Article for
Sunday Herald - Lies & Betrayals
If you were a first time home buyer expecting to hear of news of your
promised grant or simply a parent waiting to hear when your child's class
size was to be reduced or nursery provision increased then you would have
been sorely disappointed by the SNP budget.
But for me the greatest betrayal of all was on the promise to eradicate
student debt and replace loans with grants. After all there had been no ifs,
buts or maybes before the election. Then Nicola Sturgeon had been quite
clear and unequivocal, it was "time to dump the debt" she proclaimed.
Substitute student loans with grants from the public purse – no problem, all
you need to do is vote SNP she told students and their parents.
Has there ever been a barer faced lie? Not in my experience and when I had
the temerity on the BBC to question the nationalist arithmetic and point out
that their plans would cost in excess of £1.3 billion as opposed to the
£100m they claimed it would cost then I was the one who was misleading the
public!
And it wasn't just me who was in the nationalist firing line. Civil servants
asked to cost the SNP proposals were called 'lickspittles' by no less a
figure than our new First Minister when they didn't come up with the answers
to the sums that the nationalists wanted.
But their sums could never have added up no matter how many times they tried
to fiddle the figures. As far back as August 2004 a briefing paper on the
SNP website suggested loans were paid from the Scottish Consolidated Fund
and as a result the Scottish Executive could simply 'write off the debt'.
This was never the case as loans are paid by the Treasury and the
outstanding debt would need to be paid back. I wrote to Fiona Hyslop and
told her this. Civil servants answered a host of Parliamentary questions
pointing out the true cost of their proposals.
The SNP misled students and their parents in the calculated quest for their
votes. They knew the costs and they never had any intention of fulfilling
their promise. They probably never expected to be in the position where they
were required to deliver on their pledges.
So who pays? Obviously students and their parents are the principal losers
but there will also be a political price to pay and I predict that when the
time comes to rearrange the deckchairs on the nationalist titanic it will be
Ms Hyslop that will be first overboard.
It won't be the captain or the first mate who is jettisoned but the ship's
teacher who will find herself surplus to requirements. Not just because of
the debt fiasco but because the education portfolio was the big loser on
Wednesday. On class sizes, nursery places, skills and university funding the
wheels are coming off the SNP bogey and Fiona Hyslop is fast becoming Alex
Salmond's first liability."
Letter to Herald
- RET
Dear sir
I read David Ross's report of John Swinney's announcement of yet another
study into Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) with some incredulity.(Herald13/8)
This will do nothing for islanders on the Clyde and rejecting Labour's
pledge to cut ferry fares immediately by 40% is the equivalent of an 'SNP
surcharge'
on island life in these parts.
We already know all we need to know about RET. The SNP should waste no more
time on studies; all the necessary research has already been done by
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, indeed these studies have been on the Ministers
desk for some time.
Why won't the SNP cut ferry fares NOW by 40% to boost island economies and
cut commuting costs for islanders as Labour proposed, while they undertake
their latest study? After all we already know that the costs of RET
potentially far exceed Labour's costed commitment.
The SNP have been promising for years that they would introduce RET, now
that they are in power and responsible for the costs of the scheme they
renege on Labour's discounted ferry fares scheme and offer islanders nothing
in return - except another study.
Will the SNP commit to introducing RET for the Clyde islands after the
conclusion of the pilot programme in the Western Isles or is this latest
statement simply more gloss, more spin and ultimately more pie in
the sky from the nationalists?
Yours sincerely
Allan Wilson
44 Stoneyholm Road
Kilbirnie
Ayrshire KA25 7JS
Article for
Sunday Herald - Energy
It is said that Governments should hit the ground
running. In energy terms, our new Scottish administration has certainly done
so - the only problem is that they're running backwards.
Being against things is fine in opposition. But the SNP now has to say not
only what it is in favour of, but also what is deliverable within a relevant
timescale. Otherwise, its most notable achievement in government could end
up being to turn Scotland into an importer of electricity - and that would
be some achievement.
We now know that the SNP is in favour of the revival of deep coal mining -
which must really delight its Green partners! However, it seems very
unlikely that a single new coal mine will be taken from drawing-board to
coal production within the lifetime of the current Parliament, so that is
not really
much good to Scotland's immediate energy needs.
The reality is that Scotland will continue for the foreseeable future to be
hugely dependent on nuclear power. For all their empty anti-nuclear
rhetoric, I have heard nothing from Alex Salmond or Jim Mather which
suggests that they are going to lift a finger to end this state of affairs
any time soon. They
might despise Hunterston and Torness - but they also need them!
Mr Salmond's new love affair with coal took him to Longannet as his first
official engagement. What a laugh the new Spanish owners of Scottish Power
must have had. It is only a few weeks since the SNP were denouncing their
bid for Scottish Power and demanding that it should be vetoed. Now Salmond
has put himself in the role of supplicant to the new owners - and they will
undoubtedly extract a high price for their co-operation.
There was absolutely nothing new in Scottish Power's commitment to clean up
Longannet by 2015. They announced it months ago because the alternative to
doing so would be to close it by 2015, which they clearly do not want to be
forced into. Delivery on the commitment will depend, however, on
circumstances as they evolve and - just as with BP at Peterhead - Mr
Salmond's flattery will not divert them from their commercial decisions.
It was entertaining to see half of Mr Salmond's new Cabinet accepting
generous hospitality from Scottish Power at the recent UEFA Cup final. Let's
hope that they all have it down in the register of interests.
I doubt if British Energy, who provide 50 per cent of Scotland's power and
employ well over 1000 Scots, would have got quite so eager a response to
such an invitation.
While anything that keeps Kenny MacAskill out of trouble at football matches
is to be welcomed, I question whether it is right and proper for the new
love affair between Scottish Power and the SNP to be quite so unconditional.
A lot of people will be wondering what the Spanish owners will be asking
from their new best friends in return.
Anyway, before Mr Salmond gets carried away, while there is a place for
clean coal in Scotland's energy mix, the idea that it is an
environmentally-friendly option - and therefore a substitute for either
nuclear or windpower - is dubious to say the least. "Less dirty" coal might
be a better description.
The real test of the SNP's green credentials will be on renewables and,
however much they might want to talk about every other unproven form of
renewables, that for the time being must mean onshore wind. I know my
successor has a few major wind farm applications in his in tray.
What better time to grant some consents and reassure the onshore wind
industry that his appointment didn't signal a change in direction. Instead
silence. Not a word of reassurance that their proposed new planning regime
constituted anything other than an effective block on new development and a
de facto moratorium on existing proposals while they worked out if they were
in favour or not - depending on the prevailing populist wind.
Talking up technologies which might kick in ten or twenty years from now
does not add up to an energy policy - and so far, that is really all the SNP
have done.
Letter to Herald
- Ballot Papers
Dear sir
Maggie Jamieson's letter (26/10) and Nicola Sturgeon's television interview
of the same date is ample evidence that some nationalists still don't get
it.
It's not simply that their use of the Alex Salmond for First Minister'
epithet caused confusion - it was designed to secure electoral advantage and
the construct of the ballot paper should be sacrosanct in that regard.
There can be no better example of a political party disregarding the needs
of the electorate in favour of their own 'partisan' politics than that.
That others had done it previously doesn't excuse the nationalists, it
compounds the felony, at least in respect of the Electoral Commission's
failure to outlaw the practice.
Leaving Alex Salmond in charge of constructing the next ballot paper as he
appears to be demanding would be like putting Dracula in charge of the blood
transfusion service.
yours etc
Letter to Herald
- The Gould Report
Dear sir
Messrs Shelby, Kerr and Mothersson are each right in their own way (letters
25/10/07) on the Gould report.
While it may have been true that some electors chose not to vote in the
constituency section for whatever reason, the fact that they then voted
twice in the list section on the same ballot paper disenfranchised them all.
As I have previously said in these columns, my own experience at the
Cunninghame North count would lead me to conclude that voter confusion
rather than voter deliberation produced this result.
This confusion adversely affected the
smaller parties vote on the list and undoubtedly, in my opinion the Labour
Party vote in the constituencies. My own, admittedly partial scan of the
electronically discarded votes, showed a clear majority for Labour and the
Senior Citizens Party or one of the Socialist Parties on the list.
The problem is that no one knows because Gould chose
NOT to exercise the powers specifically conferred upon him by the UK
Parliament to manually inspect the rejected ballot papers. This was an
interesting decision given the closeness of the result and the fact that the
formation of the minority government now in power was only possible by
virtue of the SNP's 48 vote victory in Cunninghame North. A constituency
with over a thousand spoilt papers.
Alex Salmond was quick to promise a judicial
enquiry in the immediate aftermath of the election but has gone surprisingly
quiet since - perhaps because he has since appreciated his new castle has
foundations of sand - or maybe it's because of his own complicity in
engendering the voter confusion with his 'Alex Salmond for First Minister'
billing on the ballot paper.
Now he seems more interested in running the next ballot himself, not an
enticing prospect given his past record in this regard. Either way he should
now put up or shut up and hold the judicial enquiry he originally promised
when he first stepped out his helicopter to address an expectant nation on
May 4th.
Yours sincerely
Pat McGlynn
79 Manse street
Saltcoats
Ayrshire
Letter to Herald
- Nuclear Power
Dear sir
John Quigley of Unite was right to point out that if the Scottish Government
was genuinely concerned at achieving consensus on securing future energy
supplies and cutting carbon emissions it would drop it's irrational
opposition to nuclear power and adopt a more balanced approach.
Kerr McGregor (letters 10/09) is wrong to argue that our future energy
demands can be met without nuclear or that we face a choice between nuclear
and renewables.
While the nationalists may be opposed to nuclear power they know that they
cannot do without it.
Gimmicks such as their 'Green Energy Day' are no substitute for a
sustainable energy policy and no one in the industry is fooled by these
antics. Being in Government, as a minority or otherwise, means that the SNP
must say not only what they oppose but what they support and what is
deliverable within a relevant timescale. In particular, they must genuinely
support new renewable projects and not masquerade as supporters while
simultaneously rejecting new developments or placing obstacles in the way of
future development.
The reality is that Scotland will for the foreseeable future continue to be
reliant on nuclear power for electricity generation, particularly if we
harbour any ambition to reduce environmentally damaging carbon emissions. As
the Energy Study published last year by AEA Technology made clear, the only
medium term energy scenarios that can secure supply AND reduce carbon
emissions involve the retention of nuclear energy as a vital component part
of a balanced energy policy.
For all their empty rhetoric about 'Green Energy Day' and taking credit for
the rise in renewable energy production that many in their Party continue to
oppose, Alex Salmond has done nothing to alter this reliance on existing
nuclear production. He might despise Hunterston and Torness but he continues
to need them!
He should now go one step further in pursuit of the consensus he says he
wants and support new build at Hunterston. Otherwise he should come clean
and tell local people how he intends to replace the 700 jobs directly
dependant on Hunterston and the £26 million in staff wages that it
contributes to the North Ayrshire economy.
Yours sincerely
(signed)
Allan Wilson
Article to Sunday Times - Labour’s defeat
in the Scottish parliament election
Since Labour’s defeat in the Scottish parliament
election in May our party has allowed itself to be sucked into a
constitutional quagmire.
We should have immediately started work on redefining our core values and
principles of economic progress and social justice, combining this with our
vision of a more equal society in which all can fulfil their potential in a
prosperous Scotland within the UK.
Instead, by agreeing to a cross-party review of the parliament’s powers we
appear to be accepting that there is a constitutional trapdoor that can get
us out of our current predicament. There is not.
We have, of course, been here before. In 1992, after Labour suffered its
fourth consecutive general election defeat at the hands of the Tories, a
self styled coalition of nationalists and Trotskyites called Scotland United
claimed Scotland could free itself of Conservative rule and somehow wish
away our despair.
Then, as in May of this year, most people in Labour circles felt the
election had been there for the winning.
The lesson from 1992, which remains a salutary one today, is that Labour can
win again when it returns to its roots and argues for policies that actually
make a difference to people’s lives.
May’s result was Scottish Labour’s nadir but it is not the end of the world
for our party. It won’t inevitably lead to eight years in the wilderness —
but it may well do unless we take the right decisions now, as New Labour did
in 1992, to concentrate on how to reconnect with voters.
Our electoral prospects will not improve one iota by signing up to the
nationalists’ crazy agenda of constitutional wrangling and battling with
Westminster for more powers on issues like airgun policy. It shouldn’t
matter whether a child is shot North or South of the border that child
should be protected and not by having different laws. Single issue campaigns
will only get us so far and while it is correct and important in the short
to medium term to hold the nationalists to account on their broken promises
to the electorate we also have to make promises that we CAN deliver on in a
future administration and which reflect on our core values and traditions
and contrast with their ambitions for Scotland. We are simply not doing
enough to inspire our core support to come out and vote for us again. With
more
imagination and a more hard-headed approach we can lift ourselves from the
doldrums once more.
Why not mutualise Scottish Water, giving all customers a stake in the value
of the company? Consumers accustomed only to heavy bills could instead look
forward to an annual dividend as the value of the asset grows or if they
wanted to they could even sell it.
It has the potential to do for Labour’s popularity what the right to buy
council houses did for the Conservatives. After all, everyone has a tap.
Why, as with council homes, should people be forced to pay and end up with
nothing?
And while we’re looking for new policies to inspire voters to return to
Labour or to be more precise, to vote Labour then let us make the minimum
wage rise in annual increments, not simply to reflect inflation but also to
reward length of service.
If someone enters or returns to the labour market they should know that five
years later they will be materially much better off than if they had stayed
on benefit or on the minimum wage.
We should be eradicating unemployment and rewarding work, taking poverty out
of Scotland, not Scotland out of Britain.
While the minimum wage is strictly speaking a reserved matter for the UK
government it may be possible for Scottish Labour to make a start on its own
through pay for public sector workers north of the border. The Scottish
executive did, after all, adopt a different position on nurses’ pay than the
British government.
We do not have to abandon our ideals. This is about espousing popular
socialism. In Wendy Alexander we have a leader with undoubted talents but if
we are to regain power it is not enough simply to be against things — we
have to do more to give people a reason to vote for us.
Labour is at its best when at its boldest and there is an opportunity now
for Wendy to live up to those ideals by taking on the nationalists with
their own ball.
She should call Alex Salmond’s bluff and support an independence referendum
and in so doing settle the constitutional debate and quash the economic
uncertainty for at least 25 years.
Adopting the “neverendum” approach of nationalists in Quebec who refuse to
take one referendum defeat for an answer would be a recipe for economic
paralysis at best and the flight of business and employment at worst — not
least in the strategically vital financial services sector. This is after
all what
happened in Quebec.
But Salmond has publicly accepted that an independence referendum should be
a once in a generation plebiscite.
Exposing the nationalist argument as irrelevant in the 21st century would be
one of the best ways to get Labour politics back on the agenda and we need
not fear such a vote.
Alex Salmond might talk a good game about the achievements of his embryonic
minority administration but his principal achievement to date has been to
halve support for Scottish separation, now backed by just
one in four Scots — the lowest level for 10 years.
And while his party’s activists and fundamentalist wing may have fallen for
the line that independence will follow a period of minority rule at Holyrood
there is no empirical or international evidence whatsoever to validate his
claim. It didn’t work in Quebec, or Catalonia or anywhere else. Labour
should
be pointing this out and exploiting Salmond’s weakness.
One problem is Gordon Brown’s noted coolness on the idea. It has been
suggested in some quarters that he would not wish his premiership to be
overshadowed by a debate in Scotland about the future of the union with
England. However, as one of New Labour’s most formidable strategists, he too
must recognise the opportunity that now exists to extinguish the nationalist
threat.
If he does not then supporting a referendum would at least give Wendy the
opportunity to make her mark and silence critics by establishing her
independence from so called London Labour. It would also place Labour
clearly on the side of the majority of Scots who want Scotland to remain a
powerful partner within the United Kingdom.
There is little doubt we would win a referendum and deservedly so because
nationalism represents the politics of the past, not the future. And in so
doing we would knock the wind out of the SNP’s sails, plunging their party
into a state of chaos.
It matters little to me whether the bill is brought forward in Holyrood or
Westminster but brought forward it should be and the sooner the better.
Letter to Largs &
Millport - Emergency Medical Retrieval Service
Sir
I note that our new MSP has “saved” an Emergency Medical Retrieval Service
that has been operating for three years.
Although the Scottish Executive news release four weeks earlier made no
reference to Mr Gibson’s pivotal intervention, your Millport readers will be
interested to learn that the “emergency” service to which Mr Gibson refers
to in fact takes around 3 hours to transfer the patient with appropriate
medical assistance to hospital.
This is because the Sea King helicopter goes to the SECC to collect
paramedics then to Millport then to Battery Park in Greenock where the
patient is transferred to ambulance and then on to Inverclyde Royal –
involving 2 ambulance crews as well as the helicopter crew.
Mr Gibson would be better employed therefore, in following up the efforts of
his predecessor Allan Wilson and local GP’s on Millport who are striving to
secure an emergency ferry service to the island, where the 7 minute journey
to Largs would result in the patient being in hospital in around 40 minutes
– the difference perhaps literally between life and death.
While it is a pleasant surprise to read something of Mr Gibson outwith his
torrid personal life, he should at least make some effort to understand
local demographics before plagiarising Nicola Sturgeon’s press releases.
Yours sincerely
Valerie Reid
Chair
Largs Labour Party
Letter to Largs &
Millport - Our New MSP
dear sir
I stand corrected by Mr Gibson -our new MSP.
Obviously his day trip to Millport has made him an expert on emergency care
on the island.
I beg to differ.
His dismissive comments and highly contentious claims to have been involved
in developing emergency healthcare services on Cumbrae only serve to
demonstrate his ignorance of the logistics of the island. He wants us to
believe that instead of islanders being transported to a specialist centre
for treatment in the event of an emergency - that the specalists and all
their equipment will instead fly to Cumbrae at the drop of a hat? In case Mr
Gibson is unaware there is already medical cover on the island and it is
those self same medical professionals who want the emergency ferry service
as back-up to their efforts on the island to ensure the speedy transfer of
patients in need of the specialist clinical intervention they are unable to
provide on the island. It is their clinical judgement that Mr Gibson is
contesting - presumably on the basis of his extensive experience of these
matters to date.
Pardon me if I place more reliance on their opinion than the latest
plagiarised news release from Mr Gibson's Glasgow ranch.
Valerie Reid
Largs Labour Party
Press Release -
Hunterston Power Station
Former Labour Enterprise and Environment
Minister and MSP for North Ayrshire Allan Wilson has welcomed the the news
that British Energy are to extend the life of Hunterston B Power Station for
a further five years.
"This is great news for the 750 people who work at the plant and whose jobs
were at stake as well as for the local area.. The £26 m that Hunterston
contributes to the local economy would have been sorely missed and would
have been a devastating blow for North Ayrshire" said Mr Wilson.
"It is also good news for the environment and the battle against climate
change as nuclear power is the best hope for reducing our dependency on
fossil fuels for electricity generation and reducing the CO2 emissions that
cause global warming "
"These extra five years will now provide a breathing space both for the
environment and the local economy and provide a vital springboard for the
campaign to build a new Hunterston C to replace the existing plant at the
end of it's working life" concluded Mr Wilson.
For further Information Contact Allan Wilson 07711038711 (mobile) 01505
682081(office) |
