Published: 22 June, 2007
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
IN the new session I have been given many more committee responsibilities.
The ambitions of the new Scottish government will either be constructively analysed or else the changes many Scots want will be slowed down. So my appointment as deputy convener of Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture is a big job, but with a limited number of backbench MSPs available I will also sit on the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee.
Both wide areas of policy have a strong bearing on life in Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, as elsewhere, but being able to articulate our particular issues will be a most apt use for my skills and political experience.
I have already spoken in three parliamentary debates since the restart. The first was on the rural development programme for which Cabinet Secretary Richard Lochhead stemmed the tide of increased costs to farmers and crofters of the far from "voluntary" modulation.
This EU-inspired wheeze cuts farm subsidies by top-slicing support payments to spread cash for specific schemes of environmental improvements that create and maintain jobs in the countryside. The crunch in Scotland was not to increase expenses ahead of other parts of Britain.
The second debate concerned a greener Scotland. With cross-party agreement that climate change is the number one issue before us, there will be a variety of opinions as to what target we need to set for every citizen, every community and every business. Reducing CO2 emissions to achieve a low-carbon economy in a decade is crucial to the planet's future. That's why I discussed the work of GREAN, the Golspie-based recycling group which has set the pace in kerbside collection, community composting and reuse of discarded items that spurs the council to do the same.
Last Thursday I had the privilege of debating climate change and the prospects for tidal-power developments in the Pentland Firth through an international business collaboration. ScottishPower and Strom ASA, a subsidiary of Norway's national oil corporation Statoil, hope to build commercial tidal machinery in the firth within two years if their scaled-up design proves a success.
Also another Scottish Norwegian commercial pact should flow from the creation of a supergrid that can pipe electricity from Scotland's marine resource, Norway's and perhaps even Iceland's to serve an energy-hungry European mainland. Alex Salmond held talks in Norway with the authorities before the SNP government was elected. He is in a strong position to proceed.
The debate in the presence of the Norwegian consul general Oystein Hovdkinn struck a very positive mood among SNP MSPs and North Lib Dem members, with token Tory and Labour contributions. Anyone can read the official report online.
These first weeks of the new SNP government have seen fresh ideas emerge and, with no overall majority for the government, some nifty footwork by business managers. The Greens' debate on Trident created a historic precedent. The final motion amended by a Lib Dem phrase allowed a handful of Labour MSPs to join SNP, Greens and Lib Dems to thrash the Tories while most Labour members abstained. What a change from the previous session when any hint of rebellion against London Labour policy would not have been contemplated by Jack McConnell's troops.
*
CARE of the elderly is to be radically altered by the incoming independent/SNP administration of the Highland Council. The scrapping of proposals for a private tender to replace some homes has been widely welcomed.
Building more sheltered homes is part of the SNP commitment to find more affordable housing across the Highlands where pensioners and those on low pay are hit most by steeply rising house prices. If they are fit to stay in their own homes then care homes can cater for the less able where they live.
When I read the Social Work Inspection Agency report on Highland social work services for children and the elderly it jumps off the page that social work leaders need to set an example of close co-operation with NHS Highland staff both locally and at HQ level to plan comprehensive elderly care. This has to be tailored to the needs of small, scattered communities. It's an exciting challenge.
*
SAVE the Children reported in Living Below the Radar that up to 10 per cent of Scotland's one million children live in the worst poverty bracket. Though Scotland has the fourth-lowest severely poor children in the UK, with London worst, it beggars belief that joblessness and unclaimed rightful benefits lie at the heart of these statistics.
It's up to the Scottish government to see that every community which has hidden pockets of poverty gets help. For us in the North it is low pay, poor public transport and a shrinking population that add to child poverty figures. Absolute poverty in African terms is much worse but, in the 10th wealthiest small nation in Europe, Scotland needs to expand our population, to create sustainable new jobs and offer schooling and health care we can collectively afford.
Ironically, this week we are told dads in better-off families are spending more time helping bring up the family.
They are forgoing possible promotion in their jobs, they say. The focus should turn to offering routes out of poverty so that we can approach Scandinavian levels of social inclusion.
That would be exhibited by a narrowing gap between the lowest and highest paid.
Be warned – under Thatcher and Blair, Britain has gone the opposite way.
So Scotland's new government has to harness business to build compassion as well as enterprise if we are to eradicate child poverty.
Friday, 22 June 2007
Friday, 8 June 2007
Food for thought on our drinking culture
Published: 08 June, 2007
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
LAST Friday we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition in Wick with a charity ball at Pulteney Distillery just as the new Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, who is in charge of alcohol licensing, was warning of imminent action against the promotion of "buy two, get one free" beer offers at cheaper prices than supermarkets sell individual bottles of water.
With all funds raised from the most enjoyable charity ball going to the RNLI, a picture came to my mind of Grace Darling's open boat struggling to reach a distressed ship on a boiling sea of booze. Seriously, the drunkenness involving fishermen and others led the women of the parish to seek prohibition after the First World War. These were the women who at the age of 30 gained the vote in 1918. They were much influenced by the squandering of men's lives in drink and the violence and poverty to families that resulted from that male pub culture.
On the other hand, a fund of stories grew around the ingenious ways of avoiding the ban on liquor. Total abstinence was embraced by some churches and individuals but eventually less strict times returned. The prohibition era in the USA is well known but that in Wick only a local memory. Nevertheless the issue is as alive today as it was then, even if the fishing has long since shrunk to a shadow along with the shoals that were once so plentiful. Today, pubs across the country sell 39 per cent of drink because it's from the supermarkets like Tesco in Wick that 80 per cent of wine, 75 per cent of spirits and 60 per cent of cider is sold as off-sales.
Before you think I'm angling to ban fun or curb people's freedom of enjoyment, let's stop to think about a little-reported Holyrood debate at the end of the last year. It stated: "That the Parliament notes with concern the serious rise in alcohol-related crime figures, released by Northern Constabulary, which show a year-on-year increase in drunkenness, drink-driving, serious assaults and alcohol-related deaths; notes in particular the increase in the number of people being arrested for drunkenness, including the charge of being drunk and incapable..." Former MSP Maureen Macmillan led it and other many Highland members such as Eleanor Scott, Jim Mather and David Petrie took part.
Issues they considered included our Northern European behaviour that emphasises the disruptive effects of drink while Mediterranean folk drink as much but don't behave the same. However, the combination of drinking while you eat is an important moderator of behaviour. Alas, the social habits of eating together around a table, as in Latin countries, are far too infrequently observed in Scotland. Also the consumption of fast food after the booze-up is much more the norm here.
So valuing food for its taste and the congenial company it can bring is part of the answer. Even people playing music in a social scene drink less than the listeners. All the calls for more sports facilities and midnight football and the like are part of a cry for a more balanced lifestyle. Yes, how we enjoy ourselves and what we do with our non-work time is a vital component of our culture, our overall health and how it leads some in the community to anti-social behaviour. If the black picture of police statistics doesn't improve, government action is very likely. I will argue strongly for more carrots than sticks, but it's up to families to change and not blame our young.
LINDA Fabiani, the new SNP Culture Minister, has publicly praised art for art's sake and promised to reduce political interference in publicly supported cultural matters. "There's a balance to be struck, because you cannot censor creativity or you are not really promoting the arts at all," she said in a major interview. This sounds well from the new Culture Minister. Hopefully some of the bright ideas in the SNP manifesto can be delivered fairly soon to offer artists and writers grants equivalent to social security payments to allow them space and time to be creative. I am mindful of the words of my fellow columnist George Gunn, who wrote in the Groat last week, as passionately as ever, that "the history of social success in a place like Caithness shows that it depends on active individuals. Individuals working together for a common purpose are the generators of culture. The arts are the pinnacle of cultural achievement."
That means the government and the council as well as the arts agencies have to ensure the facilities, the show and performance spaces, are available in each area. I believe that Orkney and Shetland residents were able to build better halls and venues due to the oil funds they negotiated from big business. Caithness should also seek such boosts from marine and other renewables for the community good. That's why I disagree with the former Energy Minister, Labour's Brian Wilson, who opined some months ago that there will be no more royalty deals like the oil funds from clean energy production. Promoting the arts on a tight budget, as devolved Scotland has to do under the Blair/Brown regime, will need ambition tempered with ingenuity to cash in on all our local assets.
TALKING of local assets, I've secured a member's debate next week on Scottish/Norwegian commercial co-operation. I do recall during the recent elections that one of my opponents, who wasn't local to the North, was rebuked by a member of the audience at the Thurso hustings for smirking when I mentioned Norway. The price of their beer was derided but the enviable lifestyles and incomes of our Norse neighbours can't be ignored.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
LAST Friday we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition in Wick with a charity ball at Pulteney Distillery just as the new Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, who is in charge of alcohol licensing, was warning of imminent action against the promotion of "buy two, get one free" beer offers at cheaper prices than supermarkets sell individual bottles of water.
With all funds raised from the most enjoyable charity ball going to the RNLI, a picture came to my mind of Grace Darling's open boat struggling to reach a distressed ship on a boiling sea of booze. Seriously, the drunkenness involving fishermen and others led the women of the parish to seek prohibition after the First World War. These were the women who at the age of 30 gained the vote in 1918. They were much influenced by the squandering of men's lives in drink and the violence and poverty to families that resulted from that male pub culture.
On the other hand, a fund of stories grew around the ingenious ways of avoiding the ban on liquor. Total abstinence was embraced by some churches and individuals but eventually less strict times returned. The prohibition era in the USA is well known but that in Wick only a local memory. Nevertheless the issue is as alive today as it was then, even if the fishing has long since shrunk to a shadow along with the shoals that were once so plentiful. Today, pubs across the country sell 39 per cent of drink because it's from the supermarkets like Tesco in Wick that 80 per cent of wine, 75 per cent of spirits and 60 per cent of cider is sold as off-sales.
Before you think I'm angling to ban fun or curb people's freedom of enjoyment, let's stop to think about a little-reported Holyrood debate at the end of the last year. It stated: "That the Parliament notes with concern the serious rise in alcohol-related crime figures, released by Northern Constabulary, which show a year-on-year increase in drunkenness, drink-driving, serious assaults and alcohol-related deaths; notes in particular the increase in the number of people being arrested for drunkenness, including the charge of being drunk and incapable..." Former MSP Maureen Macmillan led it and other many Highland members such as Eleanor Scott, Jim Mather and David Petrie took part.
Issues they considered included our Northern European behaviour that emphasises the disruptive effects of drink while Mediterranean folk drink as much but don't behave the same. However, the combination of drinking while you eat is an important moderator of behaviour. Alas, the social habits of eating together around a table, as in Latin countries, are far too infrequently observed in Scotland. Also the consumption of fast food after the booze-up is much more the norm here.
So valuing food for its taste and the congenial company it can bring is part of the answer. Even people playing music in a social scene drink less than the listeners. All the calls for more sports facilities and midnight football and the like are part of a cry for a more balanced lifestyle. Yes, how we enjoy ourselves and what we do with our non-work time is a vital component of our culture, our overall health and how it leads some in the community to anti-social behaviour. If the black picture of police statistics doesn't improve, government action is very likely. I will argue strongly for more carrots than sticks, but it's up to families to change and not blame our young.
LINDA Fabiani, the new SNP Culture Minister, has publicly praised art for art's sake and promised to reduce political interference in publicly supported cultural matters. "There's a balance to be struck, because you cannot censor creativity or you are not really promoting the arts at all," she said in a major interview. This sounds well from the new Culture Minister. Hopefully some of the bright ideas in the SNP manifesto can be delivered fairly soon to offer artists and writers grants equivalent to social security payments to allow them space and time to be creative. I am mindful of the words of my fellow columnist George Gunn, who wrote in the Groat last week, as passionately as ever, that "the history of social success in a place like Caithness shows that it depends on active individuals. Individuals working together for a common purpose are the generators of culture. The arts are the pinnacle of cultural achievement."
That means the government and the council as well as the arts agencies have to ensure the facilities, the show and performance spaces, are available in each area. I believe that Orkney and Shetland residents were able to build better halls and venues due to the oil funds they negotiated from big business. Caithness should also seek such boosts from marine and other renewables for the community good. That's why I disagree with the former Energy Minister, Labour's Brian Wilson, who opined some months ago that there will be no more royalty deals like the oil funds from clean energy production. Promoting the arts on a tight budget, as devolved Scotland has to do under the Blair/Brown regime, will need ambition tempered with ingenuity to cash in on all our local assets.
TALKING of local assets, I've secured a member's debate next week on Scottish/Norwegian commercial co-operation. I do recall during the recent elections that one of my opponents, who wasn't local to the North, was rebuked by a member of the audience at the Thurso hustings for smirking when I mentioned Norway. The price of their beer was derided but the enviable lifestyles and incomes of our Norse neighbours can't be ignored.
Friday, 25 May 2007
Overcoming barriers to business
Published: 25 May, 2007
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
"THIS administration will seek to be fair to all parts of Scotland," said Alex Salmond, the First Minister of the first SNP government.
That means those who live in Caithness have to weigh up what we need to let us flourish and state it loud and clear. I'm glad that the Caithness Partnership and socio-economic forum will be holding a conference later in the year to address these points to Scottish Ministers.
In the presentation of the Scottish government plans announced in Parliament on Wednesday there are huge opportunities for the Caithness economy, whose future success is one part of the prerequisite to fuel other governmental priorities.
That needs a world-class education system with due attention to keeping open viable nurseries, making smaller classes in early years of primary school, ensuring that secondary schools have enough IT equipment, and so on.
A properly funded and respected National Health Service hereabouts needs no more threats of reviews to cut services in Wick. We must get young people into employment as a means of fostering a sense of responsibility and social cohesion so that all those youngsters over 16 years of age not in jobs, in training or at school receive a personal programme to get them into productive work.
The SNP sees barriers to business as barriers to national progress, so SNP policy to abolish business rates for the smallest firms could be a big boost in all our villages and small towns. I found this a most appealing message at the election and within a year we should have agreement with enough parties to have a real change of delivery.
Businessmen and women have a huge role to play in this nation's future. It is the SNP government's role to make their job easier, not harder. But the second part of that priority is just as important as economic growth has to allow all of our citizens to benefit from that wealth. As your regional MSP I relish this task in this four-year term.
*
HAVING a clear Scottish voice to tackle the reserved powers of the London government is also in the news this week.
The UK energy review takes a very different attitude to electricity security than we need to do in Scotland. As an energy-rich nation, Scotland (unlike England) has many options – these must not be squandered by putting our eggs in one expensive basket. Scottish consumers are not so dependent on uncertain supplies of imported gas and we have great opportunities to create far more local networks of supply that do not rely solely on the national grid.
Looking at the Danes for a minute reminds us that they began their 250 combined heat and power systems in many localities. With the streets dug up we can see the benefits snaking out from such a plant at our local distillery in Pulteneytown.
Also the Danes began wind-power developments in a flat landscape when a few local farmers determined to create co-operatives to make a sustainable local power supply. They were not driven by a national scheme that rewards the big players and makes it hard for small ones. Indeed they faced a barrier to such big thinking as there were 48 grids in the country! Their own communities immediately benefited and welcomed that approach.
One thing the SNP government can do is to insist on local energy production proposals being agreed democratically to feed the Scottish Energy Plan. These will also feed into the statutory local plans that guide all planning decisions by the Highland Council and will now be upgraded every five years. So there are very good reasons to demand a say in local energy plan developments. This approach can, instead, take the heat out of arguments that rage across these columns each week.
*
TAKING another look at how we attract more visitors to the far north and west of Scotland is overdue. That's why I welcome wholeheartedly the plans announced for a John Lennon Northern Lights Festival due in the autumn at Durness where the late lamented Beatle spent many youthful holidays.
Knowing the troubles of making the Northlands Festival viable, I applaud Mike Merritt and his team who have taken an idea dreamed up at the start of this year of Highland culture and produced an international bill worthy of putting Durness on the map for reasons far beyond the notorious bombing range.
Having had 132,000 hits on their website in just two days after the launch date speaks volumes. When readers plan their leisure time this is certainly one event to make a date with. Though spend power is limited, I hope you'll find something to make you take the high road to the far north-west.
*
I HOPE that the Caithness socio-economic planners will do much more to attract visitors to come here. I'm glad that local hoteliers like Murray Lamont of Mackay's Hotel, Wick, are looking for collaborations to do just that.
The feeling is that people want to come here to see our wealth of natural attractions and activities such as the world-renowned Thurso surf, and tourism development is one way of encouraging staff made redundant from Dounreay to stay in the area. Making this a happening place is the task. Why should visitors merely pass through en route to Orkney? There is much to savour in our own backyard – yet it is too much of a secret at present.
I believe the new SNP government needs to have a radical look at VisitScotland.com and give local initiatives much more direct access to enquiries. Few tourist operators think the call centre at Livingston does any justice to the great variety of places in Scotland that want to attract new customers. Hearing a rich Caithness accent respond to your enquiries should be a part of that experience.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
"THIS administration will seek to be fair to all parts of Scotland," said Alex Salmond, the First Minister of the first SNP government.
That means those who live in Caithness have to weigh up what we need to let us flourish and state it loud and clear. I'm glad that the Caithness Partnership and socio-economic forum will be holding a conference later in the year to address these points to Scottish Ministers.
In the presentation of the Scottish government plans announced in Parliament on Wednesday there are huge opportunities for the Caithness economy, whose future success is one part of the prerequisite to fuel other governmental priorities.
That needs a world-class education system with due attention to keeping open viable nurseries, making smaller classes in early years of primary school, ensuring that secondary schools have enough IT equipment, and so on.
A properly funded and respected National Health Service hereabouts needs no more threats of reviews to cut services in Wick. We must get young people into employment as a means of fostering a sense of responsibility and social cohesion so that all those youngsters over 16 years of age not in jobs, in training or at school receive a personal programme to get them into productive work.
The SNP sees barriers to business as barriers to national progress, so SNP policy to abolish business rates for the smallest firms could be a big boost in all our villages and small towns. I found this a most appealing message at the election and within a year we should have agreement with enough parties to have a real change of delivery.
Businessmen and women have a huge role to play in this nation's future. It is the SNP government's role to make their job easier, not harder. But the second part of that priority is just as important as economic growth has to allow all of our citizens to benefit from that wealth. As your regional MSP I relish this task in this four-year term.
*
HAVING a clear Scottish voice to tackle the reserved powers of the London government is also in the news this week.
The UK energy review takes a very different attitude to electricity security than we need to do in Scotland. As an energy-rich nation, Scotland (unlike England) has many options – these must not be squandered by putting our eggs in one expensive basket. Scottish consumers are not so dependent on uncertain supplies of imported gas and we have great opportunities to create far more local networks of supply that do not rely solely on the national grid.
Looking at the Danes for a minute reminds us that they began their 250 combined heat and power systems in many localities. With the streets dug up we can see the benefits snaking out from such a plant at our local distillery in Pulteneytown.
Also the Danes began wind-power developments in a flat landscape when a few local farmers determined to create co-operatives to make a sustainable local power supply. They were not driven by a national scheme that rewards the big players and makes it hard for small ones. Indeed they faced a barrier to such big thinking as there were 48 grids in the country! Their own communities immediately benefited and welcomed that approach.
One thing the SNP government can do is to insist on local energy production proposals being agreed democratically to feed the Scottish Energy Plan. These will also feed into the statutory local plans that guide all planning decisions by the Highland Council and will now be upgraded every five years. So there are very good reasons to demand a say in local energy plan developments. This approach can, instead, take the heat out of arguments that rage across these columns each week.
*
TAKING another look at how we attract more visitors to the far north and west of Scotland is overdue. That's why I welcome wholeheartedly the plans announced for a John Lennon Northern Lights Festival due in the autumn at Durness where the late lamented Beatle spent many youthful holidays.
Knowing the troubles of making the Northlands Festival viable, I applaud Mike Merritt and his team who have taken an idea dreamed up at the start of this year of Highland culture and produced an international bill worthy of putting Durness on the map for reasons far beyond the notorious bombing range.
Having had 132,000 hits on their website in just two days after the launch date speaks volumes. When readers plan their leisure time this is certainly one event to make a date with. Though spend power is limited, I hope you'll find something to make you take the high road to the far north-west.
*
I HOPE that the Caithness socio-economic planners will do much more to attract visitors to come here. I'm glad that local hoteliers like Murray Lamont of Mackay's Hotel, Wick, are looking for collaborations to do just that.
The feeling is that people want to come here to see our wealth of natural attractions and activities such as the world-renowned Thurso surf, and tourism development is one way of encouraging staff made redundant from Dounreay to stay in the area. Making this a happening place is the task. Why should visitors merely pass through en route to Orkney? There is much to savour in our own backyard – yet it is too much of a secret at present.
I believe the new SNP government needs to have a radical look at VisitScotland.com and give local initiatives much more direct access to enquiries. Few tourist operators think the call centre at Livingston does any justice to the great variety of places in Scotland that want to attract new customers. Hearing a rich Caithness accent respond to your enquiries should be a part of that experience.
Friday, 11 May 2007
Lessons must be learned after voting fiasco
Published: 11 May, 2007
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
THANKS to a swelling band of you, dear readers, the massively improved SNP vote in the Far North has sent me to Holyrood to serve you for the next four years. It is a privilege in our proportional system to be returned.
After a marathon count first for the constituency, then for the council seats, finally, at around 5.30pm on Friday – some 18 hours afters the polls closed – the Highlands and Islands total was collated to complete the list placings for the nation.
It was a huge relief for tired candidates and officials, but one postponed for a very long half-hour by the most bizarre malfunction of a polling system that had produced many long-predicted problems to plague this year's vote.
The arithmetic of the list votes under the de Hondt system should surely be on a computer program, you would think. But it seems not, for the candidates gathered were presented by the returning officer, Highland Council chief executive Arthur McCourt, with an unbelievable result that gave Lab-our four seats, the Tories two and my partner Eleanor Scott of the Greens a return berth. All present were incredulous, so we asked to see the workings on paper.
My colleague Dave Thompson, an arithmetic prize-winner at school, soon spotted the mistake at the first division that threw out the whole calculation.
After more pencil and paper work, the final figures on the list were three Labour (they had lost their last Highlands and Islands constituency seat), two Tories (they haven't won a seat in this region for many years), and two SNP – myself and my arithmetically acute friend Dave, which the huge SNP list vote indicated.
Lessons must be learned quickly to restore trust in the poll organisers. Surely the basic jobs expected of returning officers should not end with an A4 sheet and peering at eight-point type after most people had little more than three hours' sleep in the previous 48. The implications of a wrong announcement could have led to a court case. They would have denied the SNP its victory over New Labour for days or weeks to come. The momentum of building a new government would have been stalled.
So voters here and across Scotland need answers. Also there were 759 spoilt papers in the Far North list poll. There is a major grievance with the Scotland Office in London and the Lib/Lab Scottish Executive in Edinburgh who allowed big changes in voting procedure to be so shoddily laid out and rearranged. They put in place the national contract for producing and distributing postal ballot papers that left many disenfranchised.
I chased the authorities in some individual cases and have drawn my own interim conclusion that the time allowed to publish the parties contesting the poll and the production and distribution of the papers was far too tight. But it's a lesson that even folk who have had postal votes for many years suffered as much as holiday-goers applying at the last moment.
The Scotland Office minister in London, Douglas Alexander, at whose door this chaos lies, was seen at House of Commons Scottish Questions on TV to blame anyone else he could for the fiasco.
Therefore I wholeheartedly agree with a letter-writer in The Herald this week who pointed out that Mr Alexander was "the same chap who was touring the country telling us we could not manage our own affairs".
*
SINCE the outcome of the historic poll which defeated Scottish Labour for the first time in 50 years, Alex Salmond has been seeking partners and support to form the next government. Whilst we were sworn in two days ago, the Unionist parties are each in turn standing aside from acceptance of the results.
It seems their lack of support for an Alex Salmond-led government would seek to deny the solution to many bread-and-butter issues that we heard Messrs McConnell, Stephen and Miss Goldie trumpet in the whole campaign. Instead the excuse is that the key SNP policy of a referendum in 2010 on Scotland's independence is far more important.
As I campaigned across Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross I found many who want an SNP government to act now on domestic matters and who well understand that the merits of independence could be debated in 2010. What they wanted now was an end to the hated council tax and the liberation of small businesses from swingeing rates, along with action on unfair fuel prices and the wilful neglect of transport, housing and low pay. Uncertainties were commonplace about cash needed for Dounreay decommissioning and the importance of keeping its skilled workers gainfully employed in the North. Folk were saying we need a strong steer from a Scottish government that cares for the area because the DTI in London clearly could not care less.
In short, people vote in elections to seek solutions to pressing issues. As the biggest party chosen by Scottish electors on May 3, 2007, the SNP is committed to tackling these tasks with imagination and fresh ideas. It will be a positive benefit to North voters that so many have told me they want so badly.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
THANKS to a swelling band of you, dear readers, the massively improved SNP vote in the Far North has sent me to Holyrood to serve you for the next four years. It is a privilege in our proportional system to be returned.
After a marathon count first for the constituency, then for the council seats, finally, at around 5.30pm on Friday – some 18 hours afters the polls closed – the Highlands and Islands total was collated to complete the list placings for the nation.
It was a huge relief for tired candidates and officials, but one postponed for a very long half-hour by the most bizarre malfunction of a polling system that had produced many long-predicted problems to plague this year's vote.
The arithmetic of the list votes under the de Hondt system should surely be on a computer program, you would think. But it seems not, for the candidates gathered were presented by the returning officer, Highland Council chief executive Arthur McCourt, with an unbelievable result that gave Lab-our four seats, the Tories two and my partner Eleanor Scott of the Greens a return berth. All present were incredulous, so we asked to see the workings on paper.
My colleague Dave Thompson, an arithmetic prize-winner at school, soon spotted the mistake at the first division that threw out the whole calculation.
After more pencil and paper work, the final figures on the list were three Labour (they had lost their last Highlands and Islands constituency seat), two Tories (they haven't won a seat in this region for many years), and two SNP – myself and my arithmetically acute friend Dave, which the huge SNP list vote indicated.
Lessons must be learned quickly to restore trust in the poll organisers. Surely the basic jobs expected of returning officers should not end with an A4 sheet and peering at eight-point type after most people had little more than three hours' sleep in the previous 48. The implications of a wrong announcement could have led to a court case. They would have denied the SNP its victory over New Labour for days or weeks to come. The momentum of building a new government would have been stalled.
So voters here and across Scotland need answers. Also there were 759 spoilt papers in the Far North list poll. There is a major grievance with the Scotland Office in London and the Lib/Lab Scottish Executive in Edinburgh who allowed big changes in voting procedure to be so shoddily laid out and rearranged. They put in place the national contract for producing and distributing postal ballot papers that left many disenfranchised.
I chased the authorities in some individual cases and have drawn my own interim conclusion that the time allowed to publish the parties contesting the poll and the production and distribution of the papers was far too tight. But it's a lesson that even folk who have had postal votes for many years suffered as much as holiday-goers applying at the last moment.
The Scotland Office minister in London, Douglas Alexander, at whose door this chaos lies, was seen at House of Commons Scottish Questions on TV to blame anyone else he could for the fiasco.
Therefore I wholeheartedly agree with a letter-writer in The Herald this week who pointed out that Mr Alexander was "the same chap who was touring the country telling us we could not manage our own affairs".
*
SINCE the outcome of the historic poll which defeated Scottish Labour for the first time in 50 years, Alex Salmond has been seeking partners and support to form the next government. Whilst we were sworn in two days ago, the Unionist parties are each in turn standing aside from acceptance of the results.
It seems their lack of support for an Alex Salmond-led government would seek to deny the solution to many bread-and-butter issues that we heard Messrs McConnell, Stephen and Miss Goldie trumpet in the whole campaign. Instead the excuse is that the key SNP policy of a referendum in 2010 on Scotland's independence is far more important.
As I campaigned across Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross I found many who want an SNP government to act now on domestic matters and who well understand that the merits of independence could be debated in 2010. What they wanted now was an end to the hated council tax and the liberation of small businesses from swingeing rates, along with action on unfair fuel prices and the wilful neglect of transport, housing and low pay. Uncertainties were commonplace about cash needed for Dounreay decommissioning and the importance of keeping its skilled workers gainfully employed in the North. Folk were saying we need a strong steer from a Scottish government that cares for the area because the DTI in London clearly could not care less.
In short, people vote in elections to seek solutions to pressing issues. As the biggest party chosen by Scottish electors on May 3, 2007, the SNP is committed to tackling these tasks with imagination and fresh ideas. It will be a positive benefit to North voters that so many have told me they want so badly.
Friday, 30 March 2007
Symbols of hope on cancer care
Published: 30 March, 2007
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
I WAS delighted to be photographed with Marie Curie Cancer Care workers at the weekend. Their distinctive yellow daffodil badges are sprouting on lapels while their Fields of Hope are blossoming for real in many communities across the land.
Happily it was sunny for the photo, but the task for which the charity raises funds covers some of the most painful and traumatic health events humans can ever suffer. The Marie Curie terminal care service and campaign for the right to die at home have my full support, and that of many others, according to the postcards they receive.
Scots are not the healthiest people in Europe but, like those of other developed countries, expect longer life as a fact and an aspiration. However, the longer you live, the more likely it is that diseases of older age such as heart conditions, Parkinson's disease, cancers and dementia will have to be planned for and coped with. Nevertheless charities carry a huge burden of care.
I fully back a huge effort to improve our health, much of which means self-help, as well as funding a free NHS to cope with the inevitable. My own minor experience in the past few months with a wee skin cancer on my right ear certainly opened my eyes to hospitals, patients and their treatment today. The healing process is ongoing. So I'm glad we spotted my lesion, thankful for skilled NHS treatment, and ready to buy a broad-brimmed hat while taking regular skin care seriously in future.
I begrudge not a penny of my taxes to keep the health service local. The successful Caithness maternity fight was a success. We must take as much medicine to the people as possible, except for the most serious operations. Let's make sure our taxes are well used right here in Caithness.
*
TALKING of taxes, no sooner had the Chancellor of the Exchequer sat down after his last Budget speech than his spin machine was making false claims. He is showing a new level of desperation to talk down Scotland's economic opportunity. This simply underlines Labour's panic at the success of the SNP's positive campaign and Alex Salmond's correct projection of increased oil revenues from the Scottish North Sea.
The Treasury itself admitted figures in the Budget's Red Book on which Mr Salmond based his forecast that do not support the Chancellor's claim of income offshore falling away. Indeed we should look at Norway, where they have built up an oil fund for future generations that is now worth £190 billion in a short ten years. That's the thinking Scotland needs, and the power to use oil revenues for the post-oil age, not to bankroll illegal wars like Iraq and to pay for son of Trident.
At the weekend the SNP published independent figures confirming that North Sea oil revenues are rising, not falling, and that in the next six years they will be £55 billion compared with £34 billion in the previous six. The figures are provided by the House of Commons library and show that the projected North Sea revenues based on the GDP projections amount to £55 billion for the period 2006/07 to 2011/12.
Scotland's oil wealth is an enormous asset that is growing in value, and no amount of Labour efforts to pull the wool over our eyes can disguise that fact. It is essential that voters understand why this coming election is for high stakes: the sustainable future of Scotland, as proposed by the SNP, or a rake's progress of New Labour in London.
*
SUCCESSFULLY decommissioning Dounreay is acknowledged widely as the key issue facing the Caithness economy. UKAEA, its partner AMEC, HIE and the local socio-economic study all agree. As I said in the Parliament last year, "We need a commitment from HIE and the Enterprise Minister to back a centre of excellence based in Caithness for both the development and export of nuclear decommissioning skills and also to set up a major collaboration with the EMEC centre in Orkney to promote wave and tidal power in the Pentland Firth."
So May 3, 2007, is about electing a new government for Scotland that we can trust to deliver for the Far North. The biggest policy issue we face locally was addressed by Dennis MacLeod, who learned his trade at Dounreay before majoring in the mining world. He summed up the challenge in his book Grasping the Thistle by saying that UHI must gain full university status so as to back local sustainable jobs creation.
He concluded: "Ironic as it is, the prospect of a new era of Scottish success in the field of power generation is arising directly from the failure of a previous dream – the dream of nuclear generation from a fast reactor. Final success may well come not from what man put into the dome on the shore, but from what was sweeping past it, twenty-four hours a day, and has been since the dawn of time!"
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
I WAS delighted to be photographed with Marie Curie Cancer Care workers at the weekend. Their distinctive yellow daffodil badges are sprouting on lapels while their Fields of Hope are blossoming for real in many communities across the land.
Happily it was sunny for the photo, but the task for which the charity raises funds covers some of the most painful and traumatic health events humans can ever suffer. The Marie Curie terminal care service and campaign for the right to die at home have my full support, and that of many others, according to the postcards they receive.
Scots are not the healthiest people in Europe but, like those of other developed countries, expect longer life as a fact and an aspiration. However, the longer you live, the more likely it is that diseases of older age such as heart conditions, Parkinson's disease, cancers and dementia will have to be planned for and coped with. Nevertheless charities carry a huge burden of care.
I fully back a huge effort to improve our health, much of which means self-help, as well as funding a free NHS to cope with the inevitable. My own minor experience in the past few months with a wee skin cancer on my right ear certainly opened my eyes to hospitals, patients and their treatment today. The healing process is ongoing. So I'm glad we spotted my lesion, thankful for skilled NHS treatment, and ready to buy a broad-brimmed hat while taking regular skin care seriously in future.
I begrudge not a penny of my taxes to keep the health service local. The successful Caithness maternity fight was a success. We must take as much medicine to the people as possible, except for the most serious operations. Let's make sure our taxes are well used right here in Caithness.
*
TALKING of taxes, no sooner had the Chancellor of the Exchequer sat down after his last Budget speech than his spin machine was making false claims. He is showing a new level of desperation to talk down Scotland's economic opportunity. This simply underlines Labour's panic at the success of the SNP's positive campaign and Alex Salmond's correct projection of increased oil revenues from the Scottish North Sea.
The Treasury itself admitted figures in the Budget's Red Book on which Mr Salmond based his forecast that do not support the Chancellor's claim of income offshore falling away. Indeed we should look at Norway, where they have built up an oil fund for future generations that is now worth £190 billion in a short ten years. That's the thinking Scotland needs, and the power to use oil revenues for the post-oil age, not to bankroll illegal wars like Iraq and to pay for son of Trident.
At the weekend the SNP published independent figures confirming that North Sea oil revenues are rising, not falling, and that in the next six years they will be £55 billion compared with £34 billion in the previous six. The figures are provided by the House of Commons library and show that the projected North Sea revenues based on the GDP projections amount to £55 billion for the period 2006/07 to 2011/12.
Scotland's oil wealth is an enormous asset that is growing in value, and no amount of Labour efforts to pull the wool over our eyes can disguise that fact. It is essential that voters understand why this coming election is for high stakes: the sustainable future of Scotland, as proposed by the SNP, or a rake's progress of New Labour in London.
*
SUCCESSFULLY decommissioning Dounreay is acknowledged widely as the key issue facing the Caithness economy. UKAEA, its partner AMEC, HIE and the local socio-economic study all agree. As I said in the Parliament last year, "We need a commitment from HIE and the Enterprise Minister to back a centre of excellence based in Caithness for both the development and export of nuclear decommissioning skills and also to set up a major collaboration with the EMEC centre in Orkney to promote wave and tidal power in the Pentland Firth."
So May 3, 2007, is about electing a new government for Scotland that we can trust to deliver for the Far North. The biggest policy issue we face locally was addressed by Dennis MacLeod, who learned his trade at Dounreay before majoring in the mining world. He summed up the challenge in his book Grasping the Thistle by saying that UHI must gain full university status so as to back local sustainable jobs creation.
He concluded: "Ironic as it is, the prospect of a new era of Scottish success in the field of power generation is arising directly from the failure of a previous dream – the dream of nuclear generation from a fast reactor. Final success may well come not from what man put into the dome on the shore, but from what was sweeping past it, twenty-four hours a day, and has been since the dawn of time!"
Friday, 16 March 2007
Ending this rip-off would help us build for the future
Published: 16 March, 2007
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
DON'T tell the children, an "experienced and respected government minister for seven years" has been writing to local newspapers telling voters that the SNP intends to cancel the current or future Highland new school building programmes and, if Jack McConnell repeats it at First Minister's Questions, surely it must be true...
Well, it may be portrayed as yet another fact by New Labour, but the truth is so very different.
So far, Caithness has not been part of the first two helpings of Public/Private Partnership (PPP) school building programmes but Dingwall Academy and many other schools are a good example of being built under this New Labour whizz-bang scheme.
You see, dear readers, the capital cost in 2006/07 prices for the new Dingwall Academy was £29.5 million. If the money was borrowed in the ordinary way it would be 2.5 per cent to four per cent cheaper than the system chosen for hospitals, schools and some water infrastructure by Jack McConnell and Peter Peacock and their cabinet colleagues since 1999.
Over the 30 years' payback time, additional costs on top of the normal interest rates would be between £22.2 million and £35.5m. Don't take my word, that's the Audit Scotland calculations.
So the SNP is saying, we won't halt school building programmes, we will put all our cash requirements for such capital projects together and use a Scottish Fund for Future Investment to get the best rates in the market.
So Labour and the Lib Dems (the latter try to keep their heads down when PPP is discussed) have been lining the pockets of building firms with excess profits and delaying the chances of many other worthy school projects being started in the next 10 years. Thinking about the needs of many communities for refurbished schools, hospitals, etc., the SNP will do it far more economically and end the PPP rip-off. That's something your children could benefit from without them paying the excess costs when they in turn come to pay taxes.
Labour's desperate electoral tactics are no example for a former education minister to set any generation of youngsters. The sooner they are out of government, the better.
*
LONDON-thinking political parties are conjuring up a "Union dividend" for Scots. This was bizarrely manifested by Deputy Enterprise Minister Allan Wilson, who last week countered the SNP case in a debate. He says that Scotland benefits from having an £11 billion "black hole" because we get extra hand-outs from the London Treasury. As any housewife will tell you, having a care for the family budget is much more successful when you balance income and expenditure.
But until Scotland gains the power of independence to raise sensible taxes then we can't decide how much debt to get into. Those who attack the SNP fail to point out that the UK runs on an enormous debt bill. Smaller countries like Scotland with more resources could do much better.
A wee local example of this perverse UK government under which we labour (no pun intended): look at the charges demanded by Parcelforce. I'm indebted to my colleague Fergus Ewing for pursuing this point. The parcel-carrier imposes a separate regime of charges for the Highlands and Islands which it classifies as Zone 2, while England, Wales and other parts of Scotland are in Zone 1. These charges are, of course, considerably higher in Zone 2 than in Zone 1.
Meanwhile, Jim Fitzpatrick MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment Relations and Postal Services at the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in London, has indicated that he approves of these extra charges. This shows that the UK Government acquiesces in the higher charges imposed for one area of the United Kingdom, so the SNP is calling on the Scottish Executive to make representations to Parcelforce and to the DTI to end this discriminatory treatment. Line up, line up for your Union divi...
I've been asking the Scottish Executive what information it has on whether the draft EU postal services directive will impact on the number of sub-post offices and post offices in Scotland, in particular those providing services in sparsely-populated areas and on the islands. I'd also like to know what information the Lib/Lab Executive has on whether and how Scotland will be represented on the regulatory authority provided for in the draft European postal service directive – and also what assessment it has made of the employment consequences.
These are due for answer before the Parliament is dissolved on April 2. But it will be a hot issue in the coming election season. Post offices are used more by older and poorer citizens, yet the scandal of government in London undermining our sub-post offices cannot be forgotten. Labour ministers have taken mail contracts with private delivery firms.
Royal Mail has to compete with its hands tied. No Scottish government with powers over postal services would try to disadvantage scattered, remoter areas and islands. Our geography doesn't change; these problems have to be accommodated.
Surely a principle of equal access to public services and utilities is not too much to ask for. That's what Norway, Ireland, Finland and other smaller countries do to make life in their country areas such high quality. Why not here too?
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
DON'T tell the children, an "experienced and respected government minister for seven years" has been writing to local newspapers telling voters that the SNP intends to cancel the current or future Highland new school building programmes and, if Jack McConnell repeats it at First Minister's Questions, surely it must be true...
Well, it may be portrayed as yet another fact by New Labour, but the truth is so very different.
So far, Caithness has not been part of the first two helpings of Public/Private Partnership (PPP) school building programmes but Dingwall Academy and many other schools are a good example of being built under this New Labour whizz-bang scheme.
You see, dear readers, the capital cost in 2006/07 prices for the new Dingwall Academy was £29.5 million. If the money was borrowed in the ordinary way it would be 2.5 per cent to four per cent cheaper than the system chosen for hospitals, schools and some water infrastructure by Jack McConnell and Peter Peacock and their cabinet colleagues since 1999.
Over the 30 years' payback time, additional costs on top of the normal interest rates would be between £22.2 million and £35.5m. Don't take my word, that's the Audit Scotland calculations.
So the SNP is saying, we won't halt school building programmes, we will put all our cash requirements for such capital projects together and use a Scottish Fund for Future Investment to get the best rates in the market.
So Labour and the Lib Dems (the latter try to keep their heads down when PPP is discussed) have been lining the pockets of building firms with excess profits and delaying the chances of many other worthy school projects being started in the next 10 years. Thinking about the needs of many communities for refurbished schools, hospitals, etc., the SNP will do it far more economically and end the PPP rip-off. That's something your children could benefit from without them paying the excess costs when they in turn come to pay taxes.
Labour's desperate electoral tactics are no example for a former education minister to set any generation of youngsters. The sooner they are out of government, the better.
*
LONDON-thinking political parties are conjuring up a "Union dividend" for Scots. This was bizarrely manifested by Deputy Enterprise Minister Allan Wilson, who last week countered the SNP case in a debate. He says that Scotland benefits from having an £11 billion "black hole" because we get extra hand-outs from the London Treasury. As any housewife will tell you, having a care for the family budget is much more successful when you balance income and expenditure.
But until Scotland gains the power of independence to raise sensible taxes then we can't decide how much debt to get into. Those who attack the SNP fail to point out that the UK runs on an enormous debt bill. Smaller countries like Scotland with more resources could do much better.
A wee local example of this perverse UK government under which we labour (no pun intended): look at the charges demanded by Parcelforce. I'm indebted to my colleague Fergus Ewing for pursuing this point. The parcel-carrier imposes a separate regime of charges for the Highlands and Islands which it classifies as Zone 2, while England, Wales and other parts of Scotland are in Zone 1. These charges are, of course, considerably higher in Zone 2 than in Zone 1.
Meanwhile, Jim Fitzpatrick MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment Relations and Postal Services at the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in London, has indicated that he approves of these extra charges. This shows that the UK Government acquiesces in the higher charges imposed for one area of the United Kingdom, so the SNP is calling on the Scottish Executive to make representations to Parcelforce and to the DTI to end this discriminatory treatment. Line up, line up for your Union divi...
I've been asking the Scottish Executive what information it has on whether the draft EU postal services directive will impact on the number of sub-post offices and post offices in Scotland, in particular those providing services in sparsely-populated areas and on the islands. I'd also like to know what information the Lib/Lab Executive has on whether and how Scotland will be represented on the regulatory authority provided for in the draft European postal service directive – and also what assessment it has made of the employment consequences.
These are due for answer before the Parliament is dissolved on April 2. But it will be a hot issue in the coming election season. Post offices are used more by older and poorer citizens, yet the scandal of government in London undermining our sub-post offices cannot be forgotten. Labour ministers have taken mail contracts with private delivery firms.
Royal Mail has to compete with its hands tied. No Scottish government with powers over postal services would try to disadvantage scattered, remoter areas and islands. Our geography doesn't change; these problems have to be accommodated.
Surely a principle of equal access to public services and utilities is not too much to ask for. That's what Norway, Ireland, Finland and other smaller countries do to make life in their country areas such high quality. Why not here too?
Friday, 16 February 2007
This is no way to treat a loyal workforce
Published: 16 February, 2007
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
AS most Caithnessians know, decommissioning Dounreay is dogged by financial doubts – not because of the skilled workforce, not because the overall plan to clean up the site is flawed, but because the Department of Trade and Industry in London created an unrealistic funding package when it set up the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency in law.
With a £160 million deficit expected in 2007/08, you would think that a major political row would have erupted.
Meanwhile, the main employer in Caithness is at the mercy of a London Labour Government that introduced a dodgy funding package partly reliant on reprocessing income from Sellafield. As we all know, they have more problems with their waste stream on and around the Cumbria site than any other in the UK.
I believe that the UKAEA has gathered a great team to undertake the clean-up at Dounreay. They have to cope with the bad publicity from poor management when the standards of nuclear safety were far too lax in the '50s and '60s. The shaft and the particles issues are part of that legacy. What they and every other decommissioning project don't need is any threat to disperse the 1000 skilled personnel who work for the UKAEA or its many subcontractors who employ hundreds more. A straw in the wind arrived when D. Gow & Son of Lybster folded with the loss of 23 jobs.
Estimates of between 200 and 500 people being laid off in the short term are no way to treat a loyal workforce. There can be no guarantee of any smooth transition to subsequent non-nuclear employment if sections of the staff feel under threat and contemplate migration to other parts of the country. Thankfully the Government in London will have to pay the full cost of the whole process for as long as it takes, but no-one I know wants that prolonged unnecessarily.
Lobbying our London masters is par for the course for a Unionist politician, but it doesn't have to be so. Under devolution today we have to await London's bidding – but a really concerned Enterprise Minister would be badgering London ministers very visibly. However, if Scotland votes SNP in May, and for independence in a subsequent referendum, then the settlement of the Dounreay decommissioning will be a guaranteed part of the agreement between Scotland and London to complete the job thoroughly and on time. So I don't expect to hear Unionists using scaremongering tactics about divorce or separation affecting Dounreay jobs. I'd say we can't rely on London to do a proper job at Dounreay without that big SNP vote. A leading SNP role in Holyrood next time will stop the stalling on a smooth timetable for decommissioning and create the path to new energy jobs in future based in Caithness.
LAST March Scottish Water lost its way and its chairman was sacked by Ross Finnie, the Lib Dem Environment Minister. In a debate initiated by the SNP at that time, I argued that the Government's stewardship of the public water utility needed a shake-up. Eleven months later, a Green Party water debate last week produced a surprise Lib Dem signal of their conversion to a mutual, not-for-profit water company structure. Ross Finnie confirmed it on TV at the weekend. Why did the longest-serving Lib Dem Environment Minister want to change the model for Scottish Water he has so long defended?
A year ago he argued in debate that the Executive has required Scottish Water to produce a new plan which represents good stewardship of Scottish Water in the public and customer interest.
The SNP's unease about the threat of privatisation was first raised in the Holyrood finance committee in 2004. It foresaw the slide to privatisation built into a model that inflates capital values and customer charges. Since then we have seen the corporate status and efficiency of Scottish Water targeted by the Tories who openly trumpet water privatisation as a mutual.
Economists Jim and Margaret Cuthbert lifted the lid on the water model that forces today's customers to pay over 85 per cent of capital investment expected to last 50 years from current charges. Yet appropriate borrowing sources are available to public companies that private firms can't access. So an SNP-led government would open these up and reduce customer costs, unlike the Lib/Lab Executive.
Scotland's public water asset is a huge resource for the nation. SNP ministers would not allow private shareholders to milk us dry. That's why we are suspicious of mutual models proposed by the Tories, welcomed by the CBI and now adopted by the Lib Dems.
Meanwhile, frustration among Scottish Water customers is completely understandable. After no investment over decades under Westminster rule, Scottish Water is playing catch-up. It has achieved much in a short time but at the cost of huge profits for private contractors engaged by Scottish Water, such as United Utilities. That's what Lib Dem talk of mutual status disguises.
So let's say thanks to the Cuthberts when we hear Scottish Water announce below retail price index increases, note that no Lab/Lib minister has denied their analysis, and give the SNP the power to keep Scottish Water truly as an efficient, public company. For those interested in this argument, check out [http://www.cuthbert1.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk] TRAGIC accidents like the one at Delny railway crossing, and many other deaths of young people in cars across Scotland, come at a time when road accidents in total are reducing. Improving the driving skills among young motorists is being seriously addressed. At First Minister's Questions last Thursday I made one suggestion that level-crossing red warning lights should be replaced by the familiar red, amber and green traffic lights. Highland MSPs are set to meet the Transport Minister soon to press for life-saving measures, such as starting with Highway Code education in schools. Also, if cycling proficiency tests were again widely available, both the health of youngsters and their safety could again be part of every school curriculum.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
AS most Caithnessians know, decommissioning Dounreay is dogged by financial doubts – not because of the skilled workforce, not because the overall plan to clean up the site is flawed, but because the Department of Trade and Industry in London created an unrealistic funding package when it set up the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency in law.
With a £160 million deficit expected in 2007/08, you would think that a major political row would have erupted.
Meanwhile, the main employer in Caithness is at the mercy of a London Labour Government that introduced a dodgy funding package partly reliant on reprocessing income from Sellafield. As we all know, they have more problems with their waste stream on and around the Cumbria site than any other in the UK.
I believe that the UKAEA has gathered a great team to undertake the clean-up at Dounreay. They have to cope with the bad publicity from poor management when the standards of nuclear safety were far too lax in the '50s and '60s. The shaft and the particles issues are part of that legacy. What they and every other decommissioning project don't need is any threat to disperse the 1000 skilled personnel who work for the UKAEA or its many subcontractors who employ hundreds more. A straw in the wind arrived when D. Gow & Son of Lybster folded with the loss of 23 jobs.
Estimates of between 200 and 500 people being laid off in the short term are no way to treat a loyal workforce. There can be no guarantee of any smooth transition to subsequent non-nuclear employment if sections of the staff feel under threat and contemplate migration to other parts of the country. Thankfully the Government in London will have to pay the full cost of the whole process for as long as it takes, but no-one I know wants that prolonged unnecessarily.
Lobbying our London masters is par for the course for a Unionist politician, but it doesn't have to be so. Under devolution today we have to await London's bidding – but a really concerned Enterprise Minister would be badgering London ministers very visibly. However, if Scotland votes SNP in May, and for independence in a subsequent referendum, then the settlement of the Dounreay decommissioning will be a guaranteed part of the agreement between Scotland and London to complete the job thoroughly and on time. So I don't expect to hear Unionists using scaremongering tactics about divorce or separation affecting Dounreay jobs. I'd say we can't rely on London to do a proper job at Dounreay without that big SNP vote. A leading SNP role in Holyrood next time will stop the stalling on a smooth timetable for decommissioning and create the path to new energy jobs in future based in Caithness.
LAST March Scottish Water lost its way and its chairman was sacked by Ross Finnie, the Lib Dem Environment Minister. In a debate initiated by the SNP at that time, I argued that the Government's stewardship of the public water utility needed a shake-up. Eleven months later, a Green Party water debate last week produced a surprise Lib Dem signal of their conversion to a mutual, not-for-profit water company structure. Ross Finnie confirmed it on TV at the weekend. Why did the longest-serving Lib Dem Environment Minister want to change the model for Scottish Water he has so long defended?
A year ago he argued in debate that the Executive has required Scottish Water to produce a new plan which represents good stewardship of Scottish Water in the public and customer interest.
The SNP's unease about the threat of privatisation was first raised in the Holyrood finance committee in 2004. It foresaw the slide to privatisation built into a model that inflates capital values and customer charges. Since then we have seen the corporate status and efficiency of Scottish Water targeted by the Tories who openly trumpet water privatisation as a mutual.
Economists Jim and Margaret Cuthbert lifted the lid on the water model that forces today's customers to pay over 85 per cent of capital investment expected to last 50 years from current charges. Yet appropriate borrowing sources are available to public companies that private firms can't access. So an SNP-led government would open these up and reduce customer costs, unlike the Lib/Lab Executive.
Scotland's public water asset is a huge resource for the nation. SNP ministers would not allow private shareholders to milk us dry. That's why we are suspicious of mutual models proposed by the Tories, welcomed by the CBI and now adopted by the Lib Dems.
Meanwhile, frustration among Scottish Water customers is completely understandable. After no investment over decades under Westminster rule, Scottish Water is playing catch-up. It has achieved much in a short time but at the cost of huge profits for private contractors engaged by Scottish Water, such as United Utilities. That's what Lib Dem talk of mutual status disguises.
So let's say thanks to the Cuthberts when we hear Scottish Water announce below retail price index increases, note that no Lab/Lib minister has denied their analysis, and give the SNP the power to keep Scottish Water truly as an efficient, public company. For those interested in this argument, check out [http://www.cuthbert1.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk] TRAGIC accidents like the one at Delny railway crossing, and many other deaths of young people in cars across Scotland, come at a time when road accidents in total are reducing. Improving the driving skills among young motorists is being seriously addressed. At First Minister's Questions last Thursday I made one suggestion that level-crossing red warning lights should be replaced by the familiar red, amber and green traffic lights. Highland MSPs are set to meet the Transport Minister soon to press for life-saving measures, such as starting with Highway Code education in schools. Also, if cycling proficiency tests were again widely available, both the health of youngsters and their safety could again be part of every school curriculum.
Friday, 2 February 2007
NHS needs a healthy dose of democracy
Published: 02 February, 2007
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
WHAT'S the good of the buzz words "community planning" without community decision-making to carry out the priorities people decide?
This week various organisations have made their submissions to HITRANS, the regional transport partnership, about the neglect of Caithness in the outline Highland transport plan. Meanwhile in Parliament, the first stage of a Member's Bill has been debated to ensure that health boards are partly elected to reflect local needs. But would they? And will we ever reduce the numbers of quangos that rule over us?
Firstly, on roads, ferries and trains, the Caithness Transport Forum sensibly called for better, quicker links in, to and from the county. Of course, money doesn't grow on trees, but we need to declare our ambitions boldly. I had a glance at the submissions from south-west Scotland, the Galloway and Dumfries area; they include major projects like the reopening a direct rail route from Carlisle to Stranraer that suffered the Beeching axe in the 1960s. Other rail upgrades are also sought there. Yet up north, HITRANS has ignored the growing clamour for a Dornoch rail link alongside road improvements as key needs for Caithness.
Some £350 million has been spent in the last 30 years on modernising roads and bridging the firths for the A9 north of Inverness. Realistically it would cost a fraction of that road budget to modernise and shorten journey times on a carbon-friendly railway. As I've already said, if we aren't bold we'll be ignored. The gain per minute per pound of investment on the railways will surely speed up and modernise the passenger and freight times compared with unlimited spending on road improvements. Of course, road improvements are needed to make certain sections safer, but road journey times are much harder to shorten whatever the amount of cash invested.
Secondly, concerning a public say in running health boards, the Member's Bill proposed by Glasgow MSP Bill Butler has provoked a big debate in Holyrood about how democratic our modern NHS really is or should be.
During the Caithness maternity crisis, the lack of any appointed members from the county impeded our ability to put the case for Far North health needs. However, due to the concentration of population in the Inverness area, any election to the board of NHS Highland (and Argyll) would need a proportional system that recognises geographical spread. I'll be keeping a close eye on this one.
Sad to say, the BMA, the doctors' union, and the RCN, the main nursing union, are opposed to democratic representation of the "customers". However, the present system allows the executive managers to be members of the very health boards that decide their ultimate policy. The need for non-executives to have the majority input is compelling.
I have always believed that health should be treated as part of local government, but now NHS Highland covers two local council areas. I also believe that the elected element is essential to open up decision-taking to public scrutiny.
But perhaps the community health partnerships, the CHPs, ought to be looked at as well. In our case, North Highland CHP should have more than an elected lay convener. So this debate about democracy in local health delivery offers a chance to challenge the health quangos to meet local expectations. Since patients' organisations have been centralised, I think it is time the public had a greater say in the way the most expensive part of Scottish government services is run.
*
SHOWCASE Scotland was part of the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow last weekend. I was asked to host the seminar and reception that was promoting the Shetland Folk Festival, a venerable 27 years young, Stornoway's 10-year-old Hebridean Celtic Festival, and Blas, the Highland 2007-backed folk event running for nine days in early September that is now in its third year.
It was great to see old friends from the North at the event and to meet festival organisers from Norway, Quebec, Belgium, Germany and Ireland.
The festival's DVD presented pictures and sounds of fine players like Gordon Gunn from Wick. After the event and a top-notch concert by Orkney's Kris Drever I did an impromptu interview with Robbie Mackay of the folk programme on Caithness FM.
We have a big local audience for the Northern Nashville Caithness Country Music Festival held in Halkirk in early April. I'm sure they would enjoy the crossover music of American and Scottish influences that Celtic Connections displayed so well.
In its closing weekend one star attraction is Rosanne Cash, who sings to a sell-out crowd in Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall on Friday 2nd.
The Cash forebears came from near Falkland in Fife and the breadth of folk music's appeal is captured by her music. As Vanity Fair magazine put it, "Cash's dark muse led her from Nashville to New York City, where she has lived since 1990, and her latest gem, Black Cadillac – about the deaths of her father [Johnny Cash], mother, and stepmother over a two-year period – shows her at her introspective best."
Yes indeed, love and death feature in the folk music of every age. I do hope the Caithness country music audience can dip a toe into the next offering of the Blas festival later this year, as the roots of country music stem from songs and tunes carried by people from every part of Scotland to the New World.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
WHAT'S the good of the buzz words "community planning" without community decision-making to carry out the priorities people decide?
This week various organisations have made their submissions to HITRANS, the regional transport partnership, about the neglect of Caithness in the outline Highland transport plan. Meanwhile in Parliament, the first stage of a Member's Bill has been debated to ensure that health boards are partly elected to reflect local needs. But would they? And will we ever reduce the numbers of quangos that rule over us?
Firstly, on roads, ferries and trains, the Caithness Transport Forum sensibly called for better, quicker links in, to and from the county. Of course, money doesn't grow on trees, but we need to declare our ambitions boldly. I had a glance at the submissions from south-west Scotland, the Galloway and Dumfries area; they include major projects like the reopening a direct rail route from Carlisle to Stranraer that suffered the Beeching axe in the 1960s. Other rail upgrades are also sought there. Yet up north, HITRANS has ignored the growing clamour for a Dornoch rail link alongside road improvements as key needs for Caithness.
Some £350 million has been spent in the last 30 years on modernising roads and bridging the firths for the A9 north of Inverness. Realistically it would cost a fraction of that road budget to modernise and shorten journey times on a carbon-friendly railway. As I've already said, if we aren't bold we'll be ignored. The gain per minute per pound of investment on the railways will surely speed up and modernise the passenger and freight times compared with unlimited spending on road improvements. Of course, road improvements are needed to make certain sections safer, but road journey times are much harder to shorten whatever the amount of cash invested.
Secondly, concerning a public say in running health boards, the Member's Bill proposed by Glasgow MSP Bill Butler has provoked a big debate in Holyrood about how democratic our modern NHS really is or should be.
During the Caithness maternity crisis, the lack of any appointed members from the county impeded our ability to put the case for Far North health needs. However, due to the concentration of population in the Inverness area, any election to the board of NHS Highland (and Argyll) would need a proportional system that recognises geographical spread. I'll be keeping a close eye on this one.
Sad to say, the BMA, the doctors' union, and the RCN, the main nursing union, are opposed to democratic representation of the "customers". However, the present system allows the executive managers to be members of the very health boards that decide their ultimate policy. The need for non-executives to have the majority input is compelling.
I have always believed that health should be treated as part of local government, but now NHS Highland covers two local council areas. I also believe that the elected element is essential to open up decision-taking to public scrutiny.
But perhaps the community health partnerships, the CHPs, ought to be looked at as well. In our case, North Highland CHP should have more than an elected lay convener. So this debate about democracy in local health delivery offers a chance to challenge the health quangos to meet local expectations. Since patients' organisations have been centralised, I think it is time the public had a greater say in the way the most expensive part of Scottish government services is run.
*
SHOWCASE Scotland was part of the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow last weekend. I was asked to host the seminar and reception that was promoting the Shetland Folk Festival, a venerable 27 years young, Stornoway's 10-year-old Hebridean Celtic Festival, and Blas, the Highland 2007-backed folk event running for nine days in early September that is now in its third year.
It was great to see old friends from the North at the event and to meet festival organisers from Norway, Quebec, Belgium, Germany and Ireland.
The festival's DVD presented pictures and sounds of fine players like Gordon Gunn from Wick. After the event and a top-notch concert by Orkney's Kris Drever I did an impromptu interview with Robbie Mackay of the folk programme on Caithness FM.
We have a big local audience for the Northern Nashville Caithness Country Music Festival held in Halkirk in early April. I'm sure they would enjoy the crossover music of American and Scottish influences that Celtic Connections displayed so well.
In its closing weekend one star attraction is Rosanne Cash, who sings to a sell-out crowd in Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall on Friday 2nd.
The Cash forebears came from near Falkland in Fife and the breadth of folk music's appeal is captured by her music. As Vanity Fair magazine put it, "Cash's dark muse led her from Nashville to New York City, where she has lived since 1990, and her latest gem, Black Cadillac – about the deaths of her father [Johnny Cash], mother, and stepmother over a two-year period – shows her at her introspective best."
Yes indeed, love and death feature in the folk music of every age. I do hope the Caithness country music audience can dip a toe into the next offering of the Blas festival later this year, as the roots of country music stem from songs and tunes carried by people from every part of Scotland to the New World.
Friday, 19 January 2007
Independence is natural state for small, successful nations
Published: 19 January, 2007
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
LAST week in Parliament I met up with a delegation from NFU Scotland, whose manifesto I fully endorse. It seeks better regulation, less red tape across all government departments, and a level playing field to sell Scottish produce.
Do independent countries put up with inferior imports and grasping supermarket chains? Among our EU neighbours outside Britain, the answer is: definitely not.
It never rains but it pours; whether it's the atrocious weather or the spate of opinion polls, climate change and political change are both kicking in. It's time to think seriously about growing self-belief among Scottish voters, as well as tatties. Calls for an independent Scottish government are not unrelated to the frustrating record of the Labour/Lib Dem government.
It so happens that this week 300 years ago Scotland's landed classes in Edinburgh voted away Scotland's Parliament to forge a Union with England – among them James Dunbar jnr of Hempriggs and the Earl of Sutherland. But also this week in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the restored, eight-year-old Holyrood Parliament there is even more at stake for Scotland's prosperity and sustainable future.
Sophisticated media commentators can't imagine why voters are so frustrated. Let me tell you that SNP MSPs are even more frustrated, because we get dog's abuse from many ministers in Holyrood whether in debate or at question time. The campaign is well under way ahead of the May 3 polls. This tells me that they are wide open. These spokespeople for news media owned and controlled south of the border portray Gordon Brown as the UK's saviour. Meanwhile, the reasons why schooling, health and social issues are still not up to scratch have a lot to do with Gordon clutching the purse strings even more tightly.
Gordon Brown's ambition to be PM in No. 10 has him talk of "shared values". Tell that to the small, scattered communities up north. Let's remember, Scotland is spread over an area half the size of England but with only one eighth of England's population. Yet we are berated as subsidy junkies for spending more on our services than they do in England. Brown et al ignore the "Arc of Prosperity" of small, northern European independent nations like Ireland, Iceland and Norway, all in the top six best places to live in the world. We in Scotland languish at 18th. Why should we?
Holyrood has seen two Lib Dem and Labour coalitions, so it's eight years since we had a change. The one way to get that is an SNP-led government. Polls say this is gaining wide support. I would argue that nowhere more needs SNP vision and action than the North of Scotland.
*
THREE centuries ago, an incorporating Union was foisted on Scotland by bribery and intimidation. Ironically, the so-called Equivalent, the "Union dividend", was basically paid for by Scottish taxes and there was an English army waiting at the border for the "correct" result to be declared in Edinburgh by the parliamentary commissioners, as Scots MSPs were then called.
The people were against it, but they had no right to choose. The nobles who put their signatures to the Treaty of Union were chased though the streets, forced to hide in a cellar to get away from the disgruntled crowds!
In 2007 the SNP offers our people the opportunity to choose progress for Scotland. The SNP trusts the people to make the right decision on Scotland's future. That is why we offer the right to choose independence in a referendum held in the four-year term of an SNP government.
Over 80 per cent of Scots believe that a referendum – putting the people in charge of the process – is the right way to decide Scotland's future. But the London-based parties try to justify denying the people their right to choose independence in that referendum. Why?
Near to our shores is that "Arc of Prosperity" I mentioned earlier. It shows that independence works in the modern world. It is the natural state for the successful nations. To the west is Ireland, to the east is Norway and north, north-west of Dunnet Head is Iceland. All are smaller than Scotland, all have gained their independence in the last century, and all three are now among the top half-dozen nations on the planet in terms of wealth per head. They are the model for Scotland economically and also in cultural, environmental and social terms.
We also deserve the right to choose a new and positive relationship with the other nations of these isles. Such a new partnership of equals should be designed for the Scotland of today and tomorrow, not the Scotland of 1707.
*
CRAWFORD Beveridge, who was chief executive of Scottish Enterprise for nine years to 2000, said recently that during his days at Scottish Enterprise "our numbers about Scotland's finances came down in favour of fiscal independence"; and that the claims about a deficit in Scotland are "illogical" and "offensive". He believes that "independence could focus the minds of politicians to create the conditions for economic growth, which would translate to better jobs, higher wages and stronger communities"; and his opinion on independence is based on his "confidence that Scotland is just as capable of running its own affairs as any other country".
Mr Beveridge, who today is a top executive of Sun Microsystems of California, reminded us that on May 3 what we are voting for is our confidence in one of the political parties to be in power for the next four years. The question is who will represent our hopes for the future and help lead us to a more prosperous Scotland. Personally, said the former CEO of Scottish Enterprise, "I believe that leader could be Alex Salmond."
You just wonder if the leaders of Highlands and Islands Enterprise have reached the same conclusion.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
LAST week in Parliament I met up with a delegation from NFU Scotland, whose manifesto I fully endorse. It seeks better regulation, less red tape across all government departments, and a level playing field to sell Scottish produce.
Do independent countries put up with inferior imports and grasping supermarket chains? Among our EU neighbours outside Britain, the answer is: definitely not.
It never rains but it pours; whether it's the atrocious weather or the spate of opinion polls, climate change and political change are both kicking in. It's time to think seriously about growing self-belief among Scottish voters, as well as tatties. Calls for an independent Scottish government are not unrelated to the frustrating record of the Labour/Lib Dem government.
It so happens that this week 300 years ago Scotland's landed classes in Edinburgh voted away Scotland's Parliament to forge a Union with England – among them James Dunbar jnr of Hempriggs and the Earl of Sutherland. But also this week in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the restored, eight-year-old Holyrood Parliament there is even more at stake for Scotland's prosperity and sustainable future.
Sophisticated media commentators can't imagine why voters are so frustrated. Let me tell you that SNP MSPs are even more frustrated, because we get dog's abuse from many ministers in Holyrood whether in debate or at question time. The campaign is well under way ahead of the May 3 polls. This tells me that they are wide open. These spokespeople for news media owned and controlled south of the border portray Gordon Brown as the UK's saviour. Meanwhile, the reasons why schooling, health and social issues are still not up to scratch have a lot to do with Gordon clutching the purse strings even more tightly.
Gordon Brown's ambition to be PM in No. 10 has him talk of "shared values". Tell that to the small, scattered communities up north. Let's remember, Scotland is spread over an area half the size of England but with only one eighth of England's population. Yet we are berated as subsidy junkies for spending more on our services than they do in England. Brown et al ignore the "Arc of Prosperity" of small, northern European independent nations like Ireland, Iceland and Norway, all in the top six best places to live in the world. We in Scotland languish at 18th. Why should we?
Holyrood has seen two Lib Dem and Labour coalitions, so it's eight years since we had a change. The one way to get that is an SNP-led government. Polls say this is gaining wide support. I would argue that nowhere more needs SNP vision and action than the North of Scotland.
*
THREE centuries ago, an incorporating Union was foisted on Scotland by bribery and intimidation. Ironically, the so-called Equivalent, the "Union dividend", was basically paid for by Scottish taxes and there was an English army waiting at the border for the "correct" result to be declared in Edinburgh by the parliamentary commissioners, as Scots MSPs were then called.
The people were against it, but they had no right to choose. The nobles who put their signatures to the Treaty of Union were chased though the streets, forced to hide in a cellar to get away from the disgruntled crowds!
In 2007 the SNP offers our people the opportunity to choose progress for Scotland. The SNP trusts the people to make the right decision on Scotland's future. That is why we offer the right to choose independence in a referendum held in the four-year term of an SNP government.
Over 80 per cent of Scots believe that a referendum – putting the people in charge of the process – is the right way to decide Scotland's future. But the London-based parties try to justify denying the people their right to choose independence in that referendum. Why?
Near to our shores is that "Arc of Prosperity" I mentioned earlier. It shows that independence works in the modern world. It is the natural state for the successful nations. To the west is Ireland, to the east is Norway and north, north-west of Dunnet Head is Iceland. All are smaller than Scotland, all have gained their independence in the last century, and all three are now among the top half-dozen nations on the planet in terms of wealth per head. They are the model for Scotland economically and also in cultural, environmental and social terms.
We also deserve the right to choose a new and positive relationship with the other nations of these isles. Such a new partnership of equals should be designed for the Scotland of today and tomorrow, not the Scotland of 1707.
*
CRAWFORD Beveridge, who was chief executive of Scottish Enterprise for nine years to 2000, said recently that during his days at Scottish Enterprise "our numbers about Scotland's finances came down in favour of fiscal independence"; and that the claims about a deficit in Scotland are "illogical" and "offensive". He believes that "independence could focus the minds of politicians to create the conditions for economic growth, which would translate to better jobs, higher wages and stronger communities"; and his opinion on independence is based on his "confidence that Scotland is just as capable of running its own affairs as any other country".
Mr Beveridge, who today is a top executive of Sun Microsystems of California, reminded us that on May 3 what we are voting for is our confidence in one of the political parties to be in power for the next four years. The question is who will represent our hopes for the future and help lead us to a more prosperous Scotland. Personally, said the former CEO of Scottish Enterprise, "I believe that leader could be Alex Salmond."
You just wonder if the leaders of Highlands and Islands Enterprise have reached the same conclusion.
Friday, 5 January 2007
McRae's vision for crofting counties holds true today
Published: 05 January, 2007
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
TODAY we live in one of the officially designated crofting counties, even though there are fewer crofters than 30 years ago and crofting has less impact. And yet the issues of 30 years ago have still to be resolved.
In 1974 the SNP held Moray and Nairn, the Western Isles and Argyll; it was a close second in Inverness-shire, Ross-shire and Caithness and Sutherland. But Willie McRae, the SNP's Ross-shire firebrand, wasn't just a fine campaigner – his long experience helped to fashion the party's policy for the crofting counties.
Giving it a read again this holiday week, I find it's as fresh now as in the full flush of those boom years for Dounreay and the oil industry.
He wrote that it was impossible to look seriously at crofting without considering the whole fabric of life in the crofting counties. His guiding purposes for the SNP policy sought to restore the ability, the power, the will and the resources to rebuild depleted economic and social life. That was before the rise of Inverness, or the broadband revolution, or the prospects for the second renewable energy revolution of wind, wave and tides. It did recognise that in the long term you can't rely on large single industries to underpin an area's future. The experiences of Dounreay, the Invergordon smelter and the Fort William pulp mill were to bear that out, while the oil industry has contracted and reshaped to its present impact such as the pipe works at Wester and the new exploration base at Lybster, while the Beatrice oilfield is now a base for offshore wind power.
SNP policy in the 1970s wanted to build on successful hydro-electricity, the first green power. Then the lairds and the country-sports lobby were the objectors. Today there is far too little local consent and ownership of clean power projects – witness the many wind-farm debacles around Caithness. With a Scottish energy strategy and locally-agreed Clean Energy Plans, we can harness this power for local needs. That's what Norwegian communities have done, as visitors to Norway with the West Norway/Highland partnership have seen recently. Local municipalities recycled the revenues from supplying their own needs and selling the surplus to the national grid. So the SNP believes that locals should have the power to harness multinational businesses to help with the technology but for the major benefactors to be us, not just faraway shareholders, the Crown Estate and absentee lairds.
The 1970s SNP policy called for practical, radical land reform.
Under today's partial land reform laws, which were only passed due to the existence of the Scottish Parliament, we are starting to catch on. But few crofting communities have bought out their land except in the islands and in north Sutherland. In Caithness many of us still see our children choose to seek a life elsewhere because land for house-building is so expensive and local capital is still scarce. Willie McRae clearly saw that need to build up and extend crofting, partly to allow more people to have homes here, but also to see more local food production. These are just as urgent priorities in 2007.
There were hopes 30 years ago in SNP policy for the educational and social background in which Gaelic language and Norse dialects of different areas could be revived and could flourish, be living, working languages in daily use, and take their place in the multiple strands of Scottish culture. Excitingly, the success of Gaelic education has improved where parents wish to see this and there has been a huge boost to our native musical traditions through the Fèisean movement and its local equivalents like the Wick Traditional Music Workshops. These were all begun locally before gaining Scottish government support. In an unsettled world, the attraction of a strong-rooted culture will be even more essential for the future confidence and self-esteem of young Scots of whatever origin.
Above all, Willie McRae's policy saw the need to provide the crofting counties with the resources in land, in cash and in people to make the rebuilding of the Highlands after centuries of depopulation a vibrant reality. He saw this going hand in hand with integrating the North into the mainstream of Scotland's social, educational, agricultural and industrial life. We still need an injection of professional jobs in legal services, medicine and the energy sciences to meet the needs of our far-flung communities.
In this new year, the UHI will move ever closer to becoming a fully-fledged collegiate university. North Highland College will be a bastion of its dispersed structure. Recognising that the Highlands are an example to the rest of Scotland, the Scottish government has supported the celebration of 2007 as the Scottish Year of Highland Culture.
What we need to "take off" is more of that consistent vision that the SNP saw possible three decades ago and have it applied today. Each part of the nation can support many more working families, not just in cities like Inverness but by using our priceless natural resources here in Caithness to build satisfying lives. To get the cash and backing for local prosperity we need Holyrood to have full tax-raising powers. We need a national renewable energy strategy that puts communities at the centre of the action, and we need rail and road links fit for this climate-change age.
Don't let another 30 years pass when you can soon vote and demand a big say in the achievement of these essential goals to sustain the Far North's future. A Guid New Year tae ane and a'.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
TODAY we live in one of the officially designated crofting counties, even though there are fewer crofters than 30 years ago and crofting has less impact. And yet the issues of 30 years ago have still to be resolved.
In 1974 the SNP held Moray and Nairn, the Western Isles and Argyll; it was a close second in Inverness-shire, Ross-shire and Caithness and Sutherland. But Willie McRae, the SNP's Ross-shire firebrand, wasn't just a fine campaigner – his long experience helped to fashion the party's policy for the crofting counties.
Giving it a read again this holiday week, I find it's as fresh now as in the full flush of those boom years for Dounreay and the oil industry.
He wrote that it was impossible to look seriously at crofting without considering the whole fabric of life in the crofting counties. His guiding purposes for the SNP policy sought to restore the ability, the power, the will and the resources to rebuild depleted economic and social life. That was before the rise of Inverness, or the broadband revolution, or the prospects for the second renewable energy revolution of wind, wave and tides. It did recognise that in the long term you can't rely on large single industries to underpin an area's future. The experiences of Dounreay, the Invergordon smelter and the Fort William pulp mill were to bear that out, while the oil industry has contracted and reshaped to its present impact such as the pipe works at Wester and the new exploration base at Lybster, while the Beatrice oilfield is now a base for offshore wind power.
SNP policy in the 1970s wanted to build on successful hydro-electricity, the first green power. Then the lairds and the country-sports lobby were the objectors. Today there is far too little local consent and ownership of clean power projects – witness the many wind-farm debacles around Caithness. With a Scottish energy strategy and locally-agreed Clean Energy Plans, we can harness this power for local needs. That's what Norwegian communities have done, as visitors to Norway with the West Norway/Highland partnership have seen recently. Local municipalities recycled the revenues from supplying their own needs and selling the surplus to the national grid. So the SNP believes that locals should have the power to harness multinational businesses to help with the technology but for the major benefactors to be us, not just faraway shareholders, the Crown Estate and absentee lairds.
The 1970s SNP policy called for practical, radical land reform.
Under today's partial land reform laws, which were only passed due to the existence of the Scottish Parliament, we are starting to catch on. But few crofting communities have bought out their land except in the islands and in north Sutherland. In Caithness many of us still see our children choose to seek a life elsewhere because land for house-building is so expensive and local capital is still scarce. Willie McRae clearly saw that need to build up and extend crofting, partly to allow more people to have homes here, but also to see more local food production. These are just as urgent priorities in 2007.
There were hopes 30 years ago in SNP policy for the educational and social background in which Gaelic language and Norse dialects of different areas could be revived and could flourish, be living, working languages in daily use, and take their place in the multiple strands of Scottish culture. Excitingly, the success of Gaelic education has improved where parents wish to see this and there has been a huge boost to our native musical traditions through the Fèisean movement and its local equivalents like the Wick Traditional Music Workshops. These were all begun locally before gaining Scottish government support. In an unsettled world, the attraction of a strong-rooted culture will be even more essential for the future confidence and self-esteem of young Scots of whatever origin.
Above all, Willie McRae's policy saw the need to provide the crofting counties with the resources in land, in cash and in people to make the rebuilding of the Highlands after centuries of depopulation a vibrant reality. He saw this going hand in hand with integrating the North into the mainstream of Scotland's social, educational, agricultural and industrial life. We still need an injection of professional jobs in legal services, medicine and the energy sciences to meet the needs of our far-flung communities.
In this new year, the UHI will move ever closer to becoming a fully-fledged collegiate university. North Highland College will be a bastion of its dispersed structure. Recognising that the Highlands are an example to the rest of Scotland, the Scottish government has supported the celebration of 2007 as the Scottish Year of Highland Culture.
What we need to "take off" is more of that consistent vision that the SNP saw possible three decades ago and have it applied today. Each part of the nation can support many more working families, not just in cities like Inverness but by using our priceless natural resources here in Caithness to build satisfying lives. To get the cash and backing for local prosperity we need Holyrood to have full tax-raising powers. We need a national renewable energy strategy that puts communities at the centre of the action, and we need rail and road links fit for this climate-change age.
Don't let another 30 years pass when you can soon vote and demand a big say in the achievement of these essential goals to sustain the Far North's future. A Guid New Year tae ane and a'.
Friday, 22 December 2006
Culture needs funding in order to flourish
Published: 22 December, 2006
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
IT would be a very odd festive season without songs and music. Every shopping trip is accompanied by "Jingle Bells" and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". We get Nativity plays in primary school, carol concerts and, for the more energetic, dances and clubbing.
All rely on popular music. Even the Parliament has a big Christmas celebration this week with lots of music and poetry, both secular and spiritual.
But it's the awakening of young minds and voices that's most fun. Along with lots of parents and friends we gathered on a blustery, soaking night in Dunbeath community hall earlier this month to hear the children of Dunbeath and Lybster primary schools sing the chorus numbers of a new production. The book Butcher's Broom by the famous local author Neil M. Gunn is being made into a musical by the Grey Coast Theatre Company. The youngsters' enthusiastic singing was rehearsed in under two weeks. New tunes were composed by accordionist Andy Thorburn to new words by George Gunn.
Between them they created the big chorus parts and are anticipating further developments of the project next year with the storyline from Neil Gunn's characters picked out in song. But will there be funds to let Caithness arts flourish?
Creativity, performance and exhibition space for artistic efforts all cost money. Just like a plumber, you can't get cultural endeavour for nothing. What has to be agreed is that paying to let culture flourish is as important – even more so, some say – as mending burst pipes. It's not an alternative, nor is spending the sums on nurses and doctors. The therapeutic effects of a great performance or exhibition can be an inspiration, a pick-me-up, or just great fun compared to a trip to the chemists. So the recent seminar on Caithness arts sought to ensure that funding from national and local sources finds its way to the Far North.
All this clearing of throats and limbering up of local talent goes on against the backdrop of our Culture Minister, Patricia Ferguson, launching a Culture Bill. For seven years this Lab/Lib government has been consulting on cultural matters. The Culture Commission of 2005 spent a year and £500,000 to make lofty pronouncements with little substance. Now it is down to the wire. They can't consult any more. They will fund the national classical companies directly along with the National Theatre and a new body, Creative Scotland, will merge the middle-aged Scottish Arts Council with the younger Scottish Screen to administer all other art forms and offer cultural entitlements to all.
It remains to be seen if Parliament has time to complete this bill before dissolution in April next year and if the incoming government has other ideas.
*
I WAS asked to say a few words of introduction at the recent and highly successful Scots Trad Music Awards in Fort William. My "unexplained" appearance instead of the Culture Minister, Patricia Ferguson, was requested a day or two beforehand by Hands Up For Trad maestro Simon Thoumire as Ms Ferguson couldn't be present.
I wondered why, especially as news broke a day later that the Minister had authorised a huge debt write-off for two national classical music companies. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra had £1.4 million written off and Scottish Ballet £300,000 to give them a "clean slate". Then I thought on the words of Sheena Wellington, whose singing of "A Man's a Man for a' That" was the electric moment as Parliament opened in Edinburgh in 1999. In Fort William she introduced the Scots Traditional Music Hall of Fame, saying how she applauded every penny of support for folk music from the government but she would still be asking "on her deathbed" for adequate investment.
So I framed an intervention for the next instalment of First Minister's Questions. Alas it wasn't taken. But the gist was a hope that Jack McConnell could assure us of increased investment in the success of contemporary traditional music organisations, such as the highly successful Fèisean nan Gàidheal which was named as Community Project of the Year at the awards in Fort William. They rely largely on hundreds of volunteers to bring on thousands of young musicians, but will they receive as generous funding through Creative Scotland as do the national companies whose debt write-off was authorised once again by this government?
The local equivalent is the Wick Traditional Music Workshop. Are there ever enough funds to back the popularity of playing contemporary music, traditional or otherwise?
*
CAMPAIGNERS are urging MSPs to support Scots language culture by singing "Auld Lang Syne" this Hogmanay. The director of the Scots Language Centre, Michael Hance, has called on MSPs to do more to recognise the cultural value of Scotland's traditional language and dialects. At this time of year, when the whole world is joining in the singing of this Scots language anthem, it is important that MSPs and other revellers should think about the words and where they come from.
As convener of the Cross-Party Group on the Scots Language I hope when MSPs sing "Auld Lang Syne" this New Year's Eve they will stop to think about the lack of official support for Scots. I am calling on the Executive to give Scots dialect speakers an early Christmas present by publishing its languages strategy.
For anyone who struggles to remember the words to "Auld Lang Syne", the Scots Language Resource Centre has made them available on its website at http://www.scotslanguage.com. There's even a karaoke version on this site, so there's no excuse for not joining in.
I'm sure you all deserve a restful seasonal break. Enjoy Christmas and have a peaceful, healthy and successful New Year.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
IT would be a very odd festive season without songs and music. Every shopping trip is accompanied by "Jingle Bells" and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". We get Nativity plays in primary school, carol concerts and, for the more energetic, dances and clubbing.
All rely on popular music. Even the Parliament has a big Christmas celebration this week with lots of music and poetry, both secular and spiritual.
But it's the awakening of young minds and voices that's most fun. Along with lots of parents and friends we gathered on a blustery, soaking night in Dunbeath community hall earlier this month to hear the children of Dunbeath and Lybster primary schools sing the chorus numbers of a new production. The book Butcher's Broom by the famous local author Neil M. Gunn is being made into a musical by the Grey Coast Theatre Company. The youngsters' enthusiastic singing was rehearsed in under two weeks. New tunes were composed by accordionist Andy Thorburn to new words by George Gunn.
Between them they created the big chorus parts and are anticipating further developments of the project next year with the storyline from Neil Gunn's characters picked out in song. But will there be funds to let Caithness arts flourish?
Creativity, performance and exhibition space for artistic efforts all cost money. Just like a plumber, you can't get cultural endeavour for nothing. What has to be agreed is that paying to let culture flourish is as important – even more so, some say – as mending burst pipes. It's not an alternative, nor is spending the sums on nurses and doctors. The therapeutic effects of a great performance or exhibition can be an inspiration, a pick-me-up, or just great fun compared to a trip to the chemists. So the recent seminar on Caithness arts sought to ensure that funding from national and local sources finds its way to the Far North.
All this clearing of throats and limbering up of local talent goes on against the backdrop of our Culture Minister, Patricia Ferguson, launching a Culture Bill. For seven years this Lab/Lib government has been consulting on cultural matters. The Culture Commission of 2005 spent a year and £500,000 to make lofty pronouncements with little substance. Now it is down to the wire. They can't consult any more. They will fund the national classical companies directly along with the National Theatre and a new body, Creative Scotland, will merge the middle-aged Scottish Arts Council with the younger Scottish Screen to administer all other art forms and offer cultural entitlements to all.
It remains to be seen if Parliament has time to complete this bill before dissolution in April next year and if the incoming government has other ideas.
*
I WAS asked to say a few words of introduction at the recent and highly successful Scots Trad Music Awards in Fort William. My "unexplained" appearance instead of the Culture Minister, Patricia Ferguson, was requested a day or two beforehand by Hands Up For Trad maestro Simon Thoumire as Ms Ferguson couldn't be present.
I wondered why, especially as news broke a day later that the Minister had authorised a huge debt write-off for two national classical music companies. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra had £1.4 million written off and Scottish Ballet £300,000 to give them a "clean slate". Then I thought on the words of Sheena Wellington, whose singing of "A Man's a Man for a' That" was the electric moment as Parliament opened in Edinburgh in 1999. In Fort William she introduced the Scots Traditional Music Hall of Fame, saying how she applauded every penny of support for folk music from the government but she would still be asking "on her deathbed" for adequate investment.
So I framed an intervention for the next instalment of First Minister's Questions. Alas it wasn't taken. But the gist was a hope that Jack McConnell could assure us of increased investment in the success of contemporary traditional music organisations, such as the highly successful Fèisean nan Gàidheal which was named as Community Project of the Year at the awards in Fort William. They rely largely on hundreds of volunteers to bring on thousands of young musicians, but will they receive as generous funding through Creative Scotland as do the national companies whose debt write-off was authorised once again by this government?
The local equivalent is the Wick Traditional Music Workshop. Are there ever enough funds to back the popularity of playing contemporary music, traditional or otherwise?
*
CAMPAIGNERS are urging MSPs to support Scots language culture by singing "Auld Lang Syne" this Hogmanay. The director of the Scots Language Centre, Michael Hance, has called on MSPs to do more to recognise the cultural value of Scotland's traditional language and dialects. At this time of year, when the whole world is joining in the singing of this Scots language anthem, it is important that MSPs and other revellers should think about the words and where they come from.
As convener of the Cross-Party Group on the Scots Language I hope when MSPs sing "Auld Lang Syne" this New Year's Eve they will stop to think about the lack of official support for Scots. I am calling on the Executive to give Scots dialect speakers an early Christmas present by publishing its languages strategy.
For anyone who struggles to remember the words to "Auld Lang Syne", the Scots Language Resource Centre has made them available on its website at http://www.scotslanguage.com. There's even a karaoke version on this site, so there's no excuse for not joining in.
I'm sure you all deserve a restful seasonal break. Enjoy Christmas and have a peaceful, healthy and successful New Year.
Friday, 8 December 2006
We need a leader – not a follower
Published: 08 December, 2006
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
FACING the dangers of modern life, there's a clear difference of perspective between small nations and the self-important world policemen.
Unveiling the worst-kept secret over nuclear rearmament, Tony Blair insists Britain needs the son of Trident.
Here in Scotland, Jack McConnell had previously called for a major debate. He insisted his mind was open. Until this week, that is, when in a belated statement the First Minister complied with orders from London and supported the replacement of Trident. This action shows that Scotland needs a leader, not a follower, and that the Scottish First Minister has simply rolled over for the UK Prime Minister.
It's a dangerous world of double standards. Iran and North Korea can't have them, but the UK and USA must have them. How can any moral argument about international co-operation and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction be conducted successfully? How can the PM pretend that we have an independent nuclear deterrent when he knows through his "special relationship" with America that Britain could never fire these weapons without US say-so?
Plainly, US Middle East policy is turning in desperation towards talk with previously sworn enemies like Syria and Iran because the stability of the region needs all parties on board. That's because the tinderbox that is Iraq will not be doused by the nuclear option, nor will global terrorism and the development of post-oil economies thanks to record purchases of UK, French, German and US armaments by dictatorial governments like the Saudis.
Scotland has the dubious privilege of hosting the UK missile base on the Clyde. The dangers of accidents apart, surely the obvious needs of post-industrial Clydeside are for our share of the £25 billion to replace the 10,000 dependent jobs in and around Faslane with productive, peaceful employment. In Holyrood we always hear Labour members say jobs must not be jeopardised.
But economies change and whole new possibilities open up. Before any decision is made in London, Scots will have the opportunity to vote out son of Trident. Not by voting Lib Dem – they just want to cut the number of missiles by half and postpone the decision by eight years – but by arguing that far too little cash is spent on Scotland's real defence needs. Scrap Trident and save our regiments, I'd say, and help peacemaking and peacekeeping under UN auspices.
*
LAST week a shameful, half-baked decision was taken by Labour and Lib Dem MSPs. They voted for the Bankruptcy and Diligence Bill that would allow, among other things, for the sequestration of a person's home if they were in debt to the tune of £3001 and to set up a Scottish Civil Enforcement Commission, another expensive quango.
Jamie Stone protested that the Enterprise Committee had made "carefully weighed-up deliberations" so that last-minute amendments should be disregarded. Yet the last-minute amendments were backed by Citizens' Advice Scotland, sheriff officers, and even an editorial in The Herald.
If you were a Farepak loser who then splashed out to give the kids their Christmas by taking loans bought from unscrupulous lenders then you could end up in court for debt of sums of less than £3000 but including the interest that then exceeds that sum. In fact, you could lose your house and still have lots of debts to pay in certain circumstances.
Of course, bankrupts lose their property and all other possessions but they then are free from debt. So we have a Lib Dem and Labour government keen to make it easier to cope with bankruptcy but allowing minor debtors to lose out. What is missing is the power to control consumer credit, because that is at present a reserved matter to London. The compelling argument is to control the causes of debt as well as the results here in Scotland.
*
COUNCIL housing remains just that after the sound and fury of the stock transfer debate. After Highland said "no" an overwhelming number in Inverclyde voted for change. There were exceptions here, as Caithness and Skye voted for change but were drowned out by the aggregate.
I have already stated that the main problem is one of trust. Everyone can see that Glasgow Housing Association has not led to secondary transfer to local housing associations. Tenants here did not lead the demand for a better deal. It is Gordon Brown meddling in Scottish services with Jack McConnell and Nicol Stephen's blessings. He promised debt write-off plus bribes to tenants of new bathrooms and more house-building if they voted "yes".
So why did Caithness tenants vote "yes"? I suggest they want change, they can see the need to break the log jam of council control from Inverness, and for a variety of reasons they did not like the opinions of tenants' leaders in Inverness, Ross-shire and Sutherland being foisted on Caithness voters. The result is stalemate.
Affordable homes are the number one priority, but it is clear this government is not prepared to build them. So if you can't be assured of a home, why bother staying if you are young and mobile? Once again the McConnell/Stephen government hasn't the will to meet such crying needs for the future of this part of the country.
WICK Accordion and Fiddle Club was the worthy winner of Club of the Year title at the Scots Trad Music Awards 2006. I shared the club's delight in an audience from all over the country in the Nevis Centre. Let's give them another round of applause; to be precise in Mackay's Hotel, on the third Tuesday of the month, from September to May.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
FACING the dangers of modern life, there's a clear difference of perspective between small nations and the self-important world policemen.
Unveiling the worst-kept secret over nuclear rearmament, Tony Blair insists Britain needs the son of Trident.
Here in Scotland, Jack McConnell had previously called for a major debate. He insisted his mind was open. Until this week, that is, when in a belated statement the First Minister complied with orders from London and supported the replacement of Trident. This action shows that Scotland needs a leader, not a follower, and that the Scottish First Minister has simply rolled over for the UK Prime Minister.
It's a dangerous world of double standards. Iran and North Korea can't have them, but the UK and USA must have them. How can any moral argument about international co-operation and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction be conducted successfully? How can the PM pretend that we have an independent nuclear deterrent when he knows through his "special relationship" with America that Britain could never fire these weapons without US say-so?
Plainly, US Middle East policy is turning in desperation towards talk with previously sworn enemies like Syria and Iran because the stability of the region needs all parties on board. That's because the tinderbox that is Iraq will not be doused by the nuclear option, nor will global terrorism and the development of post-oil economies thanks to record purchases of UK, French, German and US armaments by dictatorial governments like the Saudis.
Scotland has the dubious privilege of hosting the UK missile base on the Clyde. The dangers of accidents apart, surely the obvious needs of post-industrial Clydeside are for our share of the £25 billion to replace the 10,000 dependent jobs in and around Faslane with productive, peaceful employment. In Holyrood we always hear Labour members say jobs must not be jeopardised.
But economies change and whole new possibilities open up. Before any decision is made in London, Scots will have the opportunity to vote out son of Trident. Not by voting Lib Dem – they just want to cut the number of missiles by half and postpone the decision by eight years – but by arguing that far too little cash is spent on Scotland's real defence needs. Scrap Trident and save our regiments, I'd say, and help peacemaking and peacekeeping under UN auspices.
*
LAST week a shameful, half-baked decision was taken by Labour and Lib Dem MSPs. They voted for the Bankruptcy and Diligence Bill that would allow, among other things, for the sequestration of a person's home if they were in debt to the tune of £3001 and to set up a Scottish Civil Enforcement Commission, another expensive quango.
Jamie Stone protested that the Enterprise Committee had made "carefully weighed-up deliberations" so that last-minute amendments should be disregarded. Yet the last-minute amendments were backed by Citizens' Advice Scotland, sheriff officers, and even an editorial in The Herald.
If you were a Farepak loser who then splashed out to give the kids their Christmas by taking loans bought from unscrupulous lenders then you could end up in court for debt of sums of less than £3000 but including the interest that then exceeds that sum. In fact, you could lose your house and still have lots of debts to pay in certain circumstances.
Of course, bankrupts lose their property and all other possessions but they then are free from debt. So we have a Lib Dem and Labour government keen to make it easier to cope with bankruptcy but allowing minor debtors to lose out. What is missing is the power to control consumer credit, because that is at present a reserved matter to London. The compelling argument is to control the causes of debt as well as the results here in Scotland.
*
COUNCIL housing remains just that after the sound and fury of the stock transfer debate. After Highland said "no" an overwhelming number in Inverclyde voted for change. There were exceptions here, as Caithness and Skye voted for change but were drowned out by the aggregate.
I have already stated that the main problem is one of trust. Everyone can see that Glasgow Housing Association has not led to secondary transfer to local housing associations. Tenants here did not lead the demand for a better deal. It is Gordon Brown meddling in Scottish services with Jack McConnell and Nicol Stephen's blessings. He promised debt write-off plus bribes to tenants of new bathrooms and more house-building if they voted "yes".
So why did Caithness tenants vote "yes"? I suggest they want change, they can see the need to break the log jam of council control from Inverness, and for a variety of reasons they did not like the opinions of tenants' leaders in Inverness, Ross-shire and Sutherland being foisted on Caithness voters. The result is stalemate.
Affordable homes are the number one priority, but it is clear this government is not prepared to build them. So if you can't be assured of a home, why bother staying if you are young and mobile? Once again the McConnell/Stephen government hasn't the will to meet such crying needs for the future of this part of the country.
WICK Accordion and Fiddle Club was the worthy winner of Club of the Year title at the Scots Trad Music Awards 2006. I shared the club's delight in an audience from all over the country in the Nevis Centre. Let's give them another round of applause; to be precise in Mackay's Hotel, on the third Tuesday of the month, from September to May.
Friday, 24 November 2006
Putting our transport needs on the right track
Published: 24 November, 2006
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
PARLIAMENTARY business has focused on planning law and transport issues recently.
It's a reminder we all must demand a say at the earliest stage if new ideas for housing, businesses and transport upgrades are planned. If not then nasty surprises can force us at a late hour to choose for or against somebody's not-so-bright idea.
MSPs spent a day and a half on the third stage of the Planning Bill. Amendments on third-party rights of appeal, controlling high hedges, multiple occupancy housing and the like were knocked down like skittles by the government majority. Certainly projects of national significance should be given priority treatment to speed them up. But the utmost care is needed as big ideas can disrupt many lives.
Take the Beauly to Denny power line. Giant pylons could carry clean power from our tidal resources in the Pentland Firth. But should they go in undersea cables instead? I predict that's the kind of scheme that will be badly served by the forthcoming but narrowly focused planning enquiry.
With local plans now due to run for five-year terms, there is much more chance to influence where houses should go or how flooding should be tackled. But we have to take part. Before I was elected MSP in 2003 the Ross and Cromarty East Local Plan was being consulted. It is only displayed in its final form in our post offices this month. That just won't do.
*
THIS week we have been debating the first stage of a Transport and Works (Scotland) Bill. It should relieve MSPs of truly marathon sittings in a quasi-judicial role at stage two. For months on end I spent Mondays wading through objection by objection in the Edinburgh Tram (Line One) Bill when objectors and developers slugged it out. A reporter with judicial training can do this part better and free up precious MSP time for helping constituents. They adopted that in England years ago but failed to put it in the 1998 Scotland Act.
Transport plans for the North have also featured strongly. We had a briefing in Parliament from HITRANS on a draft regional transport strategy for the Highlands and Islands. It is out for consultation till January 2007 and will inform the Scottish transport plans for the next ten years with timetables for priorities for our communications network. Allied to this, the Caithness Association of Community Councils had its views on the prospects for rail upgrades and a Dornoch rail link debated by the Public Petitions Committee.
HITRANS and the transport group in the Caithness Socio-Economic Strategy could do with meeting because HITRANS talks of steady population decline in the Far North, as if that was a good reason to do little for our road and rail needs. The Caithness Partnership had other ideas so we must get realistic, costed options submitted before HITRANS runs away and spends a load of money on "higher priorities" around Inverness. In that light I am delighted that the Dornoch Link Action Group has commissioned one of today's leading rail consultants, Corus, to show how the Far North line can be transformed. It will feed the debate with a can-do approach to counter the "managed decline" of the doom merchants.
Talking of which, the Friends of the Far North Line will be holding its AGM in Brora this Saturday, not in Thurso as previously suggested. It makes a change from Inverness and Beauly. But interestingly there is an amendment proposed to the meeting for a constitutional change of AGM dates to May, June or July instead of November. Why? So that members from central Scotland and England can make it to a future AGM in Caithness. As they can't easily do the return journey in a day, they could stay overnight and enjoy a summer's day along the Pentland Firth.
Meanwhile, Brora is just accessible to them but not for a 2.15pm start for arrivals from Caithness. Doesn't that say it all? Wouldn't you think that FoFNL should back a Dornoch rail short cut? But they don't! Wending your way North for four hours from Inverness for a leisurely overnight stay does not meet the needs of all who live in the area and wish to reach all points north of Golspie throughout the year.
I'll be in Brora, all being well, and hope to hear FoFNL president Lord Thurso change the group's tune. Doesn't he also convene the Caithness Partnership that backs the Dornoch crossing? I hope another speaker, Bill Reeve, director of rail delivery from Transport Scotland, will suggest how, for much less cash than the price of the rail link to Edinburgh Airport, all the Highland rail routes can be sorted.
Finally I'll be most interested to hear why the Highland Rail Partnership submission to the Parliament Petitions Committee managed to miss out any mention of the Dornoch crossing in its submission, as the HRP full-time officer Frank Roach will give a brief account of current rail developments to FoFNL members.
SCOTTISH Ambulance Service officials meet Highland MSPs on a regular basis at their Inverness HQ. We were updated on progress with their combined ambulance and NHS control room. With winter and possible flu epidemics in mind, we were happy to hear that NHS 24 has got a simpler set of questions when you phone in for advice or help. A wee tip to pass on – do keep the NHS 24 number on your mobile phone. It is 08454 242424, not so easy as 999 to remember, but most useful.
By the way, a Happy St Andrew's Day on November 30. Next year it could be a holiday.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
PARLIAMENTARY business has focused on planning law and transport issues recently.
It's a reminder we all must demand a say at the earliest stage if new ideas for housing, businesses and transport upgrades are planned. If not then nasty surprises can force us at a late hour to choose for or against somebody's not-so-bright idea.
MSPs spent a day and a half on the third stage of the Planning Bill. Amendments on third-party rights of appeal, controlling high hedges, multiple occupancy housing and the like were knocked down like skittles by the government majority. Certainly projects of national significance should be given priority treatment to speed them up. But the utmost care is needed as big ideas can disrupt many lives.
Take the Beauly to Denny power line. Giant pylons could carry clean power from our tidal resources in the Pentland Firth. But should they go in undersea cables instead? I predict that's the kind of scheme that will be badly served by the forthcoming but narrowly focused planning enquiry.
With local plans now due to run for five-year terms, there is much more chance to influence where houses should go or how flooding should be tackled. But we have to take part. Before I was elected MSP in 2003 the Ross and Cromarty East Local Plan was being consulted. It is only displayed in its final form in our post offices this month. That just won't do.
*
THIS week we have been debating the first stage of a Transport and Works (Scotland) Bill. It should relieve MSPs of truly marathon sittings in a quasi-judicial role at stage two. For months on end I spent Mondays wading through objection by objection in the Edinburgh Tram (Line One) Bill when objectors and developers slugged it out. A reporter with judicial training can do this part better and free up precious MSP time for helping constituents. They adopted that in England years ago but failed to put it in the 1998 Scotland Act.
Transport plans for the North have also featured strongly. We had a briefing in Parliament from HITRANS on a draft regional transport strategy for the Highlands and Islands. It is out for consultation till January 2007 and will inform the Scottish transport plans for the next ten years with timetables for priorities for our communications network. Allied to this, the Caithness Association of Community Councils had its views on the prospects for rail upgrades and a Dornoch rail link debated by the Public Petitions Committee.
HITRANS and the transport group in the Caithness Socio-Economic Strategy could do with meeting because HITRANS talks of steady population decline in the Far North, as if that was a good reason to do little for our road and rail needs. The Caithness Partnership had other ideas so we must get realistic, costed options submitted before HITRANS runs away and spends a load of money on "higher priorities" around Inverness. In that light I am delighted that the Dornoch Link Action Group has commissioned one of today's leading rail consultants, Corus, to show how the Far North line can be transformed. It will feed the debate with a can-do approach to counter the "managed decline" of the doom merchants.
Talking of which, the Friends of the Far North Line will be holding its AGM in Brora this Saturday, not in Thurso as previously suggested. It makes a change from Inverness and Beauly. But interestingly there is an amendment proposed to the meeting for a constitutional change of AGM dates to May, June or July instead of November. Why? So that members from central Scotland and England can make it to a future AGM in Caithness. As they can't easily do the return journey in a day, they could stay overnight and enjoy a summer's day along the Pentland Firth.
Meanwhile, Brora is just accessible to them but not for a 2.15pm start for arrivals from Caithness. Doesn't that say it all? Wouldn't you think that FoFNL should back a Dornoch rail short cut? But they don't! Wending your way North for four hours from Inverness for a leisurely overnight stay does not meet the needs of all who live in the area and wish to reach all points north of Golspie throughout the year.
I'll be in Brora, all being well, and hope to hear FoFNL president Lord Thurso change the group's tune. Doesn't he also convene the Caithness Partnership that backs the Dornoch crossing? I hope another speaker, Bill Reeve, director of rail delivery from Transport Scotland, will suggest how, for much less cash than the price of the rail link to Edinburgh Airport, all the Highland rail routes can be sorted.
Finally I'll be most interested to hear why the Highland Rail Partnership submission to the Parliament Petitions Committee managed to miss out any mention of the Dornoch crossing in its submission, as the HRP full-time officer Frank Roach will give a brief account of current rail developments to FoFNL members.
SCOTTISH Ambulance Service officials meet Highland MSPs on a regular basis at their Inverness HQ. We were updated on progress with their combined ambulance and NHS control room. With winter and possible flu epidemics in mind, we were happy to hear that NHS 24 has got a simpler set of questions when you phone in for advice or help. A wee tip to pass on – do keep the NHS 24 number on your mobile phone. It is 08454 242424, not so easy as 999 to remember, but most useful.
By the way, a Happy St Andrew's Day on November 30. Next year it could be a holiday.
Friday, 10 November 2006
Imperial dreams must be consigned to the past
Published: 10 November, 2006
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
IRAQ and Afghanistan overshadow yet another Remembrance Day as our troops cope with near-impossible tasks in hostile lands.
In past wars Scotland has given more than our fair share of service personnel who made the ultimate sacrifice. But the horrors of the Middle East are piling up civilian casualties on a par with those suffered in World War Two Russia.
I'm sure that those who gather to remember the fallen will spare a thought for citizens of countries in which Britain's leaders have meddled. Tony Blair's political epitaph will undoubtedly contain the word "Iraq", so I question how he can appear at the Cenotaph on Sunday with any kind of clear conscience. We all have a duty to see that the world of the future learns from our own history. Messrs Blair and Bush seem to have missed the messages of imperial failure to annex Afghanistan that started as far back as the 1870s.
I don't visit war memorials often, but in many communities you can't help but be drawn to read the names emblazoned thereon. It was a similar feeling when I paid my respects at the Highland Division monument at St Valéry en Caux in Normandy last summer. So many forced to surrender after the French cavalry hopelessly charging the German tanks, the calculations of politicians like Winston Churchill, and the four-year imprisonment of so many Highlanders and Islanders in debilitating captivity.
If the service rendered to this country by our soldiers, sailors and aircrew is to be duly honoured then it is our duty to elect future governments that will reduce their exposure to live fire and restrict our military activity to homeland security and to serve the UN. The days of imperial dreams are hopefully gone, but the subsequent role adopted by London governments as a world policeman cannot be allowed to take more lives.
*
FOLLOWING the floods and gales I sought a Ministerial Statement to bring home to Parliament how pictures of the floods and damage from Dingwall to Thurso and Kirkwall were so awful.
If 150 miles of Scotland in the central belt had been affected, camera crews would have combed the countryside. But the A9 got blocked in several places so the photos that appeared in local papers the following week, while vivid, only hint at the huge repair and restoration task to come.
The statement was granted two Wednesdays ago before decision time at 5pm. Then I was able to put on record the SNP's praise for the tireless work of the emergency services and our sympathy for householders and businesses so badly affected by these sudden and severe floods and gales, and particularly for the families of the Meridian crew after the fishing boat was lost in the oilfields east of Aberdeen.
As for action, we need a root-and-branch review of the Scottish government's preparations along with new pledges to open the coffers and provide expert advice to mitigate the disruption caused to communications, homes and businesses from such severe weather events.
It will take months to assess the full impact of this event, made worse by climate change, so, in the meantime, the government has to extend other funds to cash-strapped local authorities and utilities for the multi-million pounds of unforeseen costs that do not fit neatly into those for flood-prevention schemes.
As this cuts across the work of many government departments, the First Minister will have to ensure outstanding remedial work from this and previous severe-weather events, such as in the Uists in January 2005, do not drag on. The major issue of island links that can still let raging Atlantic waters filter through is yet to be agreed nearly two years on. So those wanting preparations made to protect crossings on the River Thurso need to get started soon.
Climate-change mitigation will cost a lot, but little or no investment would cost even more in future in terms of the increasing damage that would have to be put right. In the flat river valleys of Caithness, flooded rivers have to be given room to spread out and seep away. Too many choke points at road bridges have to be reassessed. Certainly low-lying areas prone to flooding should not be built on, and a local plan compiled with local knowledge will be essential.
*
HOW many of our youngsters are Homesmart? Last week I attended a reception organised by the Scottish Council for Single Homeless, hosted by my Central Scotland colleague Linda Fabiani. It attracted seven MSPs from the SNP, Greens, Tories and SSP. They heard about the information campaign to help prevent youth homelessness.
In Scotland in the past year over 4300 young people between 16 and 17 turned to their local authorities because they had nowhere safe and secure to stay. In all 19,400 in the 16 to 24 age bracket sought help. That's over 35 per cent of all homelessness applications.
As more and more of our young people go off to the cities the issue is top priority. That's not to say that in the villages and towns of Caithness there are not circumstances which force youngsters to leave home. That's why the teaching packs for S4 students have been produced. Also young people and their families can access advice about avoiding homelessness on http://www.leavinghome.info
I'm sure that MSPs of all parties will want to give our young people the best start in life. The SNP is committed to see the building of affordable housing where needed and more conciliation services to be staffed to keep families together where possible.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
IRAQ and Afghanistan overshadow yet another Remembrance Day as our troops cope with near-impossible tasks in hostile lands.
In past wars Scotland has given more than our fair share of service personnel who made the ultimate sacrifice. But the horrors of the Middle East are piling up civilian casualties on a par with those suffered in World War Two Russia.
I'm sure that those who gather to remember the fallen will spare a thought for citizens of countries in which Britain's leaders have meddled. Tony Blair's political epitaph will undoubtedly contain the word "Iraq", so I question how he can appear at the Cenotaph on Sunday with any kind of clear conscience. We all have a duty to see that the world of the future learns from our own history. Messrs Blair and Bush seem to have missed the messages of imperial failure to annex Afghanistan that started as far back as the 1870s.
I don't visit war memorials often, but in many communities you can't help but be drawn to read the names emblazoned thereon. It was a similar feeling when I paid my respects at the Highland Division monument at St Valéry en Caux in Normandy last summer. So many forced to surrender after the French cavalry hopelessly charging the German tanks, the calculations of politicians like Winston Churchill, and the four-year imprisonment of so many Highlanders and Islanders in debilitating captivity.
If the service rendered to this country by our soldiers, sailors and aircrew is to be duly honoured then it is our duty to elect future governments that will reduce their exposure to live fire and restrict our military activity to homeland security and to serve the UN. The days of imperial dreams are hopefully gone, but the subsequent role adopted by London governments as a world policeman cannot be allowed to take more lives.
*
FOLLOWING the floods and gales I sought a Ministerial Statement to bring home to Parliament how pictures of the floods and damage from Dingwall to Thurso and Kirkwall were so awful.
If 150 miles of Scotland in the central belt had been affected, camera crews would have combed the countryside. But the A9 got blocked in several places so the photos that appeared in local papers the following week, while vivid, only hint at the huge repair and restoration task to come.
The statement was granted two Wednesdays ago before decision time at 5pm. Then I was able to put on record the SNP's praise for the tireless work of the emergency services and our sympathy for householders and businesses so badly affected by these sudden and severe floods and gales, and particularly for the families of the Meridian crew after the fishing boat was lost in the oilfields east of Aberdeen.
As for action, we need a root-and-branch review of the Scottish government's preparations along with new pledges to open the coffers and provide expert advice to mitigate the disruption caused to communications, homes and businesses from such severe weather events.
It will take months to assess the full impact of this event, made worse by climate change, so, in the meantime, the government has to extend other funds to cash-strapped local authorities and utilities for the multi-million pounds of unforeseen costs that do not fit neatly into those for flood-prevention schemes.
As this cuts across the work of many government departments, the First Minister will have to ensure outstanding remedial work from this and previous severe-weather events, such as in the Uists in January 2005, do not drag on. The major issue of island links that can still let raging Atlantic waters filter through is yet to be agreed nearly two years on. So those wanting preparations made to protect crossings on the River Thurso need to get started soon.
Climate-change mitigation will cost a lot, but little or no investment would cost even more in future in terms of the increasing damage that would have to be put right. In the flat river valleys of Caithness, flooded rivers have to be given room to spread out and seep away. Too many choke points at road bridges have to be reassessed. Certainly low-lying areas prone to flooding should not be built on, and a local plan compiled with local knowledge will be essential.
*
HOW many of our youngsters are Homesmart? Last week I attended a reception organised by the Scottish Council for Single Homeless, hosted by my Central Scotland colleague Linda Fabiani. It attracted seven MSPs from the SNP, Greens, Tories and SSP. They heard about the information campaign to help prevent youth homelessness.
In Scotland in the past year over 4300 young people between 16 and 17 turned to their local authorities because they had nowhere safe and secure to stay. In all 19,400 in the 16 to 24 age bracket sought help. That's over 35 per cent of all homelessness applications.
As more and more of our young people go off to the cities the issue is top priority. That's not to say that in the villages and towns of Caithness there are not circumstances which force youngsters to leave home. That's why the teaching packs for S4 students have been produced. Also young people and their families can access advice about avoiding homelessness on http://www.leavinghome.info
I'm sure that MSPs of all parties will want to give our young people the best start in life. The SNP is committed to see the building of affordable housing where needed and more conciliation services to be staffed to keep families together where possible.
Friday, 27 October 2006
Time for us to think big on energy and the environment
Published: 27 October, 2006
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
THERE are good reasons why Swedish dentists have been seeking work in this country. Their people have achieved one of the best records for oral health in the world, so Sweden needs far more dental hygienists than dentists.
In sharp contrast, figures released this week show only 24 per cent of adults in the Highlands are even registered with a dentist.
Is it taking the throwaway society to a new low to think that false teeth could be the lot of a growing number of our young people, not to mention a big proportion of the 75 per cent not registered with dentists? NHS provision of salaried dentists may be too little, but let's hope it's not too late.
However, the Scottish government has to resolve the central issue. In a rich country, when will we train enough dentists who are willing to work in the Far North and across the land? Secondly, what is a reasonable salary for a dentist that does not make registration with private practice so far out of reach for the low-paid?
I wonder if the Convention of the Highlands and Islands that meets in Forres next week will discuss the dental crisis. Who knows, but does this organisation do anything to ensure we get basic services we need?
According to its website the Scottish Executive meets its main partner agencies, represented by the chairperson of each organisation. Held twice yearly, hosted by a different local authority each time with alternating mainland and island locations, it seeks to strengthen co-ordination between member organisations, the Executive and other representative bodies to better inform the development and realisation of strategic economic, environmental, cultural and social justice objectives.
Since they came to power New Labour and the Lib Dems have excluded Highlands and Islands MSPs and MPs, except as observers. So there is little democratic input and it sums up a tick-box mentality. Endless rounds of meetings hide the huge gaps in delivering better government. The Forres meeting will provide helpful public-relations pictures for ministers. But it's a moribund symptom of the deep lack of democratic accountability in this hangover from Westminster rule.
***
A CONFIDENT SNP conference in Perth rallied as party leader Alex Salmond strongly urged voters that it is time to think big. He argued that, seven years after a spirit of optimism was abroad in this country in 1999 when the MSPs were cheered into the first Parliament building, Scotland has been let down.
"It is not just the track record of the Executive," he said, "it is the total lack of ambition. It is what they have not done – as well as where they have failed. They have raised mediocrity to an art form which is summed up in the First Minister's favourite slogan, 'Scotland is the best small country in the world.'
"This one phrase encapsulates everything that is wrong with the First Minister, with the Executive and with our national tourist agency – the only one in the world named after a website. It combines the worst of 'Wha's like us?' with the worst of an inferiority complex. We are not the best wee country in the world – not by any measurement.
"Perhaps we could be, but not now. But why should we think of ourselves as a small country? Scotland is only small to those who think small. It is time to think big."
Our nearest neighbours to the east, north and west – Norway, Iceland and Ireland – are the second, fourth and six wealthiest nations on the planet. Why not Scotland too? Scotland needs big thinking on energy and the environment, but let us contrast our political opponents' claims they are going green – actions speak louder than words.
The UK has spent £500 million in the past three years developing alternative energies. Seems like loads of money. In fact, it is but one tenth of the spending on the war in Iraq.
Here we are in the North of Scotland with all the advantages of land, water and infinite clean power and yet between them this blundering Executive and the Department of Trade and Industry have failed us. Suffice it to say that our communities are in a state of mutiny, being denied the local benefit from our energy resources that is the norm in Norway for long-term local investment.
Generating local sources of wealth will be one big way to remove that feeling of dependency and remoteness that a dozen Conventions of the Highlands and Islands cannot achieve behind closed doors. To every community of Scotland, the message from the SNP conference is: we have heard you, we're coming, and we are bringing a message of hope and change for Scotland, because it is time.
***
I HAD great fun writing the short title to a current motion which fifteen colleagues have so far signed: "Congratulations to Eejits." It praises Itchy Coo Publications on the success of its book The Eejits, a best-selling Scots translation of Roald Dahl's children's favourite The Twits.
Itchy Coo's development officer, Matthew Fitt, who translated The Eejits, has made over 500 school visits in the past four years to encourage pupils to recognise how much of the Scots language they know and use.
I went on to deplore the status of the Scots tongue whereby few pupils when asked can name their own language as Scots, Doric or Lallans and not slang. So here in Caithness the blend of Scots and Norse tongue fits the bill too, and I hope Matthew Fitt will be able to inspire our youngsters here in due course.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
THERE are good reasons why Swedish dentists have been seeking work in this country. Their people have achieved one of the best records for oral health in the world, so Sweden needs far more dental hygienists than dentists.
In sharp contrast, figures released this week show only 24 per cent of adults in the Highlands are even registered with a dentist.
Is it taking the throwaway society to a new low to think that false teeth could be the lot of a growing number of our young people, not to mention a big proportion of the 75 per cent not registered with dentists? NHS provision of salaried dentists may be too little, but let's hope it's not too late.
However, the Scottish government has to resolve the central issue. In a rich country, when will we train enough dentists who are willing to work in the Far North and across the land? Secondly, what is a reasonable salary for a dentist that does not make registration with private practice so far out of reach for the low-paid?
I wonder if the Convention of the Highlands and Islands that meets in Forres next week will discuss the dental crisis. Who knows, but does this organisation do anything to ensure we get basic services we need?
According to its website the Scottish Executive meets its main partner agencies, represented by the chairperson of each organisation. Held twice yearly, hosted by a different local authority each time with alternating mainland and island locations, it seeks to strengthen co-ordination between member organisations, the Executive and other representative bodies to better inform the development and realisation of strategic economic, environmental, cultural and social justice objectives.
Since they came to power New Labour and the Lib Dems have excluded Highlands and Islands MSPs and MPs, except as observers. So there is little democratic input and it sums up a tick-box mentality. Endless rounds of meetings hide the huge gaps in delivering better government. The Forres meeting will provide helpful public-relations pictures for ministers. But it's a moribund symptom of the deep lack of democratic accountability in this hangover from Westminster rule.
***
A CONFIDENT SNP conference in Perth rallied as party leader Alex Salmond strongly urged voters that it is time to think big. He argued that, seven years after a spirit of optimism was abroad in this country in 1999 when the MSPs were cheered into the first Parliament building, Scotland has been let down.
"It is not just the track record of the Executive," he said, "it is the total lack of ambition. It is what they have not done – as well as where they have failed. They have raised mediocrity to an art form which is summed up in the First Minister's favourite slogan, 'Scotland is the best small country in the world.'
"This one phrase encapsulates everything that is wrong with the First Minister, with the Executive and with our national tourist agency – the only one in the world named after a website. It combines the worst of 'Wha's like us?' with the worst of an inferiority complex. We are not the best wee country in the world – not by any measurement.
"Perhaps we could be, but not now. But why should we think of ourselves as a small country? Scotland is only small to those who think small. It is time to think big."
Our nearest neighbours to the east, north and west – Norway, Iceland and Ireland – are the second, fourth and six wealthiest nations on the planet. Why not Scotland too? Scotland needs big thinking on energy and the environment, but let us contrast our political opponents' claims they are going green – actions speak louder than words.
The UK has spent £500 million in the past three years developing alternative energies. Seems like loads of money. In fact, it is but one tenth of the spending on the war in Iraq.
Here we are in the North of Scotland with all the advantages of land, water and infinite clean power and yet between them this blundering Executive and the Department of Trade and Industry have failed us. Suffice it to say that our communities are in a state of mutiny, being denied the local benefit from our energy resources that is the norm in Norway for long-term local investment.
Generating local sources of wealth will be one big way to remove that feeling of dependency and remoteness that a dozen Conventions of the Highlands and Islands cannot achieve behind closed doors. To every community of Scotland, the message from the SNP conference is: we have heard you, we're coming, and we are bringing a message of hope and change for Scotland, because it is time.
***
I HAD great fun writing the short title to a current motion which fifteen colleagues have so far signed: "Congratulations to Eejits." It praises Itchy Coo Publications on the success of its book The Eejits, a best-selling Scots translation of Roald Dahl's children's favourite The Twits.
Itchy Coo's development officer, Matthew Fitt, who translated The Eejits, has made over 500 school visits in the past four years to encourage pupils to recognise how much of the Scots language they know and use.
I went on to deplore the status of the Scots tongue whereby few pupils when asked can name their own language as Scots, Doric or Lallans and not slang. So here in Caithness the blend of Scots and Norse tongue fits the bill too, and I hope Matthew Fitt will be able to inspire our youngsters here in due course.
Friday, 13 October 2006
Supermarket debate needed a good food balance
Published: 13 October, 2006
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
TWO Wednesdays ago I had to sum up for the SNP in the Food Chain Enquiry debate in Parliament. Often you have to reflect in such speeches on what others have already said. However I had plenty of material to add to the tally.
I had in front of me the comments of councillors over the Asda planning application for a Thurso store. They said it would only be fair to have Asda in Thurso to balance Tesco in Wick and hoped to get cheap petrol at both. Nonetheless, I believe that the supermarket monopoly needs wider grounds for discussion by planners if we are to get any balance of shops and real choice of wholesome food.
Regarding consumers demands for cheap food I stated: “There is a warning in the environment and rural development committee report on the position of the consumer. Paragraph 62 warns that to allow a short-term focus solely on the current prices faced by consumers risks undermining the viability of farm businesses, which will have long-term effects on the choice, freshness, quality and price of food available to consumers.”
I believe that the minister, Ross Finnie, as part of the Scottish Government, should be helping people to live more healthy lives.
Does he ensure that consumers are given better education and are better equipped to tackle what they are presented with on supermarket shelves, because convenience food is often poor food?
Shouldn’t our councillors have wider powers to measure retail applications? After all a crisis has led the Competition Commission to undertake its current enquiry into supermarket practices.
I suggested: “People can park for nothing in the car parks of out-of-town supermarkets whereas, if they use a small shop in the town centre, they will probably need to pay parking charges. I do not suggest for a minute that the large numbers of people who use supermarkets should be required to pay parking charges, but the supermarkets should be paying far higher rates. The supermarkets could also be encouraged to stock local produce and to carry their goods by rail in order to reduce problems on our roads. However, the planning bills that we consider never deal with those issues. The Executive must get involved in such regulation and start to help consumers and producers alike.”
Paradoxically it is anonymous shareholders of these supermarket chains who are farming us! How can it be, I asked, that “the Tescos of this world make such bloated profits at our expense, not only from our pockets but from our health”?
Surely governments can to some extent help to create a fairer market? If not why do we not demand they do?
* I HOPE you were as delighted as I was to read that Tom Farmer has donated £100,000 to the SNP, that should help to even up the election campaign leading to next May’s Scottish and local polls. With the large sums available to the British parties the case for Scotland’s future needs a more evenly balanced argument.
The SNP does not rely on dodgy loans and donations for peerages like other UK parties but relies on its members and local supporters for cash. Let’s hope other business people recognise that we have sound economic policies and contribute too.
* I AM watching the development and promotion of the Caithness and North Sutherland Socio-Economic Strategy. I see that the need for a supremo to drive forward the vision in this document has yet to be agreed. Although chaired by John Thurso MP the strategy needs a leader above the political fray.
Since I have discussed the similarities of the Caithness group’s aims with those of the SNP in our consultation Let Scotland Flourish I would venture to say that Scottish ministers should be asked to take the plans for the Far North under their wing. We still need a popular local champion but the split between Scottish Government and London Government powers is a definite hindrance
I suggested in the Caithness consultation that three immediate priorities form the basis for a very public campaign. They can all be decided here in Scotland right now.
Firstly we need a highly vocal demand for a 21st-century railway to the Far North including realistic costings for the Dornoch link that have yet to be established independently. This is needed alongside various programmed road improvements, not one or the other.
Secondly we need a commitment from HIE and the enterprise minister to back a centre of excellence based in Caithness for both the development and export of nuclear decommissioning skills and also to set up a major collaboration with the EMEC centre in Orkney to promote wave and tidal power in the Pentland Firth.
Thirdly we should be campaigning for enhanced democratic decision-taking at county level and to develop the powers of multi-member wards to make decisions about local development needs.
For now I’ll focus on North rail needs. This week’s news shows that decades of underinvestment have scuppered the extension of Inverness suburban services, the Invernet, to Elgin. The local papers in Inverness are full of it. But we need a comprehensive study to show the value of investment from Inverness to Thurso and Wick as the strategy admits.
Too many councillors and some MSPs see this as a low priority. But just like Tom Farmer giving the SNP a financial boost, I am appealing to benefactors large and small to help the Dornoch Link Action Group to commission a modern rail consultant to end the negative vibes of the “uneconomic” headlines. Hitrans, who have given rail a low priority even for Inverness to Elgin, have virtually ignored the Far North line. You can contact me through my Wick office for more details or via my e-mail address below.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
TWO Wednesdays ago I had to sum up for the SNP in the Food Chain Enquiry debate in Parliament. Often you have to reflect in such speeches on what others have already said. However I had plenty of material to add to the tally.
I had in front of me the comments of councillors over the Asda planning application for a Thurso store. They said it would only be fair to have Asda in Thurso to balance Tesco in Wick and hoped to get cheap petrol at both. Nonetheless, I believe that the supermarket monopoly needs wider grounds for discussion by planners if we are to get any balance of shops and real choice of wholesome food.
Regarding consumers demands for cheap food I stated: “There is a warning in the environment and rural development committee report on the position of the consumer. Paragraph 62 warns that to allow a short-term focus solely on the current prices faced by consumers risks undermining the viability of farm businesses, which will have long-term effects on the choice, freshness, quality and price of food available to consumers.”
I believe that the minister, Ross Finnie, as part of the Scottish Government, should be helping people to live more healthy lives.
Does he ensure that consumers are given better education and are better equipped to tackle what they are presented with on supermarket shelves, because convenience food is often poor food?
Shouldn’t our councillors have wider powers to measure retail applications? After all a crisis has led the Competition Commission to undertake its current enquiry into supermarket practices.
I suggested: “People can park for nothing in the car parks of out-of-town supermarkets whereas, if they use a small shop in the town centre, they will probably need to pay parking charges. I do not suggest for a minute that the large numbers of people who use supermarkets should be required to pay parking charges, but the supermarkets should be paying far higher rates. The supermarkets could also be encouraged to stock local produce and to carry their goods by rail in order to reduce problems on our roads. However, the planning bills that we consider never deal with those issues. The Executive must get involved in such regulation and start to help consumers and producers alike.”
Paradoxically it is anonymous shareholders of these supermarket chains who are farming us! How can it be, I asked, that “the Tescos of this world make such bloated profits at our expense, not only from our pockets but from our health”?
Surely governments can to some extent help to create a fairer market? If not why do we not demand they do?
* I HOPE you were as delighted as I was to read that Tom Farmer has donated £100,000 to the SNP, that should help to even up the election campaign leading to next May’s Scottish and local polls. With the large sums available to the British parties the case for Scotland’s future needs a more evenly balanced argument.
The SNP does not rely on dodgy loans and donations for peerages like other UK parties but relies on its members and local supporters for cash. Let’s hope other business people recognise that we have sound economic policies and contribute too.
* I AM watching the development and promotion of the Caithness and North Sutherland Socio-Economic Strategy. I see that the need for a supremo to drive forward the vision in this document has yet to be agreed. Although chaired by John Thurso MP the strategy needs a leader above the political fray.
Since I have discussed the similarities of the Caithness group’s aims with those of the SNP in our consultation Let Scotland Flourish I would venture to say that Scottish ministers should be asked to take the plans for the Far North under their wing. We still need a popular local champion but the split between Scottish Government and London Government powers is a definite hindrance
I suggested in the Caithness consultation that three immediate priorities form the basis for a very public campaign. They can all be decided here in Scotland right now.
Firstly we need a highly vocal demand for a 21st-century railway to the Far North including realistic costings for the Dornoch link that have yet to be established independently. This is needed alongside various programmed road improvements, not one or the other.
Secondly we need a commitment from HIE and the enterprise minister to back a centre of excellence based in Caithness for both the development and export of nuclear decommissioning skills and also to set up a major collaboration with the EMEC centre in Orkney to promote wave and tidal power in the Pentland Firth.
Thirdly we should be campaigning for enhanced democratic decision-taking at county level and to develop the powers of multi-member wards to make decisions about local development needs.
For now I’ll focus on North rail needs. This week’s news shows that decades of underinvestment have scuppered the extension of Inverness suburban services, the Invernet, to Elgin. The local papers in Inverness are full of it. But we need a comprehensive study to show the value of investment from Inverness to Thurso and Wick as the strategy admits.
Too many councillors and some MSPs see this as a low priority. But just like Tom Farmer giving the SNP a financial boost, I am appealing to benefactors large and small to help the Dornoch Link Action Group to commission a modern rail consultant to end the negative vibes of the “uneconomic” headlines. Hitrans, who have given rail a low priority even for Inverness to Elgin, have virtually ignored the Far North line. You can contact me through my Wick office for more details or via my e-mail address below.
Saturday, 30 September 2006
Road tax proposals would hit rural-dwellers hardest
Published: 30 September, 2006
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
THE UK party conference season has been in full swing, though I detect fewer and fewer MSPs attending their UK counterparts’ events. We in the SNP has decided to move our annual conference to an October recess spot from the 11th to the 14th in Perth.
Thus SNP MSPs should not have to take time out of term and have the annual juggle of speaking slots in Parliament for those left to hold the line. But it also interferes with the cherished October holiday breaks in the sun and with events like the National Mod. So you can’t please everyone.
It seems that UK party conferences can badly misjudge policy decisions that affect Scotland and particularly the North. Take the Lib Dems’ proposals for a huge hike in road tax. They may have been targeting 4x4s in the leafy suburbs, but any increase in road tax hits hardest the rural-dwellers with no alternative transport.
Already their Orkney and Shetland MP is pledging to seek a Highlands and Islands opt-out. Hardly a reassuring pledge when you realise that countries like Norway, with full control of their own energy policy, make sure fuel is no cheaper in the north than in their capital city Oslo, and that moves away from the carbon economy are set to account for the needs of small communities as well as urban centres.
Last Thursday the Tories led a debate on the environment. It was a bit like a truth and reconciliation commission. Nonetheless I pointed out that the Environment Minister should not gloat. He had previously told me in the Parliament that we cannot produce more than 40 per cent of our energy from renewables in Scotland but now his party’s policy is a far higher target, which the SNP welcomes.
Ross Finnie retorted, “That is absolute nonsense!”
In January 2005 I pointed out that their target is to produce 40 per cent of our electricity from renewable sources by 2020, so the bulk of our electricity – the other 60 per cent – also has to be produced. If the Government was serious, it would have said that it wanted most of our power to be produced by renewables. That could be the centrepiece of its policy, but it has not made it so.
Ross Finnie confirmed at that time why their target was 40 per cent: “It was set after extensive consultation with all sectors—not just energy producers, but communities, energy groups and environmentalists.”
Maybe Mr Finnie actually agrees with Jack McConnell, who told a fringe meeting at Labour’s UK conference in Manchester that Labour had not done enough to combat climate change. The First Minister said, “I have always had concerns that the Labour Party as a whole does not yet see environmental issues and environmental justice in particular, but also climate change, as a central issue for democratic socialism.”
We should be very concerned too. Climate change is the defining issue that governs our future. It’s up to us to meet the challenge if there’s to be any habitable Scotland a century from now.
* CAN you believe that over 60 per cent of families no longer buy lamb? So MSPs were informed during a presentation by Quality Meat Scotland during the recent Scottish Food Fortnight. Around a third of Scots farms and many more crofts draw some revenue from sheep. But we export 25 per cent of our high-class product to discerning Europeans and another 45 per cent to equally discerning eaters of lamb in England and Wales. So why don’t Scots, especially those under 45 years, eat this delicious home product?
Scots consumed only around one-third as much as their English counterparts during 2004/05.
Old scare stories about it being too fatty have run too long. Perhaps it is the reluctance of families to cook ingredients from scratch that’s at fault. Anyway, it would interesting to know what happens locally.
Meanwhile, breeding sheep numbers have reduced once again, although Scottish abattoirs have handled 8.5 per cent more lambs since the start of the current lamb season, which began in earnest in May. The samples we tasted in Parliament were taken from Shetland to Galloway. Surely such a treat is not beyond the average household food budget today.
* RECRUITING more GPs and hospital doctors to serve our scattered rural and remote communities relies on giving recruits the support they need to build a career. That’s one of the lessons of the Caithness maternity struggle which is now delivering a common-sense support for the full unit in Wick at consultant and midwife team levels. So it was with dismay that I listened to the Health Minister Andy Kerr reiterate that the health service has to be built around patient needs alone.
Mr Kerr doesn’t seem to grasp that you need to woo workers to get out of the big teaching hospital environment. Why did he set up a Remote and Rural Medicine unit based in the Western Isles if not to do that?
He parried another query from Green MSP Eleanor Scott thus: “I find it odd that, according to the argument in the member’s question, somehow our job is to provide speciality training for anybody who wants it in a particular area, which should be in line not with the needs of patients but with people’s career choices. I also find odd the suggestion that we should allow people to work wherever they want. The health service is a national service and our job is to ensure that opportunities are available nationally.”
His bluster shows that this Minister does not get the point. What good are unhappy staff in places they don’t want to work? What about giving recruits a happy apprenticeship and build confidence in the whole health service? We await developments on the NHS recruiting front as a repeat advert for the third consultant post at Wick’s maternity goes out.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
THE UK party conference season has been in full swing, though I detect fewer and fewer MSPs attending their UK counterparts’ events. We in the SNP has decided to move our annual conference to an October recess spot from the 11th to the 14th in Perth.
Thus SNP MSPs should not have to take time out of term and have the annual juggle of speaking slots in Parliament for those left to hold the line. But it also interferes with the cherished October holiday breaks in the sun and with events like the National Mod. So you can’t please everyone.
It seems that UK party conferences can badly misjudge policy decisions that affect Scotland and particularly the North. Take the Lib Dems’ proposals for a huge hike in road tax. They may have been targeting 4x4s in the leafy suburbs, but any increase in road tax hits hardest the rural-dwellers with no alternative transport.
Already their Orkney and Shetland MP is pledging to seek a Highlands and Islands opt-out. Hardly a reassuring pledge when you realise that countries like Norway, with full control of their own energy policy, make sure fuel is no cheaper in the north than in their capital city Oslo, and that moves away from the carbon economy are set to account for the needs of small communities as well as urban centres.
Last Thursday the Tories led a debate on the environment. It was a bit like a truth and reconciliation commission. Nonetheless I pointed out that the Environment Minister should not gloat. He had previously told me in the Parliament that we cannot produce more than 40 per cent of our energy from renewables in Scotland but now his party’s policy is a far higher target, which the SNP welcomes.
Ross Finnie retorted, “That is absolute nonsense!”
In January 2005 I pointed out that their target is to produce 40 per cent of our electricity from renewable sources by 2020, so the bulk of our electricity – the other 60 per cent – also has to be produced. If the Government was serious, it would have said that it wanted most of our power to be produced by renewables. That could be the centrepiece of its policy, but it has not made it so.
Ross Finnie confirmed at that time why their target was 40 per cent: “It was set after extensive consultation with all sectors—not just energy producers, but communities, energy groups and environmentalists.”
Maybe Mr Finnie actually agrees with Jack McConnell, who told a fringe meeting at Labour’s UK conference in Manchester that Labour had not done enough to combat climate change. The First Minister said, “I have always had concerns that the Labour Party as a whole does not yet see environmental issues and environmental justice in particular, but also climate change, as a central issue for democratic socialism.”
We should be very concerned too. Climate change is the defining issue that governs our future. It’s up to us to meet the challenge if there’s to be any habitable Scotland a century from now.
* CAN you believe that over 60 per cent of families no longer buy lamb? So MSPs were informed during a presentation by Quality Meat Scotland during the recent Scottish Food Fortnight. Around a third of Scots farms and many more crofts draw some revenue from sheep. But we export 25 per cent of our high-class product to discerning Europeans and another 45 per cent to equally discerning eaters of lamb in England and Wales. So why don’t Scots, especially those under 45 years, eat this delicious home product?
Scots consumed only around one-third as much as their English counterparts during 2004/05.
Old scare stories about it being too fatty have run too long. Perhaps it is the reluctance of families to cook ingredients from scratch that’s at fault. Anyway, it would interesting to know what happens locally.
Meanwhile, breeding sheep numbers have reduced once again, although Scottish abattoirs have handled 8.5 per cent more lambs since the start of the current lamb season, which began in earnest in May. The samples we tasted in Parliament were taken from Shetland to Galloway. Surely such a treat is not beyond the average household food budget today.
* RECRUITING more GPs and hospital doctors to serve our scattered rural and remote communities relies on giving recruits the support they need to build a career. That’s one of the lessons of the Caithness maternity struggle which is now delivering a common-sense support for the full unit in Wick at consultant and midwife team levels. So it was with dismay that I listened to the Health Minister Andy Kerr reiterate that the health service has to be built around patient needs alone.
Mr Kerr doesn’t seem to grasp that you need to woo workers to get out of the big teaching hospital environment. Why did he set up a Remote and Rural Medicine unit based in the Western Isles if not to do that?
He parried another query from Green MSP Eleanor Scott thus: “I find it odd that, according to the argument in the member’s question, somehow our job is to provide speciality training for anybody who wants it in a particular area, which should be in line not with the needs of patients but with people’s career choices. I also find odd the suggestion that we should allow people to work wherever they want. The health service is a national service and our job is to ensure that opportunities are available nationally.”
His bluster shows that this Minister does not get the point. What good are unhappy staff in places they don’t want to work? What about giving recruits a happy apprenticeship and build confidence in the whole health service? We await developments on the NHS recruiting front as a repeat advert for the third consultant post at Wick’s maternity goes out.
Friday, 15 September 2006
Independence wouldn't turn us into foreigners
Published: 15 September, 2006
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
WHAT would the modern image of Ireland be like without the annual bash on St Patrick’s Day that is held around the world? It’s a day to celebrate an ancient nation with a distinctive language and culture that today is recognised as the Celtic Tiger. Against the odds, Ireland has clawed its way up to boast a higher gross domestic product than the UK, from which it fully seceded in 1937.
It was the UK Wyndham Act of 1904 that turned Irish tenants into farm owners. This further fuelled their step-by-step demands for full self-government. That said, poverty still drove many Irish people overseas, till today Irish people are returning in droves and they are even importing labourers from England like we are doing from Eastern Europe.
Today 25 per cent of people in the UK claim Irish ancestry; in London it is as high as 77 per cent. But citizens of the Irish Republic are part of a Common Travel Area set up many years ago that allows free passage all around the UK, Ireland and the Channel Islands, and now the EU has extended these bounds enormously.
So isn’t it strange that the candidate to be next Labour leader in London and his supporters argue that, because Scots have family in England and vice versa, that must mean we should be in one state and have decisions about Scottish taxes and the direction of the Scottish economy forever decided in London? It hardly makes foreigners of any of our relatives inside Europe, or even worldwide, so why would independence make foreigners of Scots in England?
Even more grudging is Labour’s man in Scotland, First Minister Jack McConnell, who has finally conceded a holiday for St Andrew’s Day just so long as we forgo another public day off. We Scots are entitled to eight public holidays annually. That’s two fewer than the Irish and four fewer than the EU average. Isn’t it about time that the gloom spread by business representatives about the loss to their tills was countered with indignation about being denied a day to celebrate Scotland, our ancient and modern nation, that wasn’t created merely by the tally of pounds and pence? We should also be demanding that the next Holyrood government actually supports the small businesses that suffer so badly from half-baked government under devolution.
TALKING about promoting successful businesses, I was heartened to meet a party from Kentucky who visited us in Parliament en route for 10 days in the Highlands and Orkney to see how we support and nurture small businesses hereabouts. These Kentuckians are volunteers from their own rural entrepreneurial institute which works to promote more self-employment and rural sustainability.
One thing each US state can do is to decide the level of taxes to be levied for state services from citizens and businesses. Indeed, some states have extremely low business taxes to attract new start-ups and firms from other states. Nebraska is a good example. The idea is simply to increase business activity, and tax revenues flow from success. Would that Scotland can make our taxes attractive so that vulnerable areas like our own can get an advantage.
That could help small businesses here in the North grow into larger ones. To promote this debate, the SNP is consulting on a Small Business Bonus Scheme in which 120,000 small businesses across Scotland could have their rates abolished and a further 30,000 businesses could benefit through higher rates relief. Put that into Highland Council terms under SNP proposals: 8900 firms would pay no business rates and 2200 would have reduced rates. That’s a big proportion of the 15,000 businesses in total across the North.
As part of our wider economic strategy, the SNP is determined to support the small business sector which has been let down under the administration of Jack McConnell and Nicol Stephen. Small businesses have traditionally been important to the economy of small towns and rural areas like Caithness for a variety of reasons: as a source of entrepreneurship and innovation, as a driver of competition and local economic vibrancy, as a mechanism for job creation and as the backbone of our rural economy.
Next year there is a straight choice between the failing Labour Party, with their Lib Dem allies, and the SNP. In preparation for government the SNP can deliver a real boost to small businesses and help Scotland reach its economic potential. At an initial £150 million cost to the Scottish budget, this should diminish as more small businesses benefit from the economic boost at the very time Scotland can also take charge of our tax system and economy. Who knows, it could tempt thousands of Scots driven south to find jobs over the years to make the same homecoming as the Irish. We can have more and more to celebrate each St Andrew’s Day when we follow the Irish success story.
John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier
WHAT would the modern image of Ireland be like without the annual bash on St Patrick’s Day that is held around the world? It’s a day to celebrate an ancient nation with a distinctive language and culture that today is recognised as the Celtic Tiger. Against the odds, Ireland has clawed its way up to boast a higher gross domestic product than the UK, from which it fully seceded in 1937.
It was the UK Wyndham Act of 1904 that turned Irish tenants into farm owners. This further fuelled their step-by-step demands for full self-government. That said, poverty still drove many Irish people overseas, till today Irish people are returning in droves and they are even importing labourers from England like we are doing from Eastern Europe.
Today 25 per cent of people in the UK claim Irish ancestry; in London it is as high as 77 per cent. But citizens of the Irish Republic are part of a Common Travel Area set up many years ago that allows free passage all around the UK, Ireland and the Channel Islands, and now the EU has extended these bounds enormously.
So isn’t it strange that the candidate to be next Labour leader in London and his supporters argue that, because Scots have family in England and vice versa, that must mean we should be in one state and have decisions about Scottish taxes and the direction of the Scottish economy forever decided in London? It hardly makes foreigners of any of our relatives inside Europe, or even worldwide, so why would independence make foreigners of Scots in England?
Even more grudging is Labour’s man in Scotland, First Minister Jack McConnell, who has finally conceded a holiday for St Andrew’s Day just so long as we forgo another public day off. We Scots are entitled to eight public holidays annually. That’s two fewer than the Irish and four fewer than the EU average. Isn’t it about time that the gloom spread by business representatives about the loss to their tills was countered with indignation about being denied a day to celebrate Scotland, our ancient and modern nation, that wasn’t created merely by the tally of pounds and pence? We should also be demanding that the next Holyrood government actually supports the small businesses that suffer so badly from half-baked government under devolution.
TALKING about promoting successful businesses, I was heartened to meet a party from Kentucky who visited us in Parliament en route for 10 days in the Highlands and Orkney to see how we support and nurture small businesses hereabouts. These Kentuckians are volunteers from their own rural entrepreneurial institute which works to promote more self-employment and rural sustainability.
One thing each US state can do is to decide the level of taxes to be levied for state services from citizens and businesses. Indeed, some states have extremely low business taxes to attract new start-ups and firms from other states. Nebraska is a good example. The idea is simply to increase business activity, and tax revenues flow from success. Would that Scotland can make our taxes attractive so that vulnerable areas like our own can get an advantage.
That could help small businesses here in the North grow into larger ones. To promote this debate, the SNP is consulting on a Small Business Bonus Scheme in which 120,000 small businesses across Scotland could have their rates abolished and a further 30,000 businesses could benefit through higher rates relief. Put that into Highland Council terms under SNP proposals: 8900 firms would pay no business rates and 2200 would have reduced rates. That’s a big proportion of the 15,000 businesses in total across the North.
As part of our wider economic strategy, the SNP is determined to support the small business sector which has been let down under the administration of Jack McConnell and Nicol Stephen. Small businesses have traditionally been important to the economy of small towns and rural areas like Caithness for a variety of reasons: as a source of entrepreneurship and innovation, as a driver of competition and local economic vibrancy, as a mechanism for job creation and as the backbone of our rural economy.
Next year there is a straight choice between the failing Labour Party, with their Lib Dem allies, and the SNP. In preparation for government the SNP can deliver a real boost to small businesses and help Scotland reach its economic potential. At an initial £150 million cost to the Scottish budget, this should diminish as more small businesses benefit from the economic boost at the very time Scotland can also take charge of our tax system and economy. Who knows, it could tempt thousands of Scots driven south to find jobs over the years to make the same homecoming as the Irish. We can have more and more to celebrate each St Andrew’s Day when we follow the Irish success story.
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