Graham Spiers: One for the Memory Hole...

A hat-tip to Love and Garbage on twitter for this sterling example of intellectual consistency and serious-mindedness from Herald football columnist, Graham Spiers. The topic: the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act and subsequent police enforcement measures taken under it.  In an article headlined "How the SNP have made policing fans a minefield" published yesterday, Spiers suggests that the Act was  

"... a piece of legislation that many - this writer included - had doubts about. The act seeks to do what it says on the tin: stamp out “offensive behaviour” such as bigoted or sectarian expression. There has been plenty of that around the Old Firm over the years, so to that end all decent-minded people felt that the law should crack down on bigots."

Cataloguing what he now perceives as the Act's problems, Spiers continues:

"Someone said to me: “A law never works if it cannot be objectively measured.” This absolutely captures the problem of the Offensive Behaviour at Football legislation. We got a glimpse of the mess the Scottish government was getting into when, in June 2011, Roseanna Cunningham, not having realised how much she had chewed off, had to frantically backtrack and delay the processing of the bill.

That day it took a mere half hour of questions to realise that Alex Salmond and the SNP, wobbling towards their legislation, hadn’t quite appreciated the acuity of supporters who wanted to defend their right to hold political or cultural positions in song and slogan. The Offensive Behaviour bill was duly delayed.

But its final clarity, when put on the statute book last year, was scarcely enhanced. It has all become quite a dog’s breakfast. Meanwhile, football supporters in Scotland feel like they are under a type of surveillance once associated with life behind the old Iron Curtain."

All of which gives the impression that the judicious Mr Spiers was a long-standing critic of these proposals, who set out these concerns about the clarity of the legislation and its definitions at the time, sorry to see his predictions about the illiberal and reactionary potential of this legislation borne out in practice. The only problem with this little pen-portrait is that it's a self-serving counterfeit.

Spiers refers to Roseanna Cunningham's Justice Committee appearance in 2011 which was not, with the best will in the world, her most triumphant parliamentary performance. He neatly glosses over his own. On the 6th of September 2011, the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee had the benefit of Mr Spiers' own evidence on the Offensive Behaviour a Football Bill as it was being rammed through Holyrood. No doubt he put his concerns to our tribunes? Articulated these "doubts"? Quantified those anxieties about how this vaguely-drafted piece of legislation might operate in practice?

Er. Not really. Quoth Spiers:

"I am in favour of this bill in principle. If someone asks whether I want to live in a country where thousands of people can shout about the Pope and say “F the Pope”, I say that I do not want that in a football stadium in my country. In principle, I am in favour of the bill."

Okay. So that isn't exactly a doubt-wracked assessment of the draft legislation, but perhaps further on in his testimony, Spiers really got to grips with the detail of the Bill, and the concerns many folk articulated at the time about the scope of its provisions? Fife SNP MSP Roderick Campbell, himself an advocate in a past instantiation, raised some of these concerns with him in the Committee session.

Roderick Campbell: "I will follow up on three themes that were developed in the earlier session. I would like to hear the panel’s views on the suggestion by the Rangers representative in the previous session that by legislating we are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and any comments on the context and clarity of the legislation, particularly from Graham Spiers and Pat Nevin."

In all fairness, Spiers' response was not the model of clarity, but the gist of his answer and the scope of his doubts was not that the Bill was too broadly drafted, overcriminalised football fans or threatened free expression, but that its provisions may be extraneous to requirements, given existing common law and statutory offences which apply to conduct in and out of football grounds.

Graham Spiers: "There is probably some substance to that complaint. As much as I wish the bill well, it seems to me—although I am not an expert on the statute book—that there are already contingencies in place such as religious hate crime law, breach of the peace, and other laws that give the police powers such as banning orders to apprehend supporters. There is a lot of stuff currently on the statute book that could deal with many of these problems, so I am a bit mystified as to why we must have an extra load of law—if I can put it in that way—to deal with the issue.

I suppose I need to qualify that by saying that I have been aware this morning that a lot of people are complaining about the anomaly between crimes that are committed in a football stadium and crimes that are committed in the street or in a bus shelter. People have said that that is odd, but a part of me says that it is not. I have been going to these games for decades, and there can be a particular poison in a football stadium. The expression of that may be found out in the street, on the factory floor or wherever, but it nonetheless finds particularly acerbic expression in a football stadium, so a part of me wants some type of specific law to deal with that.

That answer is perhaps as clear as mud, but I hope that you get what I am trying to say."

As Spiers notes in yesterday's Herald piece, the legislation he approved of in September did not differ materially from the final text adopted by the Scottish Parliament in November.  He looked at the "dog's breakfast" in the autumn of 2011, and enthusiastically endorsed it.   

Better one sinner repenteth and all that, but mightn't the entire debate have been improved, if folk like Spiers hadn't given the Scottish Government spurious political cover for this cobbled-together enterprise, had actually read the draft legislation properly when it really mattered, rather than composing self-righteous jeremiads now, when the reactionary legislation which Spiers himself helped to get on the statute book is enforced by the police in a predictably illiberal fashion?

Holyrood's new Justice Committee...

Dawn is, I find, a friend of the Muses. I don't know which of those nine benevolent and inspiring spirits stoops her watch over bloggers, dispensing their inspiration and frustration by fickle turns. In my case, however, my creative mornings have been snatched away from me for the next couple of weeks. Anticipate fairly limited bloggery by consequence. 

However, I do want briefly to mark the fact that Holyrood has just agreed on the constitution of its Committees for the fourth Scottish Parliament. As longterm readers will know, I tend to take a particular interest in the work, deliberations and evidence laid before Holyrood's Justice Committee. Since many of its personnel are likely to be with us - and potentially winding me up - for the coming half decade, it is worth taking a wee moment to remark on these tribunes and their backgrounds. 

On a broader level, the Justice Committee has been subject to change in a number of particulars. Most strikingly, very few members of the 2007 Committee return, with plenty of new faces and folk to be contending with. From the SNP, who will convene the Committee, we have five of nine members, including Christine Grahame, Roderick Campbell, John Finnie, Colin Keir and young Humza Yousaf. From Labour, who will furnish the band with their Deputy Convenor, James Kelly and Graeme Pearson. The Tories have put up John Lamont. And finally, like the coelacanth, presumed extinct but showing some signs of life, the Liberal Democrat rump has put forward North East list MSP Alison McInnes, who has the unenviable task of being the party's spokesperson on health and justice.

A word on experience. Five of these MSPs entered Holyrood for the first time in 2011, four from the SNP and one for Labour. In the last session, Labour Member James Kelly sat on the Committee between 5 November 2009-22 March 2011 while John Lamont was the Tory substitute member, briefly (24 February 2011-22 March 2011) taking over from the now-retired Baillie Bill Aitken as Convenor of the Committee, after the latter resigned over remarks made about a rape in Glasgow city centre. Robert Brown was ranked second on the Glasgow regional list for the Liberals in the recent election, effectively deselecting him from any chance of retaining office. His party colleague Katy Gordon's priority placing didn't do her much good either, however, the Liberals losing and losing badly on the regional ballot there, returning no member.  Other past and now departed members from the last session include Labourites who lost their seats - Bill Butler, foiled by seven votes in Glasgow Anniesland and Cathy Craigie (with the best will in the world, a fearful dunce) who was handily kicked out of Cumbernauld and Kilsyth. Angela Constance left the Committee on becoming a minister late in the last session, the SNP's Stewart Maxwell entered it having lost his ministerial job, but recovers neither membership nor ministry this time around. Similarly, the SNP's Nigel Don does not return for a second stint at Justice. While some of these folk are certainly losses to the parliament's scrutiny of Justice measures, others certainly are not. So what might the new boys and girls bring?

In terms of experience, several of these folk have legal backgrounds of some stripe. Christine Grahame has a degree in Scots Law and practised as a solicitor for a time and is known for her interest in the Lockerbie Case. Roderick Campbell is a qualified advocate, albeit called to the Scottish Bar fairly recently, in 2008.  With a particular interest in the law of professional negligence and an Master of Laws in human rights, according to his professional biography, Campbell spent 18 years in a London-based law firm before donning his wig and gown - and exchanging those for the politician's suit. As his shortbread tin accent might imply, the young but twee John Lamont also qualified in law at the University of Glasgow, working as a solicitor before being elected. Labour's Graeme Pearson presents a more interesting novelty for the parliament and committee, having worked as a police officer since he was nineteen years of age, rising to the position of director general of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency in 2004 before quitting in 2007. Similarly, the SNP's John Finnie, while most recently Leader of the SNP Group on Highland Council, "served as a police officer for 30 years, the last fourteen as an elected full-time official of the Scottish Police Federation".

It is terribly important, however, the justice not turn into a lawyer's (or as a novelty, a polisman's) fief. Although too often overlooked, we should remember that the Justice Committee does far more than scrutinise criminal matters, the drafting of new offences or the state's enforcement mechanisms. Although the Justice section of the SNP manifesto clearly privileged "law and order" aspects of the broad portfolio, these folk will have to scrutinise a range of proposals in the field, including some tricky civil matters, in the coming term. The remaining four members of the Committee, best I've been able to discern, have no especial background in law or its enforcement. Alison McInnes and Colin Keir are former cooncillors. Humza Yousaf, still in his middle twenties, studied Politics at the  University of Glasgow - and I dare say hasn't had time to accumulate much legal experience in his short life. As I noted, James Kelly served in the Justice Committee for part of the last session - and on the basis of the parliamentary motion, either he or Pearson will be deputy to the SNP's Christine Grahame in this session, assuming widely reported predictions of her installation are fulfilled.

I must admit to being slightly dismayed that James Kelly continues to serve, not out of especial animus against the fellow. To your average punter, unobsessed by the inner workings of Holyrood's deliberative organs, Kelly is an unknown figure. For anyone, however, who has been forced or forced themselves to sit through any of his perorations, his voice is like a particularly cruel form of anaesthetic. Its lifeless monotone leeches away all sprightliness and vitality, sapping interest and attention, robbing his words of any force - but is insufficiently mighty completely to conk you out.  Cruelty to innocent peat worriers. Surely it would bring a tear to a glass eye! Since we can expect this Committee to scrutinise the SNP's highly problematic anti-sectarianism proposals - and ridiculously, the Government propose to afford them less than a month to think about them - the Committee's new members will have plenty to amuse themselves with in short order. They will also find their scrutiny scrutinised, not least by yours truly. I wish them luck. Not least because they'll be in fearful need of it...