked on this novel of his
The thought was my funeral for him. Who needs possessions and career and official achievements? Life
was only in the living of it. How you act and what you are and what you do. are the only substance. They
didnt last either. But while you were here, they made what light there was the wick that threads the
candle-grease of time. His light was out but here I felt I could almost smell the smoke still drifting from
its snuffing.(p80).
It was one of her partners who answered (the phone). When she knew it was me, her voice always
distant more or less emigrated..(p112)
Attractiveness facilitates acquaintance, like a courier predisposing strangers to goodwill, and my mother
had acquired early an innocent vanity that let her enjoy being who she was. But the kindness of other
people towards her made her as idealistic as my father in her own way. She tended to think the way
people treated her was how they treated everybody. She thought the best of them was all there was (p
128).
Why do the best of us go to waste while the worst flourish? Maybe I had found a clue.Those who love
life take risks, those who dont take insurance. But that was all right, I decided. Life repays its lovers by
letting them spend themselves on it. Those who fail to love it, it cunningly allows very carefully to accrue
their own hoarded emptiness. In living, you won by losing big; you lost by winning small (p 134).
Where I had come into what I took for manhood.meant much to me, not just as a geography but as a
landscape of the heart, a quintessential Scotland where good people were my landmarks and the common
currency was a mutual caring. Why did it feel so different to me today, a little seedy and withdrawn? p
183
(Some might have thought her mad). But she wasnt mad, just too sane to play along with the rest of us.
She had awakened from her sleep-walk long enough to recognize the minefield we call normality. She had
found a way to admit to herself the prolonged terror of living. Some people never do. p 206
The invention of truth, no matter how desperately you wish it to be or how sincerely you believe in the
benefits it will bring, is the denial of our nature, the first rule of which is the inevitability of doubt. We
must doubt not only others but ourselves. (p 210)
You offer him a vague perception and he takes it from you, cleans off the gunge and gives it back, having
shown you how it works. He clarifies you to yourself. (p258)
McIlvanney is still going strong in his mid-70s but generous tribute was paid last year to him by another great
Scottish writer - Allan Massie a writer mainly of historical novels

61

McIlvanney, born in 1936 in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, established himself some time ago as the best Scottish
novelist of his generation. Docherty (1975), a social-political family novel set in a declining mining
community, won the Whitbread award for fiction.
Long before any but a handful of people had heard of Alasdair Gray, and before James Kelman had
published anything, McIlvanney was recognised as the man who spoke authentically for the Scottish
working class, out of which he had, like so many, been educated, being a graduate of Glasgow University
and then a schoolteacher. So perhaps he wasnt surprised when another teacher, encountered in a Glasgow
bar, told him he had disgraced himself by stooping to write a crime novel namely Laidlaw.
The charge was ridiculous; crime is a serious matter. Of course, most crime fiction is ordinary fare, read
for amusement only. It may trivialise what is not, and should not be, trivial. But crime is at the heart of
many great novels. Bleak House, which is a crime novel, is not trivial; Simenons novels are not
trivial or mere entertainment; nor are McIlvanneys three Laidlaw books.
Their subject is the ruin of the body, the distortion of the soul, and the corruption of society.McIlvanney
never allows us to forget that the damage crime does is not merely physical. Murder is always a form of
betrayal, a denial of the respect with which we should treat each other. It infects everything around it.
Laidlaw, an intellectual policeman, is damaged by what he experiences. He believes in communities;
interviewing an elderly, loyal, but saddened mother in "Strange Loyalties", he reflects that there is
nothing he wouldnt do for the working-class women of that generation who held families together. But he
himself is driven into isolation.
McIlvanney is an existentialist writer, like Camus, whom he admires, has learnt from, and matches.He has
never been prolific. If he had taken the advice he was given to write an annual Laidlaw novel he might
be a rich man in his old age; but he has always gone his own way.
The republication of these novels now will revive interest, and perhaps lead him to write another, as he
has sometimes talked of doing. But his reputation, not only as the father of tartan noir, is assured.
Docherty, almost 40 years on, is established as a modern Scottish classic, and I have no doubt that
The Kiln (1996), which is, in one sense, a two-generations-later sequel, is a masterpiece. It confirmed
him, to my mind, as the finest Scottish novelist of our time. It is one of those rare books that does
what Ford Madox Ford thought imaginative literature could do better than any other art, making you
think and feel at the same time.
The Kiln is a novel of a hard-won maturity. Its hero, a novelist lost in the dark wood of middle age, sits,
looking out at a cemetery, in a rented flat in Edinburgh, not Glasgow (a sign of his displacement) and
gazes back on the summer when he was 17, in limbo between school and university, a magic summer which
saw his passage to adult life. The evocation of that time is beautiful, but now, behind him, is a broken
marriage, memories of erratic social
behaviour, and he is perplexed, as we all
must sometimes be, by the question of
what he has made of his life. He broods on
the problem which is perhaps central to all
experience: how to reconcile his sense of
what he owes to himself with his knowledge
of what he owes to others.
There is then a vein of melancholy in the
novel, but this is relieved by the often
joyous vitality with which that summer is

62

recalled, and enlivened by the acute social observation and darting shafts of wit. Its a novel that tells you
how it is, and therefore enriches your imaginative experience.
As a novelist myself (Allan Massie), I admire its craft. As a reader I can only be grateful. Almost 2,000
years ago, the younger Pliny wrote that a mans life contains hidden depths and large secret areas. The
thought is common. In Faust Goethe says: Die Menschen sind im ganzen Leben blind men are blind
throughout their life. True enough, but the best novelists offer us a means of opening our eyes, peering
into these depths, and exploring these secret places, and they do so whatever their subject.
William McIlvanney is one of the rare novelists who help us to know both the social world and our
innermost selves. He is both moralist and artist, and a writer to be cherished.

There was a great interview with him in a 2010 issue of the Scottish Review of Books
Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Scenarios after an independent Scotland?

Weve hit the hundred-day mark before the Scottish referendum so I need to discipline myself
and get back to that theme. An article in todays Open Democracy Should Scotland vote for what
is best for Scotland? has helped me steel my resolve.
First off, let me say that Im one of 750,000 Scots living out of Scotland who will not be entitled
to vote and I resent that. Indeed Im scunnered to use a good Scots word. I lived in the country
for 48 years; contributed a lot; and yet I'm being allowed to vote. ....
The author of todays Open Democracy has a name Kieran Oberman which sounds as if he is one of
the 366,000 expats living in Scotland who will be entitled to vote and wrote a good piece about all
this last December - but his article today is one of the few which tries to take the debate
outside the rather narrow confines into which it has been so far restricted eg

If Scottish independence generates a rightward shift in UK politics, then this will affect the rest
of world to the extent that UK foreign policy affects the rest of the world. Again, the right should
welcome the shift, but the left should be troubled. A UK without Scotland might be even more
likely to support US-led wars, even more reluctant to take action on climate change, even more
restrictive of immigration, even more hostile to EU efforts on consumer and worker rights, even
more eager to back neo-liberal economic policies overseas.
It's fairly obvious that a vote in Scotland for Independence on September 18th would be a pretty
fatal blow to the chances of Labour ever winning another election in what we now call rUK the
remainder of the UK. A block of 50 odd Scottish Labour votes has been a reassuring boost for
Labour leaders for the past few decades (although the Scottish nationalists could bite quite
strongly into that in any 2105 General Election). That would confirm the neo-liberal grip on rUK
indeed many would argue that New Labour has never even after Bliar made any attempt to shake
free from that grip.
That is indeed one of the arguments of those who have, with some reluctance, recently joined the
yes argument and who, with others, look to the Nordic neighbours for a social democratic
vision.
But even if we accept the idea that an independent Scotland would be some kind of Scandinavian-style
social democracy (writes Oberman), the role-model argument seems far-fetched. After all, if the rest of

63

the world wanted a Scandinavian role model to inspire it, it already has one: Scandinavia. What need has it
of a Scottish imitation? Moreover, no one should underestimate the capacity of large countries to ignore
the affairs of smaller neighbours. The UKs ignorance of the politics in the Republic of Ireland is rivalled
only by the USs ignorance of Canada.

Im reading Scottish intellectual Gerry Hassans Caledonia Dreaming whose main themes are
sketched by the author in this advance summary in the Scottish Review of Books and he is also a bit
dismissive of the Nordic option which does, however, attract my support - as well as that of
journalists such as Lesley Riddoch
But emotional attraction is not enough! The Nordic Option (we used to call it Scandinavian!) is one
which as Hassan rightly emphasized took almost a century to develop. In the meantime, with the
best of intentions, an independent Scotland would be competing with an England even more disposed
to compete in a race to the bottom on corporate and income tax. What then for our much-vaunted
social democratic model?
June 13

Caledonian Dreaming?
My readers know that I like a good dissection
I like to see a country stripped of its
pretensions.
A book called "Caledonian Dreaming" about the
various myths with which the country sustains
itself is as good as it gets in that respectThe
author, one Gerry Hassan, is one of the few
Scots who doesnt seem to mind being called an
intellectual. In fact, just as Bulgaria only seems
to have one intellectual (Ivan Krastev) so
Scotland has Gerry. The book doesnt really
seem to take a position on the burning issue
although I understand he is a for rather than
agin. He certainly doesnt mince his words Scotland is not a fully-fledged political democracy. It has never had a democratic moment which

has brought its elites to account, defined public institutions and seen the people as a historic
collective agency of change.

For many in the Yes campaign, it is the dysfunctional nature of British democracy and politics, and
in particular the democratic deficit (whereby Scotland, more definitely on the left, is currently,
and seems likely to be increasingly governed by parties it did not elect) which is the driver for
independence.
In my 20s, I was angry about that power structure which, of course, was evident in the shipbuilding
town I grew up in. I read avidly the early New Left Books such as Conviction and critical material
about exclusion which was coming from the Community Development Programme of the 1970s. I
did my own bit about encouraging community activism and actually wrote a small book in the late

64

1970s with a title The Search for Democracy which has echoes with Hassans sub-title - the
quest for a different Scotland.
Although I voted (ultimately) in 1979 for a Scottish Parliament, I did write (in my contribution to
the famous Red Paper on Scotland) that the discussion of the time was a distraction from more
important issues. The caution of my Labour colleagues on the local and then Regional Councils I
served for 22 years until 1990 was evident their subservience, with honourable exceptions, to the
power of their professional advisers transparent.
Hassan is ruthless in his critique.
despite all its radical and outsider roots, Labour was never a party of democratisation of British

institutions but rather of using them for progressive ends.The central instrument of change in this
was the British state, which was seen as neutral and benign.
But only one pillar of state is elected, the House of Commons. The unelected House of Lords (the
largest upper house anywhere in the world), the monarchy, the proliferation of quangos and public
bodies, the outsourced state and its myriad contractors, the City of London, the Crown
Dependencies and Overseas Territories - many of them major tax havens - the security state of
NATO, Trident and the military-industrial UK/US alliance, engaging in mass citizen surveillance, all

unelected, all democratically unaccountable, have served to entrench a version of the UK centred on
power, privilege and money
Hassan is keen on the stories we tell about ourselves and warns about falling into the trap of
believing all of our own stories or myths- and he identifies several such myths which Scots
propogate

of egalitarianism

of educational opportunity

of holding power to account

of social democracy

of open Scotland.
Much of "Caledonian Dreaming" is a deconstruction of these myths.
We are only slightly less unequal than England in wealth and have the worst health
inequalities than Europe, and though egalitarianism is a deeply embedded ideal, this has
never been translated into any programme or political will for the redistribution of power
and wealth.
Educational inequalities similarly abound, with huge social exclusion of the poorest at every
level, even in some of our most cherished institutions.
And though change may have begun with the advent of the Scottish Parliament, we are still
largely deferential to those in power in the public sector, the professions, in business and in
land ownership, there has been a marked lack of political will to challenge these vested
interests and powerful voices.
As for our social democratic credentials, they have primarily been exercised by the middle
classes for the middle classes, in a country distorted by seismic inequalities, poverty and
exclusion, in areas for which the blame cannot be simply laid at Westminsters door. Hassan
suggests that Scotlands social democracy has offered a legitimising political story of the

middle classes to validate their position in the system, and that Labour, the SNP and civic
Scotland have all played a contributory role in maintaining this.

65

At the moment, I would fault only one thing that he does not sufficiently recognize the efforts of
those who struggled in the 1970s to develop, in his words, a different Scotland. He is (probably
justly) caustic in his dismissal of the fashion in the 1970s for community education but might
have mentioned those like Ken Alexander and Geoff Shaw who dared to speak (and act) for a
different Scotland.
Or perhaps he dismisses them as the great and good? I met a lot of leftists who took such a
dismissive view and took exception to it. The usual divisive story if youre not with us, youre
against us. Even Lesley Riddoch, in her celebration of community activism, fails to mention the
pioneers of community business in Strathclyde in the 1980s. talk about being whitewashed out of
history
Monday, August 25, 2014

The missing question at the heart of the Scottish debate

There is a missing question at the heart of the debate about independence which has, for the past
2 years, been gripping my homeland, the small nation of Scotland and that is how to avoid the
savage judgement which the markets (ie global capital) would almost certainly inflict in the
aftermath of a yes vote - as per the experience of Francois Mitterands government almost 30
years ago when it tried to implement its left-wing manifesto commitments..
The government which has had majority support in the Scottish Parliament since 2007 was wary of
putting their commitment to independence to the vote but has played a canny game since then
judging that Scotlands experience of right-wing Coalition cuts since 2011 gave them the best
opportunity to realise the dream of Scottish independence.
Since the Scottish Parliament was reconstituted in 1999 (after almost 300 years of silence) with
considerable independent powers but within a budget transferred from London the Scottish
Executive (of whatever political colour) has played with a social democrat bat.
The neo-liberal agenda has been strongly resisted as indicated in a variety of measures relating to
health, education and social care let alone the commitment to expelling the British nuclear
submarines from the River Clyde. Indeed for Scottish Nationalist spokesmen, this last would seem
to be the only thing that would change in a post-yes Scotland.
Membership of the European Union, of NATO, of the pound somehow would magically
remain..as would the commercial exchanges of Scottish companies.
It is this simple statement which exposes the weakness of the case for independence. Who could
resist voting for continued free health care; free university education (now for half of the relevant
peer group); almost free sheltered accommodation for the elderly and many other things? They no
longer exist in England but have been voted in by the 15 year-old Sottish Parliament.
I have just watched a powerful speech by an ex-MSP (member of the Scottish Parliament) from the
Scottish Socialist Party typical of the sort of discussions which have been taking place the length
and breadth of this small country over the past 2 years since the date of the referendum was at
last set.

66

Francis Curran speaks of her experience - first as a researcher at Westminster and then as a
Scottish parliamentarian - of being besieged by the lobbyists for companies wanting to cash in on
the cash bonanza which has been privatisation and marketization.. She convinces the listener of
the agenda being strongly pursued by monied interests but then fails to ask how that same capital
will deal with the uncertainties in the next 2 years as country which has decided to break away
tries to negotiate a deal with various international bodies.

It is not enough to ask whether Scotland is rich enough to be independent patently it is. The
question is how much of that richness will be discounted negatively by global capital.

Only leftist economists can try to deal with such a question..and the media exclude them from the
discussion.
It could be said that this evening is make or break for the United Kingdom. The second of two
debates will take place between Scotlands First Minister and the Leader of the Yes Campaign
Alaister Darling who has the disadvantage of having been Chancellor of the Exchequer during the
Global Crisis. The main focus will apparently be the National Health Service with Darling in the
unenviable position of trying to explain how an independent Scotland will be in a better position to
withstand such neo-liberalism. Those of you wishing to follow the latest strands of the argument
which will play out on 18 September should read this post from a yes-voter; also here; and here
On a personal note, I have 3 daughters all brought up in Scotland only one of whom will be able to
votemy ex-wife and I are barred by virtue of no longer having any residence in the countryI
feel angry...and disenfranchised. My only consolation is that the 2 votes of my first wife and
daughter will probably cancel one another....
Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Nearing the End

Its just 2 weeks until the Scottish referendum and Ive had only a handful of posts about the
issue since the series I did 3 months ago particularly Scotland keeping an open mind and Its the
economy, stupid
And thats despite about a dozen new books on the topic now facing me accusingly on the
bookshelves the most recent being The Scottish Question and Small Nations in a Big World
Its almost exactly 40 years since my contribution What Sort of Over-Government? was published
with a score of others in the famous Red Paper on Scotland which was edited byGordon
Brown destined some 32 years later to become British Prime Minister. Interesting to read all these
years later the introduction he wrote to the book which attracted a long review in the New Left
Review
Scotland has been putting on its spectacles with commendable eagerness to read the minute print of a
Red Paper or socialist symposium on the state of the nation, which has reached the best-seller lists. It is
a collection of twenty-eight essays, edited by Edinburgh Universitys student rector, Gordon Brown. A
dozen of the authors are academics, seven writers or journaliststhough many are political activists as
well. There are two trade-unionists, two Labour MPS. Six pieces deal with social problems, five with
devolution, local government or administration, three with North Sea oil, three others with industry and
finance, three with land and the Highlands. Despite the comprehensive investigation of Scotland and
Scottish nationalism contained in the book, some topics were bound to get left out. There might have

67

been something on religion and the Churches, considering how near at hand Ulster is. There might have
been something on women and the family. Still, their contributions, of very varying length, are all carefully
thought out and well documented.

I was fresh then in my position as Secretary of the Labour Cabinet of the newly-created
Strathclyde Regional Council which covered half of Scotland and ran a huge empire of teachers,
socials workers, police, engineers etc. My piece drew on seven years experience as a leading Labour
councillor in a shipbuilding town active in challenging the paternalistic approach which
characterised Labour councils in those days. The reference to over-government was partly to the
fears then of a fourth (Scottish) layer of government being added to appease the upsurge of
scottish nationalism but more to the style of government in those days and the assumptions it
made about the passivity of the citizen.
I famously said that The debate (about devolution) has been a serious distraction from, that is,
the poverty and inequities some of us were at least being enabled by the new system of regional
government to tackle.
Flash forward 40 years to this recent contribution to the debate about independence
A Yes vote may get rid of the Tories - but that doesnt mean you will get rid of Tory ideas, a few of
which are front and centre in the SNPs/Yes campaigns independence manifesto (or white paper), titled
Scotlands Future. The positions laid out on corporation tax, the monarchy, and NATO membership would
sit more than comfortably in the pages of a Tory manifesto.
More importantly, the idea that abandoning millions of people whove stood with us and us with them in
trade union struggles, political campaigns, progressive movements, etc, for generations the idea that
this can be considered progress is anathema to me. The analogy of the Titanic applies, wherein rather
than woman and children, it is Scots to the lifeboats and to hell with everybody elseIn 2014 economic
sovereignty does not lie with national governments as it once did. Today economic sovereignty lies with
global capital under that extreme variant of capitalism known as neoliberalism or the free market. The
notion that separation from a larger state would allow said smaller state to forge a social democratic
utopia without challenging said neoliberal nostrums is simply not credible.
A patchwork of smaller states plays into the hands of global capital, as it means more competition for
inward investment, which means global corporations are able to negotiate more favourable terms in return
for that investment. The inevitable result is a race to the bottom as workers in one state compete for
jobs with workers in neighbouring states. In this regard it is surely no accident that Rupert Murdoch is a
vocal supporter of Scottish independence.
Support for Scottish independence among progressives in Scotland is rooted in despair over a status quo
of Tory barbarity. This is understandable. For the past three decades working class communities
throughout the UK have suffered a relentless assault under both Conservative and Labour administrations.
The Labour Party, under the baneful influence and leadership of Tony Blair and his New Labour clique,
came to be unrecognizable from the party that created the welfare state, including the NHS, and the
party that once held full employment as a guiding principle of its economic and social policy.
The embrace of free market nostrums under New Labour meant that the structural inequality that
obtained after 18 years of Tory rule remained more or less intact. The market was now the undisputed
master of all it surveyed. The consequence of Labours shift to the right has been to give rise to cynicism,
disappointment, and lack of faith in politics among large swathes of voters, evinced in ever lower turnouts
at elections. Issues such as the lies and subterfuge surrounding Britain going to war in Iraq in 2003, the

68

MPs expenses scandal of 2011, followed by the phone hacking scandal during which the unhealthy
relationship between the owners and editors of tabloid newspapers and politicians was revealed has only
deepened this cynical disregard for politics and politicians in Britain, giving rise to anti-politics as the
default position of many voters.
In Scotland for decades a Labour Party stronghold devolution has allowed a protest vote to make the
electorates feelings towards this Labour Party betrayal of its founding principles known at the ballot box.
Regardless, the most significant protest has been a non-vote, with turnouts at elections in Scotland
following the pattern of the rest of the country in remaining low. For example, there was only a 50
percent turnout at the last Scottish Parliamentary elections in 2011, out of which the Scottish National
Party (SNP) emerged with an overall majority, the first time any party has managed to do so since the
Scottish Parliament came into existence in 1999.
The myth that Scotland is more left-leaning than rest of the UK
However the argument that Scotland is more left-leaning than the rest of the UK is one that seeks to
conflate conservatism with England in its entirety, rather than a specific region of the country, which in
conjunction with the antiquated first past the post electoral system of Westminster elections has thrown
up Tory governments that are unrepresentative of where the majority of England and the rest of the UK
sits politically.
Scotland is no more left-leaning than the deindustrialised North East, North West, and Midlands of
England. Nor is it any more left leaning than Wales. The working class in Scotland is not any more
progressive than its English or Welsh counterpart.

Theres more of the same at this collective blog which Ive just come across
Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Rare sense

I decided to make a list of the background reading for the 24 or so posts Ive done in the past year
about the Scottish referendum. Twelve titles soon appeared on my list which I wanted then to
check (via the internet) against a more comprehensive bibliography. Imagine my surprise to identify
only one - a list of 60 academic books only two of which have a direct bearing on the referendum!!
But my surfing was not in vain it did unearth four important E-books only one of which I had so far
been aware that is 250 pages of Enlightening the Constitutional Debate
Also released only in the last month is a 90 page assessment of the key issues by various of
academics and published by 3 Foundations - Scotlands Decision 16 questions to think about
For the real masochist there are 132 pages on The economic consequences of Scottish
independence from Hamburg University which

brings together a number of papers from distinguished academic economists that consider:
taxation and government spending, pensions, banking, debt and interest rates, trade borders and
currency issues, business perspectives, energy policy, inequality, migration and labour markets
I suspect that most of us would probably find a title such as The Wee Blue Book more enticing particularly when it has only 37 pages (including graphs)

I will whack through them to try to identify the highlights. Needless to say they have attracted
very little attention in the blogosphere where, however, I did notice this thoughtful post

69

Much of what is being touted as consequences of independence reversing the UKs austerity programme,
removing nuclear weapons, re-nationalising strategic industries, taxing the rich, and other things
numerous and varied are no more than aspirations. There are no guarantees that any of this will actually
happen in an independent Scotland, but there is widespread belief among Yes campaigners that these
things will be more likely in an independent Scotland because a Scottish government will be more
responsive to the collective will of the Scottish people than the UK government in Westminster.
.Central governments, formed by tiny elites, will continue to exercise almost absolute power over us.
And these governments will continue to be put in place by small minorities of the electorate by way of a
flimsy approximation of democratic process.
Our democratic systems are not the only ones that are malfunctioning. The banking crisis of 2007/08 and
subsequent recession have exposed systemic flaws in the financial mechanisms on which we rely to keep
our economy working. During the independence campaign there has been a great deal of heat generated by
the arguments over whos going to be wealthier or poorer after independence, and what currency Scotland
will be able to use. Lots of heat casting not a glimmer of light on the dark heart of our debt-raddled
economy.
Nowhere in the mainstream campaign has anyone from Yes or No acknowledged that our financial
and fiscal systems are fatally flawed. No plans have been proposed to tackle the creation and
destruction of money as interest paying debt, a system that cannot be sustained for much longer
before it buries us all under a mountain of credit thats impossible to service. None of the good
things that enthusiasts for independence want to happen are likely to happen or be sustained until we
make structural reforms to our dysfunctional systems of democracy and finance. The same goes for the
strength in unity arguments of those who seek to preserve the union by voting No.
Separate or united, we are weak and vulnerable because the frameworks within which our society
operates make us so, and nothing thats being proposed by either side of the independence debate
will change this.
The possibility of reforming the structures of democracy does indeed seem more likely in a small country
with a less entrenched sense of class and hierarchy than dreary old England, the dominant partner within
the UK. There is much pre-independence talk about a Scottish constitution and reform of our ridiculously
over-sized local government areas. It will be much harder for an elite in Holyrood to withstand a popular
movement for democratic reform than it is for its counterpart in Westminster.
For structural reform of how we do politics, the balance lies firmly in favour of independence. But what
about money and taxation? Imagine, in post-independence Scotland, an awakening to the lunacy
of creating and destroying money as debt which prompts the development of the the most elegant and
effective financial system that the world has ever seen. Even supposing we could pull off this trick in the
shadow of the mighty economy across the border, when sterling collapses under the burden of its own
debt (as it surely will) Scotlands biggest trading partner will descend into chaos, taking Scotlands
economy down with it.
Could we reform Scotlands financial and fiscal systems first and then export the example to the
remainder of the UK before the whole thing implodes? Possible, but unlikely. The sterling economy is of an
order of magnitude bigger than that of Scotlands, and the two are so intimately entwined that any
radical changes in the way that money works north of the border would be undermined by those with
vested interest in maintaining the sterling status quo, which works very well indeed for those who control
it.
Effective reform of our financial and fiscal systems is the key to transforming our society for the better,
and these reforms are more likely to endure if theyre applied to sterling, which means doing the work of
reform from within the UK.

70

It is, however, a fine balance of argument in favour of voting No. A balance thats tipped more by gut
feeling than intellectual certainty.
But then we have the problem of distraction.
If we vote Yes it will signal the start of a process of disentangling institutions of state from the UK and
establishing new ones in Scotland. This will be messy, tedious and protracted. Even if the civil servants
can remain civil the politicians will not. A triumphant Scottish government will be out to flex its
independent muscles while a wounded Westminster, with the Daily Mail baying at its heels, will be in no
mood to make things easy for the departing Scots. The division of assets and liabilities will descend into
the mother of all arguments that will take a long time to resolve.
I am deeply skeptical of the 18 month transition period between the referendum and independence day
thats being advertised by the official Yes campaign. Witness the Scottish Parliament building which took
seven years and more than ten times the original budget to complete. That was a tiny, straightforward
project compared to negotiating separation from the UK and setting up the machinery required to run an
entire nation. The prospects for a swift and efficient winding up of Scotlands affairs within the UK do
not look good.
I fear that much of the positive energy thats been generated by the independence debate will
dissolve into habitual cynicism and apathy as the house-keeping tasks drag on, year after year,
soaking up time, money, and the will to live. Much as I am attracted to the idea of breaking the
establishment mould and creating new systems in an independent Scotland
I have to conclude that the best chance of getting all the good things that my independence-minded
friends are aiming for is to campaign for structural reform from within the UK, starting with money and
taxation. This will no doubt baffle those who are convinced that independence offers the only hope of
change, but the more I think about it the more sense it makes.
Our problems are structural, not geographic. It seems to me that the best way to change the status quo
is to get down to the hard work of changing it. Moving it north in the hope that the job will be easier
feels like a diversion. The truth is that I dont much care where the various bits of our government sit. I
care about how they work and what theyre able to do to make our lives secure, comfortable, and
sustainable.
And I know that in order for government to work properly we need financial and fiscal systems that are
designed to help us, not hinder us. The political establishment of the UK is crumbling. Membership of
political parties has shrunk to a fraction of what they were when I was a boy, and the power of the
mainstream media is being eroded at a tremendous rate by the internet. Disaffection with the way the UK
does business runs wide and deep through the British Isles and I get the sense that people have an
appetite for change, if only they could see something tasty to sink their teeth into. Making money work
properly for everyone is a project that could bring people together. With sterling, we have an opportunity
to create a financial system thats more effective and sustainable than anything we could achieve in an
independent Scotland.
For this reason alone Im voting No in the referendum.But that doesnt mean that Im certain Im right. As
the song says, you pay your money, you take your choice.

Money.... Money....Money
Time for all open-minded people to try to pull the various strands of the Scottish argument
together and make a decision. To that end, I have copied the 21 posts I have made this year about
the subject with a view to create an edited version for an E-book - which I will post later this week
on my website.
But I still have to catch up with my reading on the matter.

71

The library on the subject I have been building up this year has a small pamphlet Scottish
Independence; Yes or No which I got round to reading yesterday. The first 100 pages (by George
Kerevan) consists of an elegant argument for independence (complete with footnotes) the last 50
pages of a sloppy and emotional argument against (with ner a footnote) - by Alan Cochrane. Both
writers are journalists. So far, so bad.
Stephen Maxwell was one of the Scottish Nationalist intellectuals and produced in 2012 a balanced
and sensitive argument Arguing for Independence evidence, risk and the wicked issues . Its
essential reading and groups the analysis of the case for independence into separate chapters on
the democratic case, the economic, the social, the international, the cultural and the
environmental, ending with a set of questions and answers to which he gives the lovely title Aye,
butInterestingly he gives a strong assessment of the economic case but is much more dubious
of the social case pointing out that the English cant be blamed for the much higher levels of
poverty and ill-health in Scottish society than south of the border.
There are a lot of books about this issue most trying to be balanced and objective. Sadly this
makes for boring reading. There is a saying that the devil has the best tunes by which, I must
immediately say, I do not mean to malign those arguing for independence. I am, however, a natural
sceptic (a quality which itself tends to be maligned) who has to admit that those arguing for
independence do tend to have the better arguments..
And, by the way, I do need to emphasise that despite the terminology - this is not an argument
about nationalism. The party in power in the Scottish Government is called the Scottish National
party not nationalist. In April, I spelled out that the argument is actuallyan ideological one it is
neo-liberalism that the Scottish voter rejectsnot the English.....And the majority of educated
Scots are at one on this. Its cultural elite (however defined) supports independence. Only its
(discredited) political and commercial classes defend the Union.
But the question for me is how an independent Scotland could beat the markets and/or protect
itself from the austerity which has become the prevailing policy in European countries. The
central issues have become, for me, those related to the currency and to the Scottish budget which are difficult for most people to get their head around.
Adam Tomkins is one of the clearest voices in the debate which is surprising for a constitutional
lawyer. One of his most recent contributions could not be clearer
A core component of the case for Scottish independence is that the Nationalists wish to pursue fiscal
policies significantly different from those adopted south of the border: much of the argument for
independence has been framed as an argument against austerity. Yet, were an independent Scotland to
enter a currency union with the rUK it would be unable to extricate itself from Londons fiscal policies.
The First Minister of the Scottish Government has made it very clear that a Yes vote means a
currency Union with England (or remainder of the Union). The British government and all opposition
parties say this will not happen (too much risk for their economy).
Those who support independence say this is simply bluff but cant really contemplate the remaining
options a new currency, the euro or a currency pegged to the pound.

72

In the heat which surrounds this issue, few are looking at the implications for the Scottish budget
of currency union namely complete loss of fiscal sovereignty.
Anyone with any sympathies with the Scottish urge for what used to be called self-rule has to be
prepared to wrestle with the significance of this issue. Sovereignty and freedom are words
which people throw around too easily..
I used to respect the campaigning (British) journalist George Monbiot but his latest, incendiary
piece about Scottish independence shows a wilful ignorance of the real issues at stake. This is crass
journalism at its worst - and the Guardian should be ashamed of printing it.
Postscript
Starting, just now, my editing of the 21 posts on the issue this year, I was reminded of the
thoughtful website of someone who had been Deputy-Leader of the Scottish National Party. Like
several others he has now parted with the Party although he still favours independence.
His blog is therefore one of the most important for anyone with an open mind.A recent post
rubbished the TV debate between the leaders of the 2 campaigns and made a startling reference
to the Fiscal Commission which the Scottish Government had set up
This august body, with its two Nobel laureates has said a "currency union would be in the best interests
of both Scotland and the rUK". The two massive caveats which accompanied that statement are
NEVER quoted. They are, "in the immediate aftermath of independence" and "it will not give
Scotland control of the economic levers". In other words, it is not independence.
One of the most important conditions was as follows, "a joint fiscal sustainability agreement is
established to govern the level of borrowing and debt within the sterling zone". John Swinney, Finance
Minister, is on record several times, as agreeing with the conditions laid out by the Fiscal Commission.
None of this was brought up during the debate between Salmond and Darling.
One can see why Salmond would want to avoid making mention of any of that at all costs, but what was
Darling thinking about?
Instead of hammering Salmond with, "What is your plan B Alex?" he should have said
"The Fiscal Commission laid out the following conditions for a currency union to work, conditions which
your Finance Minister has accepted,
* The Bank of England will set Scotland's interest rates and control monetary policy, as it does now.
* The Bank of England will set the level of borrowing in Scotland, as it does now
* The Bank of England will set Scotland's debt management, as it does now
* The rUK Government, as a consequence of the above, will have indirect control of Scotland's fiscal
policy, as it does now.
Can you now tell this audience Mr Salmond, how, under these conditions of control of the Scottish
economy, Scotland can possibly be independent, how you can fulfill the promises for change you have made,
when your Scottish government will not control its own economy? How does that possibly mean
independence?"
Not even the Nobel laureates would be able to answer that question and neither would Salmond.

pps
Today's Guardian has this to say

73

Thursday, September 4, 2014

How Late it Was, How Late.....

Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind
wonderfully. This famous quotation of Samuel Johnson has been traced, interestingly, to
September 19th (albeit 1777)
As the clock ticks relentlessly toward 18 September, the quality of the writing on the
internet reaches impressive heights and I suspect that I will have many sleepless nights in the 2
weeks to come
AdamTomkins blog (from Glasgow) is a must-read for any serious person but yesterdays
blogposts also quoted from two other quite excellent blogs which had escaped me - Malcolm
Henry (in the remoteness of Skye) and Jim Fairlie (in the fatlands of Crieff, Tayside)
An hour later I found a piece entitled The day of the torn souls may be appearing from the
inestimable Scottish Review who looked at the issue I mentioned in an aside yesterday that the
Scottish cultural elite has gone heavily for independence
the media particularly the media outside of Scotland have turned to non-politicians to find ways of
interesting their audiences in the independence issue. On Saturday 19 July, having invited contributions
from 10 Scottish writers, the Guardian devoted several pages to the topic of Scottish independence.
Inevitably the most striking thing about this exercise was that only one of the 10 Allan Massie seemed
at all likely to vote No. Concerned about balance and fair-mindedness, the paper's editors will surely have
tried to come up with a more even line-up. But they were never in with a chance.
Friends at home and abroad often ask me to explain this degree of unanimity among the Scottish literati.
From now on I shall point them to the July article by the actor Bill Paterson in the Scottish Review which
reveals brilliantly all the pressures that make it so difficult for a Scottish artist/celebrity to come out in
favour of the No side in the campaign.
In the future, when the dust has settled and the referendum has become the subject of scholarly
analysis, this article I'm sure will gain classic status in this particular context.

Another piece in the same journal is written by a previous adviser to the First Minister asserting
that private polls in the nationalist camp suggest that the actual Yes vote on 18 September will be
55% - comparing with a consistent deficit of 3% in the public polls.
A lot of column inches are wasted on the great unknowns how the newly enfranchised (16-18 year
olds) or the undecided will actually vote. Im surprised that more commentators dont focus on the
psychology of actually making the cross on the ballot paper.
I can never forget that I campaigned strongly in 1979 against a Scottish Parliament. I shared a
platform with people like Tam Dalyell (coiner of the famous West Lothian question) who warned
about the slippery slope to independence. Despite this, when it came to the privacy of the voting
booth and I had the ballot paper in my hands, I actually voted Yes to the Parliament.
My suspicion is that there will be quite a few people who will tempted to change their intentions in 2
weeks positive about independence because it is so difficult to withstand the peer pressure which
has built up but paying attention to a warning inner voice..
Most of my left-wing friends in Scotland have also gone for independence alienated by the way
New Labour betrayed its ideals, many of them started in 2007 reluctantly to cast their vote for

74

the party which still attached its colours to the social democratic banner the SNP. In 2011 that
switch in support gave the National party the opportunity to seek a referendum it never imagined
it could win.
The combination of the referendum and the disenchantment with Labour has created a heartening
recrudescence of left-wing thought in Scotland evidenced in such sites as
Thoughtland big ideas from a Small Nation
National Collective (artists for a creative Scotland)
Common Weal
Scottish Left Review
The Red Paper Collective
Although Class, Nation and Socialism the red paper on Scotland 2014 is on my bookshelves, I have
to confess that I have not so far read it. This is quite reprehensible as it does appear to be the one
book which matches my sympathies leftist but sceptical..
Nor, to my shame, have I even bought the two books written from a left-wing perspective which
support independence
Jim Sillars In Place of Fear II a socialist programme for an independent Scotland or
Yes the radical case for Scottish Independence
However, as I speak, both books are winging their way to me (as well as a few Histories). I will, in
the meantime, read the 2014 Red Paper very closely.
But first let me share a couple of reviews of Yes the Radical Case for Scotland the first
from LSE blogs
In the final chapter, Scotland vs the Twenty-first Century, they give an outline for the type of policies
they want an independent Scotland to adopt: nationalisation of infrastructure and North Sea oil, a
Scottish currency, more progressive taxation, a maximum working week, more open immigration, extended
trade union rights, and so on. But nowhere do Foley and Ramand put across a convincing argument for why
a Yes vote in September will make any of these reforms more likely to happen; the best they seem to
manage is that independence throws the status quo into doubt and opens opportunities (pp.2-3). Indeed
their introduction has a passage that could easily be lifted from a book entitled No rather than Yes:
By itself, voting Yes offers no guarantees of a better, more progressive future, never mind a
radical redistribution of wealth and power. Scotland would face creating a new state under
hostile circumstances If Scottish rulers, politicians and managers conform to consensus
assumptions about national welfare, and if Scotlands people do not resist them, we could
reproduce many of Britains current problems. With minimal rights, and low wages, we could
enter a race to the bottom with peripheral European economies. (pp.2-3)
Such honesty from independence campaigners is welcome. Unfortunately, the book fails to address the
challenge the authors set themselves.

The second review strikes a similar note

The unresolved problem becomes acute in the final chapter, Scotland vs. the 21st century: towards a
radical-needs agenda (pp.90-117). The authors present an attractive range of policies for post-

75

independence economic, social, and political reform. They would be resisted by the banks, the
corporations, and the neoliberal political elite. The attempt to implement them would therefore require
the mobilisation of mass forces to confront and defeat these vested interests. And this, if successful,
would in turn pose the question of power in society and thus, potentially, generate a revolutionary crisis.
Or so it seems to me. For I do not believe that there is a Keynesian/left-reformist solution to the crisis
of neoliberal capitalism. I doubt the authors do either, yet they make reference to other, more
successful, small-nation capitalist economies like Sweden, and to anti-neoliberal regimes which have
rejected market models and implemented social-reform programmes in Latin America. Is the radicalneeds agenda a left-Keynesian programme for turning Scotland into a niche Celtic Tiger economy with
strong public services and social protection? Or is it a set of transitional demands capable of mobilising
the mass of ordinary Scots in a struggle for change that will culminate in the overthrow of finance capital?
This question is not posed, let alone answered.....this is what we get instead
"What Scots can unite upon is the unsustainable direction of British capitalism. If we vote no, we all
but guarantee more decades of austerity, privatisation, and warfare.
We will miss our chance to contribute a working model of environmental sustainability. We will
assume, with utmost complacency, that Labour governments are capable of reforming Westminster,
despite all evidence to the contrary. Let us not repeat our mistakes of 1979, and resign ourselves to
more Thatcher decades. Our vote counts. By our actions we can restore hope, assert co-operation
and tolerance, and deliver a message: that Scotland will never again submit to the administration of
mindless cruelty" (pp.123-4).
The problem here is that voting yes will not end austerity, privatisation, and warfare, nor will it deliver
environmental sustainability. These things are not achievable in the context of a capitalist Scotland. Yes:
the radical case for Scottish independence provides an excellent critique of the British nation-state and
a compelling case for voting yes to break it up. It also offers an inspiring list of social reforms that would,
if implemented, transform Scotland. What it fails to do is to spell out clearly what would be involved in
making that second transition from independence to socialism.

The title of this post is taken from the title of one of Scottish writer James Kelman's most famous
novels. The New Yorker magazine (of all journals) had a great article about him last week.

Friday, September 5, 2014

Separating
I had a colleague who could always be relied upon to calm a crisis we are where we are he would
say philosophically. It reminded me of a favourite phrase of mine - man ist was man isst
apparently we are what we are but the Germans are actually saying we are what we eat.
What is it about ists.? Feminists, individualists, socialists, atheists, royalists.fascists You can
literally hear the spit of disapproval if not outright abuse.The words are insults hurled at people
who are seen to be .extremistsadvocating an extreme position.
When the referendum campaign about Scottish independence began all of 2 years ago the
discourse was civilised the terms separatist and unionist were avoided. A unionist for us in
Scotland was a royalist someone who saluted the flagliving out the last of his years in a
bungalow in the south of England or in Northern Ireland.

76

About 6 months ago, on one of the rare occasions when I joined a discussion thread, I was roundly
ticked off for using the term separatist. The rebuke was well deserved..the millions of Scots
who have in the past few decades become so disillusioned with the behaviour of British
Governments are not extremists. Rather they have been given a rare opportunity by the
referendum to take part in the sort of Conversation (and search for a new public philosophy)
recommended in the tantalising conclusion of David Marquands recent book Mammons Kingdom an
Essay on Britain, Now . And they are taking full advantage of that opportunity..
Having said that, let us not be caught up in political correctness. What Scotland faces is
separation. Theres nothing unusual about such a process it happens to millions of people and
quite a few countries. Its usually painful but many who have undergone the process of separation
will testify that they feel so much better..So why beat about the bush?
I find myself engaging in this semantic musing simply because Im now trying to give a title to the
little E-book Im producing from my 40 odd blogposts on the Scottish debate. At first I thought of
The Scottish Debate home thoughts from abroad but, as I drafted the Preface, I found
myself writing this sentence
The booklet is simply a record of the reverbations of the debate which has reached someone who loves
Scotland but who has been absent for 24 years. At the best of times, we hear what we want to hear; and,
in my case, I am hearing the debate via the internet.with echoes from the memory chamber of the
1970s and 1980s. So I tried out Reverbations as a title but it doesnt make much sense.

But, as I was waking up this morning, the word Separating came to me.Not a noun an adjective.
Not a term of abuse but a description of a fact.
So - sorry, I think weve reached the stage we need to call a spade a spade..
I googled the phrase and came across a couple of other essays on the issue what is
separatism? and in praise of separatism
Also a discussion between two Scots

Friday, September 5, 2014

The Sirens
I think I can now empathise with Ulysses problem, all these centuries ago, with the Sirens. Drip by
drip, names I respect Tariq Ali, George Monbiot, Joseph Stiglitz for example have come out (from
their non-Scottish redoubts) in favour of Scottish independence.
The latest name to give his endorsement is someone my radical friends really do need to be careful
of.. (Sir) Simon Jenkins has now kissed the ring. For those who specialise in discourse analysis,
this is a classic - which I have to let speak for itself - in full...
I sit overlooking Cardiff Bay as seven warships, including the destroyer HMS Duncan, manoeuvre gingerly
into position. They join an army of 10,000 assorted police and guards to lock down the city so that Nato
can eat a banquet in Cardiff castle. ..From the castle walls, statesmen hurl empty threats at Russia and
Islamic State, who are currently dismembering Ukraine and Iraq, two nations the west claimed only
recently to have liberated.

77

No one notices that their host, the UK, also faces dismemberment. Natos response to a global revolt
against over-centralised and insensitive states is to quaff champagne and gobble canaps. Whatever
comes of Scotlands impending independence referendum, Britain owes that country a vote of thanks.
For six months (note it has actually been 2 years - Jenkins hasn't been paying attention!!) it has staged
a festival of democracy, an Edinburgh tattoo of argument. Not a politician, not an airwave, not a town hall,
not a wall, tree or road sign is free of the debate. If, as predicted, turnout tops 80%, that is a triumph in
itself. Political participation is not dead when it matters.
How would I vote? As a British citizen residing in London, I would vote no. I would be shocked at how
Englands rulers have incurred the loathing and distrust first of most of Ireland and then of half of
Scotland. This incompetence reached its climax in the no campaign itself, the jeering, patronising, moneyobsessed project fear designed to warn the Scots to stay close to nurse. The assumption that
independence is all about cash is bad enough. Worse have been the expatriate celebrity endorsements
why have they all left home? and scares that Scotland will lose its monarch, its missiles, its brains and
the BBC, getting only poverty and terrorists in return.The shock of the past year might warn
the English establishment to embrace constitutional reform. It might put stuffing into David Camerons
empty localism and avert the humiliation of a collapsed union.
But as a Londoner I have no such vote. I have to go to Edinburgh and imagine myself a Scot. In that
case there is no argument. I would vote yes. I am sure the outcome of the referendum, whichever way
it goes, will be nothing like the alarms or promises made by both sides.
Pick apart the no votes devo-max and the yes votes independence-lite, and the practical differences
are not great. Both will deliver a distinctive Scotland yet one still close to England. Whatever deal
follows whatever vote, there will be joint citizens, open borders, a common currency, joint banking,
arrangements on welfare, security, tax-gathering and broadcasting. Scotland may set
its taxes differently, but the scope for drastic change will be limited. It can already raise or lower its
income tax but has not dared to do so.
As for money, the issues are fiercely contested and wildly out of line. But the consensus appears to be
that the 10.5bn net transfer to Scotland could be roughly balanced by Scotlands notional oil revenue.
An independent Scotland would lose a billion a year in windfarm subsidies from English energy consumers
and might have to carry over 100bn of debt. It would certainly be tough, but that is what independence
is about. Poll evidence suggests that Scottish voters are unmoved by the no campaigns economic alarmism,
leaving money as a matter for politicians to sort out.
I would vote yes because the no campaign has offered merely stasis. Its leader Alistair Darlings vision is
of union as sole guarantor of prosperity. Yet this paternalism has trapped Scotland in dependency and
lack of enterprise for half a century. Nor is it clear what his offer of devo max really means. If
Scotland were able to raise more of its own taxes, the risk is that the Treasury would offset them with
cuts in the subvention. Scotland might see a more adventurous future, but it would remain in political
shackles.
Alex Salmonds vision is equally flawed. His socialist heaven of tax and spend, floating on a lake of oil,
must be rubbish. He offers voters an extra 1,000 a head after independence, when the reality must be
public sector belt tightening. Scotlands budget would lose Treasury underpinning. Its borrowing would be
at risk. Its ministers would be on their mettle. Financial crisis would lead to Greek-style austerity,
whereupon voters would chuck Salmond out. The Tories might even revive as the party of discipline and
offshore capitalism.

78

I would vote yes because, though I disbelieve both Darling and Salmond, Salmonds lies would
precipitate a crisis that would have to lead to a leaner, meaner Scotland, one bolstered by the well-known
advantages of newborn states and more intimate governments. Scotlands whingeing and blaming of London
would stop. It would be driven towards true self-sufficiency, capable of resembling Denmark,
Norway, Ireland or Slovakia as a haven for fleet-footed entrepreneurs.
I have lost count of the referendum debates I have attended. They are dominated by expatriate Scots
who have no intention of returning home but who enjoy telling Scotland its business from the fleshpots of
London. They see union much as their grandparents saw empire, as a historical inevitability to be defended
against all argument. Many are blind to the hypocrisy of deploring Britains subservience to Brussels yet
insisting on Scotlands subservience to London.
The United Kingdom really ended with the departure of Ireland in 1922. In the past half-century the
drift to self-determination has been remorseless. In the 1970s, 40% of Scots saw themselves as British;
now only 23% do. To them, arguments about currencies, subsidies and oil are not the issue. They have
been debating the essence of democracy by whom should they be ruled? They are arguing constitutions,
not spreadsheets.
Most Scots know that independence could only be partial, but half-wish to negotiate it as between
sovereign peoples. This craving for ever greater regional autonomy is rampant across Europe, from Spain
to the Russian border. It slides into partition only when, as in Yugoslavia, central government is deaf to its
demands. Whether or not Scotland votes for independence, it will have made its own decision in its own
way. To that extent, it is a sovereign state in embryo.

Methinks the man has a point!!

6 September

Time for some culture

For almost 25 years I lived directly across from the American nuclear submarine missile base which
was established on the River Clyde in the 1960s. I could see it from my bedroom window. At
weekends, on my way to a caravan I had bought at Loch Eck, I would pass the huge obscene
structure floating on a small loch which was actually called the Holy Loch! Although the Americans
dismantled it in the early 90s, the British nuclear submarine (Trident) system has simply moved a
mile further east and is one of most powerful and visible points in the independence case
Hardly surprising that, as a political activist in the 70s, I got into the habit of reciting radical verse
at the anti-nuclear demonstrations - Adrian Mitchell was the favourite, particularly with his Tell me
Lies
Tom Leonards The Six oclock News didnt quite seem to fit the crowds requirements in those days
but Im sure has been heard in recent gatherings
Apparently one poem Vote Scotland has gone viral in the cybersphere but was unknown to me
until a couple of days ago. Its tone gives a very good sense of how a lot of Scottish people feel
these days
People of Scotland, vote with your heart.
Vote with your love for the Queen who nurtured you, cradle to grave,
Who protects you and cares, her most darling subjects, to whom you gave
the glens she adores to roam freely through, the stags her children so dearly enjoy killing.
First into battle, loyal and true. The enemys scared of you.
Thats why we send you over the top with your och-aye-the-noo Mactivish theres been a murrrderrr

79

jings! Crivvens! Deepfriedfuckinmarsbar wee wee dram of whisky

hoots mon theres a moose loose aboot this smackaddict
Vote, Jock. Vote, Sweaty Sock. Talk properly.
Vote with those notes we scrutinise in our shops.
(might be legal tender but looks dodgy to me)
Vote for the Highland Clearances. Baaaaaaaaaa.
Vote for nuclear submarines in your water.
Vote for the Olympic Games you didnt vote for
(but youll pay for it, youll pay for it).
Vote Conservative. Vote Lib Dem. Vote Libservative. Vote Condabour.
Vote with the chip on your shoulder.
Vote Labour. New Labour. Old Labour. Scottish Labour.
(Get back in line, Scottish Labour, HQ in Solihull will issue their commands shortly,
Just keep the vote coming in from up there thanks goodbye,
Subsidy junkie).
Vote for any argument you construct in your defence being anti-English.
Vote for Scots who make their career in Scotland being unambitious.
Vote for enjoying your own culture being soooooooo parochial.
Vote God Save the Queen and that bit about us crushing you all.
Hush. There there.
Vote for Scotland being refered to as a region, like, say, Yorkshire? Or East Anglia?
Vote for our voices dominating your media, but in no way telling you what to think.
Take a drink. Go on, son, take a drink.
Vote for oil revenue, which we ensure flows directly from us into you.
Vote for being told youre the only country in the world that could not possibly survive and that without us youd fall to
pieces like children abandoned in the wild, caked in faeces.
Vote Daily Mail and Rupert Murdoch and
Illegalimmigrant skilled Princess Diana and
London London London most exciting city in the world darling
(Glasgow is a very violent place, is it not. Do you have art?)
Vote with your heart. Vote Empire. Vote tradition.
Vote for our proud shared history of
Enslavingothernations and stealingtheirnaturalresources
Bringing Wealth and Prosperity to the World!
being on the right side just once and thats only because it was against yer actual fucking Hitler
Vote for the #ScottishConspiracy at Westminster
(who really runs the show here eh Blair, Brown got your own in that time, we arent allowed to vote in Holyrood but
theres
..
Vote for very, very, very rich people patronising you.
Vote for Glasgow having the highest knife-crime rate and lowest life expectancy in Europe
due to our generosity. You may thank us at your leisure.
Vote for the absence of your history in our schools.
All Brits together.
Vote for our shock at your ingratitude!
Vote for us saying Eh? Eh? when you open up your porridge mooth.
Vote for bafflement about why you want the England football team to lose.
We always want the Scots to win (except in referenda).
Vote for psychopathic villains with your accent in a soap opera.
Vote for tuition fees and student loans, ensuring that the brightest of your working-class
(since you still insist upon the term, although Our Leaders had it banned)
will one day rise and take their place in this great land.
Vote for us deploying strategic references to Braveheart to dismiss you all.
Vote for Robert Burns being called by Paxman sentimental doggerel.
Vote for The Iron Lady. Such a strong leader, gave this country backbone
(you didnt really want the unions, industries or council homes, just made the place look tatty)

80

Vote for a deregulated banking class, lionising of the

hardworking-wealth-generatingjob-creating-entrepreneurs
who you will in no way refer to as greedy, selfish bastards. Give them your taxes.
Vote for foreign wars.
Yes, sadly, some of you will die. But you will return to a heros welcome
Jock
the Union Jack, proud symbol of integrity and honour, draped across your coffin
while your mother, dabbing at her eyes, recalls the words she learned in school
in Kircudbright
There is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.
Vote with your heart.

Sunday 7 September

No Way Back

For the first time this morning, the polls show a majority of voters in Scotland voting for
independence and has the Westminster politicians in panic mode poised to offer a Constitutional
Convention. But it was an article in yesterdays paper which expressed things most clearly for me
The debate has intoxicated Scotland. Feeling involved in something BIG has intoxicated Scotland. People
have seen the opportunity to seize power. It has become worthwhile to take an interest in political issues,
achieve an understanding of them, discuss your own understanding with others, start formulating your own
ideas
The saddest thing is that what most Scots want what I want isnt even on the ballot paper. I dont want
the UK to break up. Its a unique institution in which four individual countries operate in concert, as a single
state, in comradeship. Its a beautiful thing. Or it should be.
But the democratic deficit across the UK is highly problematic, and likely to become more so.
Supposedly apathetic voters often say during general election campaigns that however you vote, you always
get the government. It didnt occur to Westminster that this referendum could be the exception that
this vote might shatter the status quo

It was the British Prime Minister apparently who removed a third option (DevoMax) from the
ballot paper and who created the stark choice Scottish voters have faced during this 2 year
campaign. At the moment he did that, the polls showed as they had consistently for years that
only one third of voters actively wanted independence..a referendum was therefore conceded in
full confidence that the independence option would be rejected
But the question on the ballot paper asks simply whether people agree that Scotland should be an
independent country. That was what we Scots call a No brainer who in his right mind would vote
for dependency?? And no one has ever denied that Scotland is a country or indeed nation. We all
consider ourselves independent
Hardly surprising that, during a conversation which has lasted at least 2 years (more like 4 since
the last General Election), a slow shift in opinion has taken place. Indeed what is surprising is that it
is only now that Yes voters seem to have reached the majority.
But and it is a very big but.. the Leader of the Scottish National Party has made it clear he
wants to leave only one of the six unions Scotland apparently belongs to. He has been widely
mocked for actually not wanting independence at all but for wanting something the papers have
called independence-lite

81

Things are now going to get very confusing..if this strongly-touted, last-minute concession of a
constitutional convention is announced, the distance between the British and Scottish Governments
will become very smallIt will be the Yes voters who may well be left behind. If Salmond, the
Scottish Leader, had argued for a clearer break no pound, no European Union, no social union
(whatever that meant) then things would have been very clear. But he fudged the issue very
cleverly way back in 2011 he talked about fiscal autonomy within the UK as his preferred option
what others have called Devo-Max. But this was ruled out. It is not on the ballot paper
although it has been the consistent line of Salmonds talk during this campaign when his line has
been that there would be no difficulties in keeping the pound, an open border with England and
membership of the European Union. Big questions were raised about this but in a manner I
commented in February which would not satisfy the voter
My inclination this past year has been to vote yes - like the vast majority of Scots, I simply feel the
political class in London is a different ideological race. And the tactics these past few weeks of the
Westminster (and Brussels) "so-genannten" leaders certainly make me feel a bit stroppy. The
suggestions of cretins such as the EC President (Barroso) and the UK Finance Minister that there could
be no currency link between England and an independent Scotland ; or easy negotiation to EU
membership is pure shock tactics..and so counterproductive.
These idiots dont know my countrymen who will simply come off the fence and vote yes.
The only reason the No vote (which a few months ago was so strong) is collapsing is because the UK is
now ruled by neo-liberal feudalists who, for Scots, are aliens at 2 removes.

Yesterdays Guardian article continued

Yet something strange, even sinister, has come to light during the referendum debate. Its that prounionist politicians are the ones who seem least willing to change the union in order to preserve it. They
scoff at the idea of a shared currency, of a single market, of a shared membership of the EU. They say
that they wont co-operate with any of that. They want only the union theyve got, not the union they have
the opportunity to create, one held together by what they have in common, yet one in which members are
able to go their own way, if and when they wish to.
These people cling to this clapped-out, 300-year-old union, even though its clear that reform is long
overdue. Weird anomalies abound. Embarrassing anomalies. Only in the UK and Iran do religious prelates
automatically take a seat in the legislature, with the established church, the Church of England, by
default in effect the church of the UK.
As for the downright perverse situation, in which Scottish MPs have the right to take part in votes that
shape the future of England but are irrelevant to their own constituents, under devolution, whats the
plan on this glaring example of democratic deficit to let it drift for ever? Scotland has become
impatient. It wants the UK to start taking democracy seriously. If it wont, then Scotland is perfectly
capable of doing that for itself, alone.
Englands electorate is starting to see that a referendum it doesnt have a vote in could change England
for ever. This, it is generally considered, is not very fair. But the unfairness doesnt emanate from
Scotland. It emanates from a Westminster that assumes the political passivity of the UK and everyone in
it.
David Cameron wasnt too bothered about giving Scotland a vote on the future of the UK. It was easy to
ignore the fact that the rest of the UK was being excluded, simply because he didnt think it was going to

82

come to anything. Even if Scotland doesnt vote yes, and merely comes close, it will still have called
Westminsters bluff.
Many politicians ask sneeringly what Scotland would gain from the independence lite that Alex Salmond
is suggesting an independence that does not break up the UK. They miss the point for a simple, awful
reason. They are unused to thinking too much about the electorate, other than at election time, so they
cannot see that the revolutionary change would be in how people felt about government, how much greater
a stake in government the individual would perceive herself as having. Members of the establishment see
voters as giving them a mandate. They are not interested in sharing the mandate with the people who have
granted it.
The Better Together campaign says: Leave it to the big boys. Its all too complicated for you lot to
understand. Get on with your work. Look after your kids. We know best. The Yes Scotland campaign says:
Think about how government impacts on your own life. Understand it. Reflect it back. Dont be
intimidated. Get involved. Get your workmates involved. Get your kids involved. We can work out whats
best together. One campaign says: Be quiet. The other campaign says: Speak. Is it any wonder that
yes has gained converts, while no has not?
Scotland got its referendum because it asked for it. Westminsters been asking for it for a long time. It
underestimated the Scots, and it underestimates the rest of the people of Britain too. Everyone in the
UK can seize the initiative, as Scotland has. Start thinking about possibilities, instead of accepting stasis.
Start seeking conversation, instead of putting up with pontification. Start talking. Start hoping.

So far, so good. But the articles final paragraph had me a bit confused
Developed and sophisticated democracy can thrive in our four countries, replacing a tired old adversarial
system, built for days gone by and resting on its withered laurels. Join Scotland, people of the UK, and
liberate yourselves. For that, paradoxically, is the only thing that can keep us together.

But thats no longer on the table

Clarity..but Confusion
The reverbations resound loud and clear this Sunday morning the length and breadth of Britain as
people south of the border wake up to the realisation that, in little over a week, the Scots will
probably have cast their vote for independence.
The Yes or No choice on the ballot paper seemed clear if youre not with me, youre against me.
But things in real life are never that cut and dried particularly in matters of national identity and
statehood. As long as Yes seemed a simple protest option, what harm was there in going for it. Who
indeed wouldnt??
But some Scots will certainly this morning be reviewing the situation and asking themselves what
Yes actually means.
Earlier this year one of our constitutional lawyers gave us 11 reasons why a Yes vote left so much up
in the air. But in fact it was 13 months ago when the waters become really muddied with Scotlands
First (ie Prime) Minister suggesting that we had six Unions only one of which would dramatically
change in the event of a Yes vote.
This political union is only one of six unions that govern our lives today in Scotland and the case for
independence is fundamentally a democratic one. "A vote for independence next year will address the

83

democratic deficit which sees policies like the punitive Bedroom Tax, the renewal of Trident or Royal Mail
privatisation imposed on Scotland against the wishes of Scotlands democratically elected
representatives."
But that will still leave five other unions intact. We will embrace those other unions while using the
powers of independence to renew and improve them.

"We will remain members of the European Union but with a seat of our own at the top table, and
without the uncertainty of a referendum on membership, as proposed at Westminster.
"We will still be members of Nato co-operating with our neighbours and friends in collective
security. But we can still decide not to be a nuclear power like 25 out of 28 current members of
NATO.
"We will be part of a currency union with the rest of the UK but we will finally have the full
taxation powers we need to promote jobs and investment.
"And we will retain the monarchy making the Queen the Head of State of 17 independent
countries, rather than 16. However, we will adopt a new constitution, written and endorsed by the
people, asserting rights as well as promoting liberties and enshrining the ancient Scottish
principle that ultimate sovereignty rests with the people.
"The final union does not rely on the choices made by politicians and parliaments the social union
unites all the peoples of these islands. "People in England will still cheer Andy Murray, and people
in Scotland will still support the Lions at rugby. People will still change jobs and move from
Dundee to Dublin, or from Manchester to Glasgow. With independence, we will continue to share
ties of language, culture, trade, family and friendship. The idea that these ties are dependent on
a Parliament in London are and have always been totally nonsensical."

Most Scottish political parties (except the Nationalists) now support Dev-Max fiscal federalism.
But these parties have lost all credibility with Scottish voters.
Watch this space!!!

In Praise of Doubt
Expect productivity in Scottish industry and commerce to decline dramatically in the next 10 days
as those living and working in the country renew their arguments (in some cases with themselves!)
about the precise nature of the independent country to which the ballot paper entices them on
September 18th. The arguments after the latest poll are now for real. In March I sensed we
were drifting apart As an ex-pat who has no vote (no residence) but who follows the various discussion threads, I am amazed
at the self-confidence of all who take part. Where is the agnosticism and scepticism which such a
portentous issue requires..??
Donald Rumsfeld is not normally someone I would quote, but his comment about unknown
unknowns deserves respect and understanding. In all the discussion, I have seen no serious attempt to
try to set out the different political, fiscal and social scenarios for Scotland - let alone for England.
Wales and Northern Ireland - which would follow from a yes outcome on 18 September.
It is obvious that a highly- developed country of 5 million people could operate as a nation state there
are about 40 members of the United Nations and a quarter of EU member states with smaller populations.
The real questions are more on the following lines How independence would affect the dynamics of trade, currency and investment (public and private) in
Scotland - and in the residual (disunited) Kingdom

84

 With different scenarios for relations with Europe and the Euro
What precise additional benefits will independence give - which the traditional and post 1999
measures of Devolution dont
How these benefits measure against the risks suggested in the first two sets of questions.
And the distractions which negotiations (and the subsequent settlements with international
organisations) will bring to those in charge of negotiations on the Scottish side

Outsiders with no obvious axe to grind have reduced all the academic analysis and political rhetoric
to the following
Where the nationalists are still on very boggy ground is convincingly describing what would happen the
morning after Scotland woke up to find itself independent. The two sides have now shelled each other
with so many rival claims about oil revenues, currency and borrowing that they have numbed each other
and probably the electorate as well.
What should be telling is that the only tax cut that Salmond has promised is one which will be of most
benefit to large companies: an independent Scotland would set its corporation tax rate at 3p in the pound
less than George Osborne. On his Glasgow walkabout, the SNP leader was stalked by no campaigners
baiting him with placards bearing the slogan: "Tax cuts for the rich!"
Whatever he says about job creation, making a priority of handing more money to multinationals sounds
like a funny way of laying the foundations of a more egalitarian country. The big hole in the nationalist
prospectus is that it promises Scots that they can have Scandinavian standards of public services with
American levels of tax.
The other disingenuous element of their case is about sovereignty itself. An independent Scotland would
obviously be free to make more choices about its future: gone would be the Trident nuclear subs. But
many of its choices would still be constricted within parameters set by major external forces. Those
forces would include London, a city with more people and money than the whole of Scotland put together.
If Scotland did somehow manage to retain the use of the pound, its interest rates would be set by a bank
governor and a monetary policy committee appointed by a Westminster chancellor. If it was readmitted
into the European Union which, after some aggro, I expect it would be an independent Scotland would
have to negotiate many of its choices through Brussels.
The value of its oil and gas would be determined by decisions made in Riyadh, Tehran, Moscow and Beijing.
The cost of its borrowing would be set by bond traders in New York and Frankfurt

And three weeks ago, one of Scotlands most disputatious intellectuals (who favours independence)
expressed things well with this piece on the power and absence of doubt in the nationalist case
I have never actually very sure about Gerry Hassan http://www.gerryhassan.com/. His voice has
been an engaging one in Scotland in the past decade and, at one stage, I thought he had something
interesting to offer in the fight against neo-liberalism. But then I discovered that he was one of
them! But his piece echoes some of my thoughts all of 6 months ago and also reminds me of
Brechts great poem In Praise of Doubt
Deafened by commends, examined
For his fitness to fight by bearded doctors,
inspected by resplendent creatures with golden insignia,
admonished by solemn clerics who throw at him a book written by God Himself
Instructed by impatient schoolmasters, stands the poor man and is told
That the world is the best of worlds and that the hole
In the roof of his hovel was planned
by God in person

85

Truly he finds it hard

To doubt the world
There are the thoughtless who never doubt
Their digestion is splendid, their judgement infallible
They dont believe in the facts,
they believe only in themselves
When it comes to the point
The facts must go by the board. Their patience with themselves
Is boundless. To arguments
They listen with the ear of a police spy.
The thoughtless who never doubt
Meet the thoughtful who never act
They doubt, not in order to come to a decision but
To avoid a decision. Their heads
They use only for shaking. With anxious faces
They warn the crews
of sinking ships that water is dangerous....
You who are a leader
of men, do not forget
That you are that because you doubted other leaders
So allow the led
Their right to doubt

Ten Days to Go
And all to play for..
At the end of April just ten weeks ago I tried to summarise the debate as it had impacted on my
open and sceptical self. I think the No voters were about 6 points ahead then but it was already
obvious that the wind was in the sails of the Yes boat and that this was the vessel which would
reach the finishing line first.
There is no status quo check my summary for the details. And further blandishments have been
offered to try to keep the undecided onboard. The latest poll which puts the yes boat ahead for
the first time will certainly lead to further promises in the days to come.
But they are all in vain. Noone believes politicians any more.
And there are no real leaders of opinion in Scotland either.
even the nationalist leader is not trusted
People are on their own..
with incredible uncertainties and permutations to ponder.

86

.one thing only is clear to me..

The nation is divided
.....in such times people often reach to conciliation..
But its not clear where such a process can be found

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

The Last Golden Summer?

In late March, I bemoaned the absence in the discussions of the past 2 years during the Scottish
referendum of any serious attempt to develop different political, economic and social scenarios for
Scotland which might arise from a yes vote after 18 September.
Of course there have been many calculations about the economic impact and assessments of the
social even psychological effects of independence - but I havent actually seen any attempt to
sketch out possible scenarios of the future knock-on effects.
The point about futures is that they surprise! It is one thing to have an opinion about the inherent
righteousness of a future move. Quite another to assess its likely consequences.
This great tongue-in-cheek piece which Martin Kettle produced has only now come to my attention
Looking back from 2024 at that last golden summer of the old Britain, it all still seems hard to believe.
How did the countrys rulers not see what was about to happen? How did such an articulate and sensible
people as the British let such a thing creep up on them?And then one remembers how easy it is for
nations to stumble into the unforeseen. By rich irony, many in Britain were unusually conscious of such
dangers in 2014. The centenary of the first world war, when a supremely confident imperial Britain
collapsed into war in another golden summer, was on many minds. Appropriately, one of 2014s bestselling
books about 1914 was entitled The Sleepwalkers. Yet few realised, even when the Queen travelled to
Glasgow to lead the post-imperial nation in remembrance on 4 August, that history was about to repeat
itself.
There were signs, for those who paid attention, though too few did. No one disputed the vote-winning
skills of the nationalist leader, Alex Salmond, reinforced in a televised debate the day after the Glasgow
service. Passion for independence among writers and artists helped fan the mood that the time had come.
The Glasgow Commonwealth Games in late July made Scots feel good. And the opinion polls, which had
seemed to stabilise after a move towards yes in the spring, began to narrow again as the 18 September
vote neared.
Nevertheless, the announcement of the referendum result at the Royal Highland Centre in the small hours
of Friday 19 September was a political earthquake. As dawn rose over Edinburgh a few miles to the
east, Mary Pitcaithly stood in front of the cameras (her rostrum is now in the Alex Salmond Museum in
Linlithgow) and announced that 1.707 million Scots had voted for independence and 1.603 against. After
307 years, the United Kingdom was no more. By a 52%-to-48% majority, Scotland was an independent
country.
The result stunned a London that had consistently ignored events in Scotland ever since devolution in
1999. While Salmond stood against a Forth Bridge backdrop to announce Scotland is a free nation once
again, and total strangers embraced in Princes Street, the UK prime minister, David Cameron, emerged
from 10 Downing Street to say it was a profoundly serious day for Britain, but the result must be

87

respected. In London the Labour leader Ed Miliband phoned Cameron and demanded the emergency recall
of parliament. Cameron agreed, adding that the autumn party conferences should be abandoned in favour
of one-day rallies to be addressed by the party leaders. Cameron then rang the Queen, who was at
Balmoral, and advised her to return to London. Not amused, the Queen said no. An hour later Gerry Adams
gave a press conference in Dublin to call for a referendum in Northern Ireland on unification with the
Irish Republic, to take place at Easter 2016. The Northern Ireland government began to totter. Cameron
rang Balmoral again, and this time the Queen agreed to return.
Fearful of a leak that would hand a propaganda coup to Salmond before 18 September, Whitehall had
done no formal contingency planning for the negotiations that now began, though the cabinet secretary,
Jeremy Heywood, had made some back-of-an-envelope notes. Once a venue was agreed the meetings
were held in York and may have triggered the rise of the Yorkshire Independence party, which won the
2016 Doncaster North byelection that followed Milibands appointment as director of the London School
of Economics the talks were soon bogged down. Salmonds timetable, which optimistically foresaw
completion and full sovereignty by March 2016, was soon binned. Partly this was because the talks, led by
Nicola Sturgeon for Scotland and William Hague for the remaining UK, trod water as the May 2015 UK
general election approached.
Further delays were caused by the failed coalition negotiations between Labour and the Liberal
Democrats that followed the election of a second hung parliament.But the main reason for delay was the
increasingly uncompromising attitude of the new Cameron minority government, which was permanently
under pressure from the Tory grassroots following the Dont give the bastards a bawbee by the new
Ukip leader Boris Johnson in May. The second was the dawning that no formal handover could take place
until both parliaments had processed the 400-page Scottish independence bill which finally emerged from
the York negotiations in March 2016 the month in which Northern Ireland voted narrowly to join the
republic, thus reigniting the Ulster civil war.
By the Scottish elections of May 2016 Salmonds star had lost its sheen. Opponents of the York
agreement abandoned the SNP over Salmond and Sturgeons compromises on Trident and the currency.
The Real SNP took enough votes from the nationalists to bring a Labour-led government back to power at
Holyrood headed by Jim Murphy, one of Scotlands Labour MPs who had not decamped to an English
constituency after 2014. Salmond duly stepped down. With the Scottish bill increasingly bogged down in
the Commons, Cameron accelerated the promised referendum on EU membership. But the hurt caused by
the 2014 vote and increasing media bitterness in England towards Scotland had an unexpected flipside.
Insecurity about the future meant that voters took fright at the prospect of a broken UK going it alone.
The referendum was a triumph for the Better Together campaign, which won the vote to stay in the EU
by the same two-to-one margin as in the 1975 referendum. But it was a pyrrhic victory for Cameron.
When his party split over the result, the prime minister resigned and Labours Douglas Alexander, now MP
for Holborn, took office at the head of an all-party government comprising Labours pro-Europe majority
and a rump of pro-Cameron Tories.
The upshot for Scotland was that weak Labour governments in Holyrood and Westminster, both led by
unionist Scots, were left to push through an independence package that neither agreed with, and from
which support had ebbed in Scotland. Looking back at 2014 10 years afterwards, it all seems a terrible
waste of energy and time. This spring, as the collapse of the pound finally forced the Alexander
government to begin negotiations to join the eurozone with the Murphy government meanwhile urging
the UK to keep the pound the new European commission president, Nick Clegg, was caught on a
microphone warning: Be careful what you wish for in politics. It is hard not to agree.

Now, thats what I call imaginative reporting!

88

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Checking the Scenarios

I wanted to check out my feeling that even serious contributors to the discussion about Scottish
Independence havent given us alternative scenarios in their various assessments.
A quick flick through the indexes of the relevant books in my growing library on the subject gave
me nothing. My google search took me into deeper territory than I have ever ventured after 26
pages of search listings, the relevant links seemed to peter out.
For the record, this is what they gave A recent Wikistrat exploration of 4 scenarios When Scotland leaves the UK
A brief list of four possible financial scenarios
a paper on future scenarios for Scotland from the Scotland Future Forum written,
unfortunately, in 2012 before the referendum was called and consisting of typical blue-skies
stuff with, astonishingly, not a single reference to the possibility of independence!
a short note from Moodys dismissing the risks of independence for UK ratings
a brief article in Huffington Post about a Wikistrat analysis of 4 scenarios if Scotland
leaves the UK
a 2012 doomsday prediction from an historian Ive never heard of
A simple twin scenario sketched very briefly a couple of days ago in a radical blog
My initial hypothesis seems, therefore, to be confirmed.
There was some apparently weightier material a small book on Scenario Thinking 2020 produced by the St Andrews University Press (in
2005) gives some useful references on how to develop scenarios but then goes on to build a
set only for this old, famous and very selective University on the East of Scotland
A very careful (if narrow) 86-page assessment of The potential implications of
independence for businesses in Scotland produced by Oxford Economics consultancy for the
important Weir Group in Scotland
The 200-page Fiscal Commission Report (the Scottish Government 2013) which I referred
to recently
a short 2012 paper on Scottish Independence and EU Accession by Business and New
Europe
Nothing, however, to give a foretaste of what is likely to happen when the shit really hits the fan at
the end of next week.
A couple of posts today begin to give a sense of this first from Paul Krugman to whom I dont
normally give the time of day; then from (for me) a new and intriguingly entitled blog - Flip Chart
Fairy Tales

89

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Exit, Voice and Loyalty

A couple of more philosophical items caught my feverish eye yesterday morning the first an
elegant article in American Scholar about the instant gratification which, with customisation,
has become an even more integral part of our culture than it was when Christopher Lasch first tore
it apart in his 1978 The Culture of Narcissism.
Ive excerpted a significant part of the article later in the post to whet your appetite.
The second item was a contribution by the President of the European University Institute to the
question of how easily an independent Scotland could negotiate its way back into the European
Union. His piece certainly adds a missing dimension to the discussion
I watched the televised debates. Most of the sparring was utilitarian: Will we better off, especially
economically. More employment, yes or no. Better social network, yes or no et cetera et cetera. So this is
what will ultimately decide things. This runs diametrically contrary to the historical ethos of European
integration. The commanding moral authority of the Founding Fathers of European integration Schumann,
Adenauer, de Gaspari and Jean Monnet himself was a result of their rootedness in the Christian ethic of
forgiveness coupled with an enlightened political wisdom which understood that it is better to look
forward to a future of reconciliation and integration rather than wallow in past historical rights and
identity.
There were, of course, utilitarian considerations, but they were not at the normative core.
The European Union is struggling today with a decisional structure which is already overloaded with 28
Member States but more importantly with a socio-political reality which makes it difficult to persuade a
Dutch or a Finn or a German, that they have a human and economic stake in the welfare of a Greek or a
Portuguese, or a Spaniard.
Why would there be an interest to take into the Union a polity such as an independent Scotland
predicated on a regressive and outmoded nationalist ethos which apparently cannot stomach the discipline
of a multinational nation? The very demand for independence from the UK, an independence from the
need to work out political, social, cultural and economic differences within the UK, independence from the
need to work through and transcend whatever gripes there might be, disqualifies morally and politically
Scotland and the likes as future Member States of the European Union.
Do we really need yet another Member State whose decisional criterion for Europes fateful decisions in
the future would be whats in it for us? Europe should not seem as a Nirvana for that form of
irredentist Euro-tribalism which contradicts the deep values and needs of the Union. Thus, the
assumption of Membership in the Union should be decisively squelched by the countries from whom
secession is threatened and if their leaders, for internal political reasons lack the courage so to say, by
other Member States of the Union.

So there! You're tell't!!

The American Scholar article is focusing on bigger fish - in North American culture but resonated
with me as I wrestle with the prospect of my country casting aside its link with the rest of the UK
In everything from relationships to politics to business, the emerging norms and expectations of our selfcentred culture are making it steadily harder to behave in thoughtful, civic, social ways. We struggle to
make lasting commitments. Were uncomfortable with people or ideas that dont relate directly and

90

immediately to us. Empathy weakens, and with it, our confidence in the idea, essential to a working
democracy, that we have anything in common.
Our unease isnt new, exactly. In the 1970s, social critics such as Daniel Bell, Christopher Lasch, and Tom
Wolfe warned that our growing self-absorption was starving the idealism and aspirations of the postwar
era. The logic of individualism, argued Lasch in his 1978 polemic, The Culture of Narcissism, had
transformed everyday life into a brutal social competition for affirmation that was sapping our days of
meaning and joy. Yet even these pessimists had no idea how self-centred mainstream culture would
become. Nor could they have imagined the degree to which the selfish reflexes of the individual would
become the template for an entire society. Under the escalating drive for quick, efficient returns, our
whole socioeconomic system is adopting an almost childlike impulsiveness, wholly obsessed with short-term
gain and narrow self-interest and increasingly oblivious to long-term consequences.

AO Hirschman, one of my favourite social scientists, wrote, in 1970, a famous book Exit, Voice, and
Loyalty which came to my mind as I mused about all this.
Exit means that individuals abandon a firm, brand, organization, or association when they are no
longer satisfied and see no chance for improvement. Voice, by contrast, suggests that they seek
improvement and want to make their preferences heard and see their choices respected. Loyalty
characterizes ones commitment to associations such as the family, the nation, the ethnic group, or
religious congregation that are based on formative and deeply held values.
Hardly surprising that this is a book which has cropped up from time to time in the recent Scottish
discussions eg Gerry Hassan in December 2012
Voice and power are central to any practice of self-determination. Hirschman argued that the right
championed exit (market solutions) and the left loyalty (solidarity), and both prioritised these above
voice. In this, voice means the collective self-organisation of people, something fundamentally missing
from the public life of Scotland, for all the talk of civic Scotland and the new politics.
Voice relates to who has power, its use, expression and dynamics, and the reality that in our society not
only is it increasingly concentrated in a few economic, social and political elites, but that any
countervailing forces are much weaker and more disparate in their influence. A Scottish selfdetermination movement would understand the importance of voice and power, and aim to aid a shift in
how these are articulated and understood, supporting existing ideas and initiatives which encourage a
move away from powerlessness and dependency to autonomy and empowerment at an individual and
collective level.
The ideology of civic Scotland (that subset of civil society) believes that Scotlands supposed social
democracy is enough; that our problems and challenges are external in the British state and market
fundamentalism. Not all of them are: our complacencies and silences are just as much a problem.
Our nation and society is bitterly divided, with hundreds of thousands of Scots adults and children living
in poverty and hardship. The cosseted life of Scotlands super-rich and the widespread fawning in public
life and media after plutocrats and global tycoons such as Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch, isnt a
product of external forces, but the free choice of our politicians, public bodies and business community.
This wont be ended by the demise of the union. Instead, Scotland needs a new collective mission and
purpose which mobilises our resources to tackle and heal the divided, fragmented society we have become.
That is one of the first priorities in creating and acting upon a culture of self-determination.

That led me, in turn, to three other references which should be included in the final bibliography
Ill add to my Separating home thoughts from abroad

91

an article on Who Rules Scotland? by David Miller, a chapter in a 2010 book - Neoliberal
Scotland; Class and Society in a Stateless Nation edited by Davidson, N., McCafferty,
P. and Miller D
A 2005 book Scotland 2020
a paper on Voice in public sector reform

But lets return to the instant gratification culture

Day by day, there seem to be fewer reasons to follow the rules or think beyond oneself or the present
moment. Not so long ago, we told our children that success required sustained effort, a willingness to
delay gratification, and the capacity to control impulses.
Children today, however, see their patient, hard-working parents and grandparents tossed aside like old
furniturewhile investment bankers and reality TV stars seem to easily make huge amounts of money.
Little wonder that cheating is now endemic in high school and college. .Community and family are
undermined by our consumer culture of individual gratification.
Worse, our political system, the traditional arbiter between public and private interests, has been
colonized by the same bottom-line impulse. Political parties boil their philosophies down into extreme
brands designed to provoke target audiences and score quick wins. Voters are encouraged to see politics
as another venue for personalized consumption.
Weve lost the idea that politics is the means to build consensus and an opportunity to participate in
something larger than ourselves.. We know the result: a national political culture more divided and
dysfunctional than any in living memory. All but gone are centrist statesmen capable of bipartisan
compromise.
A democracy once capable of ambitious, historic ventures can barely keep government open and seems
powerless to deal with challenges like debt reduction or immigration

The people of Scotland, at one level, seem to have had enoughthey have tried loyalty
(particularly to the Labour Party); and voice (since the discovery of oil gave the nationalists their
first political breakthrough in the 1960s.
Some started to exit from the Labour Party during the New Labour period then in droves after
the 2010 General Election.
But the exit from the UK started only months agowhen it seems that thousands of loyal
undecided cast off that loyalty..
There is still a lot of residual loyalty left but the political wankers who descended yesterday on
Scotland are not likely to re-ignite the passion.. (nb thats not a misspelling!)
A superb biography on Hirschman was recently published Worldly Philosopher the odyssey of
Albert O Hirschman and is sitting accusingly on my bookshelves. Im 100 pages into it but have
been distracted. It is a real intellectual biography which supplements other pieces such as
this and this

92

Monday, September 15, 2014

Round Up

A week, a British Prime Minister once famously said, is a long time in politics.
And its been an extraordinary five days in British politics as the strong possibility of a Scottish
vote for independence this Thursday sank home at last on an rUK public. Political leaders stopped
what they were doing and rushed to Scotland .promises were maderabbits were pulled out of
the hat - little of it convincing
The Guardian blog has been giving an excellent running commentary on events for weeks and this is
their latest
Those wanting a more measured take on the battle should read the current issue of London Review
of Books which has 15 short contributions from eminent UK writers. And also this explanation of
what the media mean by the confusing term DevoMax which has resurfaced.
One thing is clear David Cameron is in the firing line. It was he who rejected what most Scots
actually want greater devolved powers for the Scottish Parliament; it was he who rejected the
option of having that as a third question on the ballot paper. If the vote is No he will be expected
to deliver on the vague promises which have come from his camp in response to the latest polls and
whilst devolved powers to English regions may be of interest to the chattering classes there, it is
not, at the moment, a vote winner.
But resentment is building in England at the idea of concessions to Scotland. In any event, any
concessions would be for the wrong reason. Its not cash the Scots want its freedom from neoliberal greed. Unfortunately a Yes vote, ironically, would not achieve that. Its not gone unnoticed
that Rupert Murdoch supports both independence (he was tweetering about this copiously from
Scottish pubs) and the Scottish leader and that both support lower taxes for business.
Ive tried to keep a neutral tone in the posts Ive been making in the last month or so. After all I
dont have a vote and last lived in the country 24 years ago. But I am a Scot and a passionate one.
But never a nationalist nor, as Ive tried to explain here, are my countrymen.
Most people consider that those favouring independence have the better arguments but I have
not been convinced by that. Ive been looking at two (small) books from the left corner supporting
the Yes case (which I referred to in my Sept 4 post) - Jim Sillars In Place of Fear II a socialist
programme for an independent Scotland and Yes the radical case for Scottish Independence and
find them very inadequate. Articles such as this and this are much more persuasive.
And Im finding an intolerance in the mood which seems to have swung behind the Yes movement
which reminds me of some of the reading I did on my Politics course in the early 60s at Glasgow
University particularly Canettis Crowds and Power (1960)
As a politician myself from 1968-1990, I was never comfortable with the emotions politics could
arouse and I sense a dangerous element in the present mood in Scotland. Coincidentally I found
myself last week reading Sebastian Haffners amazing Defying Hitler which is an eye-witness
account of a young mans day-by-day experience of the Nazi takeover in 1933. Apparently written in
the late 1930s, it was published only in 2000 after the famous journalists death.
Extensive excerpts can be found on this website and I strongly urge people to read them.

93

Tuesday 16 September

Last Days of a Nation?

My posts have been written for those outside the debate who wanted to get a detached sense of
what it was all about. I remain detached and this is perhaps why Im not convinced by the
arguments from the Yes camp.
And, in case some of my Scottish ex-colleagues and friends feel that this puts me into the
traitors camp, let me excuse myself by reminding them that field of government and my
philosophy one of healthy scepticism.
Winning elections requires one set of skills negotiating separation and governing a nation requires
a totally different set of skills.
A question about whether ones country should be independent is a different question from
that of whether its leaders have the capacity needed to build a new state and negotiate it
into existence.
Of course, separation is nothing new in recent times countries with which I am very familiar such
as Azerbaijan, Czechia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Slovakia and Uzbekistan have done it not to mention
Estonia, Lithuania and Ukraine. But leaders of these states had none of the sort of attention
focused on them which Scottish leaders will have if its voters chooses independence on Thursday
Those responsible for the subsequent negotiations will have to spend several years of their lives
exploring the precise terms of currency, EU and NATO membership let alone of precise manner of
the separation of British institutions of state into separate entities. They are only few and only
individual they will, let us speak quite frankly, suffer from considerable stress and be exposed
to massive media exposure. Hopefully they will be able to survive it all.
One nagging question is who will be minding the shop while all of this is going on - I've seen little
comment about what this blogger called the "problem of distraction"
A question about whether ones country should be independent is a different question from a
question about whether Scotland should break with a corrupt political class or neoliberalism.
The polling stations will open the length and breadth of the mainland and islands of Scotland in just
36 hours. Only then will the arguments stop which have gripped the Scots for at least the 2 years
plus since the referendum question was agreed. I would like to say this has indeed been a
conversation but this piece by my friend, Tom Gallagher, gives a different sense
Its fairly obvious that most people made their mind up a long time ago since when theyve been
talking past one another concentrating their energies on those who were wavering or still
undecided. I saw yesterday an interesting breakdown of voting intentions by Region which was quite
fascinating but, unfortunately, I can find it. So this equally fascinating record of how the various
polls have gone will have to do instead. It gives an amazing insight into the amount of money, time
and energy that has been spent on polling in the past 2 years.
Those wanting to follow the last days of this nation can do no better than follow this blow-by-blow
account

94

Wednesday 17 September

When Scotland Leaves..

I did a post last week trying to identify what sort of scenario work had been published assessing
the likely impact of Scotland withdrawing from the UK. There wasnt all that much but I had
missed an interesting bit of work which wikistrat had done in the summer and which led to a short
report issued earlier this month with the catchy title - When Scotland Leaves the UK
The lead analyst for this was one Catalina Tully who has a post today which describes how she has
turned from a no to a yes. Which is why I find the conclusion rather interesting.
The methodology
In June and July 2014, Wikistrat ran a 15-day crowdsourced simulation to explore pathways for
Scotlands emergence as an independent country, assuming Scotland becomes independent within the next
five years. The purpose of the simulation was to portray Scotlands possible future as an independent
state. The simulation, which was conducted over three phases, focused on the opportunities and risks
(economic, political and social) that will shape an independent Scotland in 2020.
In Phase I, Wikistrat analysts identified 34 risk factors that threaten the future of an independent
Scotland and opportunities available to the new country. In Phase II, analysts developed 25 scenarios
based on these risks and opportunities to show different ways in which an independent Scotland may
emerge. Finally, in Phase III, analysts developed 15 scenarios that described what an independent
Scotland would look like in 2020.
Only four are however (rather briefly) identified in the report whose stark conclusion makes
interesting reading Scottish independence offers a modest upside risk and a potentially calamitous downside risk. Scottish
independence also rests on several key assumptions that are at best debatable:
Scotland being able to use the British pound as its currency.
Scotland being accepted into the EU rapidly and under favourable terms.
Scotland being able to benefit from NATO protection with a minimal military contribution under an Irish
model while maintaining a non-nuclear policy with respect to the British nuclear submarine fleet.
The costs of running its own government not exceeding the excess tax revenues generated from
offshore energy and the contribution it once made to U.K. governance.
The SNP has also inflated the benefits and understated some of the costs of independence. Scotland will
probably not realize all the economic benefits of independence when its monetary policy is controlled
either in London or Frankfurt, both of which are likely to pursue austere monetary policies that put a
drag on Scottish growth.
In addition, the administrative and bureaucratic drag on the economy is probably underestimated.
Scotland will assume numerous sovereign rights from Britain, which will take time to sort out and
administer. Preeminent among these are border control and immigration. Also, Scotlands population skews
old and its energy revenues are expected to decline. Thus, its prosperity depends on the countrys ability
to attract and absorb younger immigrants, which, depending on where the immigrants come from, could
profoundly change the countrys character.
Much of Scotlands economy depends on protecting its maritime interests, especially its offshore energy
extraction and fishing industries. Protecting its Exclusive Economic Zone will be costly and could become
more expensive under the terms for joining the NATO alliance. Given worsening ties with Russia, however,
EU member states might welcome Scotland as a member on favorable terms, given its oil and gas
resources and strategic North Sea location. NATO may view Scotland in the same light.

95

Holding our Breath

As the talking stops, I have no hesitation in awarding my accolade for the most thoughtful blogs to
two academic bodies or rather
one body - UK Constitutional Law and
one academic - Paul Cairney of the University of Stirling who, a bit like me, has stepped up
his posts only in the last few weeks
Cairneys posts of the past few days have been models of careful analysis whether sketching out
for Canadian inquirers the various aspects of the debate; or exploring the meaning of various
recent surveys
And this explanation of what the latest offers from UK politicians actually mean is as good as it
gets - although Cairney also deals with the issue very succinctly.
As I had anticipated, I had another sleep-interrupted night but was delighted to receive at 03.00 a
mail from someone who had been my Secretary in Glasgow in the 80s when I was one of the gang of
four who were the leaders of the Regional government system which was then responsible for most
services for half the population of Scotland. Since then shes been the local aide to the Rt Hon
John Reid - who was Tony Blairs key firefighter in the 2000s occupying more senior Cabinet posts
than anyone else in British political history.
Other people who have sent posts hail from countries such as Portugal, Bulgaria and France and
Ive noticed indeed that my most regular readers in the past few weeks are from Turkey, France
and the Ukraine. Time was when the US topped the ratings.
But other issues have been pressing on me this bright mid-September day in the Carpathian
mountains inspired by my work at the weekend for a good governance project funded by EV
Structural Funds, Ive now collated 100 pages from my blogposts dealing with the whole
issue of EU funding, performance measurement and training. And, coincidentally, I spotted
this review in Public Books of a couple of books about economic indicators. I have to say I
am greatly encouraged by the way some good writers (many non-specialists) are now daring
(and succeeding) to write very coherently about economic and financial matters.
A superb demolition job on property developers was juggled with an attempt to read David
Harveys short book Rebel Cities - but being much more convinced by Benjamin Barbers
nderestimated If Mayors Ruled the World
For a round-up of todays events in Scotland follow this live Guardian blog

96

The Aftermath

97

The Settled Will of the People?

Sunday 21 September
So no separation! Ive waited a couple of
days before trying to compose my
reactions. Time to let the dust settle
and identify the best of others
responses
In the meantime I updated the preface
of my little E-book, changed its title to
The Scottish Argument, had it printed
and bound (back in Bucharest) and read
it over in the manner only a physical
book allows. Forthcoming months will,
inevitably, see several books about the
campaign but they will be for a British
audience. And I think it would be good
to try to put the Scottish debate in the
wider context of discussions about
democracy and good government in Europe So I may well have a stab at that in the months to
come.
It was only as I discussed the result with my Romanian partner that I realised how few had been
the respected Scottish voices speaking reasonably for continued union. Our cultural elite supported
independence so strongly that the minority who were for continued union seemed to have lost its
voice JK Rowlings was an exceptional voice. Gordon Brown seem to have found his voice only in the
last few weeks until then only a couple of left politicians had dared to take to the streets and
halls with arguments for continued union. The business sector also seemed cowed although Tom
Hunter had a Foundation through which some balanced papers were published. The media was for
union and increasingly attracted nationalist fury. And the academic community by and large
maintained its academic distance. Religion is no longer the force it was although the Catholic
Church had noticeably softened its anti-independence stance
Sunday gives time to read the Sunday newspapers - and get a bit of distance from its essayists.
Two of the big Scottish names novelist Irvine Welsh and intellectual Neal Ascherson had good
pieces. Both were yes supporters Welsh more recently but it is his article which has the angrier
tone It also, to my mind, gives a better sense of alternative scenarios than Ive so far seen. His
argument, basically, is that
It is not just the Scots who have been activated by this campaign but many people in the
rest of the UK (rUK)
The British Prime Minister who was panicked into promises in the last week of the
campaign - will be unable to deliver a credible package which will satisfy both Scots and
English
The Labour party lost most credibility in the campaign they were exposed for many
undecided as the neo-liberals they are

98

The campaign allowed the genie out of the bottle. Apathy and cynicism have been rampant
in Britain since New Labour disappointed so many hopes the Scottish campaign has shown
a new spirit and the democratic urge will not be repressed

There was much talk of how ineffective the no campaign was. In some ways this is unfair: you can only go with what
you've got and they simply weren't packing much heat. The union they strove to protect was based on industry and
empire and the esprit de corps from both world wars, and you can't maintain a political relationship on declining
historical sentiment alone. With the big, inclusive postwar building blocks of the welfare state and the NHS being
ripped apart by both major parties there's zero currency in campaigning on that, especially as they're only being
preserved in Scotland by the devolved parliament. The boast of using oil revenues to fund privatisation projects and
bail out bankers for their avarice and incompetence is never going to be a vote winner. Going negative was the only
option.

Neal Aschersons article emphasises the last point and then tries to capture what actually
happened in the last week of the campaign So this long campaign has changed Scotland irrevocably. Campaign? I have never seen one like this, in which it wasn't
politicians persuading people how to vote, but people persuading politicians. At some point in late spring, the official
yes campaign lost control as spontaneous small groups set themselves up and breakfast tables, lounge bars, bus top
decks and hospital canteens began to talk politics. What sort of Scotland? Why do we tolerate this or that? Now, in
Denmark they do it this way
It was at this moment 7 September that the famous poll suggesting a yes victory appeared. Ironically, this may
have ensured the yes defeat. It wasn't so much the scrambling panic at Westminster, the stampede of cabinet
ministers and MPs for seats on the next train north out of Euston. It was the spontaneous initiative of thousands of
Scottish voters, who realised that they could be out of the United Kingdom within days unless they took action. "No
thanks" posters appeared everywhere in windows in the last week of the campaign and the undecided, suddenly under
pressure from anxious relations and colleagues, began to veer towards a decisive no.
The weakness of the unionists, and of their Better Together outfit, was terrifying. Defenders of the union from
south of the border almost all did their cause more harm than good, either by displaying ignorance about Scotland
that made audiences laugh, or by imperial bullying. George Osborne's threat to throw the Scots out of the common
currency if they dared to vote yes was perceived as shameless bluff by most Scottish viewers and nearly cost him
the referendum.
The Better Together leadership, including Alistair Darling, relied on negativity and fear, issuing constant scarestatements that often proved to be misleading or even mendacious. Worse, they seemed unable to set the union to
music, even though some of their unofficial followers could make a positive, emotional case for "Britain" which didn't
have to rely on either "glorious history" or fancied threats from "forces of darkness". The no case, in other words,
won by default; yes ran out of steam and became vulnerable almost within sight of triumph.

Welsh looks at the some of the political consequences already taking shape The referendum was a disaster for Cameron (UK PM) personally, who almost lost the union. The Tories, with enough
self-awareness to realise how detested they are in Scotland, stood aside to let Labour run the show on the basis they
could deliver a convincing no vote. But for Labour, the outcome was at least as bad; when the dust settles they will be
seen, probably on both sides of the border, to have used their power and influence against the aspiration towards
democracy. Labour voters caught this ugly whiff, the number of them supporting independence doubling in a month
from 17% to 35%. In the mid-term, the leadership may have simply acted as recruiting sergeants for the SNP.
As Cameron was at first absent and uninterested, then finally fearful, so the Leader of the Labour opposition looked
just as ineffective and totally lost during this campaign. He became a figure of contempt in Scotland: Labour leaders
have generally needed a period in office in order to achieve that distinction.
As social media came of age in a political campaign in these islands, the rest of the establishment will be for ever
tarnished in the eyes of a generation of Scots. The senior officials of banks and supermarkets dancing to

99

Whitehall's tune, their nonsense disseminated by the London press, was not unexpected, but the BBC
extensively answered any questions about their role in a post-independent Scotland
This vote ensures that Scotland will remain central on the UK agenda. The union was on death row and the no vote
earned it a stay of execution; the establishment parties are now in the process of organising their appeal. That
has to involve real decentralisation of power and an end to regional inequities. Do the political classes have the
stomach and the spine for this? A devo max that gives Scotland the power to raise taxes to pay for welfare
programmes, but not reduce them by opting out of Trident and other defence spending, while maintaining the oil flow
south of the border, without even an investment or poverty alleviation fund, is a sham, especially as it was denied at
the ballot box. It may be perceived as setting up the Scottish parliament to fail, and undermining devolution.
However, it's probably the case that anything more than that would be unlikely to be palatable to the major parties or
the broader UK electorate. The biggest problem for the Westminster elites now is not just to decide what to do
about Scotland but, crucially, to do it without antagonising English people who might justly feel that the tail of 10%
is now starting to wag the dog of the rest of the UK.
The fact is that the majority of the 25 million who live in London and the south-east are perfectly fine with the bulk
of tax pounds (to say nothing of the oil revenues) being spent on government, infrastructure and showcase projects in
the capital why wouldn't they be? The problem is that in a unitary, centralised state, the decision-making and civic
wealth of the nation and therefore practically all the large-scale private investment lies in that region.
So how can you square the two? Scots are showing they won't go on committing their taxes or oil monies to
building a London super-state on the global highway for the transnational rich, particularly when it's becoming
unaffordable to their Cockney comrades, driving them out of their own city to the M25 satellites
The yes movement hit such heights because the UK state was seen as failed; antiquated, hierarchical, centralist,
discriminatory, out of touch and acting against the people. This election will have done nothing to diminish that
impression. Against this shabbiness the Scots struck a blow for democracy, with an unprecedented 97% voter
registration for an election the establishment wearily declared nobody wanted. It turns out that it was the only
one people wanted. Whether this Scottish assertiveness kickstarts an unlikely UK-wide reform (unwanted in most of
the English regions); or wearies southerners and precipitates a reaction to get rid of them; or the Scots, through the
ballot box at general elections, decide to go the whole hog of their own accord; the old imperialist-based union is bust.

Ascherson shows the same scepticism as Welsh about whether the centre will hold in Scotland
Where does Scotland go from here? The last few days have produced a jostling mob of half-promises, most of them
provoked by the 7 September poll panic. David Cameron, borrowing a cliche, states that staying in the United
Kingdom is now "the settled will of the Scottish people".
Even SNP figures say independence won't return to the agenda for a generation. This is unlikely to be true. Scotland
is being carried along on a process of steady institutional, political and social divergence from the rest of the UK,
which will continue.
The case for full self-government will make increasing sense in the next few years. The latest hasty suggestions for
increasing the powers of the Scottish parliament are little more than a rehash of existing proposals judged some
years ago to be hopelessly behind the curve. Anyway, Mr Cameron now proposes to embed them in a vaster
constitutional reform for all Britain. This is unlikely to get anywhere serious, and would take many years if it did. If
the Westminster system has one real expertise, it is for gently enfolding radical ideas, like a jellyfish with its prey,
and dissolving them to transparent mush.
In the past three days, Scots have looked at one another and asked: "What do we do with all that joyful commitment,
with the biggest surge of creative democratic energy that Scotland has ever seen?" For many, perhaps thousands of
people, it has been the most important public experience in their lives. Must it go to waste?

100

Monday, September 22, 2014

Normal service resumed?

For every reader Ive lost in last months more or less exclusive focus on the Scottish referendum,
it appears Ive gained at least another. I think readers will understand why, a month ago, I
abandoned my usual subjects to try to give you all a sense of the arguments which were going in the
small country I abandoned in 1990..
Although the blog will now return to other themes, it will follow events in Scotland with more
regularity. What happened there these past few years is part of the outflowing of anger and hope
we have seen in other parts of the world in recent years as citizens have taken to the streets to
object to the way their world was being governed.
Each outburst whether in Turkey, Ukraine, Egypt- had its specific reasons and shape but
all focused on the misuse of power. My new readers in Turkey and the Ukraine know they belong
to a wider movement which may use slogans but know that social change needs more than that.
They are keen to learn from one another and to go beyond the simplistic manuals of protest and
regime change that people like Gene Sharp perfected (with American cash) a decade or so ago.
I remember tantalising the Uzbek officials who attended my classes at the Presidential Academy in
Tashkent with what I called the opportunity theory of change namely that political change
happens suddenly and fortuitously and requires individuals (who may not fit our images about
leaders) who have prepared rigorously and who have the capacity both to inspire followers but
(most difficult) to manage the building of the organisational capacity which will follow success.
Social change requires a challenging combination of emotion, preparationand opportunity. The
emotion has to be channelled; the preparation both analytical and political; and the opportunity
calculated and managed. The new website which I will (hopefully) be inaugurating in October
when I get back down to Sofia will be focusing on social change initially the more neglected
analytical elements of that process..
I wanted yesterday to explore how my countrymen were dealing with the outcome of the vote and
what better way than to look at some of the 100 or so sites which Bella Caledonia - one of the most
famous Scottish bloggers - identifies on her blogroll. Her Saturday post was a good one
My anger is not that we voted to remain under a UK flag, its that we voted not to give the power back to
the people. Whilst we will remain locked in a system that is demolishing our human rights and our society,
my hope remains, because unless we choose to let them can never have power over our imagination.
We dont need anyones permission, so lets just start building it anyway and let us build it not on binaries,
but with depth, diversity, and humanity.
Let us not replicate the model that distributes power so unequally, lets not go back to party politics,
adversarial posturing and divisiveness. Lets take our time to build it, and bring everyone with us this time.
It can be done, if we can learn from what was most valuable about the YES movement and realise that it
is not leadership from above, but individual innovation towards mutual benefit that was our strength. This
will be our most productive and powerful tool.

101

Scotland is now light years ahead of the rest of the UK in terms of understanding our identity and our
democracy. Its going to be long and its going to be hard work, but we must bring them with us, and whilst
I applaud those celebrating the #45 we must bring the 55% with us too because if we dont do that, we
will always lose. Divide and rule
We have all become citizen journalists, researchers, debaters and campaigners, we have collectively
undertaken a journey which has brought us to a level of political maturity which I dont think anyone
could have predicted. Its astonishing, its innovative, and it belongs not to our leaders but to each
and every one of you.
As a society we have evolved into something new, something knowledgeable, an information sharing and
commentary network which has turned us into something very powerful, and very exciting indeed. We had
purpose. We forgot to eat, we forgot to sleep, we were energised by something bigger than ourselves.
We became voracious in our consumption of the latest opinion or analysis on the latest development. We
researched economic theory, constitutional legislation, social policy, renewable energy potential, and we
wrote stories shared our questions and fears, and found the answers amongst ourselves.
We have found our own leadership potential and we are still using it in a collective murmuration that is
flocking, forming and reforming, in a gathering momentum towards what I hope will be real structural
change. We cant remain in this state of fight or flight, we wont survive if we do. We need to find a way
to entwine these new behaviours into our culture from ground level. Fight or flight is necessary for a
revolution, but what we need now is evolution. We need to be the drops in the ocean.
Were facing a political system thats become a zero sum game and the very thing thats caused the
race to the bottom of careerist politicians and neoliberal consensus, is our insistence on binaries.
Yes or No. Labour or Tory. Westminster or Holyrood. Right or wrong. We KNOW the world doesnt
work like that, so why do we keep voting for it? Because we havent seen what the alternative might
look like, we havent been able to imagine it yet. Im going to propose that we imagine it now, that we make
it anyway.
We dont need anyone elses permission to be creative, but we need to give ourselves permission to bring
humanity back into politics and put politics back into our lives. How can we make political behaviour part of
our every day culture?

One new website I came across - Frankly Independent - is one I wish I had encountered earlier.
Apart from the original historical and European slant it brings, it is an amazing compendium of
resources
Another thoughtful post on the aftermath of the vote comes from Gerry Hassan
Something has shifted in Scotland which will never be the same again. This in the words of Fintan OToole is the belief
that, Ask an important question and people will respond with dignity and recognise they have power. The emergence
of the third Scotland, the phrase I coined to describe the glorious, multi-various explosion of self-organising radical
currents such as Radical Independence Campaign, National Collective and Common Weal, will have enduring significance
beyond the referendum.
They have brought many young people and twenty-somethings into politics and activism for the first time. A host of
English centre-left writers such as John Harris and Jason Cowley, editor of the New Statesman (and , most recently.
Paul Mason), have expressed an admiration for this tendency and the term. They have both commented that they would
love to see a third England emerge which forged a space beyond the political parties and traditional ways of doing
politics, but know for now it is far off.
They recognise the gathering storm of a problem around the British state as it strips back public services, undermines
the public good, and engages in a systematic project of social engineering, openly redistributing income, wealth and

102

power from the poor to the rich. Will Hutton has observed that all of this is one of the main drivers of the
independence debate; but he still has concerns about how sustainable a viable social democracy is in a small nation of
five million people, sitting next to one of nearly 60 million. He thinks it is possible, but that such a settlement would
require a very different, more bold politics than the SNPs existing version of independence.
This isnt just about currency union, but charting a different course from the economic straightjacket and orthodoxies
of the Treasury and Bank of England. Such writers want to reclaim the radical traditions of England and challenge the
idea of the conservative nation. In this they recognise the power of myths, folklore and imagination in how you go
about creating and mobilising a radical community. They note from England that Scotland has travelled quite a distance
on this road; and more than we may sometimes care to recognise.
The difficult ways of navigating centre-left ideas in todays economic and social world poses huge problems. It is
ridiculous to pose that it is anti-solidarity, selfish and about self-interest, to support independence. The debate in
Scotland has coalesced on how to give modern expression to such ideas and sentiment: putting the values of solidarity
into a lexicon of inter-connectedness and interdependence to produce a politics of inter-independence. One way to aid
this debate north of the border is for the non-nationalist voices to come together in a variety of ways to offer
competition and hold the SNP to account. A culture of self-determination has to become a vibrant ecology and nurture
and support an infrastructure: one with institution building and resource creating.

Three other thoughtful post-mortems are from

- A famous song-writer and writer - Pat Kane
- National Collective - and
- the rather crabbit Lallands Peat Worrier
I realised how few had been the voices speaking reasonably for continued union. Our cultural elite
was so strongly for that the minority who were against seemed to have lost their voice JK
Rowlings was an exceptional voice. Gordon Brown seems to have found his voice only in the last few
weeks until then the running had been left to people such as Alister Darling and Jim Murphy. The
business sector also seemed cowed although Tom Hunter had a Foundation through which some
balanced papers were published. The media was for union and increasingly attracted nationalist
fury although the Catholic Church had softened its earlier hard-line anti-independence line. And
the academic community by and large maintained its academic distance.
I had failed this past month to see any recognition of the cost and complications of building a new
state system and spotted a relevant publication only a few days ago. Pat Dunleavy is an academic
name to conjure with (although he seems to have gone very quiet this past quarter century) but he
surfaced in June with a pamphlet which gave an optimistic spin to these questions about costs and
capacity Transitioning to a new State. (Theres also an interesting conversation with him about
how the British civil service misused his research)

103

Conclusion
Although the campaign was a long one it seems it wasnt long enough most of the significant books
about the issue appeared, curiously, only in the last 6 months of the 28-month campaign (see the
readings which follow). And the surge in the Yes vote came only in that last few months and week
with the British political class pouring north in the last week to try to tempt the Scots back into
Empire. Another few weeks would probably have exposed the weakness in the new promises but
even if the yes voters had nudged ahead, the evenness of the split between separatists and
unionists would hardly have given the sold basis which a new nation requires.
Independence, of course, has been on the agenda for more than a generation but the overall
majority of the nationalist government came only in 2011 in the aftermath of the Con-Lib Coalition
which was clearly the clincher for so many erstwhile Labour voters to switch to the SNP. So most
serious Scots (and arent we all such?) have had only a few years to think of independence as a
serious option.
It was indeed only in the last year that left intellectuals in Scotland got round to setting out their
various stalls whether in blogs, books or journals; whether separatist, unionist or neutral. Two
journals give a good picture of their fare - Perspectives and Scottish Left Review
Ive been a socialist all my adult life - coming to political awareness in 1956 in the days of the
Hungarian and Suez misadventures; and of the New Left; and then got caught up in the
modernising mood which culminated in the disaster which was New Labour. Ive always been broad
left opposed to the paternalistic and centralising part of the Labour tradition but always (if
reluctantly) impressed with the coherence of the hard lefts analysis. But, these days, the
strongest critique of the power structures of the corporate system is mainstream from the likes
of David Marquand; Wolfgang Streeck; Mark Blyth .My blogposts as a whole reflect this global
concern.
Yes the radical case for Scottish Independence is one of several booklets this year which put a
very coherent case that Britain is not working but is less than convincing in the case for
independence! Clearly its authors lacked the time to marshall the proper arguments. However I
sense a new determination in the aftermath of the referendum. The focus of the British political
class may now be on constitutional niceties - but my judgement is that the next year will see a
renewed attempt by the broad left to set out a realist leftist vision for Scotland. Yesterdays
blogpost gave some evidence for this - and promised to try to put more of a governance spin on
the Scottish argument.
The past decade has seen several attempts to break the status quo which were quickly frustrated.
We have not just the well-known flower revolutions, springs and occupy movements - but the
more cerebral preparations of the Power Inquiry of 2006 in the UK which campaigned for more
than 3 years with a strong agenda of electoral reform but failed to make any headway.
Only, it appears, the Scottish Constitutional Convention of the 90s had the mixture of breadth of
support; coherence; and staying power which effective social change seems to require.

104

In the past 20 years Ive had the privilege of talking with groups of civil servants in countries with
inflexible systems of power. I have always given a message of hope which I described as the
opportunistic or windows of opportunity theory of change.
Most of the time our systems seem impervious to change but always (and suddenly) an opportunity
arises. Those who care, prepare for these windows. And the preparation is analytical, emotional and
reputational.
It is about us caring enough about our organisation and society to speak out about the need
for change.
It is about taking the trouble to think and read about ways to improve things and helping
create and run networks of such change.
And it is about establishing a personal reputation for probity and good judgement that
people will follow your lead when that window of opportunity arises.
So my message to Scots is that its time for proper preparation. You left too much to the
nationalist government whose 600 page White Paper had a confused message. Its time for mkore
honest analysis - and the long haul

105

ANNEX
LIFE GOES ON how an academic sees the Scottish policy process

It was only in the final stages of the campaign that I discovered Prof Paul Cairneys excellent blog Politics and Public Policy. Hes quite a young guy and what follows is the core of the inaugural
Professorial lecture he gave at Stirling University in September. He comes from the same Public
Policy stable as I do and I therefore felt that his analysis (and post of 23 September) was an
appropriate end-piece.
There was a no vote in the Scottish independence referendum. Almost immediately, David Cameron
announced that Lord Smith of Kelvin would take charge of the process to turn broad UK party
promises on further devolution into a more detailed plan. I discuss the main issues regarding that
plan in the post below (for Sept 23) but in this post I want to focus more on the bigger picture, to
link the discussion of Scottish devolution to academic work on the universal challenges that all
governments face:
Does anyone understand the policy process in Scotland?
Can anyone control or influence that process?
If not, can we hold them to account?
To what extent does the Scottish Government face the same challenges as any other?
Do Scottish political institutions have the capacity to address them in a distinctive way?
My aim is not to deny that Scottish politics is distinctive, but to argue that its political system, and
policy process, shares the same complex government features as any country. This may provide a
useful sense of perspective after a long period of excitement about one aspect of British politics
which has produced the idea that (a) people know how the Scottish policy process would work after
a yes or no vote, and (b) that major constitutional change produces a major change in policy and
policymaking. I dont think that either of those beliefs is true.
I also use the will life go on? question, partly to be sarcastic, and partly to show that government
and society have an auto-pilot function: while we have been obsessed with the referendum, 500,000
public employees in Scotland have continued delivering public policies out of the public spotlight, and
citizens have continued to interact with public services.
In short, my aim is to show you the links between two separate-looking concerns:
The independence referendum, with all its Scottishy vagaries; and
The study of public policy, which shows that countries like Scotland face the same basic
problems as any other, regardless of the constitutional settlement.
Does anyone understand the policy process in Scotland and the UK?
You might get the impression from the debate on the referendum that one side knows how Scottish
policymaking works; that if you vote yes or no, you guarantee a particular outcome or, at least,
guard against a bad outcome. Yet, the policy process is too complex to for anyone understand fully
from the citizen, dipping in and out of political debate, to the policymaker trying to make a
difference, and the academics, still confused after decades of study.
Instead, politicians and campaigners find ways to simplify the process enough to understand and
explain, while academics like me develop a language to show why we couldnt possibly understand the

106

process. We focus on five elements which, on their own, show the complexity of policymaking and,
combined, make us thoroughly confused:
1.

Bounded rationality suggests that policymakers do not have the time, resources and

cognitive ability to consider all information, possibilities, solutions, or consequences of their

actions. Instead, they use informational shortcuts or heuristics to produce good-enough
decisions. They may be goal-oriented, but also use emotional, intuitive and often unreliable
heuristics to make decisions quickly. Their attention may lurch dramatically from one issue
to another, and they may draw on quick, emotional judgements to treat different social
groups as deserving of government benefits or sanctions.
2. Institutions are the rules, norms, and practices that influence political behaviour. Some are
visible and widely understood such as constitutions and others are informal, often only
understood by a small number of people. These are the rules that organisations develop to
run a complex world into something understandable and manageable. Yet, different rules
develop in many parts of government, or government silos, often with little reference to
each other. This can produce: unpredictable outcomes when people follow often
contradictory rules when they interact; a multiplicity of accountability and performance
management processes which do not join up; and, a convoluted statute book, made more
complex by the interaction between laws and regulations designed for devolved, UK and EU
matters.
3. Policy networks show us how policymakers deal with their ability to pay attention to only a
fraction of the things for which they are responsible. We begin with the huge reach and
responsibilities of governments, producing the potential for ministerial overload.
Governments divide responsibilities into broad sectors and specialist subsectors, and senior
policymakers delegate responsibility to civil servants. Policy community describes the
relationships that often develop between the actors responsible for policy decisions and the
participants, such as interest groups (and businesses, public sector organisations, and other
types of government body), with which they engage. For example, civil servants seek
information from groups. Or, they seek legitimacy for their policies through group
ownership. Groups use their resources based on what they provide (expertise, advice,
research) and/ or who they represent (a large membership; an important profession; a high
status donor or corporation) to secure regular access to government. In some cases, the
relationships between policymakers and participants endure, they co-produce policy, and we
use the term governance to describe a messy world in which it is difficult to attribute
outcomes simply to the decisions of governments. Multi-level governance describes this
messy process involving the blurry boundaries between policy produced by elected
policymakers and civil servants, and the influence of a wide range of governmental, nongovernmental and quasi-non-governmental bodies.
4. Ideas are beliefs or ways of thinking. Some ways of thinking are accepted to such an extent
that they are taken for granted or rarely challenged (we often call them paradigms).
Others regard new ways of thinking, or new solutions to problems, and the persuasion
necessary to prompt other actors to rethink their beliefs. The policy process involves
actors competing to raise attention to problems and propose their favoured solutions. Not

107

everyone has the same opportunity. Some can exploit a dominant understanding of the policy
problem, while others have to work harder to challenge existing beliefs. A focus on ideas is
a focus on power: to persuade the public, media and/ or government that there is a reason
to make policy; and, to keep some issues on the agenda at the expense of others.
5. Context describes a policymakers environment. It includes the policy conditions that
policymakers take into account when identifying problems, such as a political systems
geography, demographic profile, economy, and mass behaviour. It can refer to a sense of
policymaker inheritance of laws, rules, and programs when they enter office. Or, we may
identify events, either routine, such as elections, or unanticipated, including social or
natural crises or major scientific breakthroughs and technological change. In each case, we
consider if a policymakers environment is in her control and how it influences her decisions.
In some cases, the role of context seems irresistible examples include major demographic
change, the role of technology in driving healthcare demand, climate change, extreme
events, and globalisation. Yet, governments have shown that they can ignore such issues for
long periods of time.
Can anyone control or influence that process? If not, can we hold them to account?
Each of these five elements could contribute to a sense of complexity. When combined, they
suggest that the world of policymaking is too complex to predict or fully understand. They expose
slogans such as joined up or holistic government as attempts to give the appearance of order to
policymaking when we know that policymakers can only pay attention to a small portion of the issues
for which they are responsible.
The idea of complex government can be used to reject the idea associated with the Westminster
model that power is concentrated in the hands of a small number of people in central government.
Instead, governments develop strategies to deal with the fact that their powers are rather limited
in practice.
Consequently, there is a profoundly important tension between the reality of complex government
and the assertion of government control and accountability. Policymakers have to justify their
activities with regard to the idea of accountability to the public via ministers and Parliament. We
expect ministers to deliver on their promises, and few are brave enough to admit their limitations.
Complex government also prompts us to consider how we can hold policymakers to account if the
vast majority of the population does not understand how the policy process works; if policy
outcomes seem to emerge in unpredictable or uncontrollable ways, or the allegation of complexity is
used to undermine popular participation or obscure accountability. The aim of political reformers, to
go beyond representative government and produce more participatory forms of democracy, may
solve a general sense of detachment by the political class, and aid the transparency of some aspects
of policymaking, but it will not solve this bigger problem.
To what extent does the Scottish Government face the same challenges as any other?
Right now, the Scottish Government faces the same task as a large number of countries:
1. In the aftermath of economic crisis, and reduced budgets, it has to consider how to deliver
similar levels of public services including health, education, emergency services, and
housing at lower cost.

108

2. It also seeks to reduce inequalities albeit without the policy levers that could make the
biggest difference.
3. It needs to find a balance, to address an inescapable trade-off between a degree of
uniformity of national policies and local discretion. People understand this problem in
different ways; some bemoan the fragmentation of public services and the potential for a
postcode lottery, while others identify more positive notions of flexible government, the
potential for innovation, and the value of community-led policies or individualised, coproduced, services.
4. It needs to find a way to join up its public services to make, for example, health speak to
education, social work and policing.
As in many countries, one potential solution to all four problems is the idea of prevention or early
intervention. Preventative spending and prevention are terms used by many governments, and in
many policy studies, to describe a broad aim to reduce public service costs (and demand) by
addressing policy problems at an early stage. The argument is that too much government spending is
devoted to services to address severe social problems at a late stage. The aim is for governments
to address a wide range of longstanding problems including crime and anti-social behaviour, ill
health and unhealthy behaviour, low educational attainment, and unemployment (and newer problems
relating to climate change and anti-environmental behaviour) by addressing them at source, before
they become too severe and relatively expensive.
Yet, as in all countries, it cannot simply make this happen, for three main reasons:
Inequalities are often described as wicked problems because they seem intractable
because governments do not appear to have the means, or perhaps the ability and
willingness, to solve them. For example, health inequalities could be caused largely by income
inequality, which the Scottish Government would struggle to address, and the UK
Government may be unwilling to address radically. Or, we have a mix of solutions, from the
often-innocuous (more spending on pre-school education), to the sensitive (restricting the
use of alcohol and tobacco) and the downright controversial (preventing crime before it
happens).
We are back to the idea of complex government to address social and economic problems
at this scale requires something akin to complete central government control over policies
and outcomes. Instead, governments try to find ways to cooperate with a wide range of
actors to secure some of their aims while dealing with the unintended consequences of their
policies.
No one is quite sure what early intervention or prevention is. It sounds intuitive but, when
you get into the details and need to produce a detailed plan, ambiguity and uncertainty
replace intuition and a shared understanding of what to do.
So, policymakers have a limited amount of control over this process and they face the same
problems as any government: the ability to pay attention to only a small proportion of issues, or to a
small proportion of public service activity; the tendency for problems to be processed in
government silos (by one part of government, not communicating well with others); the potential
for policymakers, in different departments or levels of government, to understand and address the

109

policy problem in very different ways; and, complexity, which suggests that policy outcomes often
emerge from local action in the absence of central control.
These problems can only be addressed in a limited way by government strategies based on: the use
of accountability and performance measures; the encouragement of learning and cooperation
between public bodies; and, the development of a professional culture in which many people are
committed to the same policy approach.
Do Scottish political institutions have the capacity to address them in a distinctive way?
The Scottish Government addresses this problem in two potentially-distinctive ways:
Policymaking culture. Many studies explore the idea of a Scottish policy style, which refers
to the ways in which the Scottish Government makes policy following consultation and
negotiation with pressure participants such as interest groups, local government
organisations and unions
Administrative organisation. Many studies explore a distinctive governance style, or a
relative ability or willingness to devolve the delivery of policy to other organisations in a
meaningful way. It sets a broad national strategy, the National Performance Framework,
invites local bodies to produce policies consistent with it, and measures performance using
broad, long term outcomes. For example, it now encourages local authorities to cooperate
with a range of other bodies in the public sector (including health, enterprise, police, fire
and transport), private and third sector (mostly voluntary or charitable organisations) via
established Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs), to produce a strategic vision for each
local area.
In both cases, we usually find that the comparator is Westminster. Scotland can do things
differently (at least when funding is not a problem) because it is smaller, which allows its
government to develop closer relationships with key actors, and develop relatively high levels of
trust in other bodies to deliver public services.
So, yes, in the context of all that I have said about governments facing the same challenges, and
addressing them in similar ways, the Scottish Government has some distinctive policymaking
elements.

What about the Scottish Parliament and other bodies?

Yet, consider the effect of this distinctiveness on the rest of the political system. My description
of the policy process should already give the sense that it is driven primarily by government, and
that parliament and the people dont play much of a role.
What if policymaking follows its current trajectory, with more powers devolved to local authorities
and a range of bodies involved in CPPs?
1.

This development has great potential to undermine traditional forms of parliamentary

scrutiny. The Scottish Parliament already lacks the ability to gather information
independently it tends to rely on bodies such as the Scottish Government to provide that
information. It does not get enough information from the Scottish Government about what
is going on locally. Scotland lacks the top-down performance management system that we
associate with the UK Government, and a greater focus on long term outcomes removes an

110

important and regular source of information on public sector performance. Local and health
authorities also push back against calls for detailed information. More devolution to local
authorities would exacerbate this tension between local and national accountability.
2. A second consequence of devolving more power locally is interest groups must reorganise, to
shift from lobbying one national government to 32 local governments. Such a shift would
produce new winners and losers. The well-resourced professional groups can adapt their
multi-level lobbying strategies, while the groups working on a small budget, only able to
lobby the Scottish Government, will struggle
3. These trends may prompt a new agenda on local participatory capacity, to take on the
functions performed less by these national organisations. For example, the ERS
Scotlands suggestion is that more local devolution could produce a more active local
population. Even so, we still need to know more about how and why people organise. For
example, local communities may organise in an ad hoc way to address major issues in their
area as they arise; to engage in a small part of the policy process at a particular time. They
do not have the resources to engage in a more meaningful way, compared to a Parliament and
collection of established groups which maintain a constant presence and develop knowledge
of the details of policies over time.
Conclusion
The conclusion is that, if we focus on the wider policymaking and political process, we should get a
stronger sense that a Yes vote or major further devolution would not produce radical change. The
idea of giving a Scottish Government the powers to make radical changes to inequalities, public
services, and outcomes, should take second stage to the idea that all governments are constrained
by a lack of resources to make a quick and fundamental difference to the economy and society. Noone really understands the policy process, and no-one is in the position to control it. Rather, people
pay attention to a small number of issues, and work with a large number of other people to
negotiate some changes in some areas. This process involves major trade-offs, and the knowledge
that attention to a small number of priorities means ignoring the rest.
So, too, should we be sceptical about the idea of a new era of popular participation, sweeping the
nation and changing the way we do politics in Scotland. Even the Scottish Parliament struggles to
know what happens in the Scottish Government and beyond. Even well-resourced interest groups
struggle to keep track of an increasingly devolved system. So, what chance would citizens have if
they did not devote their whole lives to politics? We should encourage popular participation, as the
right thing to do, but without creating false expectations about the results.

111

SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 4:44 PM

What will devo-max mean?
One of the unfortunate things about the independence referendum debate is that it did not help us
clarify the most likely outcome: something that many people will call devo max. For some, devo max
refers to the idea of devolving everything except foreign and defence policy something that just
cant happen to Scotland if it remains part of the UK. Instead, at the very least, the Bank of
England will remain in charge of monetary policy and the UK Government will retain control of many
fiscal policies.
I think that most politicians, and many campaigners, know that devo max is not possible and was not
offered during The Vow. Instead, the three UK party leaders offered extensive new powers in a
remarkably short space of time (with draft legislation to come before the next general election).
From that starting point, what might happen?
1.

Each of the main parties produced their own plans before The Vow, and it is difficult to tell
what will happen when they all get together, perhaps with the SNP, to produce a settlement
that sticks this time in a small fraction of the time it took to produce the illfated Scotland Act 2012. Whatever it is may still be called devo max, but it will come to
mean the maximum you will get, not the maximum you thought you could have.

2. The only thing we can be sure about is this: it wont be a sensible outcome. By that, I mean
it will be a political outcome. People wont always get together to work out, in a technical
way, what responsibilities complement each other, and what level of government is
appropriate to what decision (if, indeed, that is possible). They wont always ask: what are
the powers for? Instead, the outcome will result from who is the most persuasive or in the
best position to further their interests such as whatever party is in power after the UK
General election in 2015. Or, the negotiations will work from what Scotland already has
(note that the Scotland Act 1998 devolved to the Scottish Parliament the responsibilities
already held by the Scottish Office, and the Scotland Act 2012 did not go much further)
and consider what greater settlement people in Scotland and the rest of the UK will be
content with.
3. We might start to think about how the Scottish Government might share or negotiate more
powers on a regular basis. In one sense, it would have been handier for this process to
include a stronger representation from the Liberal Democrats, since they have thought
about devolution for a long time and have a relatively mature sense of the idea of sharing
powers in key areas perhaps to encourage routine intergovernmental negotiations rather
than seek a stark (and, in practice, often artificial) separation of powers. Such a
relationship seems inevitable if the Scottish Government seeks to join up its
responsibilities with those of the UK as opposed to (parts of) a Yes campaign simply
waiting for an inadequate settlement to go wrong.

112

What would happen if we asked: powers for what?

Still, I remain a boringly optimistic academic with a lot of time on my hands. So, what follows is my
attempt to work out what each government does, and what we might reasonably expect if our focus
is more on the joined up rather than political side to the next devolved settlement.

Economic and social security policy: what hope for redistributive policies?

The idea of devo max suggests that you can, in Scotland, join up taxation and spending issues. For
example, if you want to redistribute on a massive scale, to address economic inequalities that
contribute to health and education inequalities, you need to connect those dots. You decide who to
raise taxes from, in what mix (corporations? North sea oil? People who buy things? Higher earners?
Local property taxes?), and how much you want to borrow to fund capital programmes. At the same
time, you decide which services (health, education, criminal justice, local authorities, universities
and colleges, etc.) and which people should benefit from the distribution of that income.
Then, you might try to join up some of those things by, for example: spending big on employment
and training programmes, on the assumption that you will then save money on benefits or gain it in
tax; rolling out a huge childcare expansion policy, to do the same when more people (mostly women)
are freed up to work; introducing a living wage (higher minimum wage) and reducing benefits (or
transferring benefits to tax credits); or, spending big on public health to reduce long term pressure
on the NHS (as part of a broader focus on prevention or early intervention). Under devo max, it is
clear who to blame if your taxes are too high or your benefits are too low.
However, there are several obstacles to that outcome:
1.

Scotland remains part of the UK. Many of the arguments rehearsed during the referendum

still apply, including: the desire to maintain a degree of fiscal uniformity when two countries
share a currency; the cost of setting up new (or boosting old) institutions to deal with the
administration of a new tax regime; and, the desire to maintain a certain level of uniformity
in taxes and benefits (and to transfer proceeds across the UK) as part of a broad
attachment to UK social citizenship.
2. Scotland remains part of the EU. This makes it difficult to devolve certain taxes, such as
corporation (if the Scottish Government reduced corporation tax, to become more
competitive, it may be interpreted as state aid) and value added (or, at least, the EU
promotes a high degree of uniformity and minimum levels of VAT). Im not sure about
alcohol duty which, if devolved, could have been a more straightforward instrument (than
minimum pricing legislation) to keep prices high.
3. No-one promised anything of the sort. If you look at the proposals by the main parties
(summarised here), you find the greatest emphasis on devolving all, or most, responsibility
for income tax. I have never heard a UK politician promise to assign oil tax revenue to
Scotland. Instead, we have heard the three leaders maintain a commitment to the Barnett
formula, which suggests that they envision Scottish Governments tinkering at the taxation
margins while, on the whole, receiving their income from the Treasury. Under devo max, the
Barnett formula would disappear in Scotland and I just dont see it happening.

113

So, we are likely to see the introduction of limited borrowing powers, plus the devolution of some
taxes, some of which can be used as instruments in their own right (such as the landfill tax, already
due to be devolved, which could be used for environmental purposes), and one which remains
electorally toxic (income tax). If we are being super-cynical, we might say that the UK will mostly
devolve a tax that it expects Scotland not to use, while claiming that a Scottish Government can
raise taxes to fund more public services to satisfy an allegedly left-wing electorate.
It might also talk up the idea of the Scottish Parliament becoming more accountable for the money
it spends. This is the bit I dont get: if most of the Scottish Government budget is raised by
the UK, and the Scottish Government is destined to tinker at the margins, and remains integrated
within a UK regime, how can you hold it accountable for its tax and spending regime? It seems only a
little more plausible than holding local authorities to account for their council tax rates. More
broadly speaking, a multi-level policymaking environment makes it increasingly difficult to know who
decides what happens.
Instead, what we could (but, I expect, wont) explore is the idea of a shared strategy, with the
Scottish Government signalling to the Treasury its desire to pursue distinctive policies (on
employment, childcare, and/ or a higher minimum wage) and seek the financial rewards/ punishments
if they work out. Or, it might seek equivalent funding when its policies have an effect on UK
benefits. That would require a degree of regular cooperation (and, to be honest, Treasury
guesswork) that we have yet to see since devolution. Indeed, in high profile cases attendance
allowance to people receiving free personal care (introduced by the Labour-LD Scottish
Government), and council tax benefit for people paying local income tax (a policy proposed, but not
introduced, by the SNP) the experience has been bruising for all involved.
Perhaps a safer bet is in the field of employability, which currently combines devolved public
service provision (such as education and training) and reserved job search/ support services.
Certainly, the Christie Commission, which received cross-party support in Scotland, recommends
the devolution of the latter.

International relations, defence and security: what does it cover?

This category covers some of the big, scary, issues regarding the future of nuclear weapons, the UK
armed forces, and the UKs part in international security. We can also expect immigration to be a
UK (and EU) responsibility, with minimal scope for the Scottish Government to pursue a distinctive
policy (Fresh Talent seems like a long time ago).
The UK would also remain the member state in the EU, responsible for monitoring the Scottish
Governments adherence to EU rules and regulations, particularly in areas (including environment,
agriculture, and fish) with a strong EU presence. There is some scope for Scottish discretion in
some areas (such as in the implementation of a common agricultural policy).

Crime: drugs and guns

Most aspects of criminal justice, and police operations, are already devolved, and Scotland has
always had its own legal system. The main exceptions are in responsibility for firearms, drugs and
certain driving offences. The Scotland Act 2012 would devolve responsibility for the regulation
of air weapons (a longstanding issue for successive Scottish First Ministers, largely following high
profile incidents of air rifle misuse), the treatment of drug addicts with controlled drugs (e.g.

114

prescribing opiates), the national speed limit (which cant really go up in Scotland while its roads are
so crap) and drink drive limits.
It is in this field that we might see the greatest reason for governmental cooperation to address
issues such as human trafficking, drug trafficking, and terrorism but perhaps without a great
desire of the UK to devolve more responsibilities to do so.

Energy

It is in this field that we have seen a promising degree of cooperation (or, at least, delegation)
beyond the reserved/ devolved divide. The UK remains responsible for energy policy, but has
effectively devolved some decisions to Scottish ministers such as agreeing (informally) to a
Scottish veto on new nuclear power stations and, through the devolution of planning (and land
reform) laws, has allowed the Scottish Government to develop distinctive policies on the expansion
of renewable energy (and, to all intents and purposes, the decision to allow or refuse fracking for
unconventional oil and gas in Scotland even though the UK still grants the drilling licenses). As
things stand, the UK would remain responsible for the taxation of North Sea oil, and it is difficult
to see a future in which that responsibility would be devolved, to allow the Scottish Government to
pursue a coherent energy strategy (instead, we might expect a focus on entitlement to the
proceeds of oil taxation, which is a different thing).

Broadcasting

Who knew this would be a hot button topic? Our original concern was about the fate of Doctor Who
(which has turned out to be not worth the debate), but now our attention has shifted to allegations
of BBC bias against the Yes campaign, which might prompt the SNP to push harder for a devolved
system.

The already-devolved areas

Health, education, housing and social care is devolved, and we have seen a significant amount of
policy divergence in key areas, such as higher education tuition fees, personal care for older people,
homelessness legislation, healthcare organisation, public health and mental health. The remaining
issues regard the funding of public services and their link to the benefits system. We might expect
the devolution of housing benefit, largely because the bedroom tax became such a beacon of the
Yes campaign, and (perhaps) other benefits related to previous Scottish Government policies on
personal care (attendance allowance) and a proposed local income tax (council tax benefit) subject
to a strong desire within the UK to retain a uniform level of pension and social security entitlement.

115

READING
Nobody but nobody - can say that Scotlands citizens were starved of information or opinion
during the referendum campaign. It would be interesting, however, to see a survey on what people
actually read let alone what particularly influenced them. I suspect that newspapers would be at
the bottom of the list!

Official Publications
The following are the official bodies which have presented substantial reports and evidence UK government
The Scottish Executive
The Scottish Parliament
The House of Commons Select Committee on Scottish Affairs
The House of Lords
Key documents have been
Scotlands Future You Guide to an Independent Scotland (Scottish Government 2012)
The Scotland Analysis a series of a dozen or so papers produced by the UK government

Websites/Blogs
A useful list of relevant websites was on the Scottish Independence Referendum site which was
openly campaigning for a yes vote but tried to put together a fair list from each camp (and the
neutral). However, despite asserting it tried to trawl widely, it totally ignored some of the most
important and neutral eg
Devolution Matters
UK Constitutional Law
The Scottish Constitutional Futures Forum.
The Future of the UK and Scotland (ECRC)
Paul Cairney of the University of Stirling
The small but very influential Scottish Review an E-journal which has packed a powerful punch
for about ten years remains the best thing to read to get a flavour of what bothers the older
intelligent Scot
I must confess that I didnt follow any blogs all that closely but was impressed with these Blogs favouring Yes
Gerry Hassan the blog of a Scottish intellectual
Thoughtland big ideas from a Small Nation blog of a writer and singer
National Collective (artists for a creative Scotland)
Frankly Independent an amazing compendium (with a European perspective) I discovered
only at the last moment
Better Nation - one
Bella Caledonia a good independent site

116

Blogs favouring NO
Vote No Borders
Notes from North Britain (a blog written by Adam Tomkins, Prof in Public Law at Glasgow
University)
Left sites
Common Weal a powerful project which emerged from the Jimmy Reid Foundation and has
collected a set of key papers for the debate. The Reid Foundation had been neutral and the
Common Weal separated rather acrimoniously at the beginning of August and has been set
up apparently as a pro-independence foundation
Scottish Left Review
The Red Paper Collective

Books
Pro Independence

The Road to Independence Scotland in the Balance; Murray Pittock (2008)

Evidence, Risk and the Wicked Issues arguing for independence; Stephen Maxwell (2012)
The wee blue book (Wings over Scotland 2014)
In Place of Fear II a socialist programme for an independent Scotland; James Sillars
(2014)
The Radical Case for Scottish Independence; James Foley (2014)
Scottish Independence; Yes or No; G Kerevan and Alan Cochrane (2014)
Caledonia Dreaming; Gerry Hassan (2014)
Blossom Lesley Riddoch (2014)

Comment

The Pittock and Maxwell books were first off the starters block and are both very well-written.
The next 2 are simply manifestoes. Kerevans is the quintessential statement. Foleys is quite
excellent in putting a very coherent and balanced argument into a British and class framework so
much so that he is less than convincing in the case for independence! Hassan and Riddoch give very
frank assessments of the strength of conservatism in the country

Balanced

Radical Scotland; arguments for self-determination ed G Hassan and R Ilett (2011)

The Battle for Britain Scotland and the Independence Referendum; David Torrance (2013)
Scotlands Choice; Jim Gallagher and Iain McLean 2013
Scottish Independence weighing up the economic issues; Guy McCrone (2013)
Our Vision - Imagining Scotlands Future; Church of Scotland (2013)
The Scottish Question; James Mitchell (2014)
Small Nations in a Big World; Michael Keating and Malcolm Harvey (2014)
Enlightening the Constitutional Debate; British and Edinburgh Academies (2014)
Scotlands Decision 16 questions to think about; ESCR (2014)
The economic consequences of Scottish independence; Hamburg University (2014)

117

Against
Class, Nation and Socialism the Red Paper on Scotland 2014 ed P Bryan and T Kane (2014)
More Historical
Short History of Scotland; Chris Harvie
Scotland 2020 (2005); a book.
Who Rules Scotland? by David Miller, a chapter in a 2010 book - Neoliberal Scotland; Class
and Society in a Stateless Nation edited by Davidson, N., McCafferty, P. and Miller D

Voice in public sector reform

The Invisible Spirit; a life of post-war Scotland 1945-1975; Kenneth Roy (2013)

118

Rons Rumblings
I dont know why I have this urge to let things hang out so much ie write up projects so frankly;
worry away at their implications and lessons; and link this to the relevant literature. Perhaps its
because I dont see much of it done. Those of us who are practitioners dont often have the luxury
(or incentive) to write rigorously; and the academics never seem to try to talk to (let alone with)
the rest of us.
Perhaps Im just preparing for the ultimate meeting in the sky above..and the terrifying question
of what Ive done with my life.

Recent Offerings
Living in three quarters-retirement in the past couple of years, Ive broadened my writing Mapping Romania - notes on an unfinished journey (2014) My first little E-book! 140 pages and 400
hyperlinks about all aspects of the rich cultural experience which Romania offers
Introducing the Bulgarian Realists (2012) how to get to know the Bulgarians through their
paintings
A Draft Guide for the Perplexed (unfinished) something Ive been wrestling with for a decade
Just Words (2011) - a glossary and bibliography for the fight against the pretensions and
perversities of power

Professional Papers
The Long Game not the log-frame (2011) a richly referenced diatribe against the shallowness of
the effort to build institutional capacities in central Europe over the past decade.
Chinese Administrative Reform - in international perspective (2011) a paper I did after my abortive
trip to Beijing as a guilty retrospective to try to establish some sort of common ground of
understanding for scholars visiting China (36 pages)
Training that works! How do we build training systems which actually improve the performance of
state bodies? (2011) This 60-page paper extracts some lessons from the work Ive done in the last
decade - particularly in Kyrgyzstan and Bulgaria. Even altho I say it myself - it is one of the best
papers on the subject
The Search for the Holy Grail (2009) some reflections on 40 years of leading various projects
trying to make government and its systems work for people (40 pages)
Learning from Experience (2008) a frank review of a one-year project which was never very sure
whether its aim was to develop the administrative capacity of local state administration or of the
central training institute which was its customer. As a result it did neither (107 pages)

119

Building Municipal Capacity (2007) I was lucky enough to lead a 2 year project which both rana lot
of workshops for municipalities but was able to use this experience to develop a Road Map for the
development of local government in a small mountain state in Central Asia (88 pages)
Roadmap for Local Government in Kyrgyzstan (2007) 110 pages
Building Local Government in a Hostile Climate (2007) a short pamphlet I did for a conference in
Istanbul about the Kyrgyz experience
Overview of PAR in transition countries This is the paper I drafted for the European Agency for
Reconstruction after the staff retreat the EAR Director invited me to speak at in June 2006 in
Skopje, Macedonia. The best papers are always written after the event!
Annotated Bibliography for change agents For quite a few years I had the habit of keeping notes on
the books I was reading. Perhaps they will be useful to others?
Transfer of Functions - European experiences 1970-2000 (2002) an interesting analysis of the
different ways in which the state was casting off its functions from the 1980s. Written for my
Uzbek masters and mistresses.
Case Study in Organisational Development and Political Amnesia (1999) a detailed analysis of the
inspiring times after 1975 when a few of us tried to drag a large bureaucracy kicking and screaming
into the world of democracy (50 pages)
In Transit Part One (1995) The first section of the book I wrote a decade ago for young Central
European reformers. I find it stands up pretty well to the test of time

Available Shortly Changing Cultures..

Balkan and Carpathian Musings 4 volumes. Being the posts and hyperlinks from my blog of that
name which has been running since 2009. The four volumes will be posted on my new website shortly.
I think the name of the site will be Mapping the common ground
Check on either the old website or the blog
Manual for Slovak policy-makers (2002) the product of a short and interesting assignment in the
days when the rationality of policy-making was still all the rage

120