Are you on the list, Mr/s MSP? (Redux)

A recent post by Adam Ramsay on the Scottish Green blog, Bright Green Scotland, reminded me that interesting things are afoot which will impact on the shape of Holyrood after the 2011 elections. This week has brought us news of further departures. More interestingly, important choices are being made about who might arrive in the new cohort of tribunes, in particular through determining individuals' rankings on their respective party list. Those near the top may have a good chance - or in some cases an almost unassailable certainty - of taking up seats in the new parliament.

It is my understanding that with the departure of Robin Harper, Lothians Greens have decided that their list will be headed up by a female candidate, no doubt disappointing the ambitions of one or two designing alfalpha males in the party. Adam pens a compelling endorsement of Maggie Chapman for that position, who is currently serving as the City of Edinburgh Councillor for Leith Walk. Nominations are clearly a party matter - and I'm obviously not a Green chap myself - but I'd profoundly echo Adam's warm words about Maggie. She is a virtuous woman. While our views may not be consonant on every matters, parliament could only be improved by her presence and her intellect. The thought reminded me about this post, which I composed last year, on the unsung virtues of the party list system. In the sleepy news days of the Silly Season, a gentle reflective redux on an integral and undervalued feature of contemporary Scottish democracy seems no bad thing.

A while ago, I scribbled something here about how contradictory it seems to me to strive towards proportionality in Holyrood yet instantly spike that proportionality by goading some poor willing gull to take up the presiding officer’s gavel, and sit.

In the second(ish) of an occasional series of mild structural speculations about Scottish democracy, I wanted to discuss an often unsung benefit of the Holyrood list system for selecting regional tribunes. The hostile case is probably more familiar. Souls on the list frequently try their best to coax the public to vote for them in the constituency – and are frequently rebuffed in favour of another candidate. Rejected, even, some might say. Yet, despite the best efforts to keep this would-be cuckoo out of a parliamentary chair, the party can fix up matters slyly behind the painted scenery. If we anticipate some measure of continuity in the electoral fortunes of parties, they can basically appoint one, two or perhaps three MSPs, despite popular loathings and public contempt. Although the positions do not attract a lordly or baronial title, the proposition runs, the principles animating the choices are similar. Thereafter, attention is unlikely to drift to the arcane party internal reasonings and barterings that compose the list as it finally appears. That being so, resort can be made to similar arguments. The list can be a way of briskly elevating the talented and the bright – while crouching toads in constituencies can be more difficult to deflate. Of course, merit is not an innocent calculation and intellect no guarantee of virtue or virtuosity in government. Other criticisms include the alleged non-localism of list members and a vindication of the idea that the representation of geographies – as well as party affiliations and ethical and political commitments – across a country is a valuable thing.

Although I’ve never really argued it fulsomely here, one big problem for me in the Westminster political banner-waving is that everyone is trying to represent too many, internally contradictory views. Broad based, certainly, but supported by two shoogly legs. One of the best arguments, for me, for some form of proportional representation in Westminster is that it could remove the pervasive inauthenticity which UK political parties now resort to. Obviously, electoral progress would mandate appealing to other party’s voters – but the desperate need to form dissembling coalitions within a party would at least find reasons to ease off. There are complex relations between representation and sharing the views of your candidate. Given that voting for anyone except yourself enforces this partial alignment of views and the sorting out of priorities and a hierarchy of political commitments – your parliamentary representative cannot be a mirroring simulacrum of the self.

Some of these complexities recently crept to the surface after a certain young labour student from Strathclyde recently argued that SNP MSPs from Glasgow were failing to represent their city. The point was made that these two strands – representation and the sharing of views – are not reducible to one another. Angela Merkel made the same point when she insisted that she wished to the Chancellor for all Germans, political views despite. Westminster elections conducted on a first past the post basis furnish us with 646 instances of similar problems. How should we conceptualise electors whose representatives voted to invade Iraq but who disagreed with them vehemently? Not in our name, the slogan directly aimed at disrupting the division and insisting that representation and sharing of views cannot neatly be divided. Take another example. Anne Widdecome frequently stodged through parliamentary lobbies based on her personal Catholicism. What of those in her constituency who did not share those views? What options had they? Move, certainly. Continue to vote against her – and insofar as they failed to tip her into the fens – stuck with the majority’s preference for her which obliterated the disagreeing minority’s voices.

Contrast this with the Scottish example – and the constituencies which make up Glasgow. The sea is red. Yet look over the following list of ne’er-do-wells, villains, scoundrels and blaggards:

Bill Aitken (Conservative), Robert Brown (Liberal Democrat), Bob Doris (SNP), Patrick Harvie (Green), Bill Kidd (SNP), Anne McLaughlin (SNP), Sandra White (SNP)

Those with keen eyes for pattern recognition – or an archivist’s memory for detail – will recognise this file of smudged shufflers as Glasgow’s seven “list” MSPs, elected in compensating proportion to their constituency associates. If I have a particular policy bugbear to brutalise my representatives with – I can pester all of these souls and Sturgeon besides. Indeed, in the past I’ve done just that, and the gracious Patrick Harvie responded with admirable briskness and detail to my digital inquisitions. Take any number of issues which might excite disagreement. Doughty old social miserabilists like Baillie Bill Aitken would be apt to give constituents petitioning on particular themes the bum’s rush. Much more liberal representatives like Harvie may take more of an interest and articulate that interest in the public setting. And so, vice versa, if you happened to be a social miserabilist yourself. Perhaps your constituency MP is lazy, a lush, bored, too busy having affairs, too stupid to comprehend the proposition you put to them. A longer list – and more people representing a particular community – can give the campaigner or reformer more ears to bend while first past the post might foist heaven knows what on you, with no recourse elsewhere. In short, as it is meant to, there can be a closer identification between representation and the sharing of views of topics of public discourse. Representation need not be such a dubious conjuring trick, conspiring to ideologically dazzle the public into deferring to whatever odious tribune their fellow citizens inflicted on them.

For me, Yousuf’s error is not the misidentification of representation with the sharing of views, as such – but is instead the misidentification of his views and Labour views with the whole representation of Glasgow. Concealing Glasgow’s Tories, its Greens, its SNP voters is the stuff of the past, thank heavens. Along the lines of my post yesterday, invisibility is not to be encouraged. The list allows those whispering minorities to find more robust voices. So when you are bashing, as one can fairly bash, the problems of party ordained lists of toadies and courtiers – have a care for the voter, lumped with Anne Widdecome for all those years, with nowhere else to turn.

"Cameron promises to deliver coherently broken society" (Redux)

I can't help but notice that we're not hearing much from Tories in these simmering electoral days about Cameron's erstwhile, fevered analysis of Britain's Broken Society. Somehow, this once-kaput collective has fixed itself up in Conservative rhetoric - being rejuvenated and expanded - so now we just hear about the Big Society, which will tamely hold the hands of the Great Ignored. Lest we forget this particular bit of nonsense, this busy working Sunday I thought I'd dredge up this news story from the pages of the Kinlochbervie Chronicle. Quite why it wasn't picked up by the rest of the quality press, I haven't the foggiest.

Cameron Promises to Deliver Coherently Broken Society

In a bid to stave off pervasive and continuing critical ignorance of Conversational Party policy, David Cameron PM (Aspirational) has today launched a short film in association with the Daily Express newspaper. Striking a three-figure deal with kitchen-sink director, Ken Loach, the challenging sixty-seven minute “On the side of the Angels” documents New Labour’s failure to deliver a coherently “broken society”. Shot over a ten year period in the 1980s, the camera follows the appalling living conditions of seven former mine workers from Hampstead, forced from their jobs and stripped of their livelihoods - all through the eyes of Princess Diana.

“That bitch? She promised us the world.” complains Happy, reclining on an all-too familiar stool in Putney Job Agency. “And what did she do? Ran off with yon coke-piping Judas. Tit-teasing cunt-jockey. And - then - then she got hitched and potted by that other poor bugger. - Not that I’m bitter. Not bitter at all. In fact, I’m glad she left. We’re better off out of it.” Due to chronic scrotal arthritis, Happy hasn’t worked since the Achondroplasia Ltd minesite closed in ‘86. Choking back tears of disillusionment, the former gemcutter confides how his ex-wife of twenty years, Vera, is “forced to eke out an existence on fraudulent abortions, tax credits and national assistance, and not necessarily in that order.”

As the film continues, the incomplete extent of Britain’s cultural degeneracy is powerfully brought home. Narcolepsy undiagnosed led Sleepy to become involved in a series of industrial accidents that left him paralyzed from the legs down and the neck up. Sleepy’s physician, Doc, was subsequently arraigned before the General Medical Council and struck off for malpractice. His present occupation remains unknown. Grumpy fared somewhat better. A cocktail of mood-altering drugs now staves off his chronic depression permitting him to work eight days a week installing food in the provendermonger Messers Tesco & Son in Barnsley city centre.

Clerical worker Bashful is currently serving out a ten year prison sentence in Wormwood Scrubs, convicted in 2001 of domestic abuse. Former TUC representative, Sneezy, unable to live with his condition, was successfully euthanised a Swiss clinic in 2004. His estate is misunderstood to be pursing the successor company Achondroplasia PLC, now arms manufacturers, for negligent provision of poorly-ventilated office accommodation, which they allege contributed to his early death. The estate is expected to run out of money and give up some time in the Spring 2012 when the case will be heard before the High Court, London.  Dopey found the instant fame which the documentary imposed upon him particularly difficult to endure. Falling in with film stars and MPs, he was unable to resist the predations of the infamous champagne, cocaine and blini fuelled North London lifestyle. Baby-faced Dopey undertook an extensive portfolio of remunerated dictatorships before he was tragically killed in car crash in Paris in 1997.

“Although the names and all actual details of events have been changed for legal reasons, rendering any actual resemblance to real persons or facts purely coincidental, I think it is obvious from this film that Brown’s Britain, although well intentioned, essentially doesn’t come up to snuff,” Chris Grayling, Shadow Secretary for Urban Decay instructed Brighton pensioners last week. “We must bring home to the public the full extent of the underclass of hardworking families in Britain today.” The film represents merely one element of the continuing renovation of the Conversative Party in preparation for a potential May General Election. In a further announcement, it was revealed that the unpopular ‘oak tree’ symbol is to be scrapped and replaced by a “down-and-out teddy bear, shivering in the snow.” Seen as a further repudiation of his party’s Cameronian legacy, a spokesman for the shadow leader viviparously defended the new logo, saying:  “We feel that this second symbol better represents our party’s distinctive aspirations for Britain.”

Rape in Scotland (2010) (Redux)

Earlier this week, the Herald brought us the news that despite moves by the Crown Office to improve the rate of conviction on rape charges, in 2008/09 only 25 out of 821 recorded complaints resulted in a finding of guilt. That is 3% of the total. These figures are often more complicated than they superficially appear. For example, a Crown Office and Procurators-Fiscal spokesman is quoted in the article, noting that "... in cases where the accused is prosecuted for a course of conduct involving multiple rapes, this will be labelled as a single charge. In a case where rape is not the main charge, this will not be reflected in the figures. For example, in the case of Marek Harcar, who was convicted of the rape and murder of Moira Jones, this would not be recorded as a rape conviction."

Even so, complexity also extends to reporting of offences, so we can have no confidence that 821 incidents represents the real incidence of sexual violence in Scotland, either. The Herald also editorialised on further suggestive moves, including evidence reform and provision of separate legal representation for the complainer. The Herald identify victims with the soon-to-be erroneous style of women. The 2009 Act changes a charge of rape in Scotland from an offence which can only be committed in particular ways against a woman to a gender-neutral offence, encompassing broader conduct. This will make statistical comparison between the new dispensation and the old very difficult, perhaps even impossible. The paper also suggests that "there is also concern that the long-awaited Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act, which was passed in June 2009, will not be implemented until the autumn of this year and may not improve the conviction rate" and write it off in their editorial as "unlikely to improve things". Neither piece actively refers to critics or those urging caution. One such soul was yours truly. I wrote this extended essay on point in 2009. I dust it off for your enlightenment on this difficult and concerning issue.

Rape in Scotland (2009)

“No jurors were consulted in the making of this Bill” is the unfortunate disclaimer which must underline the provisions of what will become the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009. The Act remoulds the conceptual material of the Scots common law on sexual offences, codifying their elements for the first time in the distinctive language of the legislative branch, in section, subsection and clause. Although hailed by the Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill as a “landmark piece of legislation”, and supported by the (almost) unanimous voice of our parliamentarians, is this confidence misplaced? Is the approach taken in the Act the best one?

The dismal context of this reform is familiar. In 2007 – 2008, only 3.7% of rapes recorded by the police resulted in a conviction. Only 9.7% of cases ever reach the High Court. In that setting, only 38.6% of trials see the accused convicted. Percentages are heartless tabulations, briskly shearing processes of their context, their difficulty, suffering, indignities and injustices. The lamplight of numbers is a little keener. In shadows, behind that 3.7% are nine hundred and eight women who drew police attention to their victimisation. Of these, only eighty-eight women came to stand in the witness box. Of these, only thirty four would see the accused disappear into the prison vaults, and not be set at his liberty. For the remaining fifty four women, the disappointments and brutalisations of this arduous process can only beget alienation and fresh suffering. At every stage, an enervating attrition occurs. These are the brute facts which attentive lamplight reveals about legal responses to rape in Scotland.

The persistent, niggling little question ‘why’ has produced no firm answers. Are Scots juries more riven with supposition and prejudice than the symmetrical tribunals of our European cousins? Is the legal regime befuddling, its tortuous and changing definitions confusing jurors and judges, muddling their minds and minding them to acquit the accused? Alternatively, are corroborating standards of proof to blame, circumscribing attempts to prove an indictment with unreasonably high and arbitrarily erected rules and regulations? Police behaviour, prosecution procedures, defence tactics?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Answers vary, but all are impressionistic. The shrug has become general, and empirically grounded facts are nigh impossible to find. There are good legal reasons for this pervasive ignorance. The Contempt of Court Act 1981 hardened the seal on the jury room under direct threat of sanction, deepening the ignorant fug surrounding the motivations which exert their influence over Scottish juries. Flatly, we simply do not know how juries reach their conclusions, or why they seem reluctant to convict in cases where the charge is of rape. The optimistic may trust in the governance of laws, and assume that the sonorous directions of the presiding judge are absorbed, reflected upon, the evidence sifted rigorously and fairly. This is an article of faith, however, not evidence.

Such are the regrettable circumstances in which Holyrood legislated, refining its stratagems with clouds unbanished and without empirical material on which to draw. As a consequence, the reform around rape has been an intensely principled exercise, dominated by a widening and modernising norm of recognition. Kenny MacAskill insisted that “such attacks are perceived by their victims as rape, and it is right that the law should recognise that.” Here the law’s definitions strive to be an authentic simulacrum of human experience, where victims are regarded as experts. It is a manifestation of the idea that law ought to be a social mirror and injustice is any distortion of the reflection. Rape is depicted as the simple reality of human experience. Supporting this view, criminologist Professor Michelle Burman argued that that “‘rape’ is a powerful and weighty word which taps into complex social and historical meanings. It conveys in specific terms the nature of the offence, while its separation from other sexual crimes denotes it as a specific type of wrong, with characteristics that are quite distinct.”

In contrast, while advocate Ronnie Renucci accepted the seriousness of the offence, he raised a dissonant note worth interrogating. Rape, he argued, “is regarded, in many ways, as one of the most serious offences below murder.” However, precisely because of the strongly negative appraisal associated with the charge, Renucci believes that “juries will be reluctant to convict people of that offence if it is called rape.” The prevailing wisdom of the Holyrood reforms has been that whatever its deficiencies as a primary mechanism for cultural transformation, the new legal regime will not aggravate existing difficulties. Indeed, some more hopeful souls contend that the legislation will exert a positive influence, allowing judges to direct juries in crisp, transparent, and crucially, readily repeatable terms on the elements of crimes and doctrines of free agreement. Of course, this can only be informed speculation at best. Labour MSP Johann Lamont shared this view of the essential virtue of the new Act, saying that while “the conviction rate is as low as it is can lead to despair … today we are taking a significant step forward.”

Given the paucity of knowledge about jury deliberations in rape cases, can we share Lamont’s confidence about the onward, striving direction of the reforms? How can we assume that the new explicit statutory definitions are neutral instruments? While pessimistic critics can fairly return our attention to the rates of successful prosecution in Scotland, and query the possibility of things becoming worse, this is more glib than substantive.

What if, for the sake of argument, the interests of legal recognition and the attempts being made by the Crown Office to intensify rates of conviction are not as harmonious as may have been supposed? Here’s the nub, and the important distinction. Is the aim simply to improve conviction rates for offences, or specifically to increase the rates of conviction for specifically rape-labelled offences? The notion Renucci was alluding to is a familiar one. Precisely because of the sharp judgement which any conviction for rape rightly entails, adjudging guilt is a charged process. Given the well-attested evidentiary difficulties in cases where the material evidence will bear either an inculpatory or exculpatory interpretation, and only the question of consent is at issue, the proposition runs, it is precisely the harsh condemnatory character of conviction for rape which may lead to a pronounced caution among jurors, resulting in acquittal. Obviously, several difficulties combine in such circumstances. However, one must at least concede that it is possible that the explicit and insistent use of a vocabulary of rape has its ambivalences.

Clearly, it is far too soon fairly to determine whether the approach taken in the 2009 Act will help or hinder the needful work of improving Scotland’s treatment of rape. However, neither can that judgement be the distant prerogative of remote posterity. If the explicit language of rape in the Act proves to be a barrier, legislators must put aside their pride, uproot their landmark, and start again. How they might do so will depend on what policy objectives are to be given priority. Should the forceful and condemnatory language of rape be altered to salve the juror’s consciences? Would such concessions be sufficiently justified by an increase in conviction rates? If not, are we content to have legal concepts which are principled but inefficacious? If one regards changing social attitudes to rape as crucially important, one might be for the continuing use of the term. No concessions to vicious misogyny, the argument would run, rape is the reality of people’s experience, and thus rape it must remain in the statute books. Others, understandably, might feel discomfort with this strict approach and the continuing low rate of conviction which it might entail.

Asking “can we do things better” is always a progressive question. Unfortunately, the parliament did not choose substantively to analyse what other legal responses might be attempted. Largely eschewing the prospect of sharply and independently interrogating these, instead Holyrood largely submitted to the conceptual frame of reference indicated by the Scottish Law Commission. Obviously, other approaches would be bedevilled by the same lack of empirical data which marked the Bill as passed. Nevertheless, it is particularly regrettable that a more radical approach to rape laws was not adopted. Definitions of rape in Scots law will now be wider, including a broader range of penetrative acts under its descriptive ambit, and crucially, including men in the category of relevant victim. However, it is profoundly difficult to see the Act as a new approach to the paradigmatic cases which crucially have proved so difficult successfully to prosecute under the old dispensation. The Act is largely an instrument of codification, adjusted in its nuances, rather than a deep-seated re-imagination of our approach. While altering social attitudes to women’s sexuality and fiercely opposing messages that clothing can sanction male sexual aggression are crucial, a legal approach based on charges of rape has not been serving us well. We have no reason to suspect that a replacement charge in much the same terms will contribute helpfully as part of a coordinated engagement with police and prosecution procedures and public attitudes.

Such are the gloomy depths the law has sunk to at present, more imaginative expedients did seem to be indicated. One such expedient could have been effacing rape from the legal lexicon, addressing such circumstances as an assaults. When disposing of the guilty, judges could be encouraged to exercise wider and harsher sentencing discretion, in recognition of the extreme violence of sexual violation. However, rearranging conceptual ideas will never suffice. A coordinated approach is vital, encompassing all stages at which a complainer alleging a serious sexual assault would experience, and how state officers, lawyers and judges approach that difficult and trying experience.

It is clear that Holyrood is unprepared for a judgement that its legislative framework may prove deeply ambivalent. We must not be. Although tiring, although at times feeling vain and broken, seeming no painful inch to gain, far back, through creeks and inlets, silently in small things, progress will come flooding. Clear thinking and an empirical basis must be the foundations of this progress. This does not exist yet. Ignorance of the decision-making dynamics of Scots juries remains the anarchic variable, disposed to dip its proverbial fly into any principle-based ointment of reform. As an unknown quantity, it is disposed to tip our sensitive and trembling scales of justice this way and that. Despite all of this, way may wish to cleave to our hard won and much laboured reformation of our sexual offences. We cannot, however, avoid the risk that all of our best laid legal schemes go tragically agley. Whether Holyrood has created legal norms which in due time it shall celebrate or repent remains to be seen.

Steven Purcell & Scottish organised crime (Redux)

Since it is a quiet Easter Monday, no doubt all pious contemplation with hardly a synapse to spare on the crude worldliness of politics, I thought I'd indulge in another 'Redux' post and recover what I hope is an interesting and apt post from my archive, of revived relevance to contemporary issues.

Given the increasing emphasis in the ongoing scandal surrounding Steven Purcell on the former Glasgow City Council Leader's organised crime connections and the professional drug-pushers which seem to have furnished him with his cocaine, I thought this post from June 2009 might be of particular relevance. Reporting on the first ever published "mapping" of serious organised crime in Scotland by the authorities, it ought to give us at least a slightly improved sense of what we are talking about when trading in the terms of organised criminality. Moreover, I think it is crucial for those of us who don't make a habit of reading the local tabloid media to understand that the style in which they report organised crime stories deviates significantly from those employed by the BBC et al. For that reason, we may not be fully appreciating the context in which Purcell's venal stupidity is being understood by the tabloids' more regular readers. Who are, after all, all potential voters.

Scotland's Organised Crime Map...

Three-odd years ago, I took a criminological course in the Netherlands on “organised crime”. The particular strand of illicit activity we focussed on was the international drugs market. Following known importation routes, supply structures and subsequent patterns of drug consumption in particular nations and communities. As Holyrood’s Justice Committee is finding out in its deliberations on the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill, defining clearly what ‘organised crime’ is can prove rather vexing. As one struggles to put legislative intention into effect, success must be determined by including and excluding persons from the desired categories without tying oneself up into unnecessarily awkward definitional knots. My sense is that the Scottish Parliament will probably attempt some redefinition, which nevertheless is sufficiently open-textured to generate legal arguments and cases. Scots judges would be left, in the circumstances, to determine the appropriate ambit of meaning in individual, concrete cases. One Dutch author, drawing on their research defines serious organised crime as the following:

“There is organised crime, if groups that are primarily focused on generating profits, systematic use violence, that have severe consequences for society, and are capable of masking these crimes in a reasonable effective way, in particular by willing to use physical violence or rule out persons by means of corruption.”. (Fijnaut, C. et al. (1996) Inzake opsporing. Eindrapport georganiseerde criminaliteit in Nederland. Den Haag: Sdu. Bijlage V.)

So how would this apply to Scotland, what do we know about Scotland’s “organised” criminal enterprises? Well, a little more this week, perhaps, with the publication of some material from the first mapping exercise conducted by the still-youthful Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency. On the 2nd June, it was announced that the Scottish Government have stumped up the cash which will fund the Scottish Intelligence and Co-ordination Unit tasked centrally with an ongoing “mapping” of such enterprises in Scotland. They are rather coy about how they defined 'organised crime' in their exercise, amongst other things. What follows is, as a result, rather impressionistic. It is also apt to rather under report the incidence of organised crime, or potentially give a misleading impressions about what is going on “on the ground” across the corporate life of criminal enterprises. The headline numbers drawn from this map were trailed in a number of the newspapers, but generally not interrogated very closely. What with the political paroxysms caused by the Brown Government flailing about in its guts like a burst slug, press attention is elsewhere.

Organised Crime in Scotland & the Media...

Interestingly, in my researches into how the Scots media talks about organized crime a few years ago, there is a radical discontinuity of approach between popular tabloids and the broader pages of the Herald and Scotsman. I found that more detailed reporting of organised crime characters in Scotland is largely populist, covered in the tabloid press in detail, often in a relatively cursory fashion by the more upmarket broadsheets. Associated are the shelf load of Scottish “real crime” books available, with their wistful, “No Mean City” authenticity, classically speaking Glaswegian patter. While the former often give extensive detail - however doubtfully it might be viewed - the latter section of the media tends only to give bare facts, ages and the ‘gangster’ moniker. Context, in particular, is shorn away in the broadsheet accounts. If the tabloids can be viewed as tending towards “folk-hero” depictions of certain known, identifiably Scottish characters – the middle-class papers simply render the criminal actors as unspecific, empty and ultimately unintelligible. Exceptions are sometimes made for well-heeled offender. You may recall the Newton Mearns solicitor who was implicated and convicted after a high-profile “drugs-bust” in Barlinnie prison. She carried the heroin into the prison during Sunday visits to her incarcerated clients. Less attention was paid, however, when the “ringleader” of the prison gang, one George “Goofy” Docherty, was violently murdered in the centre of Glasgow. Run across and reversed over by a car several times, he was also stabbed before his attacker fled. It is my understanding that the use of knives or other sorts of cold steel remains a common aspect of gang-inspired violence in Scotland, on account of the prevalence of Kevlar suits. I wouldn't want to suggest that the tabloid accounts simply glamorise organised crime. Indeed, they can be exceedingly condemnatory. The primary point I want to make is that they talk about organised crime as if its creatures are familiar characters of local reference, known and notorious. For those of us who more usually gather our news from the middle-class press, this difference of tone is quite striking. Associated with the lofty, bemused examinations of crime characters conducted in the pages of the Herald or Scotsman, is a lack of detail. Serious organised crime may feature as a social problem, but the particular features and characters and identities of the social actors implicated remain entirely occult.

Information in the public domain, however, remains fairly limited. To give you some idea of the curious potential and creative ways which groups transport their goods, a particularly vivid example is provided by the case of Torres v. H.M. Advocate (1998). The master of the boat Dimar-B was convicted of sailing from Colombia to the extreme north west of Scotland in Oldany, Sutherland where dinghies made landfall, placing the cocaine in trucks to be transported south. The distance sailed must be 7360 km or 4573 odd miles across the Atlantic. Howarth (Christopher Eric) v. H.M. Advocate describes a similar expedition to Scotland in 1992. These examples are too specific to sculpt trends from. However, they fulfil a useful function in illustrating the significant potential for clandestine smuggling in low-population areas along the Western Coast, and explain the broad scope reported by the Mapping Exercise.

In general, I’m obviously not in a position to judge the police evidence one way or the other on how well it actually represents the world. A few obvious limitations can be pointed out, however. As I mentioned, we don’t know what definitions or conceptualisations of organised crime the police are using, and hence, what they are excluding. Secondly, obviously the reporting is based on knowledge, and hence, won’t record as yet undetected criminal enterprises. Thirdly, I find the division of reports rather suspicion. For example, the Serious Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency are recorded as contributing 59 groups. Were there crossovers in reporting? If so, who takes precedence in the “recording” of a group, the local police force or the SCDEA? It isn’t potentially hugely significant, however there is room for disparity.

The fourth, broader point emanating from this, is the understandable but essential weakness of the evidence – it skims across the surface, flitting as a skater, leaving only a blur of colour, and none of the important qualifying texture. However explicably in terms of keeping operational knowledge quiet, and whatever the ostensible increasing transparency of the exercise – I’d propose a measure of quiet scepticism about the figures as presented. Nevertheless, exploring the detail a little more closely is, I think, potentially revealing…

Scottish Serious Organised Crime Mapping Exercise: Analysis of the Detail

Per the brass-throated Old Testament prophets, the headline is that the report identifies 4066 individuals involved in 367 “serious organised crime groups” attended by 241 “specialist links” constituted of crooked lawyers, blind-eyeing money scrubbers, shameless profit turners and over the barrel process servers. The research, they suggest was conducted between November 2009 and April 2009. The trickling information streams flowed from Scotland’s eight police forces, as well as the British Transport Police (BTP), UK Border Agency (UKBA) and the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA). HMRC, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPOS) also slung their oar into the mix, as if we weren’t already replete with dizzying acronyms.

Of the total 367 “groups”, the breakdown per force and associated agencies is related as follows:

SCDEA 59

UKBA 3

BTP 3

Strathclyde Police152

Lothian and Borders Police 35

Tayside Police 29

Fife Constabulary 24

Grampian Police 16

Dumfries and Galloway 6

Northern Constabulary 25

Central Scotland Police 15

92% involved in drug crimes = 336/367

8% not involved in drug crimes = 31/367

48% involved in drug importation and/or distribution 176/367

53 and 20 SOCGS known to source cocaine and heroin outside the UK

125 groups involved in dealing cannabis

If we are defining “drug crimes” here as offences under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, there is a relatively limited list, and about seven primary offence categories. There are (a) restrictions on importation and exportation of controlled drugs (b) restrictions on production and supply of controlled drugs (c) restriction of possession of controlled drugs (d) occupiers who knowingly permit the foregoing on their premises (e) smoking opium, or lounging in opium dens (!) (f) prohibitions for supplying articles for administering or preparing controlled drugs and (g) various regulatory offences. So if we take “involvement in drug crimes” as the larger category, and believe that 176/336 (52%) are distributing or importing – and distribution, after all, can encompass the very large and the very small forms of substance dissemination - what are the other 48% listed as engaged in criminalised “drug” activities up to? Particularly since there is apt to be cross-over within these categories, this is difficult to tease out. Presumably also, if the macro-category is a binary “engaged in some drug crime or engaged in no drug crime”, there are wildly varying levels of actual criminality. On this measure, even if one of their “associates” was known to enter commercial relations for the sale of cannabis, the whole organisation could be coded as an organisation involved in drug crime. Moreover, variation in extent is obviously not accounted for in the public figures. Hence, the implications are difficult to scrutinise closely.

81 (22%) involved in money laundering.

161/367 SOCGS involved in serious violence or murder (44%)

77% of groups involved in violence were from Strathclyde area

Difficult to analyse the bald statement, since it is difficult to determine whether “violence” here is given the same meaning as “serious violence” is above. If so, and we “read into” our analysis that the 77% figure relates to the anterior statistic, then 124 violent serious organised crime groups are based in the Strathclyde region. Compare this to the total identified by the Strathclyde force, this would suggest that 124/152 of the groups identified by the mapping exercise in Strathclyde are violent. That is a whopping 82% of the total for Strathclyde which are identified as violent. When compared to the total figure, violent criminal organisations emanating from Strathclyde would make up 34% of the total serious organised crime “picture” in Scotland. However, the strong caveat is that this analysis is based on the assumption that “violence” and “serious violence and murder” in the public summary of the mapping exercise’s findings have the same meaning. If that assumption is false, and that the “violence threshold” is different in the different sections, the figures of 80% and 124/152 groups identified as violent could be well wide of the mark.

42 SOCGs involved in theft (11%) and 40 in fraud (11%)

19 involved in sexual offences, 10 involving human trafficking

202 have access to firearms – that is 55% of the total.

Interestingly, far more than are identified in the violence or serious violence categories earlier. Turning to the statistical information about individual characteristics of our 4,066 professional criminal souls, the archetypes are perhaps predictable. Males constituted 89% of the “personnel” mapped out, suggesting also that the age range amongst these persons is mid to late 20s. 82% of these are identified as White European (3334) while 383 were identified by the moron-moniker of “BME” – presumably meaning “black and minority Ethnic”. This constitutes around 9.4% of the total. Almost half of this second category were foreign nationals. Counting up the maths, the odd thing is that between these two groups – one doesn’t reach the total “headline” figure of 4,066. The “white European” category amounts, by my reckoning, to 3334, which when added to the 383, amounts only to 3717 persons. Leaving us shy a not insignificant 349 souls in the reported statistics. Where are they? That “ME” – minority ethnic – is potentially vastly encompassing. On the surface, however, we don’t know who is or who is not included in it and whether it is a big “ethnic other” category, or whether further distinctions were made and are simply not being reported. Its impossible to guess accurately a priori, leaving another unanswered question about the data, as it is presented.

Finally, my own favourite category. Or to put it a bit less glibly, the category most corruptly implicated in legitimating organised crime capital and activities - the “specialists”. The map identifies 241 “specialists” operating in Scotland. As opposed to mere “members or associates” , specialists are engaged for their particular knowledge of public systems. An interesting potential distinction to be drawn here – and which I suspect isn’t being drawn in the 241 number - is between those who are simply experts in fumigating awkward monies by dint of practice, and those who are in some sense “specialists” already in matters accounting, financial or legal – and who are tempted by the possibilities of being involved with dodgy customers. The “character” the study seems to be presenting is the latter – someone you consult, rather than an “in-house” corrupt counsel. In particular, a measure of operational independence seems to be suggested by the numbers cited as having “connections with more than one of the identified groups.” While the mapping exercise claims that 80% work with one group connection only – that is roughly 193 or 194 “specialists” known to be involved with only one group - that leaves 48 individuals known to have connections with more than one. It is a pity that we don’t have a breakdown of which industries these 241 people – or the 48 – are involved in. Nevertheless, these shadowy facilitators and accomplices with their complicities are a rotten lot. Important to note too that this means that of the 367 groups – at least 194 are connected up with specialist advisers: that is 53% of the total groups identified for Scotland. It is likely, especially since under-reporting is a distinct issue across this mapping exercise – that that number is higher, potentially much higher.

Restoring the Regal Union (Redux)

“Restoring the Regal Union of 1603” is the Maximum Eck’s line on post-independence Scottish monarchy.

As I've pointed out here, history isn’t just to be found in careful academic journals and the learned books which prop up professorial chairs. Judicious, verifiable history perhaps. But ‘history’ is also the series of beliefs about the past which can command material force in society here and now. This history is subject to none of the methodological caution of professional researchers. While it is perhaps more simple, it is also more raw, more brutal, more interesting. These ideas can influence public policy, delimiting the vocabulary and conceptual references we make when resolving disputed issues. It is history with social imperatives and social consequences.

The Ongoing Social History of Scotland

In his impressionistic way, Alex Salmond understands this very well. Take the qualifications made when the SNP members take their statutory oaths and affirmations to “bear true allegiance to her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors according to law”. This bizarre little feudal ceremonial, strangely, has become a locus for diverse political symbolism over the years. For example, while affirming members are not invited to raise the right hands, you’ll recall Tommy Sheridan did so, clenching his sunblushed fin like the good protesting submitter that he was. Eck & Chums draw a neat line to the Declaration of Arbroath – deftly rearrange and adjust some of the concepts involved – and insist that:

“The Scottish National Party's primary loyalty is with the people of Scotland, in line with the Scottish constitutional tradition of the sovereignty of the people.” (Scottish Parliament Official Report 9 May 2007, Col 1)

Not limited to Holyrood Ceremony, Salmond symmetrically turned folk historian on the graduate endowment, managing to interpret a rather bureaucratic, cost-apportioning issue into one of “Scotland’s story”, where “we invented free education”. One could turn lawyer and point out that the constitutional story Salmond is telling is imaginary. Or highlight the divergences between contemporary definitions of education, and those which animated the historically devout to encourage literacy so one could absorb one’s Leviticus, Ezekiel and Maccabees. To do so, however, would be to grossly miss the point. What are jousting here are ideas and stories about the nature of a Scots reality. Academically historical facts are only of peripheral relevance. Note, this sort of thing isn’t limited to Nationalists. We can thank David Steel for the rash of parliamentary references to Elizabeth Windsor as the “Queen of Scots”. Steel first applied this “constitutionally correct” appellation to the Queen in 1999, and through the agency of the subsequent Presiding Officers and Alex Salmond, this has stuck.

Back to the Regal Union..

But back to the Regal Union of 1603. Personally, and up to a point, I think Salmond’s quiet tactic of historical resonances – as opposed to precise, Mozartian melodies – is a canny one. By its nature, it couches the new in terms of the historical, and the untried in terms of the historically recurrent. Rhetorically at least, this imparts stability. Threats that significant change will be assailed as a self-regarding rationalist innovation, out of tradition and bereft of empirical content are dodged.

I am no fan of monarchy or honorific styles. I hate it in courts. It breeds judicial niggliness, smallness of spirit, inappropriate deference and craven manners. The tired old failed politicals who hang around outside the House of Lords, waiting to be bonked by whatever ennobling device they employ, are unsightly, their puppy-dog eyes for “magic names” transcribing its own judgemental narrative about these men and women’s basic values.

Broadly, I would echo the splendid and shamefully neglected Thomas Paine’s remark concerning the abolition of aristocracy in the Rights of Man. “The French Constitution” he wrote, “says, There shall be no titles; and, of consequence, all that class of equivocal generation which in some countries is called “aristocracy” and in others “nobility,” is done away, and the peer is exalted into the Man.” He continues,

“Titles are but nick-names, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it. It reduces man into the diminutive of man in things which are great, and the counterfeit of women in things which are little. It talks about its fine blue ribbon like a girl, and shows its new garter like a child. A certain writer, of some antiquity, says: “When I was a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

So, what of Scotland, if/when it grows up? Although Salmond favours keeping the monarchy, either as a tactical wheeze during an independence campaign or through some principle, the party’s Draft Constitution for Scotland (2002) provides that:

"the SNP is committed to holding a referendum in the term of office of the first independent Parliament of Scotland on whether to retain the monarchy.”

You might well contrast this - or at least wonder if and how how it might be compatible - with the claim espoused in the Draft Referendum (Scotland) Bill Consultation paper:

1.19. Her Majesty The Queen would remain as Head of State. The current parliamentary and political Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland would become a monarchical and social Union - united kingdoms rather than a United Kingdom - maintaining a relationship forged in 1603 by the Union of the Crowns.

Since we’re in a historical frame of mind, however, we should remember that even if Scotland voted to keep Kings and Queens – or monarchical preferences won the political day without a plebiscite - there remains the matter of the succession. Even after the Union of the Crowns in 1603, Scotland wasn’t bound over to crown the same regal character selected by the English and Welsh authorities. This would surely be the logical consequence of “restoring the regal union of 1603”. On the death of any seated monarch, there would be room for a mean spirited wrangle – and more importantly – space to reject the ludicrous patriarchal race of primogeniture. Not, certainly, that I’d suggest anyone would be rushing headlong to recruit the notoriously talented Windsor cadets to the cause. Or import some obscure Bavarian princeling (no doubt a few Jacobites might try to scrounge up a plausibly fey looking Stuart we could all turn to.) Like the Regal Union of 1603, the point is that it is only short term continuity that is promised by a 'return' to that Union.

In point of fact, this might be splendid fun. Personally, the idea of an elected monarch always struck me as wonderfully vulgar. After all, why be dreary and copy the Americans, choosing some sort of politicised President, or be equally boring by borrowing the Irish model of worthy but plodding? Have a King or Queen of Scots, arranged along toothless, constitutional-monarch lines, but chosen from among the folk by popular election. It isn’t that absurd. When the Americans were drafting their constitution, the idea of a President as elected-king was regarded by some as gauche, slightly embarrassing. How appropriate for Scotland to invert the order, and return the compliment of history. On my reading of the Declaration of Arbroath, it’d be splendidly historical, just the right mixture of ludicrous and elevating. Somehow, I fear this will be just one among many causes where my view will not march to triumph…

Draft Constitution for a Free Scotland text restored, to boot...

On a final note, a few of you mentioned the SNP's Draft Constitution for Scotland in a recent post on Jefferson and his relevance when determining an independent Scotland's constitutional options. For myself, I'm not convinced of the virtues of a constitution which is difficult to reform - nor of the general benefits of encouraging American-inspired judicial-review tactics. In any case, I've revisited the tedious task of reformatting Neil MacCormick's proposed Constitution, back into an accessible form. For those of you who are interested, the Constitution for a Free Scotland can be perused here, in only seven articles!

(This is a slightly rejigged version of an article, first published in July 2009)