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Tommy Sheridan pitches to the Scottish National Party

tim — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 11:30:53 +0000

One question posed by the recent by-election in Glasgow East is just how long it will be before Tommy Sheridan joins the Scottish Nationalist Party?

Sheridan is the former leader the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and now heads the breakaway Solidarity, Scotland’s Socialist Movement. The two parties split in September 2006, after Sheridan took out an ultimately successful defamation case against Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, over allegations that he attended a swingers club, which the SSP leadership refused to back. Both parties stood candidates in Glasgow East, which saw a humiliating defeat for Labour by the SNP with a 26.1 percent swing in what was Labour’s 26th safest seat.

Solidarity was formed by Sheridan’s closest allies within the SSP and backed by Scottish members of the Socialist Workers Party and the rival Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI). With no programmatic differences between the two parties, support for Sheridan was based largely on the belief that his high profile would provide the best means of maintaining the influence won under his leadership by the SSP in the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, where it had six MSPs. In the event, neither party won enough votes in the 2007 May elections to gain a seat, and most of their support collapsed and went over to the SNP.

Sheridan even then made clear that he was in favour of an SNP victory. But the most striking feature of the Glasgow East by-election campaign waged by Sheridan is how he took every opportunity to make what amounted to a sales pitch on his own behalf, to the SNP.

During a BBC “Newsnight Scotland” roundtable interview of representatives of the smaller parties in the early stages of the campaign, Sheridan, speaking for Solidarity, opened his remarks by stating baldly, “If I am being absolutely honest, I hope the SNP would win rather than Labour. If we are honest, we are fighting for third place....”

Later, he returned to his theme, stating, “We’re not going to win the election, we want to take third...but if you put me on the spot and say who would you rather win, I would rather Gordon Brown got a political kicking....”

Sheridan made no mention of his party’s candidate, Tricia McLeish. While he made references to “big business parties,” at no time did he make any explicit criticism of the SNP.

Sheridan’s proposal that voters could give Gordon Brown “a kicking” by voting SNP dovetailed with the campaign of the SNP, which played down its demand for Scottish independence due to the unpopularity of the idea of independence with the working class.

Solidarity literature distributed during the campaign portrayed the party as left advisers to the SNP. A two-page article, “SNP in Power—One Year On,” took up half of its free news sheet.

In this article, Phil Stott and Steve Arnott pledged that “Solidarity will continue to welcome positive reforms from the SNP and say why and when we don’t think they go far enough; we will criticise the SNP when they put the interest of business and the wealthy before the interests of the majority of society, and we will point out consistently that it is the left leaning measures of the SNP that have so far also proved the most popular.”

Arnott and Stott explicitly aim to build Solidarity as a left cover to the SNP, but Sheridan’s uncritical praise for the SNP seems to be generating tensions within Solidarity.

At a Solidarity eve of poll meeting, in response to a question posed by myself, Sheridan made clear just how far removed he is from socialist politics.

In his speech, Sheridan noted that “the SNP is now the party of protest. SNP is to the left of Labour, so is Glasgow East.”

Voters, Sheridan went on, should seek to pressure the SNP. They should ask the SNP, “...are you supporting public ownership of oil?”

Speaking from the audience, this writer noted that Sheridan had “highlighted bad social conditions in Glasgow. The same conditions hold in London, Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle, and Hartlepool. A unified struggle by working class in Britain against poverty, inequality, the consequences of war in Iraq, the attack on democratic rights, and all the policies of the social elite for whom Labour and the Tories speak, is needed. In what sense does your proposal of Scottish independence advance this?”

Sheridan replied with a forthright call for Scottish “nationhood” on the basis of capitalism. Echoing the SNP’s long-standing perspective of “an independent Scotland in Europe,” he stated that the European Union “has recently expanded to incorporate 10 new nations with a lower population than Scotland. Scotland has the economic strength to survive.”

“Internationalism,” he added, “is ‘inter’ and ‘nationalism’...a collective of nationalisms”.

Thus, rather than expressing the strivings of the working class to overcome national divisions and to take forward a world struggle for the replacement of the profit system, Sheridan’s conception of “internationalism” is simply an alliance between the bourgeoisie of smaller regions and powers. This outlook defines his indifference towards the working class in the rest of Britain. His outlook is entirely nationalist. He concluded his reply by declaring, “I don’t feel British or part of British imperialism.... Labour is a British party.”

Sheridan has no similar reservations when identifying with a smaller imperialist nation, Scotland, and with the governing Scottish party, the SNP.

Commenting on the result in Glasgow East, Sheridan proclaimed, “This is a historic victory in Glasgow East for the SNP and I congratulate John Mason. Let us be clear it is a victory for a left of centre party which carries on Glasgow’s radical tradition....”

Sheridan is a man with an eye on the main chance. He is someone who won the admiration of sections of the Scottish establishment during his years in the Scottish parliament for his tireless promotion of Holyrood. He clearly has aspirations to revive his parliamentary career. Initially, he is attempting to do that by aligning Solidarity as close as possible with the SNP and, should circumstances allow, by joining it and acting as its left face.

Sheridan is still facing perjury charges as part of the fallout from the libel case he pursued against Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World. A major legal and police operation has subsequently been mounted against him for his humiliating defeat of the media giant for securing $200,000 compensation. Sheridan’s insistence on fighting the case, against his own party’s advice, split the SSP in two and saw SSP members giving evidence against him.

Defending the good name of “family man” Sheridan from lurid allegations was, clearly, more important to him than the very existence of his own party. For this was a question of maintaining “Brand Sheridan” and safeguarding his own future career.

The SSP, however, still has no differences of principle with Sheridan and Solidarity. Like Solidarity, the SSP proposes a “Scottish socialist republic” as a means to provide a platform for the social reforms once proposed by the Labour Party. Both parties support Scottish independence as proposed by the SNP as a necessary stage towards this goal.

Like Solidarity, the SSP bears full responsibility for the ability of the SNP to benefit from the collapse of the Labour Party, as expressed most dramatically in Labour’s latest by-election disaster. They always refer to the split with him as “a tragedy,” which prevented a more effective struggle for their own nationalist and reformist politics. Their struggle is reduced to which is the bigger and more viable vehicle for championing independence.

The SSP’s analysis of the campaign, authored by Richie Venton, focused heavily on the fact that its candidate and former MSP Frances Curran polled a few more votes than Solidarity in Glasgow East—555 compared to 512. This was most important for them in reversing the relative position of the two parties last year.

However, their line was exactly the same as that of Solidarity. Venton sought to misrepresent the huge swing against the Labour Party as representing support for independence. He admitted that “There was not widespread, overt, explicit talk on the streets of this being a vote on independence.” But then, echoing Sheridan and the SNP, he went on to assert that “it clearly is a clash of contrasting opinions on the Westminster Labour government compared to the Holyrood SNP government—and is a massive impetus towards independence.”

The SSP will continue to make its occasional denunciations of Sheridan and decry the SNP as a capitalist party. But it cannot distance itself from that fact that he was the party’s leader and public face for close to two decades. And it is within the opportunist and saltire waving milieu of the SSP that Sheridan’s politics germinated and bore fruit. As to his current allies in the SWP, they will find their alliance with the “best known and greatly respected” Sheridan to be a perhaps greater political embarrassment than their disastrous relationship with George Galloway.

Glasgow East by-election

JamieSW — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:00:17 +0000

Social problems and poverty

A by-election is being held today in the constituency of Glasgow East following the resignation of sitting Labour Member of Parliament David Marshall. The seat, which Marshall held with a majority of 13,507 in the 2005 General Election, is a traditional Labour stronghold.

The Scottish National Party (SNP), which wrested control over the devolved Scottish parliament from Labour in 2007, hopes to take advantage of Labour’s woes and win the seat in which it came a distant second only three years ago.

The seat covers most of the east end of Glasgow, from the Parkhead area east of the city centre to the outlying Easterhouse estate. It includes some of Britain’s most impoverished neighbourhoods, and has become synonymous with urban decay and ill health.

The official unemployment rate in Glasgow East is more than twice the national average of 5.2 percent. But in total, around half of the working-age population of the constituency are without work, many of them in receipt of invalidity or disability benefit.

A survey by the Campaign to End Child Poverty (CECP) looked at the extent of childhood poverty across the UK, where children have nearly twice as much chance of living in a household with relatively low income than a generation ago. It found that Glasgow had the worst level of child poverty in Scotland, with a citywide rate of more than 50 percent. Around 60 percent of children living in the Glasgow east end, Bridgeton and Queenslie neighbourhoods were found to be living below the breadline.

No official figures are compiled on the rate of childhood poverty on the parliamentary constituency level. However, statistics from the CEPC on children living in families without someone in work and surviving on benefits provide an indication.

The Glasgow East constituency has the joint-fifteenth highest rate of children living in workless households in Britain, tied with the seats of Wythenshaw and Sale East in Greater Manchester and Knowsley North and Sefton East on Merseyside.

With 40 percent of children in the constituency living in households without work, the figure for Glasgow East is twice the UK average and five times the rate found in the nearby suburban area of East Dunbartonshire.

According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the city has Scotland’s highest rate of people on out-of-work benefits, the highest rate of people with limiting long-term illnesses and drug addiction, the worst problems with overcrowded housing, and the highest concentration of pensioners living below the poverty line.

Half of the adults in the area have no educational qualifications, and more than half of all households do not own a car.

Glasgow also has the lowest life expectancy in Britain. Data for 2004-2006 puts life expectancy in the city at birth at 73.7 years (70.5 years for men, 77 years for women), based on current life expectancy trends. The best indicators for the Glasgow East constituency point to a figure of 69.3 years for men and 76.2 year for women. This falls even further in the most impoverished neighbourhoods, such as Calton, with male life expectancy at a staggering 53.9 years.

A 2002 survey, conducted using the United Nations rating system for life expectancy, unemployment, incomes and rates of illiteracy, put the Shettleston area of the constituency as the most deprived in Britain. Nearby Baillieston, also in Glasgow East, was ranked seventh.

Statistics from the National Health Service showed that the east end of Glasgow had the highest rate of alcohol-related hospital admissions in Scotland. At 1,505 per 100,000, the east end of Glasgow had a rate of admissions more than three times that of the neighbouring suburb of East Renfrewshire.

Comparable social devastation mars many inner cities across Britain. According to the Office of National Statistics, life expectancy in the north of England towns of Liverpool, Blackpool, Manchester and Hartlepool are very similar to those for Glasgow. Analogous phenomena can be observed in the most depressed areas of European and North American cities. In the US city of Detroit, which has been devastated by years of car plant and supplier closures, nearly half of all children live in poverty, with life expectancy rates in the city also likened to overall figures for some Third World countries.

The Gaza comparison

Such is the combined impact of these statistics that some extremely distorted comparisons have been made. Much attention has been paid in the media to comments by the SNP’s Westminster faction leader, Angus Robertson, claiming that the constituency has a lower life expectancy than the war-torn Gaza Strip.

This echoes comments frequently made by the middle class radical and pro-independence parties, Solidarity and the Scottish Socialist Party. These groups, which claim that Scottish separatism is progressive as it would free the country from “London rule,” have made comparisons between areas of Glasgow and Gaza or even Iraq under US-led military occupation.

At one level, these comments are preposterous. Nowhere in Glasgow can one find occupying troops, missile and helicopter assaults. The city is not walled-off, there are no floods of refugees fleeing for their lives. The sewerage system and electricity work fairly well. Glasgow is a wealthy, and in some areas pleasant city, in an advanced imperialist country.

The primary aim of such comparisons is to portray the international phenomenon of urban poverty amidst great wealth as the result of an oppressive relationship between England and Scotland. It is used an argument for Scottish independence. But an independent Scotland is increasingly viewed by sections of big business as a means of further demolishing social provision through slashing taxes, cutting welfare and enriching themselves from North Sea oil profits.

Betrayal of the Labour bureaucracies

The deep social problems of Glasgow, or any other major city, are a product of international economic processes within capitalism that have opened up a devastating assault on the social position of the working class. The poor social conditions in much of Glasgow are a direct result of more than three decades of continual attacks on the working class, and provide a damning indictment of the historic failure of Labour.

Under the watch of the trade unions and the Labour Party, which has controlled the local council for decades, virtually all of the city’s steelworks, shipyards and engineering plants, which once employed tens of thousands, have closed.

Between 1978 and 1993, the city lost two thirds of its 107,515 manufacturing jobs. These have never been fully replaced by jobs in the service sector. To the extent they have, many are part-time and temporary and offer poverty-level wages. Many of the low-wage call centres that have located in the city over the past 15 years have closed or are shedding jobs, moving to take advantage of even more exploited labour in Asia and eastern Europe.

Large areas of former industrial sites closed during the 1970s and 1980s remain undeveloped. This is especially so in the east end of Glasgow, which has benefited less from Britain’s decade-long property boom and its attendant building activity than other parts of the city.

Heavy industry was once especially dominant. A couple of large retail parks today provide the main concentrations of employment within the constituency. One of these is the Parkhead Forge shopping centre, named after the site of what was once one of the largest metal works in Britain. Production at the forge was wound down for more than a decade with the complicity of the trade unions and Labour governments, until the works closed in 1975.

Several small community and health centres have been built, and there are a large number of recently built flats and houses, many of which are rented out by housing associations. There is a new college and a huge new shopping mall beside Easterhouse.

The constituency will host several events at the 2014 Commonwealth Games being held in Glasgow. A national indoor sports arena and velodrome complex is planned for the Parkhead area of the constituency, as well as an athletes’ village with 1,500 houses and apartments. But despite the fortune that the city’s building firms and service industries hope to make, only 300 units are scheduled to be turned into social housing after the games.

The area is also part of a £1.6 billion redevelopment project called the Clyde Gateway. This publicly and privately funded initiative aims to build 10,000 new housing units and 400,000 square metres of commercial property over two decades.

However, the scheme was initiated under conditions of a speculative boom in domestic and commercial property development, which is now coming to an end, casting uncertainty over whether the plans will be carried out.

In any case, such schemes cannot overcome decades of urban decline and the generalised assault on working class living standards, a process that can only intensify as the full implications of the global credit crunch become evident.

FOI: Scotland to explore extending its reach

tim — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:28:04 +0000

The Scottish Government has raised the prospect of extending the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act to cover more organisations carrying out certain public functions.

Parliamentary Business Minister Bruce Crawford said the Government is committed to fully exploring the issues around coverage but stressed that a final decision on extending coverage would be taken only after consultation with interested parties and those organisations potentially affected.

As a first step, Mr Crawford will have discussions with interested parties about bringing within the scope of the Act the following organisations:

> Registered social landlords
> Contractors who provide public services that are a function of a public authority (for example, contractors providing prison services)
> Local authority trusts or bodies set up by local authorities (for example, bodies set up by local authorities as limited companies to run leisure facilities)

At the start of a week when the Minister will be in London and Cardiff to discuss FOI policy in the UK Government and the Welsh Assembly, Mr Crawford said:

"The Scottish Government is committed to the principles that underpin Freedom of Information legislation. Principles of openness and transparency, essential parts of open democratic government and responsive public services.

"We've taken steps within the Government to publish more of our material proactively. For example, we recently revised our Publication Scheme which describes the vast range of Government information we routinely publish. The First Minister also recently announced a pilot scheme within an area of the Scottish Government, which will see an increase in the amount of information made public.

"And we are committed to continually assessing whether the scope of the Act can be improved. I believe it has served the people of Scotland well but it is still a relatively new piece of legislation and many people and organisations are still getting used to both its real and potential impact.

"The organisations we are looking at in terms of coverage have not been chosen at random. They are bodies about whom concerns over a lack of coverage have consistently been raised with us. The concerns may have arisen because of changes in the way public services are delivered - for example the contracting out of services traditionally provided directly by a public authority.

"Discussions will take place before any decision is taken to formally consult. But formal consultation is not a rubber-stamping exercise. Any extension of coverage needs to be measured and appropriate.

"For example, we will look closely at the issue of the proportional impact on smaller organisations particularly in the voluntary sector.

"I am aware there are differing arguments and there is a need to balance those. But I believe it is only right to give serious thought to extending FOI coverage in Scotland.

"Later this week I will discuss FOI with the relevant UK and Welsh Ministers and share our experiences. I am keen to ensure that Scotland continues to build a reputation for greater transparency and accountability".

The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (the Act) provides significant and important rights allowing access to recorded information.

The Act came into force on January 1, 2005 and provides a statutory right of access to information held by Scottish public authorities. These include, for example, the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament, local authorities, schools, colleges, NHS Scotland and the police. The Act also requires the proactive publication of certain information. Compliance with the Act is promoted and enforced by the Scottish Information Commissioner.

Globalisation's New Deal

Ellie Keen — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:29:48 +0000

I know, far too much has been said and written already about ‘globalization’, mondialisation, Globalisierung, and also about their opposite numbers, anti-globalization, ‘glocalism’ and so on. No-one should propose adding to this untidy heap, without doubts and reservations. Yet I would like to try my hand again and ask your forgiveness in advance. The only excuse possible is that of approaching the Zeitgeist from a different angle. Rather than adding one more interpretation, I will try to decipher something that is in course of being said, and said not (or not only) by intellectuals, academics and ‘intéllos’, the shamans of our age. The emerging message I’m after is the one that may be coming from below, from the electorate of Scotland.

Part of that message was delivered last May. It was a message favorable to fuller self-government, or possibly formal Independence, and it seems certain to carry us forward to one or more referenda on the matter fairly soon. But I suspect that a great deal more than this was already being said, or half-said, in such a striking shift. At least part of that may have come from deeper sources, which surely relate to the current way of the world as well as to party struggles, the plight of the Labour Party, and the weird dilemmas of Westminster’s archaic constitution. Political leaders naturally hope people are voting for policies on this and that, after canny calculations of gains and losses; but of course voters are also concerned with ‘directions’: general inclinations of society, affected by passions or longings that may well be in the background of debate.

There is perhaps a feature of the Scottish electorate that may help us towards such a diagnosis. It’s the one indicated by Professor Tom Devine in his recent history The Scottish Nation 1700-2000 (1999), where he argues that the Scots have been the leaders in modern emigration. Comparatively viewed, they appear to have outdone the Greeks, the Irish, Jews, Italians and Norwegians from the 18th to the 20th centuries, and deposited a very extensive global diaspora whose size remains difficult to estimate. Most guesses put it at eight or nine times the size of our present-day population. But my point is less the migrants than as what they left behind, a population unusually affected by so much departure, over such a prolonged period of time. In Scotland Romany or Gypsy nomads are usually called simply ‘travelling people’: an appropriate label from residents who, if not travelling themselves, invariably have well-travelled relatives in Calgary, Cape Town, Nova Scotia, Auckland, Chicago or Perth (Western Australia) and who either go there, or receive fairly irregular visits from them and their descendants.

Michael Russell has some amusing phrases about this in his book The Next Big Thing (2007). Wherever you go, he points out, you find that ‘Insecurity is part of the Scottish condition. We come from somewhere else, and settle where we feel least uncomfortable. We belong to places that we only visit, yet we are visitors in the place where we live…’. In his book Devine diagnoses what he calls ‘Highlandism’ as one byproduct of this sustained communal haemorrhage: a projection of imagined origins, the famously synthetic folklore of ‘Auld Lang Syne’, an identity deploying the most colorful items from successive wardrobes and cabin-trunks, with appropriate music and displays.

This outstanding hemorrhage from such a small population may have fostered an unusually exposed and outward-looking mentality, a mind-set forcibly attuned to a wider view, and to contrasts of culture and custom. More than most other nations, Scots have been so to speak ‘pre-globalized’ by such mundane circumstances. This matter-of-fact Weltanschauung has little to do with the new intéllo fad of ‘cosmopolitanism’, the aloofness deemed ethically appropriate for the globalizing times. When Scots explorer Charles Macdouall Stuart reached the centre of the Australian continent in 1860, during his famed South-North expedition, the flag he proudly planted there had to be the Union Jack. Such was the old 1707 deal, the enchantment of that age. And what one might call the ‘self-colonization’ implicit in such triumphs has proved much harder to recover from than other, cruder forms of imperial hegemony.

Returning to the enchantment of today: in spite of my earlier reservations about ‘globaloney’, some theory of what global circumstances means is of course needed. And here, one way forward in the morass may be to look back more carefully at certain neglected views of nationhood. What I have in mind is the curious question of the scale of modern countries and states. This tends to be taken for granted in most commentary and policy-formation; but should not be. It relates quite directly to what the last century’s main theorist of nationalism, Ernest Gellner, always posed as the crucial problem in his field.

The underlying puzzle has always been not why there are so many nation states and distinct ethnic cultures but why are there so few? In his classic Nations and Nationalism (1983) the social anthropologist Gellner observes that there can’t be less than somewhere between six and eight thousand identifiable ethno-linguistic populations scattered round the globe. Why, then, are there less than 200 or so national states? Gellner’s characteristic explanation of this disparity was in terms of overall social and cultural development. The culprit had been first-round industrialization and urbanization. These were not processes planned by some celestial council from a suitably all-powerful centre. No, industrialization evolved chaotically out of the unlikely fringe location of the North Atlantic seaboard, and was marked throughout by chronic unevenness and widespread antagonism. It was impossible for industries, larger-scale commerce, greater market-places and banks to develop at a small-town or region scale. Nor were they ever likely to be set up by the sprawling dynastic and military empires of antiquity, whose essential concern remained expansion, hierarchy and secure military dominance of an inherited rural world. By contrast, Capitalism was able to evolve only at an intermediate level, within societies smaller than the antique dynasties but much bigger than most ethno-linguistic groups. It demanded the formation of relatively large socio-economic spaces, to be viable. Viability in that sense may never have been a fixed or unalterable condition. However, in retrospect we perceive that for over two centuries it did come to mean something like France’ or like England: not something like Brittany, Provence, Monaco, Wales or Ireland. The Scots had already situated themselves within the bigger-is-better expansion, via the 1707 Treaty of Union. Their fate was to be the unusual one of successful ‘self-colonization’ in that world. That is, they avoided conquest or assimilation, and conserved a distinct civil society but only by accepting the broader rules of the new age, as laid down by France, England and other more viable polities.

As Gellner points out, such rules required a sufficiently common culture and language, and the cultivation of popular assent. This should not be confused with present-day ‘nationalism’. Nationhood and nationality culture and politics may have been primordial; but the ‘-ism’ is a different and far more peculiar story. Nationalism didn’t enter common parlance until the last third of the 19th century, after Abraham Lincoln’s victory over the American secessionists, and the Franco-Prussian War. Gellner always emphasized the general point, and newer historical analyses have confirmed it. In all languages, nationalism became commonsense in conjunction with ‘imperialism’, as part of the climate leading into the world wars, and finally the Cold War of 1947-1989.

‘Nationalism is not the awakening and assertion of mythical, supposedly natural and given units…’ is how he sums it up, ‘It is, on the contrary, the crystallization of new units, suitable for the conditions now prevailing’. The conditions then prevailing were the emergent ones of primarily capitalist socio-economic development, at first in the North Atlantic area and then more globally. It was those conditions that favoured the norm, the typical scale and standards for the political entities of (approximately) 1789 to 1989. British nationalism was of course just one chapter in that story, a value-parade both enforced and widely exported — and defended down to the present with mounting desperation by New Labour governments. But what I want to suggest is that it is precisely ‘those conditions’ that are changing. Gellner was thinking in the 1980s, when the old identikit ‘nation-state’ rules remained in place, albeit shakily. But one aspect of globalization has been the collapse of at least some of them. When commentators declare so confidently that it ‘undermines’ borders and flags, as well as customs posts, they usually fail to make a vital distinction. Yes, possibly blood is draining out of an ‘-ism’; but there’s very little sign of it deserting nationalities, identities, cultural contrasts, and the wish to have, or to win, different forms of collective ‘say’ in the brave new globe.

Speculation in this zone has been limited by a curious monotheism of out-look: the child, doubtless, of Christianity, Islam, and their kind, as well as of the odd theatre of the Cold War’s Iron Curtain. Globality is decreed in advance to possess one overall or commanding meaning: either Neo-liberal progress or some new universal oppression, choose your side. It’s treated as if it had come out of a grand blueprint, when most people accept there was no such design — or any conceivable way of finding out, should Deities be invoked. But in fact, may not globality simply be true to its more discernible origins? That is, a range of conflicts, ‘thrown up’ rather than devised for any numinous cosmic purpose? it may be too much to say ‘battlefields’ — but certainly terrains of decision, alternative directions and possibilities. Umberto Eco has identified one of these alternatives clearly, and amusingly, in his Putting the Clock Back.

Look at the world since the First Gulf War, he asks: just who is so plainly clinging to past patterns and habits? We see the explosion and spread of what he labels ‘neo-war’, the curse of US-led globalization. That is, of threatened and actual incursions against largely phantasmagoric enemies like ‘Terrorism’ and Islam or ‘the West’ and crusade-style Christianity or Evangelism. The aim of these is to maintain and mobilize the mass public opinion upon which capital-letter Great power élites still depend, against the individualism, privatization and indifference that accompany so many transnational blessings and successes. Societies have mutated far more than states. And this is why the latter find themselves tempted into another version of the 19th century Restoration that tried to impose stability, values (etc.) between Napoleon 1st and the ‘Springtime of Nations’ in 1848. Brown and Bush can’t literally put the clock back; but at least they can try to slow it down a bit, with plausible aggression and of course the new forms of persuasion provided by the revolution in communications.

The guilty parties here are unmistakable: they are the old lags of Gellner’s bigger-and-better epoch, plus new members and applicants to join the Body-builders Club — countries endowed with that favourite attribute of British Leaders, ‘clout’. America First, naturally, but with Great Spain, Great Russia, Great Serbia alongside cheer-leader Great Britain, plus rising muscle-flexers like India, Indonesia, Iran and China. The latter is currently bidding to take over the clout market, as Americans and Brits move towards retreat from Mesopotamia, and (soon) from Afghanistan. In Tibet the clock is being put back with a Great-nationalist vengeance: a menu of colonial repression once believed anachronistic, where no feeble alibis about ‘democracy’ required.

I suppose pidgin Chinese will very soon dominate Club soirées, or at least share them with pidgin English and Russian. But right now the loudest voice defending values is now that of John Bolton, President Bush’s Ambassador to the UN. He has published his political memoirs as Surrender is Not an Option (2006). However, the great-at-all-costs Club is busy acquiring its own academic credentials as well. That is, Professors who seriously believe that the globe is safer with well-padded, first-round veterans in control. An astonishing volume entitled No More States? appeared last year from the stables of University College, Los Angeles, arguing not only that there should be no more of these small nuisances, but that possibly a reversal of thrust may be possible, in the sense of ‘agglomerationism’ — returns to one or other metropolitan fold by populations tempted astray by romantic delusion or bad verse. In case anyone fears I’m making this up, let me quote from Professor Richard Rosecrance’s summing up:

‘Potentially dissident Scotland, the Basques, Quebec and other provincial populations have gradually come to see the federation-metropole as a less hostile environment, and their independence movements have declined in proportion…(hence) few new states are likely to be created…It is possible, even, that the number of fully independent states may decline as political units begin to merge with each other…’

This conclusion had the good luck to be published not long before the 2007 elections in the U.K., and in that sense comment may be superfluous. But the general sense is unmistakable: global history must be frozen in its tracks, for the convenience of existing agglomerations, including the US and loyal fan-club Great Britain. Only the consolidation of a retrospective blueprint will allow stability and reasonable global order prevail. ‘Bigger is Better’ was therefore not just a phase social evolution had to go through, to improve the general lot. No, it has to be made per-manent, virtually eternalized, in the imagined interest of a species whose values have become indistinguishable from the established interest of the Big Lads Club.

And on the other side, what about all the no-hopers? Here the list could hardly be more different, but in newly surprising ways. The best approach to it remains Foreign Policy magazine’s ‘Globalization Index’, a now long-running attempt to estimate and compare national successes and failures of the global times. I only have the 2006 ‘Top 20’ list with me, and have only just received 2007. But so far its overall aspect has changed little from year to year: ‘Singapore, Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark, Canada, Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Israel, the Czech Republic and so on, and on, down to Slovenia, currently at No. 20. True, there have also been some exceptional entries. The USA appears in the Top 20 because in spite of manufacturing decline and job exports, it can’t avoid showing up because most of the new globe’s spare cash has been washing irresistibly through it, at least down to the regrettable ‘sub-prime’ property hitches of 2007. However, the broader picture remains unmistakable: a springtime of victorious dwarves, one might say. ‘Small is beautiful’?

Sooner or later, one or more formal referenda will be of course be required for such entrants, but a kind of referendum movement, or direction, is already under way in Scotland, a gathering mixture of questioning and hardening conviction. Among Scots this takes the form of a firming ‘self-confidence’, a kind of matter-of-factness I mentioned earlier.

As we have seen, the old question used to be: ‘Are you big enough to survive and develop in an industrializing world?’ The advent of globalization is replacing this with another, something close to: ‘Are you small and smart enough to survive?’ ‘Smart’ in the new circumstances refers of course to education, or to ‘consciousness-raising’ as feminists used to put it. And not too surprisingly, the most common answer coming up from the bowels and steerage accommodation of the common ship is: ‘You bet we are…nor do we mean to be deprived of the chance.’ I think some sense of this may have been part of the election groundswell last May, in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland — and maybe most notably in Scotland. On the emerging global vessel, it’s presence or nothing: speak up and act up, or the already existing officer and first-class passengers will not only stay there, but reinforce their grip over the lower-deck rabble of dependents, servants and migrating stowaways.

In a remarkable recent essay called simply ‘Presence’, the Dutch social historian Eelco Runia has made the point with a humorous metaphor. Globalization can’t help meaning that we’re all ‘in the same boat’; but on this noble vessel, most of the occupants can’t help being virtual ‘stowaways’, travelling either on fake documents and overdrawn credit-cards, or just secretly, smuggled or bribed aboard at night or in disguise. However, as the global process continue its erratic course, this rabble has begun appearing on deck, in broad daylight. No, they want their tickets. It’s time they were released from the dank lower levels of ballast, coiled ropes and awful stairwells. ‘Equality’ is the demand: demands for use of the cafeteria and TV lounges, new cabins and beds, ideally with fresh bedding, as well as some formal presence by representation on the bridge. There used to be bigger-is-better techniques for avoiding this kind of nuisance. Allow them enough folk-dancing and local government down in the bilges, that’ll keep them out of trouble.

But of course presence in Runia’s sense represents something more than these palliatives. The spirit of Gertrude Stein is turning out to be quite strong up on deck: something to do with the democratic air. On this bigger, final boat everyone now cannot help finding themselves aboard, ‘self-government’ is self-government is self-government. What Charles Stewart Parnell meant in the famous remark about nobody having ‘a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation’, in the sense of its will and sovereignty. The motto prefixes the recent Scottish Government’s ‘National Conversation’ on Scotland’s future. In the new context, does that mean ‘six or eight thousand’ states corresponding to Gellner’s original sources of human diversity? Nobody can know this, but what it already does imply is that no court of fixers and blueprint-fiddlers should decide who is in or out, or what their relationships with one another should be. To an increasing degree these are likely to relate to one another via formulae of confederation, quite different from federalism, subsidiarity, devolved regionalism and other dodges of the bygone era.

And it’s worth emphasizing something else too, at this point — something fundamental that globalization is bringing home, everywhere and to everybody. While the threats of globalizing uniformity are often exaggerated, they do remain real enough to have brought something else, something really new, into recognizable perspective. One might call this, the threat to Babel. Globalization can’t help a degree of sameness; but, more strongly than empires of the past, the new mode may be forcing something more profound into existence. The counter to ‘all-the-same-ism’ can only be cross-fertilization, the societal equivalent of Darwin’s new species and forms. That’s what ‘the universal’ has always been, the capacity to transcend, to fuse, to breed hybrid novelty rather than merely ‘agglomerate’ in Professor Rosecrance’s sense.

However, the power to do this rests at bottom upon more than the maintenance of diversity — it demands that differentiation be favoured, that it be positively fostered by globalization. The basic problem that Globalization confronts is having to perpetuate ‘Babel’, as well as confronting all its difficulties and contradictions. The reason is that human universals arise only via contrasts, by the transcendence of borders rather than their suppression — via cross-fertilization, through hybrids and surprises, from the unheard-of, in communities not just ‘imagined’ in Ben Anderson’s celebrated phrase, but previously unimaginable, from presences whose spell makes the past into a bearable future. And how on earth can anything like that be achieved without ‘independence’? In this context independence surely isn’t backward-looking or inward-looking me-first, chip on the shoulder time, and so on. It’s more like seizing the chance as the clock-hands move so decisively forward, the chance to contribute and to endure with an emerging purpose not yet wholly known, because societies must retain, or rediscover the power and confidence to surprise themselves.

With all its daft twists and turns, and hopeless exaggerations, globalization may be undermining the older, late 19th century nationalism and simultaneously providing new stimuli for 21st century nationalism, or at least nationality-politics. In the most widely read popularization of globalization theory, the Oxford Very Short Introduction to the subject, my Austrian colleague, Manfred Steger, puts it at the end of his account, ‘there’s nothing wrong with greater manifestations of social interdependence as a result of globalization’; but what matters above all are ‘the transformative social processes that arise to challenge ‘the current oppressive structure of global apartheid’, new societal vehicles capable of ‘ushering in a truly democratic and egalitarian global order’. The emergence of new communities of will and purpose may be right in the main-stream of globalization, rather than futile attempts to stave the latter off.

Imagine an email to the cosmos from Edinburgh, notifying whoever is listening of events recent and soon to come. It could read something like: “Back in state-political presence after three centuries, on different footing following lessons at once painful and positive; no deaths, comparatively little resentment, modest ambitions to make a difference.” No heaven-shattering utterance, I concede. Yet there would have to be an attachment going with this message too, about which I have so far deliberately said nothing: I sometimes think of it as ‘Adam Smith’, a connotation that renders boasting unnecessary, and which is also quite peculiar, in the sense that the family of myself and my brother happens to come from Kirkcaldy, the same small East coast port as the author of An Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations (1776), the foundation of modern economics.

In Scotland, this kind of allusion can be fatal. It’s guaranteed to arouse a deep-source genetic sarcasm that long preceded Social Darwinist nonsense: ‘So…they think their faithers must have kent some o’their faithers…Hm-m-m-m!’ It may be recalled that Smith’s actual father was the Kirkcaldy ‘Comptroller of Customs’, preoccupied with doubling his official wages by extorting harbour fees and tariffs from the coal and salt trades, as well as from Baltic, Russian and Dutch sea-captains. The birth-pangs of Neo-liberal Economism were every bit as dishonorable as those of other faiths. While they might have been suffered in Bremen, Tallin, or any number of other places, it so happened that Kirkcaldy was the decisive venue, and something of that took up permanent lodgings in modernity. And it can’t be denied, this does add a certain weight to endeavours at demolishing ‘the authority of the old system’, and a distinct edge to the ‘more daring, but often dangerous spirit of innovation’ now in charge across the River Forth from the old seaport.

A few years back, Arthur Herman published How the Scots Invented the Modern World (2002). Mistaken theorists of an earlier moment — myself among them — used to complain about Scotland having missed or neglected its national opportunities, by failing to participate in earlier waves of anti-colonial liberation. But of course, the Scots never belonged there. Not having been colonized they ‘did it themselves’ via self-colonization, the subordinate affirmation of a kind of flightless or contained nationality, which implied exemption from many rules of the former imperial world.

Today that time is ended. I have suggested that resuming the power of flight simply means participation in the new forms and rules, alongside many others. It’s a matter-of-fact need, neither too late nor too soon, and I suspect that something of this has already sunk into popular sensibility — the nascent ‘common sense’ of a different, dawning moment in history, the moment when Eelco Runia’s ‘presence’ is possible for us, as well as for ‘them’. I have drawn a general contrast between Old Lags laboring away on restoring the grandfather clock, and new, smaller arriving vehicles impatient with tradition, and anxious to move faster. In the British-Irish archipelago, this contrast has become in effect a ‘front line’ between Anglo-Westminster and former peripheral accomplices. Most clearly, the clash will be manifested in the battle over nuclear weapons, and the decision to replace the Trident weapons system with something better. This is of course partly Great-Power pantomine; but it happens to be located in western Scotland at the Faslane naval base. More than pacifism and general nuclear disarmament is involved: and it’s hard to imagine any ‘compromise’ over such an issue.

So there will be endless problems and pitfalls, sure; but they are taking place at a great border crossing, as the world gets used to a different landscape. I suspect that one of the few useful tourist guides here may be Roberto Mangabeira Unger’s Free Trade Reimagined (Princeton, 2007). Unger’s argument is that the victory of ‘managed capitalism’ was unavoidable, but not necessarily linked to a tide of socio-political reaction derived from the 1960s. The rising waters of resurrected conservatism naturally appropriated a re-emergent capitalism — but did not succeed in making the free-trade world into its own. The lunacy of Neo-liberalism has been disproved by globalized reality, as well as that of centralized or State-Socialism. Hence managed capitalism is in desperate need of new management — the ‘reimagination’ of his title. There’s no chance of turning clock-hands back; yet the the new chronology signalled by their advance is quite different from what prevailed before 1989 — on both Right and Left.

What happened in the 2007 elections was part of ‘everything else’. It did not betray but expressed the grander shift, the avalanche under way. Only a small bit of Globalization’s drawing-board, but definitely on it, contributing to the designs of a new and still mostly hidden hand.

This article has been adapted from a lecture delivered on March 4th 2008 and is part of a project, ‘Edgelands’, sponsored by the Australian Research Council for 2008-09. Tom Nairn is one of Scotland’s leading writers and political theorists

With Scottish Independence on his Mind...

JamieSW — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:47:10 +0000

...will Gordon Brown be taking Indonesian lessons next month?

Next year or in 2010, the people of Scotland are now almost certain to be given the opportunity to vote in a referendum to choose independence or staying in the United Kingdom. In response, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has promised to “do whatever is necessary to ensure the stability and maintenance of the Union”. (1)

Next month, Gordon Brown will welcome to Downing Street a leader who knows a thing or two about doing “whatever is necessary” to combat independence movements: the President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Ten years ago, when Yudhoyono was a General in the Indonesian army, he and his military colleagues failed to prevent East Timor from breaking away from Indonesia. They tried to kill off East Timor’s bid for freedom by killing a third of the East Timorese people (2) … but even that wasn’t enough. And now, a decade later, having swapped his General’s uniform for a civilian suit, President Yudhoyono is determined, once again, to do “whatever is necessary” to stop West Papua going the same way.

According to a recent speech by UK Foreign Office Minister, Meg Munn MP, “Indonesia’s experience in East Timor, Aceh and Papua is not simply an internal affair. It can act as a model to others.” (3) With this in mind, it would only be logical for Gordon Brown to ask the Indonesian President’s advice on how to prevent Scottish independence.

Using Indonesia’s “experience” in West Papua as a “model” for what the UK’s “experience in Scotland” could be like, here is how Yudhoyono’s advice to Gordon Brown might sound:

“1) As President of Indonesia, my first advice to you, Prime Minister Brown, is that you must fill Scotland with British military forces. Build British military posts all over Scotland, in the centre of every city and in even the smallest Scottish village. Remember, the main reason for the British military’s existence is to maintain the unity and territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. You can also flood Scotland with British intelligence agents disguised as taxi drivers or shop keepers. Then you will catch as many Scottish separatists as possible. Your British soldiers, police and intelligence agents can then kill them, torture them, rape them, intimidate them and imprison them as a warning to other Scottish separatists.

As your Minister said, Indonesia’s experience in West Papua can act as a model to others: During my four years as President, we have hugely increased the Indonesian military and intelligence presence in West Papua. After one of my military commanders was indicted by the UN for war crimes in East Timor, I promoted him and sent him to West Papua. Since then he has warned the Papuan people "… it is the duty of the TNI [the Indonesian military] to crush any struggle or activity undertaken by any group in the community which tends towards separatism"(4)

Our Indonesian intelligence agents are everywhere in West Papua, disguised as taxi drivers or shop keepers. They catch as many Papuan separatists as possible. Then our Indonesian soldiers, police and intelligence agents can kill them, torture them (5), rape them, intimidate them and imprison them as a warning to other Papuan separatists.

2) I next advise you to BAN the Scottish flag, the Saltire, BAN the National Anthem, “Scotland the Brave” and BAN all other “separatist symbols” such as the thistle and Scottish dancing.

As your Minister said, Indonesia’s experience in West Papua can act as a model to others: We have made it a criminal offence for West Papuans to raise their flag, the Morning Star, or to sing their national anthem, “O My Land, Papua”. Both are counted as “rebellion” under Indonesian law and are punishable by up to 20 years in prison (6). And under a new decree I have just issued (without any consultation with the Papuan people, of course), I’ve also banned displaying the flag or any other “separatist symbols” such as the Mambruk bird on a bag or T shirt. (7) Last July, our Indonesian Police also investigated allegations that some Papuan teenagers had been seen performing a separatist dance.

3) Next you must BAN all “regional/Scottish” political parties, especially the Scottish National Party. This means that, irrespective of what may be the democratic will of the Scottish people, the only choice Scots will have when they go to vote will be parties which totally support British territorial integrity! You may also consider assassinating their leaders. At the very least, imprison them for as long as possible.

As your Minister said, Indonesia’s experience in West Papua can act as a model to others: Under Indonesian law (8), we have made it impossible for the Papuans to form a “Free West Papua Party” by requiring that all political parties are represented in at least 50% of all the Indonesian provinces. So when West Papuans go to vote they can choose between my Party, The Democratic Party (Indonesian nationalist), or the Party of the Functional Groups [Golkar] (Indonesian nationalist), or the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (Indonesian nationalist), or the United Development Party (Indonesian nationalist), or the Prosperous Justice Party (Indonesian nationalist), or the National Awakening Party (Indonesian nationalist), or the National Mandate Party (Indonesian nationalist) or finally the Crescent Star Party (Indonesian nationalist). This is the choice we offer Papuan voters under Indonesian democracy.

Our friends in Burma prefer to keep Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, but in 2001 we in Indonesia decided it was better to assassinate the West Papuan independence leader, Theys Eluay (9). Our Special Forces strangled him to death because he was becoming much too popular amongst his own people and he was making West Papua known in the rest of the world. Then in 2002 we arrested another West Papuan independence leader, Benny Wenda. First we tried to bribe him into working for us but when he refused we tried to kill him too. And of course every time a Papuan raises the Morning Star flag, we put them in prison too.

4) Next you must BAN all Scottish separatists from standing in elections or from working in the Civil Service. Simply BAN everyone in Scotland from holding public office if they refuse to sign an oath to “to maintain the integrity of the United Kingdom”. And you must also make it a legal requirement of the Scottish Parliament “to maintain the integrity of the United Kingdom”. Then if a Member of the Scottish Parliament or a Scottish Civil Servant says anything about wanting independence for Scotland you can dismiss them from their post immediately. You’ll find it’s a very effective way to keep people silent.

As your Minister said, Indonesia’s experience in West Papua can act as a model to others: Under Indonesian Law, all West Papuans who want to stand for election or become a Civil Servant must make an oath “to maintain the unity and integrity” of Indonesia (10). And in our Special Autonomy Law for West Papua we’ve made it law that the Local Papuan Parliament is expressly required “to maintain the integrity of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia”. In 2005, when a Papuan Civil Servant called Filep Karma, raised the Morning Star flag, we naturally dismissed him from his job … and also put him in prison for 15 years. We find this approach works very well for us in West Papua. We can tell the world that the Governor of Papua and the members of the Local Parliament are the “elected representatives of the Papuan people”, but we Indonesians know that these people will almost always stay silent about human rights abuses and Papuan demands for an independence referendum … or else we will fire them.

5) And finally, hold a sham independence referendum. If you are worried that if you give them a free and democratic vote the Scottish people might make the wrong choice, i.e. independence for Scotland, simply make sure that whatever they actually want, you will get a 100% vote in favour of maintaining the United Kingdom! ‘One person – one vote’ is of course out of the question. You must order the British military to hand-pick a thousand or so “Scottish representatives”, then put a gun to their heads and order them to vote for the United Kingdom. You can call it “the Act of Free Choice”.

As your Minister said, Indonesia’s experience in West Papua can act as a model to others: Very inconveniently, we were required under international law to allow the West Papuans to exercise their right to self-determination, but my old mentor General Suharto knew that if we allowed them ‘one person – one vote’ they would undoubtedly make the wrong choice; independence for West Papua. So our Indonesian military simply rounded up 1,026 Papuan elders, locked them inside our military camps, put a gun to their heads and ordered them to vote for Indonesia. (11) This part of our “Indonesian model” was entirely successful. 100% of the “Papuan representatives” voted in favour of Indonesia.

We called it “the Act of Free Choice”.”

------------------------------------------------

Of course, when Gordon Brown speaks of doing “whatever is necessary” to maintain the United Kingdom he doesn’t have assassinating Scottish independence leaders, banning Scottish flags or holding sham referendums in mind. Despite praising it as “a model for others”, the UK will not be following Indonesia’s West Papua model. This imagined advice from Yudhoyono to Brown would be laughable if it wasn’t also so seriously true about how Indonesia is treating the West Papua people.

So this question must be put clearly and strongly to Gordon Brown: If this Indonesian model is so obviously unacceptable as a way to counter Scots who want independence from the UK, why do UK Ministers keep saying it is acceptable, sometimes even praiseworthy, as the way to counter West Papuans who want independence from Indonesia?

Don’t West Papuans deserve exactly the same democratic rights & freedoms as the Scots, the English, the Irish and the Welsh? At their meeting in London next month, we hope Gordon Brown will tell President Yudhoyono that they do.

NOTES:

(1) The Daily Telegraph: “Gordon Brown won't let Union split” 10 May 2008 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/1944747/Gordon-Brown-won't-let-England-and-Scotland-split.html

(2) The Australian: “UN verdict on East Timor” 19 January 2006 http://www.etan.org/et2006/january/14/19truth.htm

(3) Speech by UK Foreign Office Minister, Meg Munn MP, at a Wilton Park Conference “Indonesia: Political and Economic Prospects” 3 March 2008 http://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/documents/Meg%20Munn%20Speech%20901.pdf

(4) Cenderwasih Pos, 7 July 2007: Statement by indicted war criminal and Indonesian military (TNI) commander in the West Papuan capital Jayapura:

"… it is the duty of the TNI [the Indonesian military]to crush any struggle or activity undertaken by any group in the community which tends towards separatism"

"What is absolutely certain is that anyone who tends towards separatism will be crushed by TNI".

“In the interests of the NKRI (Republic of Indonesia), we are not afraid of human rights. We are quite prepared to imprison anyone, or dismiss them from their posts, whenever such [an action] is in the interests of the NKRI".

(5) See, for example, report on TORTURE by Dr Manfred Nowak, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, 7 March 2008 : “…in Papua .. [Indonesian] mobile paramilitary police units have routinely been engaging in largely indiscriminate village ‘sweeping’ operations in search of alleged independence activists and their supporters, or raids on university boarding houses, using excessive force”.

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/7session/A.HRC.7.3.A...

(6) Two prominent examples of West Papuans jailed for peacefully raising the Morning Star flag are Filep Karma & Yusak Pakage, who are currently serving 15 & 10 year prison sentences, respectively. Amnesty International has recognised Filep & Yusak as Prisoners of Conscience and is calling for their immediate and unconditional release. See: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions_details.asp?ActionID=42

(6) Indonesian Government Regulation Number 77 of 2007 (PP 77/2007) on “Local Symbols” was issued by President Yudhoyono in December 2007. Article 6.4 states: “The design of a local symbol and flag must not have main similarities to the design, logo and flag of any illegal organization or separatist organization/ group/ institution/ movement in the Unitary Republic of Indonesia.”

(8) Indonesian Law No. 31 of 2002 requires that political parties must have regional party boards in at least 50% of the total Indonesian provinces, and in 50 % of the total districts/municipalities in each province concerned, and in 25 % of the total sub-districts in each district/municipalities concerned. http://www.kbri-bangkok.com/about_indonesia/province_papua/province_papu...

(9) The Age: “Kopassus guilty of Eluay murder” 22 April 2003 http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/21/1050777211770.html

(10) Article 2 of the Official Pledge for Indonesian Civil Servants and military personnel http://jdihukum.banten.go.id/dokumen/UU%2048%20NO%209.pdf

(11) “[In the Act of Free Choice a] 1,000 handpicked representatives … were largely coerced into declaring for inclusion in Indonesia”. (Foreign Office Minister Baroness Symons, House of Lords, 13 December 2004.)

Corporate Power and the SNP Government

Ellie Keen — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:03:03 +0000

The SNP government has played a bit of a blinder in its first ten months, consistently wrong footing Labour and the rest of the unionist opposition. It is still too early to come to a definitive judgement on the SNP record in relation to business, although some early lines of development are pretty clear. These can be divided into two main areas. First is the area of economic policy and the general orientation towards business interests. For the most part this is business as usual, little different from the policies pursued by the neo-liberal labour/Lib Dem administration. Second is the area of social policy where the SNP has almost appeared to be a social democratic government. Among the announcements was Nicola Sturgeon’s commitment that ‘We reject the very idea that markets in health care are the route to improvement’.1 Other statements include ‘positive commitments’ as the STUC’s Grahame Smith put it, on prescription charges, prison estate, more free school meals and nursery places.2 Democrats will applaud the sentiments and make sure they examine the details.

The other area to watch is the much vaunted bonfire of the quangos. There seems to be very little action here yet. This is not one of those dull media feeding frenzies on broken manifesto commitments but a serious question about re-democratising the public sector. Yes, this means resisting contracting out, shared services and all the other means for the corporations to get their hands on free money and attack terms and conditions. But the other pressing issue is the fact that legions of political appointees gum up the possibility of serious opening up and accountability. Many of these people would need to be removed in a bonfire of the quango-crats. Two examples will suffice. Sir Ken Collins at SEPA is a former Labour MEP. To be fair his long experience as chair of the Environmental committee at the European Parliament was a significant qualification for the job. But SEPA has not been able to play the role of a proper watchdog on environmental issues because it has been too close to the Executive and too willing to be influenced by big business. Collins himself is still politically active. As well as being a public servant he acts as an advisor to the European Public Affairs Consultants Association – the EU lobbyists lobby group – which is determined to resist openness and transparency. This is the kind of conflict of interest of which any public servant should beware since advocating for corporate interests by definition undermines the public interest. Such conflicts pale, however, beside the extraordinary fact of the appointment of Sir Ian Byatt and a whole crew of neo-liberal ideologues to run the Water Industry Commission for Scotland. Their ostensible role is to make sure that the Scottish Water is run efficiently within the public sector. But from the beginning they have been more interested in pushing it towards privatisation. This suits their friends and allies in the think tanks and private water companies well. In fact it suits pro market consultancies such as Frontier Economics, too. Frontier is retained as a consultant to the Byatt led WICS and - would you believe it? – Frontier in turn employs Byatt as a ‘senior associate’. The continuation of such appointments is an affront to the most basic principles of public life.

After gutting the quangos of pro market place people, the SNP might then be tempted to fill the resulting places with its own stooges. This would be an historical mistake as it would lead inexorably to the reinstatement of the institutionally corrupt layer currently in post when the government changes. For Scotland to function at anything approaching a democratic polity changing the people needs to be accompanied by changing the structures. The quango-cracy is in it self anti democratic and more or less insulated from popular pressures. So, fundamental reform and direct democratic input is required. This might mean the wholesale abolition of many of these organisations.

In fact though the whole machinery of government needs overhauled. The senior management at the old Scottish Executive ceased some time ago to be the impartial civil service of old. They have made clear statements on their own behalf indicating they are almost to a person signed up to the neo-liberal reform agenda. All the rhetoric about bringing business ideas and expertise to the public sector is itself a betrayal of their responsibility as public servants. No sign so far of any movement here. At a more visible level the direct role of business in government seems not to have abated. Scottish Financial Enterprise (a business lobby group, despite the name suggesting it is part of the public sector) is still able to shape policy on financial services by having 7 out of 12 seats on the Financial Service Strategy Group and ten of seventeen on the Financial Services Advisory Board, both of which combine to run Scottish government policy on financial services. This composition and the fact of one union rep on both organisations is the same as under Labour. The Scottish Executive Management Group has been renamed the Scottish Government Strategy Board and has lost one of its ‘non-executive directors’, the corporate lobbyist and networker Shonaig Macpherson. The other two (Bill Bound formerly of PricewaterhouseCoopers and David Fisher of HBoS) remain. No changes there.

Meanwhile in the Parliament the one area where Scotland could said to be ahead of Westminster was on openness and transparency particularly in relation to lobbying, where the Standards Committee declared for regulation of lobbyists in 2003. Since then the European commission has launched the European Transparency Initiative and even the Westminster parliament is holding an inquiry on lobbying. At the Scottish Parliament the issue appears dead. The amazing antics of the Scottish Parliament Business Exchange show how much contempt the Parliamentary bosses have for democracy and transparency. The exchange is alleged to be an educational venture to teach MSPs about business and vice versa. It claims to have 'no connection with lobbying in any form' and at 'all times operates in an open and transparent manner'. Neither of these statements appears to be true. The interim director until January 2008 was Devin Scobie, himself a lobbyist who ran Caledonia Consulting, a own lobbying consultancy while at the SPBE. There is no public information about whether any of his clients are also SPBE members. However, we do know that former Pfizer lobbyist and head of the SPBE on the business side, Lynda Gauld, also works at Caledonia. As if that is not enough, other connections between the two organisations include the former member of the SPBE and former MSP, David Davidson, who now also works at Caledonia. The new ‘Chief Executive’ of the SPBE from January 2008 is Arthur McIvor. McIvor is a former marketing man from Royal Mail who recently set up his own consultancy - Art McIvor Consultants - which seems to offer high end lobbying and hospitality services. The SPBE is in other words a virtual gateway for lobbyists into the Scottish Parliament. No sign so far that this will change under the SNP or that the issue of lobbying regulation will come back on the agenda, despite the recent launch of the civil society coalition the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency.3

On economic policy the SNP are, as used to be said by the Labour Party, the Tartan Tories. Used to be said, before, that is, the former people’s party emulated the neo-liberal, pro-privatisation policies of the Thatcher government. The deeper cut in business rates made to bring the Tories on board for the budget is a key indication.

But there are some areas where SNP policy departs from manifesto commitments or their own social democratic rhetoric. In much the same way that the phrase ‘military precision’ is now widely understood as referring to mass civilian casualties, the phrase ‘Private Sector efficiency’ is now widely recognised as meaning inefficient, more expensive and unjust.

Two key areas to watch where there may be some potential for democratic outcomes are the Scottish Futures Trust and the mooted mutualisation of Scottish Water. The Futures Trust is heralded as an alternative to the widely loathed extortion that is PFI/PPP. Although the detail on this is yet to be worked out it is already clear that the Futures Trust would transfer public assets out of the public sector and insulate them from public accountability, much as has happened with the transfer of museums and leisure facilities from Glasgow City Council to ‘Culture and Sport Glasgow’

The issue of mutualisation of water was kicked into the long grass before the last election with Labour, the SNP and the Greens declaring their opposition to mutualisation – a back door means to bring in the banks and effectively privatise Scottish Water. But in February amidst a morning fanfare the issue of mutualisation was back on the agenda as the SNP announced a review of the water industry. Briefings from the First Minister spin doctors suggested a policy change.4 Yet by the afternoon it was clear that the relevant minister and the rest of the party were not signed up for this and the matter was downplayed. Not a lot of sign for social-democratic optimism there as the vultures which have been circling the Scottish water industry for some years, circle closer. These are both fudges which will allow the private sector in by the back door. They are not ‘public sector’ solutions and will end up defrauding the public and putting public services beyond direct accountability.

All in all then, there are some signs of social democratic reform, but for the most part it is business as usual with a few frills attached.

1. BBC Online Plans to end private cash for NHS Last Updated: Thursday, 21 June 2007, 15:21 GMT 16:21 UK
2. STUC Response to Scottish Government Budget 14th November 2007 http://www.stuc.org.uk/press-releases/441/stuc-response-to-scottish-gove...
3. http://www.lobbyingtransparency.org . Spinwatch.org is a founding member.
4. Steven Vass 'Ofwat backs cross-border competition ', Sunday Herald, 1 March 2008

Unity is Possible - Look at Europe...

Ellie Keen — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:36:14 +0000

The radical left unity projects in Scotland (the SSP) and England (Respect) made small but significant electoral breakthroughs between 2003 and 2005. However, their implosion in the last two years as result of internal disputes and splits has cast doubt on whether the radical left can ever move away from its Life of Brian depiction of incessant hair-splitting on questions of political purity, much less exercise any influence on the political process. However, the objective conditions of hegemonic neo-liberalism, continuing imperialism and the decomposition of social democracy demand that the idea of a radical left unity projects is not jettisoned for reasons of any short-term difficulties. For the radical left, in these aforementioned conditions, to be a credible option for a growing body of disillusioned and progressive opinion, unity and cooperation amongst itself are vital. Uniting the radical left together is not just about making one new alliance or organisation the sum of its constituent parts so that it is not divided, important though that is. Rather, it is about making the new organisation more than the sum of its parts. Therefore, unity can help prefigure growth of members and influence through pooling resources, pushing in the same direction, working to common priorities and being more credible to wider social movements and the like.

Unity can take different forms. The basic form is working together in genuine, full and trusting ways in campaigns, while the higher forms involve electoral alliances and organisational fusions. Joint-working or electoral alliances may be the pre-figurative basis for subsequent organisational fusion. For any of these forms of collective working to be possible, respect and tolerance of differences are vital while differences must also be discussed constructively. Unity must be achieved on the foundation of openly discussing and resolving differences for ‘paper’ unity will dissolve when strong differences emerge. But the basis of collective working together in the same electoral alliances and party organisations must be that overwhelming consensus on the grand political questions of our age amongst the radical left forms the bedrock of a common ideology for radical left unity, from which questions of how to operate are secondary and subject to fraternal discussion and debate. This has often been described as the ‘80:20 equation’, where the 20 per cent of disagreement is not allowed to get in the way of agreement and action on the 80 per cent of issues where there is common ground and consensus. Consequently, to facilitate agreement (the 80 per cent) and fraternal discussion (on the 20 per cent), radical left projects must be characterised by pluralism, openness and relative broadness, with some degree of interim internal autonomy to the pre-merger constituent parts.

Mindful of this, this article presents short, thumb nail sketches of the radical left unity projects in continental Europe before making some preliminary conclusions about what they can teach us in Scotland and Britain. It should not be assumed that all radical and far left groups and parties in each of the countries covered are involved in the radical left unity projects outlined below. Indeed, the communist parties with sizeable numbers of elected representatives still exist in Portugal, France, Italy and Greece outside radical left unity projects and here both radical left unity projects and sizeable communist parties exist alongside a plethora of other assorted leftists groups. Even outside the radical left unity projects – where they exist – other left and progressive groups and forces exist so the unity projects are not ‘finished products’. And in Belgium and Sweden, long-existing left parties predominate so there have been no radical left unity projects. Nonetheless, the following survey gives some idea of what happened, when and why. Readers are urged to use the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia (wikipedia.org), to learn more about these projects and their components part by typing in the name of each country, finding the section on politics, then political parties. From here, there are entries and links to the various organisations’ own websites (some of which are in English).

Denmark

The Red-Green Alliance was formed as an electoral alliance in 1989 by three leftwing parties (left social democrats, communists and Trotskyists) with Maoists joining in 1991. The Alliance then developed into an independent party based on individual membership, with the founding parties having no official influence and a majority of members not having has a past in one of the founding organisations parties. It then gained parliamentary representation in 1994, having six MPs (three per cent vote) in the 2005 elections and four MPs (two per cent) in the 2007 elections.

Finland

The Left Alliance is a green socialist party, formed from the merger of the People’s Democratic League, the Women’s Democratic League, and the Communist Party in 1990. Given the different political persuasions, divisions have been common with defections to the social democrats and the forming of a new communist party. Electoral performance has ranged from 17 to 23 MPs (nine per cent-11 per cent) for the parliament to 1,000 to 1,300 councillors (10 per cent-12 per cent vote) and one to two MEPs (nine to 10 per cent vote).

France

In addition to the Communist Party, there are three Trotskyist parties, of which the larger two (LutteOuvrière and Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR)) have jointly worked together on a sporadic basis in the electoral arena (regional, presidential, European). However, their enmity towards each other is also marked although the LCR has recently made a call for a broader, anti-capitalist party to be created. It remains to be seen what the reactions of the other two Trotskyist parties, Communist Party and social movements are to this.

Greece

The Coalition of the Left of Movements and Ecology is commonly known as Synaspismos or SYN. Until 2003, it was called the Coalition of the Left and Progress and is a major component of the parliamentary Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA). SYN emerged initially as an electoral coalition in the late 1980s, with two communist parties being its largest constituents, and securing over 10 per cent of the vote in parliamentary elections and a substantial number of MPs. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the coalition moved to become a party in 1991. Electoral fortunes were mixed in the early to mid-1990s but parliamentary representation was secured (10 MPs in 1996 on five per cent vote, two MEPs in 1999 on five per cent vote). In elections in 2000, SYN was supported by left ecologists, gaining just over three per cent of the vote and six MPs. In parliamentary elections of 2004, SYN together with several smaller left and left ecologists parties formed SYRIZA alliance. The alliance with the smaller parties was formed again at the end of 2005, providing a firm basis the 14 MPs gained on a five per cent vote in the 2007 parliamentary elections, which makes SYN the fourth biggest party. SYN also has many councillors, being the third biggest party in local government, and a sizable, semi-autonomous youth wing. SYN aspires to be an ‘umbrella’, where people of varying left ideological and theoretical backgrounds can find a natural home. Therefore, SYN members are encouraged to form and participate in internal platforms which mount open discussions and publish magazines, but may not work against party policy. These platforms are invited to put forward theses on party policy and strategy at triennial congresses. SYRIZA’s genesis arose in a forum of the radical left in 2001 called the Space of Left Dialogue and Common Action, which in turn led to an electoral alliance for the 2002 local elections, and provided the basis for its formal establishment in 2004. However after the 2004 election, the smaller parties accused SYN of not honouring an agreement to have one of its MPs resign so a member of one of the smaller parties could take the seat. This crisis led SYN to run independently from the rest of the Coalition for the 2004 European elections but later in that year SYN returned to SYRIZA. By 2007, several new radical left and green organisations joined SYRIZA, helping it secure its breakthrough.

Germany

The important development of Die Linke, fusing together the former PDS, a breakaway section from the social democrats (SPD) and various far left groups is an important development. It is amply analysed in Victor Grossman’s article in this edition of the magazine. Suffice it to note The Left has polled eight to 13 per cent, is the only left party in Parliament (unless one still views the SPD and the Greens as left-of-centre) and has become the strongest of the oppositional parties. The German Communist Party (DKP), the traditional party of the left in western Germany, retains some roots among some workers and students. Although often critical of the Left, it supports The Left in elections and has friendly ties to that party’s Communist Platform. The newer Communist Party of Germany (KPF) also has some such ties but rarely supports The Left. There are also smaller Maoist and Trotskyist parties or groups, very visible at demonstrations, as well as ecological and immigrant groups and the anti-globalisation Attac.

Italy

In 1991, when the Italian Communist Party became the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), dissidents founded Communist Refoundation (PRC) as a party to unite all communists. It was joined by Proletarian Democracy, a Trotskyist party. PRC was led by Fausto Bertinotti, a long-time CGIL union leader (from 1994-2006), helping it achieve nine per cent in the 1996 election. The party’s MPs supported and then opposed the Olive Tree centre-left coalition leading to its fall and a split in PRC with the setting up of the Party of Italian Communists. In 2004, PRC joined the centre-left opposition, The Union, entering government when it won power in 2006. The decision to participate in the coalition government, particularly in light of the government’s policy on Afghanistan and Lebanon, attracted much criticism. Internally, the PRC has recognised tendencies ‘Being Communists’, Critical Left (which quit in 2007) and the Communist Project (which quit in 2006). PRC has around 70 MPs currently based on gaining seven per cent votes.

Luxembourg

The Left was formed in 1999 by activists from existing political parties (communist, New Left, Revolutionary Socialist Party and Socialist Workers’ Party) and won three per cent vote and one MP in that year. But a dispute between the communists and the majority of the Left led to both running separately in the 2004 elections, with the Left losing its MP.

Netherlands

Although the Socialist Party (originating from a Maoist communist party in 1972) is currently larger in parliamentary terms, GreenLeft is a larger extra-parliamentary organisation. It began life as an alliance of four parties (communists, socialists, greens and Christians). Initially, it had 16 MPs in 1972 but this fell to six in 1977, precipitating further cooperation albeit of an uneven outcome involving splits from each party and leading to a situation where only two of the four parties had just three MPs between them by 1986. This increased the pressure for full fusion, particularly from unions and environmentalists. In 1989, an interim organisation was formed for the 1989 European elections, leading to the creation of GreenLeft in 1990 as a party and the dissolution of the four former parties. Again this precipitated splits, leading to the formation of splinter groups. Political unity was slowly fashioned out of diverse opinion, although divisions remained over issues of Kosovo, Afghanistan and individual freedom. Between 1990 and 2007, GreenLeft has had between nine and 19 MPs, one and four MEPs, 50-odd members of provincial legislatures and tens of other elected position in local government.

Norway

The Socialist Left Party was founded in 1975 although it began life in 1973 as the Socialist Electoral League (SEL), an alliance of the Socialist People’s Party, Communist Party of Norway, Democratic Socialists and independent Socialists following the victory for the ‘No’ campaign in the European Community referendum of 1972. In the 1973 elections, the SEL achieved an 11 per cent vote and 16 MPs. However, as SEL moved to become a party with its constituent parties disbanding, the Communist Party left, and it was not until the late 1980s that its first level of electoral success was repeated. In 2005, with nine per cent vote and 15 MPs it joined the centre-left Red-Green government coalition. Meanwhile, the Red Electoral Alliance (REA) was founded in 1973 as an election front for the Maoist communist party, becoming its own independent party in 1991. From 1993 to 1997, REA had one MP but despite recording its highest ever vote (two per cent), it lost its seat and failed to regain it in 2005 with a lower vote (one per cent) although it maintained around 60 councillors. This retrenchment led in 2007 to a fusion with the Maoist communist party to form Red.

Portugal

Left Bloc (Bloco de Esquerda, LB) was founded in 1999 from a number of far-left parties from Maoist, Trotskyist and communist backgrounds. All of these parties had stood in elections and became currents within the LB. Initially developed as a coalition, the LB has since become a party while its constituent components have maintained their existence and some levels of autonomy, leading to a loose structure. This structure may also provide an umbrella for other interested socialist organisations. In 1999, the LB polled two per cent in the Portuguese parliamentary election with this rising to three per cent in 2002. These results were generally better than the collective results of its predecessor components. In 2005, the LB achieved a breakthrough with 6.5 per cent and eight MPs. It also has one MEP and many local councillors, making it Portugal’s fifth biggest party. The LB’s presidential candidate in 2006 received 288,224 votes (five per cent). With support from students and unions in particular, the LB is becoming to be seen as a credible left alternative to the older, more established communist party and the more centre-left socialist party because it has become a pole of attraction for many involved in various social movements. The BL proposed Portugal’s first law on domestic violence, which was passed in parliament with the support of the socialist party. Portugal is unusual in that it has another radical left unity project, the Unitarian Democratic Coalition (UDC), consisting of the Communist Party, the Ecologist Party and Democratic Intervention. The coalition was formed in 1987 to run in the simultaneous national and European parliamentary elections, and in every election since these parties have stood together at the UDC, even though the Communist Party is the major element within it. Tensions are minimalised by the sharing out of lead candidatures. Since 1987 the UDC has had in: the national parliament between 12 and 31 MPs (eight to 12 per cent vote); local government in excess of 200 councillors (11 to 13 per cent vote); and the European Parliament two to four MEPs (nine per cent to 14 per cent vote).

Spain

United Left (Izquierda Unida) was formed as a political coalition in 1986 during the mobilisations against NATO by several groups of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans but was always dominated by the Communist Party. After the electoral decline of the Communist Party in 1982 (from 10 per cent to three per cent), the UL slowly improved its electoral results reaching nine per cent in 1993 (1.8 million votes) and 11 per cent in 1996 (2.6m votes). From 1999, it went into decline, with its support slipping to five per cent in 2000. In that election it signed a pact with the Socialist Party. Following the tradition of the Spanish left, the UL does not have an organisation in Catalonia. Until 1998, UL’s counterpart in Catalonia was Iniciativa per Catalunya (IC-V). But IC-V moved towards the centre, and broke relations with the UL, leading the UL to set up its own organisation in Catalonia, Esquerra Unida i Alternativa (EUiA). In 2004, UL ran with IC-V, achieving five per cent and five MPs. UL has around 70,000 activists and more than 2,500 councillors. Founded in 1995, Alternative Space is a political organisation from a Trotskyist tradition but draws on anti-capitalist, feminist and ecologist perspectives following the different currents that formed it. It operates as a current with UL but is also an autonomous organisation and most of its members do not belong to this coalition.

Switzerland

In Switzerland, the radical left consists of three groups (Alternative List, Solidarites, Swiss Party of Labour) which have a smattering between them of elected representatives at the various levels. However, they worked together in coalitions when standing for elections in 2005 (as Left Alliance) and 2007 (as À gauche toute! Genève).

Lessons for the Scottish and British radical left

This brief cook’s tour around the most significant western European radical left unity projects has a number of lessons:

What seem like disparate groups can work and fuse together (although it is interesting to note that in nearly all instances they do not include members of sister organisations of the Socialist Party (ex-Militant) in Britain and where they include members of sister organisations of the British Socialist Workers’ Party, these members have no significant influence on the radical left unity projects). Working together and, ultimately, fusing is often brought about by prior campaigning activities and joint electoral slates. Of course, while such fusion should be welcomed in itself, sometimes the underlying recognition is that individual parties have often ceased to be credible or influential players on their own so fusion is required to regain some kind of radical left critical mass.

The degree of success for the radical left unity projects is sufficiently high that acquiring further knowledge about them, if not trying to emulate them, is desirable. This can be gauged by their presence in representative legislatures and membership numbers, particularly amongst members from formerly-aligned, non-aligned and independent backgrounds. However, success in attracting left members from social democratic, Labour-type parties has been less evident.

Despite successes, radical left unity projects do suffer from ups and downs reflecting wider changes in society, struggle and consciousness – in other words, left unity does not guarantee inexorable upward momentum.

Engaging in the electoral arena is vital but so is campaigning in extra-parliamentary terms outside elections (although this has been more difficult to show in this cook’s tour). Indeed, it would be a strange notion to counter-pose the two – elections and campaigning – as at cross purposes with each other.

Splits do take place, either as a result of deeply held policy differences or the reluctance to consent to the dissolution of an organisation upon fusing with others. However, fusion need not led to this outcome depending on the process and nature of fusion. Seldom have splits come about because of entering government coalitions – this will remain the great test of these projects given that any government in the foreseeable future in any of the European countries is likely to be dominated by neo-liberal, bellicose parties.

The history of radical left unity far pre-dates the watershed of the rise of the anti-globalisation and anti-war movements in the new millennium.

Different ‘models’ exist of radical left unity and activists should look at which they think are most appropriate to their situation.

Some Green/ecologist parties and organisations have been involved but this is far from standard practice and given an impending environmental catastrophe, opening up avenues to the left of the Green movement is an important future task for the radical left unity projects.

Clearly, a long way still has to be travelled until an alternative is built to the crumbling edifice of mainstream social democracy but these projects provide food for thought and for action.

Professor Gregor Gall is Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Hertfordshire and author of ‘The Political Economy of Scotland – Red Scotland? Radical Scotland’ (University of Wales Press, 2005). He lives in Edinburgh.

SPBE Gains Lobbying Access to Scottish Parliament

Tim Holmes — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:44:45 +0000

The Scottish Parliament Business Exchange, which was condemned by the Standards Committee of the Scottish Parliament in 2002 as failing to 'provide sufficient transparency or accountability' has facilitated access to the Parliament for the Industry and Parliament Trust. The Trust is a forum based in Whitehall which facilitates contacts between corporations, lobbyists and members of the Houses of Parliament and parliamentary staff.

Writing in the IPT magazine The Bridge, Devin Scobie of the SPBE notes that facilitating the access was not easy: 'Establishing... that an IPT led Programme was a charitable cause and thereby eligible to book meeting rooms in the Parliament took some time but is now firmly in place' (January-March 2008, p. 16.). Amongst those attending the IPT led programme in Edinburgh was Jane McGirk, lobbyist for SELEX Sensors and Airborne Systems UK. This is an arms firm (part of the Finmeccanica Group the privatised former Italian state company which now owns Westland Helicopters) which produces 'sensing solutions for fighters, transporters, helicopters and Unmanned Airborne Vehicles (UAVs).' They also produce 'high power lasers for long range designation of ground targets (selected for the Lockheed Martin Sniper pod and Joint Strike Fighter EO targeting system)' and 'long range target identification systems'. These weapons are currently used in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the academic research has suggested that more than half a million people have been casualties since March 2003.

The Chief Executive of the Parliament Paul Grice stated before the Parliament's Standards committee that 'Access through the programme could not be called "privileged" in any sense of the word.' This is not quite how McGirk saw it. In her article for The Bridge, she writes that she had 'two full days geared on the inner workings of the Scottish Parliement with the sole aim of getting me up to speed with how it works and how I might help my company better engage with it - I felt privileged!'(p. 16) McGirk relates that she 'even' got the opportunity to dine with MSps 'providing a useful networking opportunity to begin the process of building relationships with them - all good stuff for someone in a role like mine'. In conclusion McGirk notes that she has 'been convinced of the value of engaging with Government'. 'So much so' she says that 'I have already signed up to attend forthcoming Study Programmes for the UK and European Parliaments'. The connection with the arms industry is also apparent in the account by Chris Shaw, Deputy Principal clerk in the Clerk's Department, House of Commons. His IPT fellowship took him to BAe Systems where he saw part of the process of assembling the Eurofighter (a project of four partners including Finmeccanica) and also 'saw their prototype Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) developed rapidly in response to a change in MoD requirements'. (p. 9) Shaw seemed impressed if not overawed with his placement, seeking to apply what he saw to fostering 'a more corporate approach' in the public sector. 'If a corporate approach can overcome all manner of country and cultural barriers to deliver fast jet aricraft', he concludes, ' it shouldn't be impossible for us to combine to achive an equally good - if marginally less exciting - product for the MPs we work for.' Leaving aside the question of whether the Eurofighter is a 'good' or 'exciting' product, there is little recognition that the actual 'corporate' culture of BAe Systems is one that involves routine bribery and corruption at the highest levels as part of a huge lobbying effort alongside ethically dubious employment of spies and agents provacateur in the movement against the arms industry.

The IPT has been in existence for thirty years and was the model upon which the SPBE was based. In Scotland the SPBE attempted to have a more inclusive feel by co-opting a member of the Scottish Trades Union Congress and by insisting that - despite the use of the word 'business' in the title it really wanted to promote understanding of the world outside Parliament and not just the corporate world. The IPT is not so bothered by such niceties, stating that 'It exists to promote industry and commerce and the efficient and effective administration of government' This is achieved, it says by promoting 'mutual understanding' between legislators and 'wealth generators from all sectors of business'. Typically enough 'wealth generators are conceived of as the people who own and run corporations rather than the people to work to create the wealth. The IPT is, in other words, a lobbyists dream come true.

In case the impression is given that it is only arms firms that are welcomed to this process, the Trust advertises its new members in the latest edition of its magazine as including Bayer-Schering Pharma Ltd, Britvic, Compass Group, Gallaher and T-Mobile (p. 23). All of these firms in the pharma, food, tobacco and communications businesses have lobbying objectives which will be served in part by joining the Trust.

The SPBE itself claims to have 'no connection with lobbying in any form' and at 'all times operates in an open and transparent manner'. Neither of these statements appears to be true. Devin Scobie (Interim Director until the end of January 2008) is himself a lobbyist. From 1999-2004 he worked in the Edinburgh office of GPC the lobbying firm which employed disgraced lobbyist Derek Draper (and which was part of the lobbying multinational Fleishman Hillard, in turn owned by the advertsising and PR giant Omnicom). Clients there included Pfizer, also a member of the SPBE. From the beginning Pfizer's lobbyist Lynda Gauld was involved with the Exchange, later becoming its convenor. From June 2007 Gauld joined Scobie at the new lobbying firm he created in late 2006 called Caledonia Consulting. When Scobie became the interim director of the Exchange he remained managing director of Caledonia. Documents released under the Freedom of information Act also show that Scobie was one of the very few commercial lobbyists to secure a pass for the Scottish Parliament. In effect then the SPBE is almost a front for Caledonia Consulting - not quite the same as having 'no connection' with lobbying.

Caledonia recently courted controversy by employing a former Labour minister who was jailed for setting fire to curtains at a central Edinburgh hotel at a Scottish political awards ceremony. Mike Watson, joins a number of former MSPs at the firm.

Scobie himself is reluctant to describe himself as a lobbyist in the press, claiming that 'I don't really consider myself a lobbyist, I consider myself a business consultant... The clients that I work with want to understand how parliament operates,they want to understand how the committees are set up. It's not a case of saying, "Devin, get closer to MSP X or Y".' On Caledonia's website he is a little more open saying that prior to 2004 he 'spent most of his working life in public affairs and communication consultancy'. But in December 2003 while still working at GPC, Scobie described an alleged alternative view of him as 'an evil lobbyist' who:

* Lunches for Scotland
* Tries to persuade, cajole and otherwise influence
* Stays in the shadows
* Lives in the Scottish Parliament
* Preys on unsuspecting MSPs
* Pretends we don’t exist
* And makes lots of money from poor, down-trodden clients...

Whatever the truth, the SPBE is now run in effect as a lobbying outfit. Concerns about transparency are not abated by the fact that Caledonia do not disclose their clients, so it is difficult to tell if any of them are involved in the SPBE and consequently whther there are any conflict of interest issues. The Association of Professional Political Consultants is the lobby industry body set up to resist lobbying transparency. It operates a self regulatory code which requires disclosure of clients and forbids the holding of parliamentary passes. Caledonia is not a member. The relationship between Gauld, Scobie and the SPBE/Caledonia has never been clarified. Nor has there been any information forthcoming about how conflicts of interest might be managed in the absence of the disclosure of Caledonia's clients. The SPBE is on other words certainly not open and transparent. It appears however, to be shielded by the powerful Chief Executive of the Parliament Paul Grice. If the SNP government wants to move towards transparency and openness it is he who will have to be out-manouevred.