Harris and the Labour leadership contest

'Scottish' Labour badly need to find a new leader capable of defining what their party is 'for', in a context where your average leftwing socialist and democrat seems to instinctively vote SNP


A dire field, a chaotic PLP


When the SNP not only smashed all opposition last May; but also the political system; questions were suddenly buzzing -- 'what does this mean for the Union?'. But to answer that question, the real focus needs to be on the health (or lack thereof) of the Labour movement in Scotland.

Ever since Heath and his assault on the 'red Clydeside', the vital unionist party in Scotland hasn't been the official 'Unionist' party led by successive Tory leaders. The real pillar in the unionist temple has been Labour. So long as they dominated Scotland by keeping the Tories out; the union was seen as safe and secure.
But with devolution they scored a disastrous own-goal. Motivated partly out of egoism, and a mistaken understanding of why Scots voted for them, the introduced Holyrood and the devolutionary agenda.

Since then, Scots realised they didn't know 'why' they voted for the Labour Party in many parts of the country. 'To keep the Tories out?', no, since devolution removed the danger of being dominated by a largely-English based Tory government. So why?

I believe that this is central to why the SNP have been gaining ground, not just on access to power, or in key voting demographics -- but on the separatist movement. It is because for the union to be healthy, we, ironically, need 'Scottish' Labour to be capable of keeping the SNP at bay on the left.

Enter Harris and the current Labour leadership contest. My key question is this: does Harris understand & realise all of this? If he wants to become the Labour leader who restored declining party fortunes he urgently needs to find a 'reason-for-being' for the Labour party within the new devolution politics. Put it simply, the old formula of 'vote for us to keep the Tories out' just doesn't cut ice anymore.

My central worry isn't just that he as a Westminster-parachute job... its that this means he won't 'get it'. His time spent in Westminster has presumably exposed him the to stupid and dangerous arrogance of the Scottish Westminster Labour bloc. They continue to be able to peddle the line 'keep the Tories out' (and in doing so, keep the threat of separatism at bay) -- since in a Westminster context this remains relevant. But will Harris realise that this isn't a Westminster context up here in Scotland's own devolutionary landscape? That is the multi-million dollar question waiting to be answered.

An abysmal field. At the final analysis Harris is the lead man in this contest. Who is he up against? Baker? Johann Lamont? Ken MacIntosh? The only name in that list that could even be considered plausable leadership material is MacIntosh ... but even then ... the phrase 'grasping at straws' does force itself to the foreground. What the unionist movement needs, ahead of Alex Salmonds fixed separatist plebicite is a strong, capable, electable, visionary Labour leader capable of realising the new political landscape of devolution.

Sadly for the erstwhile stagnating Labour movement (if not actively declining) I just don't see that figure. No one seems to be in command of that aura of historic providence...sad too from the unionist perspective...

Time to recognise the liberal delusions

Someone lived above that shop ... 

If the UK riots inform us of anything, it should be to see through the 'grandiose lie' inherent within liberal attempts to rewrite history 
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The public know better
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The intellectual and political leaders of the left have really lost touch with the reality of our lives with the latest a-historical nonsense concerning the riots. In their words; the language of the leftist liberals; they are attempting to 'alter conciousness'. I however recognise this as 'shout until your grandiose 'truth' becomes the accepted one.

According to the leftist-liberals, what we saw during the riots was a bubbling over of the oppressed masses. There was the 'underclass' fighting back against the bankers bonuses, Westminster corruption and the oh-so-evil Conservative Party.

Apart from the sheer stupidity of such a position, it is frankly insulting to the intelligence of the many. Where do these liberals get off on ignoring the destruction of private property? Don't they care that the affected weren't bankers, politicians -- no the cars, shops and homes that were destroyed by the rioting scum were ordinary folks. Single mothers were forced onto the street, the police lost wholesale control of most of London. When will these leftists learn that sometimes, just sometimes, the public doesn't want nor is interested in their nonsensical pseudo-intellectual baloney about 'disenfranchised youth' etc?

To quote Janet Daly;
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"The moral equivalence that they wanted to establish between looters and arsonists on the one hand, and the perpetrators of any other kind of bad behaviour you can think of on the other, was rooted in ideological, not theological, orthodoxy. The rioting gangs could not simply be what they seemed – what they so obviously were – because that would be a devastating victory for the judgment of popular opinion over the fantasies of liberalism"

Fuel Prices spiralling

Burke taught that society is the natural state of nature, but what if corporatism and a lack of true market competition leads to ruthless exploitation; set to undermine such said state of nature?
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Fuel and the cost of warmth
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Warmth should be one of the most basic assets in a modern and developed 'post industrial society'. Whether it be pensioners having spent their lives as honest and upright Christians or young and hopeful newly weds ... the right to warmth is taken as a given. But we seem to be through the looking glass, as the price to stay warm in the evenings continues to rise. And rise well above what inflation might honestly require it to.

Npower, it seems, is going to rise prices by 16% (shocking). Now, given that this rise is well more than what inflation will otherwise dictate this year (or projected to, in the coming 4 years) - there is another motive here. Npower will almost certainly point to numerous reasons for this (from the cost of transmission losses to the cost of exchange rates); but nothing really satisfies me. To raise prices by 16% you need a damn good rationale for doing so! Not only will such a move place thousands into not relative but real fuel poverty; it rocks the stability of British society. When Cameron talks about fighting our 'Broken Society', he needs to realise that it takes more than tough criminal sentencing ... it needs justice. Real justice, like access to a warm house in the nights. Times are tough, and with rising consumer demand always comes the need to raise prices to stabilise demand. But government is here to preserve justice; and I put it that until injustices like this are sorted - our 'Big Society' will continue to be a pipe-dream.

Let us face it, Npower makes this price hike; the other companies in England & Wales will follow. This in itself is a damning indictment of the so-called free market for energy! Where is the price-competition? Nowhere, mark my words, as the other energy firms will play a game of 'follow the leader'.

What we need is either a genuine free-market for energy where there is real price competition, or state ownership of energy sector. Given that I regard the former as unachievable, one must support the latter.

All I know is this: a 'Big Society' needs more than strong law enforcement, it needs basic justice.

"The Whites have become black"

Dr Starkey has never shirked away from the controversial, but his latest comments on a BBC Newsnight discussion do interest me
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"Whites the new black"
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It was always inevitable that following the spontaneous rioting across England, that we'd be faced with the academic aftermath. Countless 'experts' all chiming in with their own conceptualisational view aimed at giving answer to 'why?'
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If one asks the police chiefs, one gets the uniformal answer, 'the youth doesn't fear the police' (love how we 'youth' are all treated as a singular homogeneous blob, rather than individuals). Yet if we ask academics like Starkey; we get more volatile (but sophisticated) explanations.
Dr Starkey has claimed that the 'chavs' behind the violence had been exposed to a nihilistic culture. One which has been more commonly associated with black gangster groups; "A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion."
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Now agree or disagree with the choice of language, but this blogger does believe there is an element of truth in what the needlessly controversial Dr says. There is an underclass of wannabe gangsters, all youthful who seem to treat the Tottenham violence as a kind of 'shopping with violence' rather than wanton criminality. 
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Yes there are more dimensions to the explanation; like where were the parents. But the possibility that a legion of socially disenfranchised youth have been negatively influenced by the concept of glamorous gangster-culture (of the Grand Theft Auto variety) must surely be accepted.

Places to visit: 1. Loch Awe

The shadow warrior, Sir William Wallace

I thought I'd post something non-political, so why not discuss places in bonnie Scotland I'd love to visit sometime?
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1. Loch Awe
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Ever been to Loch Awe? I haven't but it is one of the places in Scotland I really need to go and visit. As a place it is drenched in history, being the scene where William Wallace took on Edward Longshanks Irish mercenaries. A loch blessed with plenty to see, it has a mass of ruined castles. Shivering monuments to the old clan systems. Or if that isn't your bag (it is certainly mine), there is the famous Loch Awe trout fishing (I also like fishing).

Plenty of paintings and art work is associated with the loch history like the Shadow Warrior; keeping guard as he fought for Scots freedom. You will all probably recognise it from somewhere, its reasonably well known. In the painting, the legendary Sir William Wallace sits, the shadow figure, contemplating tactics above the Pass of Brander, loch Awe.

So there is bags of Scottish cultural heritage which draws me to the place. Has anyone been? If so perhaps that is something you can comment about, I'd be interested to hear.

But anyway, going to the loch will have to wait, maybe till next year, as this September myself, my brother and the old man are off to the Munich Beer festival (that's another thing I happen to like doing).

People Power?

E-petitions. To be hailed as a key platform in empowering he electorate.The Prime Minister has said that "any petition with a million signatories will allow members of the public to table a bill that could be debated & voted on by MPs". People power, right?

No. Check out the website, and you will find it is clumsily put together, poorly designed in the extreme and hardly an upgrade of the previous Labour one. Almost as quickly as this e-petition site was launched, we could check and see the usual topics taking the lead. From chucking out the immigrants to the restoration of hanging, the e-petition website has become a tool, a kind of bridgehead for the mad, bad and dangerous in our society. While I may support the notion of capital punishment holding a place in our society (Mills, Hagel supported it), the problem isn't always the topic being driven by such petition-systems; its the medium and those utilising it as a resource.

E-petition models aren't encouraging the great unwashed to engage in our democratic life and institutions; rather it is popularising hysteria. Anyone remember the e-petition calling for Gordon Brown to be replaced as PM by Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson? That one got over 50,000 signatories. Do we really wish to compel parliament to debate and vote on tripe like that? I'd hope not, but with tools like this one that Cameron has launched, every crank can get his voice heard.

Catherine Bennett of the Observer wrote on Sunday that the e-petitions website "reads like a sociopaths blueprint for utopia" She isn't far off.

Some may argue that the e-petitions website is really a tool for engaging the many in the political life of the nation; but they are wrong. The world represented on the e-petitions site is one where there would be no speed limits, precious few foreigners and plenty of regular public hangings. Pustulatingly dark.

Let me try and show you the kind of nutters who are likely to use such a service as this.

The Sun years back when Rebecca Brooks was in charge managed to muster 1.5 million signatories demanding that "ALL social workers go to work on the baby P case". These are the kinds of people you are empowering with schemes like this one ... clearly thought up in some think tank somewhere. The single mothers, the poor white inner city kids, these folk won't be sitting for hours on the internet carefully crafting electronic petitions. They are too busy getting by on subsistence wages and working to feed their kids to spent their time on sites like this one!


If we really want to get these types of people more engaged, why not get the parties to debate the value or not of guaranteed incomes...or invest time and effort in rejuvenation of the abandoned Glasgow housing estates.

Tory dissent

London riots, growth being downgraded and now real dissent within the parliamentary Conservative party (PCP)
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Ideological struggle
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All of us will have our own reasons for disliking the coalition. Whether it be the failure to cut the tax burden, or the lack of a 'growth' strategy for our economy. But as a moderate Conservative, I can tell you I find the injection of LibDem influence into Tory politics fascinating and thoroughly worthwhile.

Take an example, at the coming party conference a bunch of young turk Tories from the 2010 intake will be proposing their own 'true' Tory manifesto. All of them are backbenchers, almost all of them are under 40 years old & they are easily described as 'Thatcherite'.
Are we finally seeing a return of Conservative ideological backbiting? The historic Tory left against the fanaticism of the Thatcherite 'new right'? I certainly hope so.

Sound disloyal? That is probably because it is. Yet the PCP badly needs a little bit of disloyalty.

If the likes of Priti Patel, Kwasi Kwarteng et al all push the coalition for more distinctly 'Thatcherite' policies of the new right; then this shall have the beneficial (if unintended) result of drawing out more Tory moderates. After all, I get the real impression that the majority of the Conservative Party are really more moderate in policy and ideology than they let on to their constituency nutters...

I will make no bones about it, this clash between left and right within the Tory Party has been coming ever since Cameron took the leadership. He has spent his time in charge avoiding philosophical discourse, clamping down on anything 'old hat' and pushing down a PR-driven path.

Now the party can finally discuss where and in what direction it wishes to go down. Cameron may wish us Tories to go more leftwing, but everything he has done has been to appease the nutter right within the party. Let us have the likes of Patel et al come at us; and let us dismiss their Thatcherite nonsense in open debate. Only then can we go forward.

To Big top Fail?

With the downgrading of US credit, has the concept of 'too big to fail' finally been exhausted?
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If we live in any era, today it is the era of irresponsibility. For the last 30 years an economic consensus has evolved which can best be summed up by New Labours 'iron chancellor'. Brown famously said, "no more boom and bust", and this best represents the mentality of a generation.

The idea that certain individuals, firms or even nation-states are 'too big to fail' with the prevailing economic climate was clearly a widely held belief. When Brown said those famous lines, 'no more boom and bust', clearly the idea was that the land of plenty had arrived - all thanks to big business et al.

Naturally the stupidity of that said mentality is blatant or all to see now.First there came Lehman Bros, then came the global economic crash. The millions earned through stock manipulations and dodgy loans came back to bite. All of those who made their millions, believing like Brown did, that the inevitable downturn would never arrive, failed. These money-men can best be represented by folk like Bernie Madoff.

Of course the chain in this line had been though to have accumulated with Greek, Irish, Portuguese insolvency problems. But today it has taken yet another turn. The USA, the so-called 'leader of the free world' has lost its AAA credit rating.

When even the USA isn't viewed by the markets as 100% reliable; hasn't the time arrived when we must question the logic of 'too big to fail'?

EU still moving too slowly

Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has called for member-states to speed up their ratification procedures of the new bailout model. While he is right to do so, doesn't this raise questions about where we wish our new Europe to go?
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Complications post-Lisbon
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All of you know that I am a passionate Europeanist, federalist and idealist for our Continent; yet only a fool would seek to pretend there are no problems inside the European Union. Yes, there is the debt crisis (perhaps more accurately crises), yes there is the issue of a lame-duck French President (for Sarkozy will assuredly lose power), and then yes, there is the issue of the rise of a pretty rancidly euro-sceptic British leadership. But all of these problems that the Union is lurching from, like a sick and drunken wretch, are symptoms of a more fundamental malaise.

Surely the time has come for all of us to ask fundamental and searching questions about ourselves and what we desire from Europe. I'll place a bet that what we all wish is continued peace (from the historic threat of European war), economic growth, commerce and prosperity. (Duh). But now comes the hard part. Especially for those who have spent many twilight hours hating the whole ideal of a united Europe.

If it is preventing future financial crises, then its a more integrated Europe we need. If it is to prevent the return of the dark days of petty tariff and protectionism, then it is a more integrated Europe. At the crux of all of our current problems rests the defining issue of my generation of young adults. Do we accept that the 'nation-state'  isn't the all-powerful chess-piece in global politics? And if so, are we prepared to undertake the reforms of EU institutions to provide us with a new (and more tangible) 'trident'; with which to influence and control the mega-firms which dominate our Brave New World?

I'd say at present no. No, we are not yet in a position where the general will of our society is ready or willing to accept the reforms. Yes, a majority of us Brits desire to remain inside the EU (because we realise supranational challenges requires supranational policy solutions) --- but at the same time, institute the changes to make the EU practical? No. That is still too radical, too far beyond the pale of our common preferences.

So back when we had the opportunity for a Constitutional Treaty, we backtracked and settled with Lisbon. And that watered-down train-wreck of a compromise-treaty has failed. It failed to equip the EU institutions with the powers necessary to prevent the EU-wide financial crisis. It failed to simplify the ratification procedures for major treaty changes.. and the result is here for all to see.
Barroso today basically pleading with member-states to speed up their ratifications so that the EU can finally exert its powers to solving the crisis flaming up in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and maybe even France and Brussels (if things go much further).

Am I the only one to question this state of affairs? Why create and pay for our EU, our supranational institution if at the same time we fail to provide it with the means to carrying out the functions we desire it to?
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Equally, there will assuredly be those of you whose solution is 'let the Babylonian EU crumble'. But please ignore such deranged rantings.

There is no going back to a time previous to European integration. And why would we wish that anyway?

The time has come to ask ourselves some searching questions: given that the general will in our society accepts the need for the EU ... can we finally as Brits take the final step and say lets hand Brussels the means to fulfilling their obligations? Please?