Here we go again

Does a new broom sweep clean? Or does it just re-arrange the dust? The Scotsman reports:

Jack McConnell, Ms Alexander's predecessor, was criticised during the election for failing to come up with detailed plans to reform the council tax.
Yesterday the issue was pounced on by Ms Alexander as a key to reform. A policy group will look at options, including a tax based on property valuation.

Oh wow! Haud me back! Yet another policy group on council tax reform. But what is it likely to come up with that wasn't covered in last year's report by the Burt Committee?

I suppose that it's just a method of parking the issue for 18 months. Even so, the continued absence of a policy on local government finance is not likely to make things easier for those Labour MSPs seeking to oppose the Salmond Government's plans for a local income tax.

Not so solid rock

It may well be that the company is financially solvent, as we are assured. Depositors may well be guaranteed not to lose out, at least up to a certain level of maximum savings.

But would you open a new deposit account with the Northern Rock? That being so, how long can the company keep trading?

And The Herald is not exactly reassuring in reporting this:

Northern Rock chief executive Adam Applegarth, who earned £1.35m in salary and bonuses last year, said his bank had yet to draw on the emergency cash, which he called "a backstop in case we need to use it".
Mr Applegarth said the bank's underlying businesses were solid but it was facing short-term difficulties borrowing. How short-term? "Looking forward," he said, "I can't see when the global liquidity freeze is going to end. We simply don't know."

Stooping rather low

Slightly distasteful, I would have thought, to exploit an 81-year-old woman for political advantage.

Doing the sums

It is a great achievement to be sitting at the top of the table at this stage, one point ahead of Italy and two points ahead of France. But consider the remaining three matches to be played.

Scotland has the Ukraine at home, Georgia away and Italy at home. France has the Faroes away, Lithuania at home and the Ukraine away. Italy has Georgia at home, Scotland away and the Faroes at home.

It is difficult to believe that France will not secure at least six points from its three remaining fixtures, with the difficult away match at the Ukraine the only obvious significant hurdle. That would mean France ended up with 25 points, even if they lose to the Ukraine.

Similarly, Italy seems likely to defeat both Georgia and the Faroes at home, leaving Italy with 26 points plus whatever they can take from Hampden.

Accordingly, in order to qualify, Scotland will need to take at least four points from their three remaining games and perhaps more. Far from impossible, but not at all easy.

But then, who would have thought that we'd take six points off France?

Admirable, but is it cricket?

The news that Hibs made a profit last year, that they have reduced their debt to negligible levels and that they have invested income from the sales of players into capital projects which will bring long term benefits to the club is, I suppose, to be welcomed.

But it is hardly in the best traditions of Scottish football. Where would we be if all Scottish football clubs were run sensibly?

Smoke gets in your eyes

It must of course be a Good Thing that admissions to hospital for heart attacks have declined by 17 per cent in the year following the smoking ban.

But I remain slightly confused. I thought that the smoking ban was intended to address the prevalence of lung cancer and emphysema and other respiratory complaints. Why this focus on heart attacks? Does smoking cause heart attacks in smokers? or in non-smokers? And what has happened on the lung cancer front?

The Guardian does little to clarify the position:

Prof Gill added that the nine hospitals, in areas including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley, Dundee and Lanarkshire, accounted for 63% of heart attack admissions in Scotland. The number of all heart attack admissions at these hospitals had fallen by more than 550, from 3,235 in the year to March 2006, to 2,684 in the year to March 2007. Among non-smokers, the reduction was from 1,630 to 1,306.

If you tease out these figures, you will find that the number of heart attack admissions declined by 19.9% in the case of non smokers but by only 11.0% in the case of smokers. So the improvement in the health of non-smokers has improved by considerably more than that of smokers. A reasonable argument for giving up fags, you might think, but what does it say about the smoking ban, as non-smokers are presumably the least affected by the ban? Unless you argue that the greater improvement in non-smokers' health is due to a lack of passive smoking - which seems highly improbable. Meanwhile, the health of smokers also improved (even if not as fast as that of non-smokers). That being so, if you wish to argue that the decline in heart attack admissions is a consequence of the smoking ban, then you should only count as a benefit the amount by which the improvement of the health of non-smokers exceeded that of smokers.

In any case, are not heart attacks a consequence of living and social conditions over a much longer period than simply a year?

Presumption of guilt

Here is the headline on the lead story in The Scotsman:

Thirty years ago he murdered two innocent young women. Yesterday he escaped justice

This assertion of guilt is of course precisely what the prosecution failed to prove. Now it is possible, perhaps even probable, that the suspect was indeed guilty. But a court has declared that there is no case to answer. Nevertheless, The Scotsman knows better and therefore feels free to contradict the court's judgement.

Deceitful?

Now, how do you suppose that Gordon Brown can reserve jobs for British workers? After all, he says he can. The BBC reports:

Gordon Brown is to set out measures aimed at achieving the dream of "a British job for every British worker".
The prime minister will unveil proposals to create 500,000 new jobs for British workers during his first speech to the TUC as premier.

The straight answer is that he can't. Discrimination against other EU nationals in the job market is illegal. Does Mr Brown know this? Of course he does. So why give an impression to the contrary?

No half measures here

I rather admired this quotation attributed by Scotland on Sunday to Wendy Alexander:

"They are running into hot water. This was the week that their pledges started to unravel. Another piece of election spin has been exposed."

After all, if you are going to mix your metaphors, you might as well go all the way - even if you are an INSEAD graduate.

Scrumming down

Somehow, I feel that The Guardian is not taking the Rugby World Cup sufficiently seriously, here:

Shirts used to be jerseys. Then they promised to keep you hot or cool, or efficiently dispel your sweat. Now IonX, developed over three years by New Zealand-based kitmaker Canterbury, claims to deliver "ionic" energy to the body through a negatively charged electromagnetic field.
Eh? You may think it's easy to sell shirts to large men suggestible enough to bury their heads in each others' thighs for 80 minutes, but the manufacturers claim to have created a fabric coated in a liquid wash that when placed against the skin creates a negative charge of ions.

And here:

The survey group - divided equally between men and women - overwhelmingly expects to watch, and enjoy, some of the tournament. Sex is much involved, with just over half the women respondents (52%) saying they will tune in solely to catch a glimpse of Johnny Wilkinson.
Confusion about rugby terminology may also help in this respect, with 10% of the survey thinking that a hooker - the central member of the scrum front row - is a woman who sleeps with rugby players.
The largely matey nature of the physical violence in the sport also appeals; half the respondents thought the term "blood bin" was slang for the whole pitch and 22% guessed it was the place where players met for a post-match drink.

Nowt to do wiv me, guv

It would be presumptuous of me to think that the Presiding Officer actually reads this blog but, following my minor rant earlier this year, it is pleasing to report that a crackdown on informality is under way. The Evening News reports:

MSPs have been ordered to stop calling each other by their first names during debates in the Scottish Parliament.
Presiding officer Alex Fergusson said in future, MSPs should use members' full names so people watching from the public gallery or on television would know who they were talking about.
...
He said: "It is not our intention to impose undue formality in the chamber, but it is our opinion members should address each other in the third person and by full names instead of first names only."

Too right.

Politicians and promises

Remember all those promises about how Scotland would benefit from the London Olympics? Like this one from Patricia Ferguson, the then sports minister, in January 2005 (here):

"In terms of the tourism industry in Scotland, a successful bid would provide a fantastic opportunity to attract more visitors to our country, and give a heightened profile to our unique scenery, modern, vibrant cities and unrivalled historic buildings and monuments."

Or this one from Nicol Stephen in May 2006 (here):

"The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games present enormous opportunities for Scotland. Our young athletes are already in preparation and our businesses should be following their lead. The economic potential is huge: billions of pounds will be spent and we want Scottish companies to get involved."

Or this one from Jack McConnell in January 2004 (here):

"The staging of the modern Games in London would give an enormous boost to sport in all parts of the UK. It would excite and inspire people of all ages and sporting abilities. The tourism sector in particular would benefit from an event which would give heightened profile to the UK as a whole."

Well you can now forget them again. Today's Scotsman reveals:

SCOTLAND will not reap any significant tourism benefit from the 2012 Olympic Games unless governments and tourism agencies intervene to encourage visitors to look beyond London, a report warned yesterday.
The games could bring a £3 billion boost to the UK tourist industry, according to a review of data from previous Olympic host cities including Seoul (1988), Barcelona (1992), Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004).
But the overwhelming majority of the benefits are likely to be confined to London.

Oh, and those contracts which Scottish firms might have secured?

... last week it was confirmed that no Scottish companies had been shortlisted for contracts to help build the £2 billion athletes' village.

Must be getting old

No, I've never heard of the Klaxons either ...

The demon drink

Arguably, there are occasions when it is necessary, perhaps even laudable, for a Minister to be seen to be doing something, whether or not that something leads to a desirable outcome. I fear that Mr MacAskill's proposed crackdown on supermarkets and shops selling booze may not be one such occasion.

Mr MacA states (in his press release):

"From young people rampaging the streets shouting abuse at passers by to people dying in our hospitals of alcoholic liver disease - alcohol misuse has a lot to answer for. The facts are stark - over 60 per cent of prisoners admit they were drunk when they offended, and six people die every day from alcohol related illness."

I do not dissent from this analysis. But is there any evidence that the "young people rampaging the streets" (btw when did 'to rampage' become a transitive verb?) got liquored up from booze acquired in shops or supermarkets? Those in Lothian Road of a Saturday night seem more likely to have consumed their alcohol in pubs and clubs. But, if there is any evidence that shops and supermarkets are to blame, it has yet to be produced. The same lack of evidence applies to offenders - admitting drunkenness is not the same as admitting having acquired the necessary alcohol in shops and supermarkets. And cirrhosis of the liver requires a long-term commitment to the consumption of alcohol, rather than the opportunity purchase of three cans of lager for the price of two.

But look more closely at the press release. What is Mr MacA actually proposing? As far as I can see, there are three propositions on offer:

1. "Any promotion that provides alcohol free or at a reduced price on the purchase of one or more of the product or another product will be outlawed."

2. "... mandatory conditions will require shops to have separate alcohol display areas."

3. "The Scottish Government is also looking at the practices of deep-discounting. The Cabinet Secretary has asked for legal advice on how this practice can be ended as part of our wider alcohol strategy."

With regard to the first of these, what is to prevent Tesco's or Sainsbury's simply reducing the price of the individual item, so that instead of three cans of lager for £1.50 with the individual price at 75 pence, the individual unit price would be set at 50 pence. This might of course have the overall effect of increasing the sales of lager, but Mr MacA seems to have no plans to deal with the question.

As for separate display areas, my experience of supermarkets is that most of them already have separate aisles where alcohol is displayed (if only to cope with the ludicrous ban on Sunday morning alcohol sales). I suspect what he means is that they will be required to have separate tills, which would be unworkable in most corner shops (which only have one till anyway), irrelevant for off-licences (where sales of non-booze are negligible) and a damn nuisance in supermarkets where the Saturday morning shopping would be needlessly prolonged by having to queue twice.

I don't really know what "deep-discounting" is but the fact that Mr MacA is having to seek legal advice to end it suggests that ending this practice may be far from straightforward.

To sum up, B+ for aspiration, D- for evidence-based policy-making and E for thinking it through. It's enough to drive you to ... (Stop there! - Ed)

High finance and low politics

It is not entirely clear to me why the Scottish Government should have sought control over a declining revenue stream such as that in the form of taxation from oil located in 'Scottish waters', however the latter might be defined. On the (questionable but logical) assumption that oil revenues directed towards Scotland would replace part of the block grant from the UK Government, then it would appear that the Scottish Government would face a progressively tighter financial settlement as oil revenues inevitably declined. Of course, it would be possible to build in to any new arrangements for the block grant to be increased again as oil income declined, but that kind of defeats the point - if the motor for the new arrangements is to give greater financial responsibility to the Scottish Government, then the latter can hardly expect to be bailed out when income falls to less than anticipated. Would it not have been more sensible to ask for a share of a more stable income stream, such as VAT or whisky duties?

It is equally unclear why the UK Government should have dismissed the Scottish Government's request in such a peremptory fashion. Here was an opportunity to make a substantial cut in the UK Government's subsidy commitment to Scotland, even if in the short-term it would be balanced at UK level by the loss of oil revenues. It could also have been presented as an attempt to make the Scottish Government face up to its financial responsibilities. If I were Gordon Brown, I might have been tempted to play this one long - there would obviously have needed to be extensive studies, consultations and discussions before any final decisions were taken. Besides, it might - just - have been possible to thrash out a deal where both honour and financial expectations were satisfied on both sides.

Quote of the day

Boris in The Times (here) :

“You won’t catch me doing deals with left-wing dictators,” cried Boris, “which means that Venezuelan slum children are effectively subsidising Transport for London. I say that is completely Caracas!”

Idiot.

It's not a defeat?

A victory? Hardly. An honorable draw? Stretching it. The BBC website records the view of the Prime Minister:

The withdrawal of British troops from the southern Iraqi city of Basra is not a defeat, Gordon Brown has insisted.
The 550 soldiers have handed Basra Palace over to Iraqi control and joined 5,000 troops at the UK's last base, near the airport, outside the city.
The Ministry of Defence said the handover of Basra province was now due in the autumn.
The prime minister said the withdrawal was "pre-planned and organised" and UK forces would take an "overwatch" role.

I rather think I incline to the assessment of Mr Cockburn in The Independent:

In terms of establishing an orderly government in Basra and a decent life for its people the British failure has been absolute.

Yes, I think that says it all.

Has there been a deal?

The Independent, 30 August:

For British forces in southern Iraq, the announcement by Muqtada al-Sadr of a six-month suspension in hostilities is one of the best pieces of news to emerge for a long time.
If the radical Shia cleric's Mehdi Army does indeed hold to the ceasefire, it will allow British forces to carry out the impending withdrawal from Basra with the prospect of major bloodshed much reduced.

The Independent, 3 September:

British forces have pulled out of Basra Palace, the onetime southern residence of Saddam Hussein that became the symbol of the UK's role in the US-led invasion.
The British departure from their last remaining base inside the walls of Basra City, signalled their disengagement from the conflict and has highlighted a growing and public discord between Washington and London over Iraq, with the Americans claiming the move will severely undermine security.

Or am I being unduly cynical?

It's not really an identity crisis

It will take a day or two of getting used to. I refer of course to the sparkling new website - well, it's not really new and it remains less than sparkling but it does feature in big bold letters 'The Scottish Government'.

It's all for show, really. Legally, the organisation remains the Scottish Executive, at least until Westminster gets around to amending the Scotland Act - this year, next year, sometime, never.

And, paradoxically, it betrays a hint of insecurity. After all, you won't find the No 10 website or even the Foreign Office website boasting proudly that they are the property of the UK Government.

But what must really irk the Nationalists is that they continue to be saddled with the internet and e-mail addresses of "scotland.gov.uk".


Update: BellgroveBelle takes an entirely different view of the matter.

The cynicism of old soldiers

The BBC reports:

The head of the British army during the Iraq invasion has said US post-war policy was "intellectually bankrupt".
In a Daily Telegraph interview, former chief of the general staff, Gen Sir Mike Jackson, added that US strategy had been "short-sighted".

Could it be that the timing of this attack has something to do with the fact that his autobiography is about to be published, an autobiography which is - surprise, surprise - to be serialised by The Telegraph?