chance of a lifetime

I really intended to spend a bit of time responding to the Scottish government’s consultation on their referendum plans this morning, but I have some extra opinions that probably won’t fit into the online form, so this seems like a good place to record them.

If the referendum question turns out to be a straight choice between full independence and remaining part of the UK, I will find it difficult to vote one way or another. I don’t believe Scotland is ready for full independence, not because we are in any way unfit to govern ourselves or take control of our economy etc but because the task of unravelling everything that links us to the rest of the UK would be so complex that it would take a huge amount of effort and would probably suck in all the energies of a Scottish government, so that they had nothing left over to do anything else. And that process would continue for years. OK, we do have some government machinery of our own, our legal system has always been separate and we have our own banknotes despite using the same currency as everyone else in the UK, but what about questions such as Scottish vs British nationality, UK-wide institutions and defence?

After careful consideration I’ve come down firmly in the middle of this argument, and when I do get round to completing my response, I will be asking for the ‘devo-max’ question to be included in the referendum. And what’s more, I am very much of the opinion that whichever of our main political parties is the first to pull its head out of the sand – and its heels too, for that matter – and embrace this option, will benefit hugely in terms of votes once everyone understands what this means. At one point this would have been a policy spearheaded by the Lib Dems, but because they are now virtually  incapacitated I am hoping that the Labour Party, currently looking even more conservative on this issue than the Conservatives do, will wake up, stop digging themselves into an entrenched position where the current UK constitution is sacrosanct, and realise that if they lose Scotland they will probably never get into power in Westminster again under the system as it stands. Their best hope is to seize the chance for constitutional reform across the board and push for devo-max first in Scotland, then Wales, then in the English regions and particularly those where they have their most loyal base of supporters.

This is the chance of a lifetime and perhaps the Labour Party’s last chance to go boldly into the future as a radical reforming party instead of clinging to the status quo like someone clinging to one of the concrete posts on the causeway at Cramond and watching helplessly as the tide comes rushing in across Drum Sands.

The ‘I Told You So’ t-shirt

Watching the political events of the past week unfold, I have a terrible feeling of inevitability about Scotland’s route to independence, as the UK parties seem to be going out of their way to annoy Scottish voters and force them to vote for independence even if they don’t particularly want it. It makes me want to get my ‘I Told You So’ t-shirt out of storage again.

There isn’t really an ‘I Told You So’ t-shirt – it is a concept and not (yet) a reality. It’s the one I metaphorically put on after an ill-fated work project goes wrong or when something else I advised against comes to a sticky end. I do have an actual ‘Barking Mad’ t-shirt depicting a dog running round in circles, which I am reluctant to wear because the text does seem quite politically incorrect, and a ‘Large and in Charge’ one with a big fat cat on it, which I don’t wear very often because the first part of it is only too true while the second part is rarely the case.

I suppose strictly speaking I will have no right to say ‘I told you so’ to David Cameron and Ed Miliband if it comes to the day after the referendum on Scottish independence and we find ourselves cast adrift from the UK. I probably won’t live long enough to say ‘I told you so’ to the SNP and the Scottish electorate when independence goes pear-shaped in some way – either Scotland enters the nightmare political scenario of an extremist party getting into power almost by accident, as depicted in ‘The Mountain and the Flood’, or this tiny country on the far fringe of Europe sinks quietly into a dark age of poverty and darkness. But I still feel I should have my ‘I Told You So’ t-shirt on stand-by anyway.

towards 2012

The Mountain and the Flood - the story of Scotland in the future?

‘The Mountain and the Flood’ is available as a free download from Amazon for Kindle for a limited time – 29th December to 2nd January inclusive.

At this time of year many newspaper columnists carry out round-ups of things that have happened in the previous 12 months and they quite often make rash predictions about what will happen next. I’ve taken predictions a stage further in my novel ‘The Mountain and the Flood’ and looked about 25 years into the future. And in any case the events of the novel are not so much predictions as hideous warnings about what might happen if politics and climate change go in certain directions.
If politics does develop as outlined in the novel, then 2011 will probably be seen as a turning-point, with one political party taking over the whole government apparatus, free to do just what its leaders want without the inconvenience of other politicians opposing them in any meaningful way. On the other hand, in real life this could be a different kind of turning-point, when people give up their tired old polticial allegiances and look for a more modern way forward. You can tell that, despite writing bleak dystopian fiction, I’m an eternal optimist!

Sleight of hand

Scottish politics now appears to have come to a standstill, which I suppose is what happens when there’s virtually a one-party state. We have been distracted by other stuff, including hurricane-force winds (yes, really this time), panda diplomacy and the bleakness of midwinter.
The Labour party has elected a new Scottish leader, but as this has only just happened it’s a bit too early to tell whether this might be a turning-point. Based on a Christmas lunch discussion with a work colleague, I think many people who live in Scotland are probably in agreement that having one party in such a dominant position, while inevitable, is not good for democracy. And indeed, while the scenario depicted in ‘The Mountain and the Flood’ is based on permanent coalitions, the way is now open for extremists to impose their will – not that it seems likely at this point since the SNP predominance seems to be based on appealing to a sort of unspoken consensus.
But I still feel uneasy about it, despite having helped to get them elected in the first place!
The panda diplomacy, on the other hand, is a lot of fun.

hurricane? what hurricane?

We were threatened the other week with a great storm which was the tail-end of a proper hurricane – it had somehow lost its way and travelled straight across the Atlantic instead of pausing to devastate other places first. However, one of my work colleagues and I categorised it as a ‘one-bench gale’, referring to the number of benches it blew over outside our window. This was feeble compared to a storm we had earlier in the year which blew over all the benches.

At the moment, while Scottish politics seems quite harmless and even benevolent, it’s easy to think of the potential for Scottish independence as a kind of one-bench storm too – more threatening in prospect than if it actually arrives. One recent development that I found rather sinister was the report that the Scottish Labour party would distance itself from the UK party and its leadership. I can’t help feeling that this would just encourage what I think of (although I’m aware that this is a wild exaggeration) as the Stalinist wing. Similar changes may be about to take place in the other parties.  I can see why they are tempted to do this, since it seems that the SNP have got themselves entrenched in power by focussing in on Scotland and not wasting their time at Westminster, so to speak. But I think the whole point about the other parties is that they are essentially Unionist parties, and so instead of fragmenting they should be playing up their UK-wide connections and trying to convince people there are advantages in being part of a larger whole. And, in the case of the Labour Party, staying under the wing of that nice Ed Milliband.

I’m sure they will listen to my advice! They’ll regret it later if they don’t.

the opposite of a U-turn

I’m sort of hoping the Edinburgh tram project (aka ‘the ill-fated tram project’) is not a model of how things are going to develop in Scotland in future, but in many ways I’m afraid it is.

First of all, it is a triumph of fantasy over utility, an aspect of the ‘cosy’ vision of Scotland I have already mentioned. There’s already an excellent bus service in Edinburgh and it goes to many places the trams will never go. Trams, it is now said, will run from the airport to Waverley station. Last week they were only going to run from the airport to Haymarket station, where they would do a U-turn – now the Council have done a sort of U-turn, although it is more of a 360 degree turn, to get back to one of the various places they started from.

Someone (I’m not sure who to blame here) in a position of power or influence was once imaginative enough to envisage Princes Street with trams running along it (as indeed they did in Victorian and Edwardian times) looking snazzy and modern, and this person’s fantasy has been allowed to turn into a serious project which is apparently endless and will cost an infinite amount of money. Opinion polls have persistently shown that at least half the people who voted are against the project. Everyone who lives and works in Edinburgh has already been put to some sort of inconvenience because of the streets being dug up, sometimes more than once.

Trams are silent killers – they sneak up on pedestrians without  warning. As a means of transport they are inflexible and in many ways old-fashioned. You can get your shoe or your bicycle wheel caught in the rails. They are expensive and disruptive to put in place. Once in operation they will cause delays to buses and other traffic. They won’t go anywhere you want to go – anyone travelling in from the airport by bus could get off at a hotel on the way without having to go right into the centre of town. There are no hotels along the new route, nor are there likely to be because of the nature of the areas the trams will pass through.

There is a parallel here with the situation in The Mountain and the Flood, in which Scotland has become a dictatorship. You could say the people who have been driving forward this project want everyone to run on rails, going only where it has been decided they will go.

In other ways, however, the project has suffered more from anarchy than from dictatorship: the trams are already running late. How much later can they be before their arrival is completely cancelled? Perhaps it will be reaction against the incompetence with which this project has been managed that  drives Scotland towards dictatorship in the end?

on a lighter note…

I am writing this post to show that Scotland isn’t all doom and gloom and that Scots aren’t always dour and unsmiling - except in the future depicted in ‘The Mountain and the Flood’ of course!

I’ve intended for some time to go up to Edinburgh Castle in the rain to take some photographs that might help to illustrate what it would look like if the situation that occurs towards the end of the novel actually happened – apart from the massive waves, obviously. Or at least I am sort of hoping not to be washed away by massive waves when I do this.

One rainy day recently I visited the Castle, or tried to. It was nobody’s fault but my own that I didn’t succeed.  Or maybe I could blame the rain.

Because I currently have an ASVA card that entitles me to free admission to a whole lot of Scottish visitor attractions, I went to the special ticket desk in the Castle visitor centre, where I was issued with a special ticket. I had the special ticket in my hand as I approached the door of the visitor centre, but in my other hand I had my umbrella, a bag of stuff I had been carrying around for no apparent reason, and my handbag. By the time I went up the short flight of steps and out to the main path that leads up to the Castle buildings, I had lost the special ticket.

I retraced my steps, which took approximately no time, and peered round on the floor where I had been standing. I searched my handbag, which took a bit longer. I looked inside my umbrella and in the bag of odds and ends. The special ticket had completely and inexplicably vanished without trace.

I could have scurried back to the reception desk and asked for a replacement ticket, but being a Scot who doesn’t like to admit they’ve made a mistake, I preferred to leave the Castle environs as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. I’ll have to wait for the next rainy day to have another go. I think I can rely on a rainy Saturday some time soon!

The Castle from the outside on its formidable rock