Dispatches from Glasgow North East...

I’m sure in the course of the long, trudging campaign, the candidates for the Westminster Parliamentary seat of Glasgow North East experienced a flourish of relief as one Mr Kenneth MacAskill put on his red suit, donned an archery-target waist coat and proclaimed the sovereignty of mercy in Scotland. Cue furore, heated. With a nose for gluing the stories of the moment together, Scottish Unionist pointed out the less than consonant character of the SNP candidate David Kerr’s positions once juxtaposed.

On the 21st, Kerr argued:

“I don’t believe that Al Megrahi should have been released. He was convicted of murdering 270 people so I believe justice would have been best served if he had remained in the care of the Scottish Prison Service.”

By Tuesday 25 August, this had amended itself to the crisper: “The Justice Secretary took the right decision, and above all he took it for the right reasons.”

Obviously, don’t lets be too devilishly insistent that a soul must adhere to its past sins, when it yearns for repentance. Its alright for folk to change their mind. Indeed, the polling around the whole brouhaha seems to indicate that Kerr's developing sense of the rightness and wrongness of the move mirrors that of other Scots. There is, however, a wider point. Do we really believe Malcolm Chisholm was the only opponent of this measure who bums the Labour benches? Given the more divided general opinion in the population at large and among Labour member, this seems unlikely. Equally, how plausible is it that all 47 SNP members thought that in his trundle across the tightrope before him, MacAskill balanced himself unerringly correctly? How many in both tribes swallowed their private sentiments, donned the political war paint and marched for the chief? I’d be confident that the count of such tribesmen and women who made primary their party political calculations must at least amount to a decent clutch. So I agree, there is something that smells distinctly implausible about the neatness of these divisions – which might make us look on the apparent transformation of Kerr’s views with a critical eye.

Indeed, as the recess recedes, I anticipate a spidery battery of eyes will be shifting again to the Glasgow North East by-election. And on this point, via a fellow peat worrier – we’re a close fraternity and sorority – I have a few dispatches from the field by way of an informed source within the campaign.

I’m totally unfamiliar with the constituency myself – hence what follows it a bit of third-hand repetition. It does give an indicative glimpse into the cognitive processes churning away behind the scenes, however. It is anticipated that the writ will be moved sharpish when Westminster resurrects itself, resulting in a polling day of around the 12^th of November*. On the campaign itself, apparently Kerr’s going down a storm among the more conservative, religious populous of the area – but there’s a fly in the proverbial ointment. In the more liberal parts of the constituency, which on the campaign intelligence, apparently includes Dennistoun, disquiet rumbles over precisely the same issues which might coax others into Kerr’s corner.

Along the lines of my argument, which insists that religious opinions are fair game when they inform political choices, it seems that this section of the populace may find the ominous Latin of Opus Dei a challenge to overcome, when mulling over where to put their enfranchised ‘x’s. As a consequence, I understand that the candidate’s messages are being finessed depending on the setting as an attempt to overcome the difficulties presented by the trumpet lobby of press coverage at the inauguration of the campaign. I’m a bit sceptical of all this sort of talk myself, including the happy but textureless labelling of places religious areas and whatnot. Indeed, I’d have thought the surest way these days not to communicate with your electorate is to talk to local clergy. Then again, its not just who can vote, but who will vote – and on this point, my own youthful, godless existence may not be typical of our greying electoral enthusiasts.

At any rate, these personal caveats aside, I thought you might be curious about the campaign related scuttlebutt…

* As the estimable Monsieur Burton pointed out in the comments below, the 8th of November poll date which I originally mentioned falls, as any lackadaisical examination would suggest, on Sunday. I suspect Monty's moles are stabbing far closer to the mark with their anticipation of a Thursday the 12th of November date - so have slyly amended the electronic record accordingly.

Time for a Scottish political drama?

Jubilantly, this week had me expelling a particularly extensive project from my proverbial corner of the professional peat hags. My relief is palpable. And then, like an anvil lobbed from a tall building, the weight of inactivity hits you. After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well.

What to do now, I agonised? Despairing of the bare walls of my garret providing any inspiration, I stalked into the Glaswegian streets, at last, after much travailing, resting my tired feet in a hostelry in that city’s western district. And then, as my Deuchars ebbed to a half-draught, the divine Muse Calliope slapped my phizog with her laurel leaf of inspiration.

We’re dominated by American political films, the hero-priest of presidency cults, and homicidal alien forces whose primary mission seems to be flattening the White House. Of course, the British got there first, giving Washington and its presidential bungalow a good singeing during the War of 1812. Its tempting to analyse the persisting re-enactment of this fiery tableau – substituting googly-eyed extraterrestrials for the redcoats – as the fell spectre of a vengeful George III exhaled from the bilious fog of the collective American unconscious, come back to punish the errant nose-thumbing of the States’ founding sons. And after all – isn’t the widely mooted American glee and self-subordination to the swank of “British” accents not a form of defensive sublimation attempting to erase this sweating folk memory and the vestigial terror of the misbehaving child with an overcoming and overstated scoosh and gush of unmerited admiration?

But my primary point concerned political dramas. Obviously, dominating the firmament is the West Wing. For myself, a continuing favourite is the House of Cards trilogy. As an aficionado of the wondrous malice of Jacobean tragedy, Andrew Davies managed to massage the themes and the atmosphere into a more modern setting tremendously well. How some keen-sighted producer found in Michael Dobbs’ novel the germ of the television programme, I have no idea. I’ve rarely encountered prose more lumpen – and female characters more obviously and ludicrously scripted from a sweaty-palmed, sausage-fingered male perspective. Nor can Dobbs be credited with Francis Urqhart’s much quoted saw, or the splendidly creepy henchman that is Colin Jeavons’ Tim Stamper, another brace of owings to the estimable Davies. For those who have not yet encountered it, I urgently encourage you to seek it out.

At the time, though I’ve not revisited it, I enjoyed the Deal (2003). Partly, this comes from the simple novelty of seeing a system and a culture with which you are relatively familiar dramatised. I’m sure other Scots experience a similar frisson at the limited number of popular dramatisations in a Scottish setting, Ian Rankin's Rebus, Taggart et al. In last night’s episode of the former, I noticed that one of the characters was an MSP – I presume a Tory – and along with the nudgings of the Muse, it got me to wondering – what might a fictionalised Scottish parliamentary drama be like? Would it work, could it? I’ve read Boiling a Frog by Christopher Brookmyre, which trades in the imaginative space of a devolved Scotland and the Parliament, but wasn’t wholly convinced by it.

Perhaps a phantasmal version of the Foulkes to Secretary-General spangly fairy story I suggested earlier in the week?

Shambling Gurn: the George Foulkes Story (2012) is uplifting tale of a talentless soak who accidentally shuffles, like a confused extra, into the eye of the camera… From the voice of one crying for devolution from the Westminster wilderness to a triumphal entry to his parliament in 2007, Foulkes’ story is Scotland’s story, his face the leathery map of his land, thirsty for freedom. The lines slowly folding his august, statsman’s brow telling of his people’s travails and torments on their cobbled path to devolution...

My bladder is already pinching with excitement and anticipation! Moreover, watching Rebus yesterday, I think we have a strong presumptive candidate to play Georgie, in fellow Lothians look-alike, Ken Stott...

Foulkes for Secretary-General!

Screaming Lord Foulkes has not graced my pixels here for a fine roll of weeks. Thank the Scotsman for catapulting the corpulent cretin back into the monitor-glare of electronic examination. In what must be the most fatheaded non-story to adorn the learned journal’s pages, such is the professional pride of the author that the essay remains unattributed. The crowning turd is the headline, which invites the guileless reader to imagine that a “UN role considered for Salmond”, the Scotsman stupendously report that:

“The National Conversation's document on foreign affairs is a ‘blueprint’ for First Minister Alex Salmond to be made secretary-general of the United Nations, it has been claimed.”

Oh ho. That mustelid formulation at the end is enough to make your musk glands tighten with suspicion – who claimed, we cry, who claimed? Enter Foulkes, wet. And he's on vintage form. The heavy-pated Lothians MSP objects to the following part of the fifth section of the SNP government’s Europe and Foreign Affairs: Taking forward our National Conversation report, published online yesterday.

International Organisations

5.7. An independent Scotland would be recognised as a state in its own right by the international community and would become a full member of the United Nations and other international bodies, such as the Commonwealth, the World Health Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organisation. Both in these arenas and generally it would be able to develop its own foreign policy to promote Scotland's interests internationally, and engage with other states as an equal partner.

5.8. Small countries can and do take lead roles in international organisations and policy development. Key positions within the United Nations including that of Secretary-General are often filled by individuals from smaller nations. Small countries such as Sweden, New Zealand, Switzerland and Finland have all made significant global contributions to security, peace and reconciliation initiatives. New Zealand, for example, hosted a major conference on cluster munitions as the part of the Oslo Process. Following this, in May 2008 the Oslo Process culminated in the successful conclusion of a new international treaty banning cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians, with New Zealand chairing the key discussions on the definitions of weapons to be banned. With the 'Edinburgh Conversations' in the 1980s, Scotland has already played host to efforts to promote dialogue and keep open channels of communication. Independence would offer a clearer opportunity for Scotland to make this kind of contribution.

Seems a fairly bald statements of the international correlatives of a recognised separately sovereign Scottish state, no? Not according to the Natsmeller Pursuivant, who distinctly smells a Salmond, attempting to bounce on its belly upstream to a swanky, international retirement. No phase as a dismal, unshaven backbencher for him (pace McConnell), according to Foulkes. No, no – Ban Ki-Moon’s job is in the estimable Maximum Eck’s rheumy eye, chops are a’slavering, and here I quote the civic leader, lest any droplet of his wisdom be lost in translation -

“Mr Salmond's ego is so huge that you can imagine this section was drafted by him in the vain hope he might be able to take such a role,” Lord Foulkes said.

“He is the only person in the Scottish Government who could imagine himself in such a position.”

And he added: “It is slightly ironic that a man who has wanted to break up a united nation his whole political life has ambitions to become head of the United Nations.”

So the “considerer” from the Scotsman headline is … er … just Georgie Porgie. Personally, I say poo and tish to Foulkes’ self-effacing ways! After all, is he not a stentorian senior statesman, heavy with statecraft, bloated with acumen? Subtle, politic, charming, graceful? Well-knowing his many virtues, does this reasoned critique of the Maximum Eck not imply, on an unconscious level, his own yearning for further honour and greater planetary service? If he will not bring himself to the forefront, others must cajole and prod. Let this be the first whisper of the gathering roar: The world deserves Lord George Foulkes, Secretary General – an independent Scotland’s first gift to humanity!

Come away in to St Andrew's House

Most of you who visit Edinburgh once in a while will have spotted St Andrew’s House gazing ominously down on you from its southern face on Calton Hill. Completed in 1939, the House now accommodates the Scottish Government within its geometric, monolithic confines. I’m no architecture buff, but along with the National Library of Scotland (right), the building always struck be as a louring instance of Scottish fascist architecture – an unfair pars pro toto I suspect, which undermines its creative participation in other genres. In this skimming view, curiously, I share a conviction with Donald Dewar, who found St Andrew’s House “somewhat fascist” – although one suspects, that may have more to do with the gathering gloom associated with the viperous former Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Forsyth, who used to rest his coils within.

In commemoration of its 70 year berth, on their Youtube Channel the Scottish Government have posted a marvellously whimsical little demi-tour of the building. Including the swanky looking office where that fulminating radical, John Elvidge, plots the Break up of Britain(!) with his band of grey-suited desperadoes...

Speaking to the Labour organ grinder & finding the monkey...

Behold! I give you: the Labour Party policy machine. To the left, you can see the roaring engine when it was shining in use, providing much-needed entertainment for the young and old alike. Those days are gone. Somewhere, in concrete vaults beneath John Smith House this once-proud instrument slumps, sagging soundlessly in the silence. In flatulent recline under a filing cabinet, issuing wraiths of nicotine are the only evidence of its boozing monkey crony’s continuing existence. Now and then, the supine catarrhine celebrates the passage of love in shambling, spiritless jigs, before returning to its dank shelf, in the company of a wet spot of Tennent’s cooking lager to lubricate the smoke. Both are idle, rivven with melancholy and entirely unproductive.

A fair picture, do you think? “They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing,” the bobbing Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord once observed of the dispossessed Bourbon monarchy of France. The flexible Talleyrand, who served as Napoleon’s Foreign Minister in duplicitous diplomatic style, would not stoop, perhaps, to throw his voice through history and take an interest in wur ain Scotch Labour Party. Nevertheless, immediately after May 2007, and for a quivering dollop of time thereafter, press critique of the Scottish Labourites took its cue from the dead Frenchman. Learnt nothing, forgotten nothing.

Understandably, appropriately, that discourse has now shifted into a different phase. The talk now is not of “learning to accept defeat” – but the more vigorous fiery cross which summons political combatants to lay on, get to it. Get on with it. Similarly, as the seconds march by, and the balance of years shifts such that the next election is closer than the last, thoughts inevitably tend towards 2011. Of ideas, of policies, of decisive influences, undertows, wicked currents – all of which might snatch the wary – drowning the hopes of the spangly support act - Tetanus Iain and the Shades of Gray – or alternatively kicking the sagging Salmond and Shoal out onto the arid sands of public contempt and watching them, parchedly, expire.

Where in this drift-snatching competition ought the Labour Party to be seeded? Here are a few things which might assist in making up your mind. As Iain Gray himself said, at the last congregation of the red(ish) faithful:

“This conference is a milestone in the preparation of our manifesto for the 2011 Scottish election. I appointed Margaret Curran to enhance our policy forum process and ensure that our policies resonate with the people whose trust we seek to implement them.

Each Policy Commission will work with a sounding board of experts from beyond the Labour Party to develop the most effective practical and deliverable policies commensurate with our values and vision.”

As I pointed out at the time, and as the MSM singularly failed to report appropriately, in May of 2009, Curran got fed up of the samey repertoire of her policy organ and kicked the monkey. What happened after that? Where, the evidence of continuing political development? What sound of Labour’s labourers in the policy workyard might we lend a curious ear to? A hasty excursion to their digital citadel – and the optimistic banner entitled “What We Believe”, furnishes the curious with … er … not much. Four documents, entitled Economy and Environment, Health and Housing, Education and finally Crime and Justice repose within. Rather discouragingly, these reports – in Labour’s What We Believe section mind – warn the curious reader:

“DRAFT – This is a discussion paper only. The content of this document does not necessarily reflect Scottish Labour Party policy.”

Of course, you’d have to be ludicrously, unyieldingly tribal to see the fun in such a claim at the heart of an explication of Labour policy. Thankfully, I’m flexibly partisan myself, and thus can’t detect anything remotely mirthful about it. Others alas, lack my humble judicial insouciance... Interestingly, I notice that none of these have been updated since 03.03.09 – coinciding with Icepick Curran’s flight to “coalfaces” new. While there have been rumblings on the nature of the Slab policy on the Cooncil Tax, the full brick-and-mortar count of that policy is yet fully to emerge. So what of our starting drama, of lung-rotted money and silent organ? Who is making Labour’s policies for 2011 and what the dickens will they be?

In that context, anticipate as time progresses an increased media focus on the perceived or actual vacuities at the centre of the Labour Party in Scotland. Are we to suppose that that shadowy senate, the Labour cabinet, are cogitating and digesting these weighty matters? As I understand it, no other worthy has been ordained and chief party policy grinder for the future. When it comes to ascertaining actual, specific Labour policy commitments, the ordinary woman and man are quite literally, forced to speak to the monkey, or fruitlessly inspect the organ. And in this case, its tattered, cognitively dissonant sign reading “this is not an instrument.”

Even the hint of a policy for we proles in the cheap seats might be nice, my Labouring loves. It’d show you still care.

Transexual wins prison transfer case...

Just a brief post today, flinging us back towards the subject of prison policy and this case, reported in the Telegraph and on the BBC, involving the illusive "A". It substance, as both of these articles in review make clear, A is a life prisoner who has been recognised as female under the Gender Recognition Act of 2004.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the legislation – I imagine most of you – if you are over 18, you can make an application to a Gender Recognition Panel constituted of doctors, psychologist and, as ever, a few leechy lawyers. The Panel “must”, according to the law, grant the application for a gender recognition certificate, if it is satisfied of the following. Firstly, that the applicant (a) has or has had gender dysphoria (b) that the applicant has “lived in the acquired gender throughout the period of two years ending with the date on which the application is made”, (c) intends to “live in the acquired gender until death” and (d) can produce two reports. One from either a registered medical practitioner “practicing in the field of gender dysphoria” or a psychologist with an interest in the same - and another from a common-or garden registered medical practitioner outlining the detail of the steps taken thus far to alter particular sexual characteristics and – I’m generalising here – basically confirm the diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

Much to do then, to acquire one of these gender recognition certificates, and a long roll of years intervening. Section 9(1) of the 2004 Act holds that

“Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman).”

According to the reports, A acquired this certificate in 2006. Unfortunately, thus far I’ve found it a bit difficult to get hold of the actual text of David Elvin QC’s judgement in London’s High Court. Even then, I’ve never been a dab hand with administrative law and review, so on the law, it’d astound me if I had anything interesting or controversial to submit. That said, however, it seems to me only proper, in the spirit of the quoted section of the 2004 Act, and its insistence that for (almost) all purposes the certificate holder is the acquired gender, the prison estate ought equally to recognise that (examples of other exclusions include, in section 19 of the Act, certain sporting activities) . From the Telegraph report, the ministry of justice’ main objection seems to be on the question of cost. I suspect the causal root of this may be A’s conviction for attempted rape of a “female shop assistant” – but as I say, I've not read the parties' submissions, so can't be sure why the “Ministry of Justice warned it will cost taxpayers an extra £80,000 a year because she will have to be kept in segregation”.

For myself, I think that if we are willing to accept the idea of gender dysphoria, if we are willing to enact the public recognition of individual’s gender transformations, it is only proper that this should be reflected in the manner people are incarcerated, and in what cohort of the prison estate they are billeted - if, that is, we are to insist on a gender-segregated system. I'll be interested to read the full judgement when I manage to find it. In particular, because it seems as if Elvin's judgement was under article 8 of the European Convention - privacy and family life - as opposed to some of the other sections which might have been relevant. While an eye to the detail is certainly important, casting a quick squint over the superficial surface characters, in principled terms, it seems as if Judge Elvin made the right decision.

The unheralded rise of the Swine Pursuivant...

Perhaps my favourite line from the Holyrood debate yesterday emanated from Richard Baker. Like cremola foam tipped into a bottle of irn-bru which is then vigorously shaken – in one of his sputtering seconds of dulcet outrage – Baker overflowingly insisted that the purpose of the parliamentary contemplation was to “clawback some dignity”. I truly hope I didn’t mishear the stentorian stoater. Clawback! Hardly the words of a worthy and virtuous citizen, these, full of robust independence, firm fetlocked, presenting a chipper jaw to the cold north sea (etcetera, etcetera...) are they? Clawback dignity? I love it! The rhetorical tactic opens up a whole new vista of improbable associations with bibable fruity undernotes. I look forward to hear Baker’s suggestion that we should “litigate ourselves decorum” - or alternatively, and I anticipate this will become a popular saw in the Labour Party – “warrant sell ourselves some competence”. The possibilities are endless. Certainly bottomless. Absolutely fatuous.

I don’t propose to examine the full run. We got the staccato summary of the incident last week. Heaven forfend needless repetition. I’ll only make a couple of points. I think it is only right that the ministers made a robust defence of the clinical practitioners involved. While I firmly believe nobody is above scrutiny, and we ought to be profoundly cautious about social mobilisations and policy decisions based on deferential calculations about what doctors claim to know. That said, its an ugly bit of thuggery to administer a drive-by shillelaghing to those without any real capacity to articulate responses, even in the course of the political chase after the fleeting MacAskill.

Contrawise, the argument would likely be that the opposition focus is on the Justice Secretary’s use and presentation of the medical advice given to him. Listening to the learned tribunes on this point, however, and Iain Gray’s charming paean to Iain Gray’s wisdom in the final, fitful moments of the discussion, its hard not to detect some imputation that the doctors involved were basing their estimations of the scope of Mr Megrahi’s more imminent morality on a game of darts, and that the process was a reckless caper. Alternatively, from his office in the bowels of St Andrew’s House, MacAskill was waiting, rubbing his grimy claws together, waiting for some silly sod in the prison ward to give him a papery excuse to boot Megrahi back to Libya. 

Quite why they imagine this is true is somewhat beyond me – since, if one can forgive a ghoulish flicker – the man in Scotland with the most invested in the prompt, opportune death of Megrahi is the Justice Secretary. With this, we drift back into the wavering wattle-and-daub indictment squelched together by that master potter, Richie “the boy” Baker. While roughing up some civilians may seem collateral damage of a forgivable sort, I can’t imagine the doctors involved can be terribly flattered by some of the more oblique dubieties implicitly expressed about their competence. Equally, if one amongst the oncologists did imagine that MacAskill was driving forward a sly Libyan literationist agenda and was making improper use of the medical advice given so to do, do you really suppose redaction would prevent one of the media outlets from identifying them, and hooting and tooting their views accordingly?

Secondly, as I suggested previously, if the debate expanded at the procedural level, most people wouldn’t give a blunt fag end’s concern about it. Find me the soul who can rumble, plausibly, indictingly, when their script reads “errors in the management”? Despite the onion-squeezing sincerity evoked, how many people, politically speaking, get wildly asquiff about process? I don’t mean to imply that process is not important. But I think there are relatively few electing souls called to political arms by rallying cries, couched in terms of judicial review. The real questions remain those raised initially – should MacAskill have compassionately released Megrahi or shouldn’t he, given the circumstances? If people care about the subject, their discussion will most probably exchange questions along these lines. Their themes will be justice and mercy - not process and the procedural. It is precisely because the parliamentary discourse has drifted towards this procedural vortex that its discussions has so quickly become hypoglycaemia-inducing. Despite a few haughty hacks in the gallery taking a view, perhaps sustaining the subject on the front pages a pulse or two longer, I find it difficult to see much electoral benefit accruing to the critical by consequence.

As one associate of mine had it, herself not an obsessive political hack, the hostile squall is beginning to read like porcine cry in nursery rhyme, the three little pigs, where an unending and unillumating “weeeeeee weeeeeeee weeeeee” haunts the lugs – but we’re still awaiting the blessed relief of our three little pigs shoving off home. (In this respect I’ve heard a rumour, emanating from whispering halls of the Court of the Lord Lyon King of Arms in Edinburgh, that Richard Baker is strongly in the running for the forthcoming regal appointment of Swine Pursuivant­, acting as the doughier comic fall-guy for the more elegant Unicorn Pursuivant, Adam Bruce. The am-dram outfit, as I understand it, includes the chunky arms of an Oinker Rampant…) 

And so today, another day of parliamentary mischief, and the announcement of Bills! Bills! Bills! to keep our elected Baby Buntings in line. Crofters, debtors, lawyers … oh, and the small matter of independence. Something for all teething tots to gum at.