Strong, Stable, and Unavailable

Debra Torrance

 

The Secretary of State for Scotland, David (Fluffy) Mundell, the sort of guy who eats crumbs out his beard and happily shares a front bench with homophobes whilst hailing his own gay credentials, has somehow been magically elevated to a higher status than the democratically elected First Minister of Scotland.

Let’s break down the two positions. 

“Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Rùnaire Stàite na h-Alba, Scots: Secretar o State for Scotland) is the principal minister of Her Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland representing Scotland. He heads the Scotland Office (formerly the Scottish Office), a government department based in London and Edinburgh. The post was created soon after the Union of the Crowns,but was abolished in 1746, following the Jacobite rebellion. Scottish affairs thereafter were managed by the Lord Advocate until 1827, when responsibility passed to the Home Office. 

In 1885 the post of Secretary for Scotland was re-created, with the incumbent usually (though not always) in the Cabinet. In 1926 this post was upgraded to a full Secretary of State appointment.

The 1999 Scottish devolution has meant the Scottish Office‘s powers were divided, with most transferred to the Scottish Government or to other UK Government departments, leaving only a limited role for the Scotland Office. Consequently, the role of Secretary of State for Scotland has been diminished. A recent Scottish Secretary, Des Browne, held the post whilst simultaneously being Secretary of State for Defence. The current Secretary of State for Scotland is David Mundell.”

And…

“The First Minister of Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Prìomh Mhinistear na h-Alba; Scots: Heid Meinister o Scotland) is the leader of the Scottish Government. The First Minister chairs the Scottish Cabinet and is primarily responsible for the formulation, development and presentation of Scottish Government policy. Additional functions of the First Minister include promoting and representing Scotland, in an official capacity, at home and abroad and responsibility for constitutional affairs, as they relate to devolution and the Scottish Government.

The First Minister is a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) and nominated by the Scottish Parliament before being officially appointed by the monarch. Members of the Cabinet and junior ministers of the Scottish Government as well as the Scottish law officers, are appointed by the First Minister. As head of the Scottish Government, the First Minister is directly accountable to the Scottish Parliament for their actions and the actions of the wider government.

Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party is the current First Minister of Scotland.

-Wiki

If we are to believe reports, somebody thinks David Mundell is of equal importance to Nicola Sturgeon. I suppose it depends on your perspective. So I asked twitter, who would you say is the leader of our county?

What’s interesting about this “announcement” isn’t just the blatant disregard to the office of First Minister, but rather the accompanying quote in the articles that suggests it as an intentional attempt to “antagonise” SNP leadership. This actually rings quite true when you review the response from the SNP. There hasn’t really been one. Whereas the UK government has neither confirmed nor denied but assured that there has been more meetings and appointments between the devolved governments and Westminster. 

So when was the last time our FM met our PM, you know considering this whole Brexit malarkey?

I’m not sure, but I’m guessing the next time Ruth Davidson asks at First Minister Questions when the First Minister plans to next meet with the Prime Minister, there will be some banter.

With all the constitutional certainty of a chocolate fireguard in Great Britain just now, the fact the leader of Scotland isn’t meeting the Prime Minister at regular intervals should be sending alarm bells ringing all over our political spectrum. We are hurtling towards Brexit at the speed of sound without much direction and it appears that no-one knows, of those who are meant to know, what is in fact happening. 

If you happen to know, please get in touch, share your thoughts, get Ungagged!

All we Are Saying…

Available FREE on iTunes and Podbean

 

 

On this episode, introduced by Neil Scott,  we’ll have the late, great Ron Mackay talking utterly opposing war, Simone Charlesworth discussing fox hunting, Steve McAuliffe’s Spin Cycle, an election night broadcast, Em Dehaney performing Richard Wall’s poem Strong and Stable and Fuad Alakbarov will be speaking about the NHS.

We’ll also have Red Raiph, reminding us to Get the Tories Oot, Teresa Durran will be talking about Making a Difference, and Chuck Hamilton will be telling us The Meaning of Life, Part 2.

With music from Woodie Guthrie, Roy Møller, Kes’s Conscience, Atilla The Stockbroker, The Dolls, Thee Faction, Gladiators Are You Ready, and John Lennon.

Corbyn is Right About So Many Things…. But He’s Wrong on Scotland

Allan Grogan 

Jeremy Corbyn got a lot right on his trip to Scotland this week. He was right to attack Theresa May and her Government of attempting to create a bargain basement Britain by cutting corporation tax to the levels of Ireland. At a cost of billions to the Exchequer in the hopes of luring businesses from Europe.

Corbyn was also correct to attack the SNP Government in Scotland on their cuts to Local Authority budgets and their tendering of ScotRail to Dutch Company Abelio despite clear authority through section 23 and 24 to change franchised lines being devolved as a power to the Scottish Government pre this deal.

I have always respected the politics of Jeremy since he was a back bencher. We probably agree on 99% of policy although perhaps disagree on the best avenues sometimes to move forward to achieve this. That’s why I was so confused by his ill thought rhetoric this past week. That independence will lead to ‘turbo austerity.’ Such comments fly in the face of Jeremy’s own economic policy.

Much like Scotland, Jeremy has quite rightly identified that the way to recover the UK economy was to increase government spendng in infrastructure and green energy sectors. To introduce an National Investment Bank, to increase the level of employment with well paid jobs. Corbyn knows that initially this will lead to an increase in debt and the states deficit. But that eventually due to revenue coming in through social housing and an increase in tax revenues and spending power thanks to better paying jobs that the deficit would decrease. Corbyn also plans to rebuild the manufacturing industry and as such would (at least pre brexit) expect the UK balance of trade to increase.

Where Corbyn makes the mistake in Scotland is that he sees the current operations under a UK Government imposing austerity and a devolved Government passing on much of this austerity to Local Authorities and then makes an assumption based on the deficit announced last year of £15bn. So Corbyn’s assumption of turbo austerity is based on figures of Scotland WITHIN the UK with a Tory Government passing on austerity through the block grant and to a certain extent the SNP not using the full powers available to them within the Scottish Parliament. If anything the current deficit for Scotland is a viable reason for independence to allow us to control our full fiscal and monetary policies including industry and employment.

Jeremy also allows himself to fall into that unionist guilty pleasure of aligning an independent Scotland with the SNP. Any future independent Scotland would democratically elect their government giving them a mandate to introduce a far reaching investment in public infrastructure, social housing and green energy. For Corbyn just to accept the SNP vision of independence as the only vision is either ignoring his own economic and political ideology or deliberately ignoring what could be one of the very few solutions to this current crisis.

Nicola Sturgeon is cautious by nature and as such has been disappointing in her role as First Minister. She has had an opportunity to set an example of what independence can do for Scotland. Much like the rest of the UK. Huge infrastructure projects are indeed required. However, Scotland, unlike the rest of the UK would begin from a much stronger position with a trade balance in surplus and incredible untapped resources in the renewable field.
  Should Scotland become independent I would hope for a Labour Party to be elected into government to lead these radical changes required. The irony is that Scottish Labour is more akin to New Labour which would go over better down south while Corbyn’s UK Labour would find their message much more receptive as Scottish Labour. It is therefore clear that the Scottish Labour Party needs to lead the charge from the left embracing the politics of Corbyn which are ostensibly real Labour values in Scotland.

Jeremy Corbyn’s economic plan for the UK is one which would make a real lasting difference to the privatisation, austerity laden current unelected Prime Minister’s vision of destroying our health service and public services, of high living costs and low wages and hard Brexit. But the chances of a Corbyn election look slim with a media of vested interests keeping his message from getting out. Corbyn needs to think outside the box. The current union is not fit for purpose. But that does not mean we wont retain our solidarity in independence.

An independent Scotland run by a real Labour Party would be a shining vision to South of the border of the economic plan Corbyn seeks to implement which is all too often ridiculed in the Mainstream media. It would be far more difficult for the press and public in the RoUK to ignore the potential of a socialist government with the successful implementation north of the border