Search topics on this blog

Showing posts with label The Union. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Union. Show all posts

Sunday 12 June 2011

Stream of consciousness … and the BBC

I like to have a specific topic to address, but today I haven’t. But since I didn’t blog yesterday, and since some regular readers rapidly reach the reasonable conclusion that I’m dead if I don’t blog for a couple of days, I feel obliged to give proof of life …

So I sit at the keyboard with no plan, in the hope that something will come from the Id at least as far as the Ego and perhaps even reach the Superego. I’m not entirely certain that I have an Ego or Superego anymore, but I’m in regular touch with my Id, something closely resembling its manifestation in Forbidden Planet.

Today’s Radio Times confidently states on page 56

BBC1

12.00 The Politics Show  Analysis and debate. Includes News at 12.00 and at 12.30 Scottish stories.

Good old reliable BBC - my trusted public service broadcaster, telling the truth to the four nations of Britain, calling the rich and powerful to account, champion of the ordinary people of these isles, in this great united kingdom - Dunkirk, Churchill, muffins for tea, cricket on the lawn, stiff-upper lips, guardian of the free people of the world, men in fancy dress in great cathedrals, monarchs, Royal weddings, knights, Lords, Ladies, colourful ritual and spectacle, stronger together than apart, etcetera, etcetera. You know the rest …

No need to consult the online guide on my television - after all, it’s not a public holiday, although something called Pentecost has knocked The Big Questions out of its 10.00 slot. The Andrew Marr Show was the predictable load of old Westminster village pap it has become since not-so-super injunctions have killed the mojo of its eponymous host.

I switch on just before midday and wait expectantly, laughing in sardonic delight because the tennis has been rained off. May it piss down on that tedious game for evermore, a game that is healthful exercise and a legitimate pursuit for those who actually get off their arses and play the game, but an exercise in mindless voyeurism for those non-players who watch it …

I should have been warned by the fate of The Big Questions. Midday passes, and the mindless chatter of those under the umbrellas continues, with the kind a vacuous gossip and idle speculation that characterises acres of sporting commentary. Panic-stricken, I switch to BBC2, only to find more crap, so I belatedly consult the online guide. Nae politics today, mate. If we can’t have tennis, you’ll have to be content with Country File, or some such rural idyll.

So at the end of a week in which we have seen the care of the old and vulnerable across the UK threatened by the rabid greed of speculative capitalists, the continued revelations of criminal behaviour by our UK newspapers, a week in which the implications of the behaviour of the UK Supreme Court for the Scottish Justice system becomes even more worrying, a week in which more young men and women are dying in misconceived foreign wars, a week in which we contemplate yet another involvement in Syria, and a week in which the Brian Rix Whitehall farce that is called the UK Government - the ConLib Coalition - move seamlessly from one disaster to another, a week in which Miliband Minor’s relevance to his party and to the nation is placed under question, the main political vehicle for examining events and placing the powerful under scrutiny - and where Scottish affairs get a real discussion platform - is sacrificed to a tennis match that didn’t take place and some countryside rambles.

I’m your long-term friend and defender, BBC - but when you behave like this, I shout aloud for independence, for  a free Scotland, with its own public service broadcaster, employing the fine journalists, presenters, creative artists and technicians that make up the present BBC Scotland, but freed from the dead hand of London.

And by God, we’ll have it, sooner rather than later …

Here to the Scottish Broadcasting Corporation - the SBC!





POSTSCRIPT
Roseanna Cunningham tweeted me to say it (?) was broadcast at 11.30 am. If so, I kick myself for missing it - but the criticism stands.

Stop press: I've now checked - it was broadcast at 11.00 am - now watching on the iPlayer. Will I apologise to the BBC? Will I ****! You ruined my morning - am I suppose to plan my day on not believing the Radio Times and cross check the transmission time of every programme if there's bloody sport on?

Wednesday 11 May 2011

Please don’t talk about us when we’re gone …

There’s an old jazz song – “Please don’t talk about me when I’m gone” With some adaptation, it fits very well with the less generous UK commentators on Scotland’s new dawn and its impending departure from the Union.

Please don't talk about us when we're gone
Although we hope we can be friendly from now on
And if you can't say anything real nice
Then UK, please don't talk at all is my advice

You go your way and I'll go mine
It's best that we do
Here's a thought I hope will bring
Lots of love to you

It makes no difference how you carry on
But UK - please don't talk about us when we're gone


Friday 29 April 2011

The Royal Wedding - a Union symbolising a divided nation?

Celebrations across Britain? Technically true, but in fact concentrated on London and the Home Counties.

Anglesey and St. Andrews effectively had to stand for Wales and Scotland, for obvious reasons - the royal couple live in Anglesey, and went to St. Andrew's - a Scottish University that is predominantly the province of rich English students.

This was a wedding attended by the rich and privileged (plus a few brutal tyrants), the British Establishment and a few token peasants. It was almost exclusively white - apart from the dictators - and entirely unrepresentative of the United Kingdom. It was a huge expensive PR exercise for the British Establishment, militarism and organised religion, mainly Christian.

It was reported in either hushed reverential tones or a nauseatingly jolly jingoistic and patronising manner by the BBC and ITV both nationally and regionally, and grossly distorted the reality of the widespread indifference of Scotland, Wales and the Midlands and North of England.

Only Channel 4 offered any kind of realistic debate and critique. We expected little else, and it's over - till the next time.



Friday 10 December 2010

Are the wheels coming off the Union?

The Daily Politics today – Jo Coburn, with guest commentators Nick Watt, chief Political Correspondent of the Guardian, and Iain Dale, a Tory blogger, talks to Linda Fabiani, MSP of the Scottish National Party about Scotland and the Barnett Formula.



The lead-in to this was a piece about the Barnett Formula, and featured its eponymous inventor. The Noble Lord has mixed feelings about his long-running invention, taking some pride in its longevity and the fact that his name will be remembered for a formula, but unhappy about the way it favours Scotland (and Wales and Northern Ireland), as he sees it.

Linda Fabiani acquits herself more than honourably in the face of Jo Coburn’s rather hostile – and confused - questioning and what rapidly became ill-concealed indignation from Iain Dale, a Tory blogger and commentator with views that could fairly be described as right of centre. Political programmes seem to have a great affection for Iain Dale, but are less inclined to feature equally influential bloggers of other political persuasions. (I do not include myself in this category, but the question is academic, since the likelihood of an SNP blogger appearing on The Daily Politics roughly equates to the possibility of Alex Salmond being invited to grace the benches of the House of Lords.)

Jo Coburn’s opening question set the anti-Scottish tone firmly -

Is it fair that Scotland receives more public spending per head than anywhere else in the UK? In fact, it’s £1500 more per person than England?”

Linda Fabiani replied that a recent survey showed public expenditure per head being higher in London.

Jo Coburn simply ignored this, and repeated that Scotland got more than anyone else except Northern Ireland, which seemed to contradict her earlier assertion that Scotland received more than anywhere else in the UK. Perhaps Jo thinks Northern Ireland is not in the UK?

Linda patiently developed her earlier point, and said that when examined regionally, certain English regions received more than Scotland and Wales.

Jo Coburn resolutely stayed in her don’t-confuse-me-with-the-facts mode of questioning, repeatedly using the words fair and fairness. She then moved into a ludicrous line of questioning about why Scottish students should not have to pay tuition fees, nor students from other European countries, when English students do have to pay fees.

Why on earth she - or anyone – thought that this was a question for Scotland to answer beggars belief. Scotland spends its allocation as it sees fit – that is what devolved government is about. The answer as to why English students pay when the others don’t is a matter for the UK and the EU, not Scotland.

It would appear that, in the Alice in Wonderland world of UK political commentary, it is expected that Scotland, with a devolved government, should somehow limit such fiscal freedom as it has to avoid doing anything different, or necessary, in order to maintain consistency with the backward social and educational policies of England.

To do this would negate the whole purpose of devolved government in the first place.

Linda Fabiani heroically restrained herself from stating the blindingly obvious – that a party committed to the independence of Scotland does not base its social policy on what the failing and confused UK chooses to do. But she could not resist offering the comment that England was free to treat its student how it saw fit, but based on the evidence of the last few days, was not making a very good job of it. Linda was anxious to help the confused Jo Coburn understand the realities of devolved government.

Jo rapidly changed tack. “Can you guarantee that you’re still going to be able to guarantee that you’ll still have free Scottish universities?

Linda did not fall into this most obvious of elephant traps, simply saying that there was a review in the light of the budget cuts, and when that review was completed, decisions would be made. But she reiterated that there would be no fees for students in Scotland.

It fell to Nick Watt, the Guardian’s man, make the point that Linda Fabiani was too courteous to make – that she, as a Scottish MSP and a member of a a party committed to leaving the United Kingdom, didn’t really care what people in England think, nor what England did.

He wrenched the floundering Jo Coburn back to the realisation that she and The Daily Politics should be putting the question to the Unionist parties, Labour and the LibDems, who agreed that Scotland should get this funding. not to the SNP or the Scottish Government.

He also posed the $64,000 question for the Scottish Unionist parties – and the UK government – how can you justify the continuation of a perceived inequality – remaining in the Union with favourable treatment? Scotland was having it both ways …

Iain Dale, who had been fizzing quietly with Unionist indignation, entered the discussion, saying that it was “an absolute outrage” that English taxpayers were subsidising Welsh and Scottish students at the English universities. “The only solution is devolved government for England …

Well, no – it’s not, Iain. The other solution is independence for Scotland and Wales, with Northern Ireland left as the sole remaining colony of the resulting rump of the United Kingdom, which has been a very disunited kingdom for some time now.

Dale concluded by adding “ …if we had a proper English Parliament, we wouldn’t be sending all this money up to Scotland to waste.

There you have it – providing free higher education for the generation that holds the future of Scotland in their hands is waste, in Iain Dale’s view: providing free personal care for the elderly, free bus passes, or indeed any of the deeply human social policies of the Scottish Government is waste, in the Unionist world view. We know that, Iain – that why we want to get the hell out of the Union, sooner rather than later.

The UK social policies that he espouses, and defended earlier in the programme, have led to riots on the streets of London, and the disaffection and alienation of the flower of England’s youth. The unionist conspiracy of big business, the monarchy, the rich and the military industrial complex, aided and abetted by the last labour Government and compounded by the ConLib Coalition has wrecked the countries economy, and is now attacking the poor, the vulnerable and the young.



The young people of England have nowhere to go politically. Betrayed by Labour for thirteen years, betrayed by the Liberal Democrats and now by the Tories and their LibDem puppets, they are left asking themselves what political avenues are left open to them.

 There are sinister forces at work who will be only to eager to exploit their confusion and despair and their youthful energy and idealism. It is already happening – the Heir to the Throne and his consort have already been threatened and humiliated in the heart of their capital city, despite a massive police presence.

Scotland can only watch, saddened by what is happening to England and England’s people, and hoping fervently that they find a democratic and peaceful political solution to their problems.

But Scotland’s young people and the Scottish electorate have a choice, one that will determine the future of Scotland for a generation or more, and that choice must be made wisely in May 2011. Choose the SNP – and choose to stand as a free and independent nation once again.

Saor Alba!

Monday 1 March 2010

The State of the Union – UK, that is …

How any rational Scottish voter can contemplate voting for the Tories, Labour or the LibDems in the imminent general election baffles me.

THE CHARGES AGAINST THE UNION

We have a Union engaged in pointless, unwinnable wars, killing the flower of our young people.

We have a Union committed blindly to outdated, and strategically irrelevant nuclear weapons of mass destruction, at enormous cost, at a time when the Union is close to bankruptcy and deep cuts in essential services are about to be made.

We have an almost wholly corrupt Westminster structure, as the expenses scandal and the political donations to the three major parties have so devastatingly exposed.

Among the minor parties, we have one fascist party and one neo-fascist party.

We have corruption in the House of Lords, with criminal prosecutions of peers of the realm already underway, and with perhaps more to come.

We have parties being funded by mega-rich donors – all three major parties - who are avoiding UK tax, and using the money saved – the taxpayers’ money – our money - to bankroll the political party that they believe will grant favours and preferment that will make them even richer, and more able to subvert our democracy.

We have one of these parties (the LibDems) accepting money from a convicted fraudster and refusing to give it back.

We have a governing party (for the moment) committed to covering up complicity in torture by our security forces.

We have a governing party that has been systematically trying to dismantle the ancient legal freedoms of the peoples of these islands.

We have two dominant parties that have no real, fundamental differences between them on war, nuclear weapons, the economy, privilege and patronage, a fact being belatedly recognised by the electorate, as witnessed by the narrowing of the opinion poll gap between them.

We have a third party, the LibDems, with vestiges of principle and sanity, but effectively lost and powerless in the corrupt system of which they are a part.

We have three parties with delusions of an international role for Britain as a great power, based on brandishing its WMDs, when the reality is that all they have is the rump of a wholly discredited Empire, built on ruthless exploitation of subject peoples, and reluctantly dismantled only when those subject peoples threw off its yoke.

We have three parties whose Scottish minions oppose attempts to free Scotland from the twin curses of drink and violence, because of their political expediency, subservience to vested interests and commitment to insane, simplistic sound bite solutions.

We have three parties in Holyrood hell-bent on denying the Scottish people a voice in their own constitutional future.

************************

Scotland, waken up, or shrink into poverty and irrelevance in the next decade. You have a real choice – England doesn’t. Saor Alba!