Scottish Left Review Issue 79 November/December 2013 £2.00 Comment Scottish Left Review Issue 79 November/December 2013 t is difficult to maintain constitutional Ineutrality at this tail-end of 2013. Of course we will continue to do our best to keep the SLR open as a space for Contents anyone on the Scottish left, a place where they can feel at home and contribute Comment...... 2 to a debate that stretches beyond the boundaries of party or constitutional Democracy in writing...... 4 position. That is our duty as a magazine Jean Urquhart created expressly for that purpose. Solid foundations for change...... 6 But the duty lies not only on us to Michael Keating keep that space open but on all sides to fill that space. Because it can surely not Our share of the future...... 8 be possible for us to face the desolation Robin McAlpine which lies across Scottish society in the dog-days of this unlucky year without Graveyard or get-together...... 10 some sort of answer to what lies all Isobel Lindsay around us. Welfare Nation State...... 12 What answer to Grangemouth? John McInally Facile talk of ‘the need to work together’ is an insult to the collective intelligence. Labour and the trade unions...... 14 All it states is that if we keep the fork Gregor Gall, Richard Leonard, Bob Crow and let others keep the knife, it will be impossible for us to eat on our own. That Real energy answers...... 18 may not be a bad thing, but someone Andy Cumbers needs to explain why. How is the The logic of conflict...... 20 capacity for Westminster to offer a loan guarantee of £120m because the Scottish Neil Davidson Parliament doesn’t have the power to do When growth fails us...... 22 it a convincing answer to the problem Ernest Garcia and James Kelly of that national crisis? We watched as a part of our key national infrastructure Reviews...... 25 was bought by an equity company controlled by one man who borrowed Web Review...... 26 the money to own it. We watched as Kick Up The Tabloids...... 27 that man, again and again across the UK and internationally, sought to subject Cover and illustrations: Nadia Lucchesi both governments and working men and women to his will. We have seen again [email protected] and again that failure to capitulate to his demands is met with agressive attempts to undermine democracy and sabotage Email: [email protected] the economic wellbeing of the economies Web: www.scottishleftreview.org and societies that created these vast enterprises in the first place. We observed Tel: 0141 424 0042 a decade-long campaign to defeat any Address: Scottish Left Review, 741 Shields Road, Pollokshields, vestiges of industrial democracy which, Glasgow G41 4PL in his eyes, blighted his divine right to run ‘his’ businesses as dictatorships of one. We watched as this culminated in Editorial Committee a coordinated attempt to bring Scotland Malcolm Balfour John McAllion Tom Nairn close to its knees as just another gambit Cat Boyd Robin McAlpine (Editor) Jonathan Shafi in his totalitarian approach to nation and Moira Craig Peter McColl Tommy Sheppard citizen. Then we watched as a defeated Gregor Gall Henry McCubbin Elaine Smith union was - still is - subjected to a vast Isobel Lindsay David Miller Bob Thomson (Convener) smear and hate campaign run by a Gordon Morgan rabidly right-wing media cheered on by a rabidly right-wing government. Printed by Clydeside Press Ltd, 37 High Street, Glasgow G1 1LX How is a £120m bung to this man a response, an answer? How?

2 Grangemouth, the shipyard job losses, continuing austerity; in these dark days for Scottish society, we need answers and not just soundbites

We need proper media ownership of outrage that politicians who want to will use it well’ is again fine. Except the laws, proper industrial relations appear ‘progressive’ or compassionate needed power could lie anywhere which legislation, a national strategy on the troop out when needed. They are all takes full sovereign control, so the answer ownership of horrified by the is not ‘where’ but ‘who and how’? So who key industries, a An opinion that sight of ‘hard and how? Before we vote in September stronger position working people next year, explain how Scotland can on the practices provides a reason having to beg be protected from the Jim Ratcliffes of of the equity not to do one for handouts to this world. Explain how we rebuild an ownership model, be able to eat’. industry in our country. Explain how an industrial thing is hopelessly Fine; but how is we challenge the political doctrine of diversification insufficient if it is austerity an answer ‘austerity’ which is nothing more than a strategy to make us to this? We know term for the dismantling of the welfare less reliant on one not matched with an that the economy state. Tell us how these things can be large enterprise, a idea of something is not fixing itself done - this space is open for you; we will finance system that in a way that publish your ideas. makes these things else that can be will end low pay In the meantime, this issue looks at possible. We, in done instead. Tell (virtually none the transformations that could provide our ‘partnership’ of the ‘recovery’ answers to these questions but from the are offered none of us how these things is in industrial perspective of what would happen after these things. Jim can be done - this production independence. It looks at a process of Radcliffe is offered which might give rebuilding post-Yes and explores the free money. space is open for you some reason for potential - and the risks - inherent in that How is this optimism). Yes, process. an answer? Ed Milliband has mentioned ‘living No, that our five writers can write it What answer to Govan and wage’ more recently. But he offers only does not mean it will happen. But it is at shipbuilding? How is a UK industry a marginal tax credit to companies for a least a path, a hint of a way forward. We sector declining before our eyes with limited period if they will only ‘do the must build our decision on possibility. So no remedial action a reason to celebrate decent thing’ and pay the wage. Most let us populate the land of possibility. All ‘partnership’? How do we come to terms won’t, and for the legions of Britons for are welcome. with what is an entirely state-dependent whom the problem is that business which survives on state funding they can’t get enough hours (but only to build weapons) but over or who can’t raise a family by which we seem to have no democratic earning living wage, nothing Scottish Left Review control at all? The voices which shout is proposed. We shall plough The Scottish Left Review is a non-profitr makingadical s cpublication.ottish writing ‘they’ll reopen Portsmouth if you on and hope that the City Please subscribe or make a donation by going to www. vote Yes’ do not seem to understand of London and the housing scottishleftreview.org where you can pay by credit card capitalism. Who is it that will open market get us relected on or by filling in your details in the form below and returning Portsmouth? Much as English MPs the basis of the illusion of to Scottish Left Review, 741 Shields Road, Pollokshields, might like it to be so, are they proposing competence. Glasgow G41 4PL to nationalise BAE Systems? Don’t they How is this an answer? understand that they gave up all right How is any of this an answer Name to guide British industry for political to the dire mess that is Britain purposes when they privatised it all? today? Address If we did have any control over our Now, the standard industry there are lots of things we might response to this from the do, from encouraging diversification pro-union left is ‘but Alex to targetting non-military sources Salmond is a bad man and of contracts. But we don’t. It would the SNP is even more right- Tel: certainly make more sense (marginally) wing’. People are free to hold to keep building useless aircraft carriers that opinion if they wish. But E-mail: (which have no purpose but create an opinion that provides a jobs) than to build the useless Trident reason not to do one thing Subscription/Donation replacement (that has no purpose and is hopelessly insufficient if doesn’t create jobs in Britain). The it is not matched with an Date: result of Trident replacement is that we idea of something else that I79 are consigned to sit here and watch as can be done instead. Saying military orders dry up and shipyards (for example) ‘only electing Subscriptions: £18 (waged), £14 (unwaged), £15 (local close. There is absolutely no Plan B. a Labour government will organisations), £30 (national organisations. How is this an answer? put the power needed in the Donations will be gratefully recieved. Cheques should be Food banks are the latest symbol hands of the people who crossed and made payable to: Left Review Scotland Ltd.

3 Democracy in writing

ou wouldn’t think it from the ossified democracy, where generations putting together this constitution for a Yanodyne bun-fight played out in the of paternalistic governance and false new Scotland, if done inclusively and 24-hour news cycle over the referendum, hope after false hope have hollowed out positively, could really help kick-start but independence is a once-in-a-lifetime participatory democracy. Jimmy Reid’s political engagement in our new nation opportunity to reshape Scottish society. famous rectorial address identified the and lay down a marker that Scotland is For those of us longing for a more roots of this alienation as lying within changing for the better. equitable our political However, the window for achieving society it opens system: this change is narrow. The state of flux the door to After a Yes vote, “It’s the that a vote for independence will bring a state where the establishment frustration of will not last forever, and by the time privilege, ordinary people Scotland goes to the polls to elect its schooling and stranglehold on excluded from first independent Parliament in 2016 networking do democracy will, the processes our opportunity could already have been not dictate who of decision lost, particularly if partisan rancour stalls our leaders momentarily, be broken. making. The any movement towards an all-party and are, where the The moment must be feeling of no-party ‘Team Scotland’ approach to centuries-old despair and post-independence negotiations. stratification of seized. If the Scottish hopelessness The ‘no-party’ element of any our society can state is to be reshaped that pervades constitutional process is, to me, the more be shaken like a people who important factor. In the few meetings snow globe and so it’s not simply a feel with that I’ve had with what could loosely made better. It’s paler shade of the UK, justification be termed Scottish civic society, there’s about changing that they have clearly a lot of interest in the process of not just who then the long-lasting no real say in writing a new constitution for Scotland. governs us, constitutional apparatus shaping or The work of So Say Scotland, who have but how we determining been providing a politically neutral are governed of the state must be their own space for small groups to think about and where debated and decided destinies” the issues surrounding the independence power lies. My support for referendum, is just one of many examples Establishing upon by the people - not independence of how pooling resources and innovative priorities, by the politicians. has always thinking across civic society can have a rights and stemmed positive impact on political engagement responsibilities from a belief that involving people in and encourage those who feel like their by and for the people who live and work their communities, and returning as voices are never heard to take part and in Scotland then becomes the manifesto much power over local matters to local speak up. by which the Government (of whatever people, is the best system of governance, What the Scottish Government persuasion) must abide. and is a system that the broken stasis of has said so far on the process of We can cast off the perverse pride Westminster will not deliver. The work adopting a written constitution is very that Westminster holds on being one of of Nordic Horizons and the Jimmy Reid encouraging for those of us that want to only three democracies without a written Foundation in laying bare just how little see an organic, grassroots approach. The constitution, where Parliamentary the citizens of this country are trusted Scottish Government have already stated sovereignty reigns supreme and locks to run their own affairs in comparison that“when the process of determining in place a system that discourages to other countries has only further the constitution gets underway, [it] participation and interest in how we proven how our centralised, demoralising will be just one of many voices”, and are governed. Notwithstanding plans to institutions are broken. that it “should be prepared in a spirit bind the next Parliament to an in-out With independence, we can change of national unity”. In other words, after EU referendum in 2017, these ideals (if these relationships between those who the referendum. The Government has they can be called that) are not likely govern and the governed. We will finally also proposed the establishment of a to change any time soon - the constant have a chance to put in place a written Constitutional Convention, with an sabre-rattling broadsides against the constitution that codifies the relationship encouraging nod towards the Icelandic ECHR emanating from Westminster between the different branches of process, as an integral part of this process. hardly suggest that the Mother of government and, most importantly, The Icelandic model of Parliaments is ready to roll back the enumerates the rights that every citizen ‘constitutional crowdsourcing’ has boundaries of the muddled, unwritten can reasonably expect. Although attracted international academic interest, morass of UK constitutional law to suit there will undoubtedly be differences and was heralded as yet another Nordic its citizens any time soon. of opinion on what these rights and democratic innovation that empowered As things stand, we live in an relationships should be, the process of citizens rather than institutions. After

4 Jean Urquhart argues that the chance to write a constitution for Scotland is the chance to enshrine participative democracy - as long as the process is not left to the politicians. randomly selecting 950 individuals amendments would require a two thirds momentarily, be broken. The moment from the register of voters, 25 of these majority in Parliament and, in a haunting must be seized. If the Scottish state is were elected to form a Constitutional similarity to the 1979 devolution to be reshaped so it’s not simply a paler Assembly, which was annulled by the referendum in Scotland, the support of shade of the UK, then the long-lasting Icelandic Supreme Court but then re- 40 per cent of all voters to pass. constitutional apparatus of the state must constituted by the Icelandic Parliament I don’t doubt the sincerity of the be debated and decided upon by the as a Constitutional Council. The Scottish Government when it speaks people - not by the politicians. Council’s proposals, which were open to of only forming part of the process; It seems important that the issue contributions and comments from the however, its caveat that it would be for of the written constitution needs to be public on its website, included national Parliament to decide on the process of discussed at every meeting, and should referenda (Swiss-style ‘direct democracy’), adopting a written constitution, and be in every speech made promoting freedom of information provisions and recent events in Iceland, highlight even independence. It is the evidence and national ownership of natural resources. more the need for the churches, trade the insurance we need in these days of These elements of the Constitutional Bill, unions, and the rest of civic Scotland political cynicism. along with many others, were supported to keep up the pressure to ensure that In the early days of the first SNP by the Icelandic people in the national this process is driven by the people and minority government the ‘National referendum held on 20 October 2012. not by Parliament. The hangover from Conversation’ was launched. While it However, the Icelandic experience the infamous 40 per cent rule of 1979 had value as an idea it seemed not to be should also act as a cautionary tale haunted Scotland until 1997, and I’m maintained or developed, or perhaps the for how this people-led process was not sure if Scotland’s national psyche conversation seemed to be one sided. We blatantly disregarded by the politicians. could withstand another establishment need the national conversation to garner After refusing to hold a vote to ratify hijack. national opinion and awaken every voter the Constitutional Bill, the Parliament After a Yes vote, the establishment to the implication and opportunity then declared that any constitutional stranglehold on democracy will, that their vote affords. With so many different agencies and organisations and individuals declaring the importance of the written constitution it needs now to be in the hands of every one with a vote, regardless of their vote in the referendum itself. Until there is a Yes vote in the referendum, these discussions may be academic. However, it is important that we start planning the process, if not the content, for a written constitution now. We must look to those, such as Iceland, who have gone through the process recently, and learn from their experiences, both good and bad. We must begin to think about who will be involved at each stage of the process, how drafts will be made, challenged and rewritten, and how the people of Scotland will be intimately involved and not merely consulted. We must not allow apathy or cut corners to limit the scope, direction or content of the debate. Most importantly, we must realise the tremendous prospect that lies before us. A Yes vote is not an end in itself, but the means to greater ends. If we can put in place a strong, inclusive, and inspiring document at the start of our journey, then anything will be possible in our new Scotland.

Jean Urquhart is independent MSP for the North of Scotland

5 Solid foundations for change

n independent Scotland would be inequalities are contained. These are the of the settlement. This does not require Amore self-governing in two respects. social investment states, typified by the that everyone be a social democrat or It would have gained new competences, Nordic countries. complete agreement on policy but at notably in finance and social welfare; and Independence supporters have often least an acceptance of some of the basic it would be free of constraints imposed argued that Scotland needs first to gain elements. One is that public expenditure by membership of the United Kingdom. independence and then it can decide is not a mere drain on the purse but Yet these in themselves by no means democratically which policies to adopt. does come back in the form of increased guarantee the ability to control the Yet the choice of strategy must be an welfare and can actually contribute to destiny of a nation. Scotland would still integral part of the independence package growth. Another is that vast inequalities have to convert its new competences into itself if the case is to have any credibility. of income and wealth, far from being policy capacity; and as a small nation If it is true, as some on the political right a spur to the economy, are actually a in a globalised maintain (and hindrance to economic development. world, it would History is not destiny. celebrate), that Although we tend to think of need to develop small states are Scotland as somehow naturally social the ability to New institutions condemned by democratic, this may be due to the set the terms of can be built. Should the demands absence of a viable conservative party its engagement. of global rather than any natural proclivity. The In our present Scotland gain competition to evidence suggests that, individually, research independence without pursue market- Scots are only slightly further to the project, we are liberal strategies, left than England on the main issues. examining the the tools to govern then there is no It takes political leadership to make the experience of effectively, it could reason for left- connections, including political parties small European of-centre voters prepared to abandon ‘triangulation’ (the states to see what indeed end up at the to support it. technique of getting close enough to their can be learnt. mercy of corporate If it is not true, opponents to steal their votes) and develop There are, then advocates a clear vision. The political class also need to simplify, power – but there is of independence to avoid the temptations of populism, two modes another way. need to specify such as debt-fuelled consumer booms or of adaptation the alternative. promising to spend the oil proceeds on to global markets. One is the market- Nor is the case that we can cherry- current expenditure at the same time as liberal state, which fully accepts the pick items from each menu to suit our creating a sovereign wealth fund. Norway, logical of global capitalism and adjusts convenience. Cutting corporation tax which has used its oil revenues in a vastly to its needs. Taxes, especially corporate in order to spark a race to the bottom more intelligent manner than the UK, taxes and higher rate income tax, are with other European jurisdictions is offers and example here. kept low in order to attract investment, not consistent with a social investment The key issue here is the design with a concomitant low level of public strategy; nor, alas, is is true that cuts of institutions, which can encourage expenditure and minimal welfare in taxation pay for themselves through positive-sum forms of politics, the wider provision. There are pronounced increased production. Ireland’s experience public good and long-term thinking, economic cycles of boom and bust, with during the boom is instructive here as it while not stifling day-to-day politics and wages and public expenditures going up sought to combine the market-liberal with the disagreements that are the essence of and down accordingly. Labour markets the social investment strategies, and so democracy. Successful small states often and environmental conditions are largely failed to use its newfound wealth to lay practice social partnership, in which deregulated and government intervention the foundations of a real welfare state or employers, trades unions and government in the economy is minimal. Some of the the infrastructure for long-term growth. come together to agree on long term transition states of central Europe and The social investment strategy has goals and to overcome collective the Baltic, with their flat income taxes obvious attractions for the political left action problems. This can provide for and low corporate, taxes correspond to and, indeed, is the foundation of Nordic adjustment to external shocks without this model. social democracy, although it is also mass unemployment and link bargaining Another group of small states, compatible with a more conservative about wages with a consideration of however, has a large public sector, ideological orientation. It is also in line the ‘social wage’ in the form of welfare rather high taxes and extensive welfare with the dominant trends in Scottish and public services. This kind of policy provision. Here the public sector acts as politics. Realising it in practice is making was tried briefly in the United a stabilising force in the face of economic another matter and requires particular Kingdom in the 1970s but abandoned cycles and public expenditure is seen as conditions, some of which Scotland as bad ‘corporatism’ after 1979. In contributing, rather than detracting from might have to create for itself. It implies fact, for all its faults, it had managed growth. Public services are universal rather high levels of taxation and a to tame inflation without the mass rather than selective and residual, broad tax base since taxes on the rich unemployment or huge inequalities that in order to keep the middle classes alone are not enough. There needs to marked policies in the 1980s. Elsewhere on board, and social and economic be a social consensus on the essentials in Europe, it has been rediscovered in a 6 Michael Keating outlines two future models for an independent Scotland and explains that if we want to pick the best of these it is too late to wait for democracy to fix bad systems more flexible form as social concertation could be expanded to open up debate on to high technology, regularly being sold or ‘lean corporatism’. It is perhaps where the money goes and how well it is expensive, over-complex and unreliable surprising that post-devolution Scotland being spent. solutions to complex problems by has not adopted anything similar, but The good intention at devolution consultants and firms who know that, rather followed the rest of the UK in was that the Scottish Parliament would if anything goes wrong, they will be what is essentially a market-driven break with the Westminster model bailed out. The emerging fiasco of the approach. There is perhaps a more by being more open, less subservient implementation of Universal Credit was negotiated style of policy-making within to the executive and less concerned utterly predictable. Government needs to individual sectors here but, despite some with partisan posturing. Despite some re-equip itself with the professional skills interest among trade unions, no return to welcome differences, it has turned out to meet the private sector on equal terms. peak-level agreements. very much in the Westminster mode and Small countries by definition have If social partnership is to be more in some respects even worse. There are small governments, unable to mobilise than an excuse for the imposition of hardly any of the independent, awkward the expertise and resources of large ones. austerity, it needs strong and vibrant squad of members who still exist down It is therefore all the more important that trade unions, another missing element in south and rebellions against the whips they be focused on key priorities and the Scottish (and UK) equation. It also are rare (while increasingly common in know when and how to intervene. They requires that employers be at least willing Westminster). Committees have mostly have the advantage of having shorter to sit down at the table, rather than failed to get a grip on their brief, while lines of communication and able to make expecting to get their way on everything those Westminster committees with links across policy sectors. This may without giving in return. It also needs strong leaders have begun to make a real enable them to focus on objectives and to be flexible enough to avoid creating name for themselves. Scotland, like the avoid capture by the interests they are multiple veto points and entrenching UK, has nurtured a self-reproducing supposed to be regulating. This does not, existing interests. class of professional politicians with little however, happen automatically. Ireland Social partnership is not the only experience outside politics and who, once shows how government can be captured element that is needed to meet the in Parliament, stay there until ejected by by powerful interests (in that case the challenges of independence. The structure the voters. There is no regular circulation property industry) to the detriment of and organisation of government is in and out of politics. the wider good. also critical. The Scottish Government Over the last thirty years, the idea Political parties are not in good is descended from the old Scottish has become entrenched in British politics odour these days. They have an ever Office, which was not a policy-making that the only possible mode of collective tighter grip on power but are less and less department and has only slowly adapted action is that of the market, and the only representative of anyone. Yet we still need to the challenge of being a government in outside source of wisdom worth listening them in order to pose policy alternatives its own right. It has gradually developed a to is that of the business community. and to provide responsible government. more strategic capacity, focused on policy These are two separate issues since, as Scottish parties are little different from objectives rather than administrative Adam Smith famously noted, business those elsewhere in the UK and in Europe, divisions and has freed itself from some people, left to themselves, do not actually and desperately in need of renewal. They of the rigidities of the Whitehall model. like markets, preferring monopolies and need internal democracy, more internal Yet the budgetary process still tends to be cartels. Yet the New Public Management dissent and less discipline, and better links rather incremental, making it difficult to has sought to create bogus markets in to civil society and local communities. shift resources into new priority areas. It public services and to replicate business It is sometimes argued that the has no doubt been wise to avoid creating models right across the board, from the experience of the Nordic countries cannot something like the UK Treasury, whose civil service, through education to the be exported because of their unique reach has extended deep into Whitehall arts. Partnership, in UK parlance, usually history and culture. History does indeed departments, centralising policy and refers to bringing in business interests to matter and Scotland has a long way imposing its will, a tendency which was public policy (to the bafflement of some to go, but history is not destiny. New massively intensified under Gordon of my European colleagues for whom it institutions can be built and, as they work, Brown. On the other hand, there does means something much wider). Scotland embed themselves in daily practice and need to be a central place where policy has been spared some of the excesses of understandings. Were Scotland to gain options can be compared and evaluated bogus markets in education and health formal independence without equipping and resources directed to where they but the idea that business always knows itself with the tools to govern effectively, are most needed. There also needs to best is still widespread. it could indeed end up at the mercy of be more scrutiny of expenditure plans This, combined with excessive international markets and corporate power and outcomes by Parliament. The UK reliance on management consultants, – but there is another way. Coalition has created the Office of Budget has stripped government of the ability Michael Keating is Professor of Politics Responsibility to hold itself to its own to manage large projects, to undertake at the University of Aberdeen and the plans but, in a typical Whitehall fashion, contracts and to monitor compliance. University of Edinburgh and Director of has made OBR responsible to itself. Plans Even the contracting out of contracts the Scottish Centre for Constitutional for a Scottish equivalent envisage that it be is often contracted out. Governments Change (www.futureukandscotland. responsible to the Parliament and its remit seem particularly gullible when it comes ac.uk/projects/research-centre 7 Our share of the future

cotland owns 24 stops on the London be understood as the process through it more expensive to cancel the contract SUnderground. So let the national which London punishes Scotland for than to pay for a luxury weapon with debate begin; which ones do we want? its cheek and allocates to us the debts it no purpose. Either they are truly awful And what shall we do with them? For has amassed. The idea that this might at negotiation or they routinely allow example, could we take Westminster be a positive event for Scotland is not themselves to be out-negotiated. Either and simply close it? The extra walk from to be considered. The idea that this is a way, there seems little to fear. Victoria might aid the health of some of mutual process cannot be discussed. It is In Scotland we have many people our more rotund MPs. Or perhaps we very simple; Scotland will damn well be in our trade unions and our business might take all stops in and around the paying off our share of the credit card bill community with more than a couple of City of London and simply add a ‘bonus’ but Whitehall is keeping the flat screen years of negotiation behind them. They onto the ticket price. It would be three telly. may not have made Winchester College’s or four hundred times the price of the And now back into the real First Eleven but I suspect this won’t ticket but we’d justify it on the basis that world. In fact, the track record of the leave them overly worried when a ‘team there is a competitive market in the field negotiating powers of the civil service is Scotland’ negotiating committee is put of bare-faced greed and that the bankers not impressive. The litany of occasions together. We have many first-rate laywers can hardly expect us not to maximise the on which it has been turned over by the and academics who will be more than value of our asset. By fleecing them. private sector is too lengthy to consider capable of supporting those negotiations. Or perhaps we’ll just take a properly. Just remember - they are paying But do we have a negotiating cash value. After all, the London billons for aircraft carriers they are going hand? Again, to listen to the tone of Underground was designated (by London to park somewhere and ignore because the discussion you’d think Scotland politicians) as ‘national infrastructure’ they managed to agree a contract for will be lucky to come out of these and made the nation pay for it. That something they didn’t need which made negotiations still in posession of our therefore makes it a shared asset. So is Diego Garcia, an entire island we stole from its inhabitants to build a military base. On the assumption we don’t want a corner of it, we’ll probably take that as a cash value. On the subject of islands, why don’t we just guarantee our EU membership by offering Spain our nine per cent of Gibralter as a sweetener? It’s not like we have any real use for it. The British State’s overseas propery portfolio is extensive and incredibly valuable - and nine per cent is ours. Along with nine per cent of militay assets, nine per cent of the BBC, nine per cent of the London property portfolio of Whitehall. And so on. One of the tricks that is being played in the referendum campaign is to present Scotland as a powerless supplicant in any negotiations over how assets and liabilities are to be divided between us if there is a Yes vote. It is the sound of the same-old establishment types explaining to us that the British Civil Service is peerless and Scotland would have no chance in negotiations against the finest fellows to emerge from the playing fields of England’s private schools. Another of the tricks is to make sure that no consideration of post- Yes processes must be allowed to consider secession negotiations as something positive. They must only

8 The process of negotiating the terms of separation if there is a Yes vote has been presented as one in which Scotland is bullied and weakened. Robin McAlpine argues that this is completely the wrong way to see negotiations. underpants. After all, Ed Balls has told the tax collection centre in East Kilbride by the partner nation. So we would us that we’re not getting to use Sterling and London could just ask people to negotiate the means to do it, either and he’s not bluffing. Now, aside from have a whip-round to fund their state through redesign of our share of assets the fact that my observation has been instead. (where they are in country) or through that people who are not bluffing seldom Of course, we won’t. But nor will reductions in the debt we would inherit. say ‘I’m not bluffing’, I suspect he may London bomb our railway stations or Understanding this isn’t difficult once be. If Sterling loses refuse to give us our you dismiss all the silly stuff, once you Scotland, overnight share of assets. In the pay attention to international norms of Sterling ceases to be Scotland would real world, the rest distributing assets and liabilities, once a petrocurrency. I’m do a good job of of the UK could no you stop seeing public finances through not sure the money more afford to destroy the farcical lense of ‘all expenditure is tax markets will like that. negotiating our relations between our revenue’. We will have the tools and the They certainly won’t independence, nations than could we. resources to rebuild. It is time to stop like the fact that Now, this is most asking ‘could we’ and start the debate on Sterling’s balance of of that I’m in no certainly not intended the terms of ‘what will we do?’. trade would collapse doubt. It would to be any form of First, let’s radically repair the UK without North Sea macho posturing. It is systems as we rebuild. The chance to Oil exports. And if leave us in a an attempt to apply in create a new tax system is one of the best Scotland is required to good position to the other direction the opportunities we could be given; the create its own currency sort of sub-Swiftian need to reinvent our civil service might (which I suspect we start to rebuild parody that passes be a better opportunity still. Second, let’s could manage just fine the architecture for debate. I had an think about where we want to locate our if we were forced), extended conversation new systems. Certainly no in Edinburgh; what mechanism is of our society. with a journalist in perhaps we might put our foriegn office there for imposing on What we do with which I just couldn’t on the Fife coast and our tax collection Scotland any part of get various obvious system partly in run-down Ayrshire. our share of Sterling’s that opportunity points across to him. Dumfries might get the citizenship and national debt? In is up to us. He kept asking how immigration policy jobs. And third, let one night Sterling we could afford to pay us then think really creatively about what would become a much more indebted for Royal Mail renationalisation. I had to assets we really want. There might be currency on the back of a significantly point out that it would not be expensive a good case for taking the public share lower tax base with a serious balance (it is time some people educated in RBS as a proportion of our assets, of trade deficit and a serious hit to its themselves on international law regarging offering us a substantial starting-point for internatioanl reputation. I have never compulsory purchase). But I also had redesigning a banking system. We might believed that Scotland will be denied the to point out that we’d be rebuilding an think carefully about which overseas use of Sterling. entire natioanl infrastructure and that properties we might have an interest in But if it happens, if London follows mail renationalisation would be a minor and which not (there could be strong through on a fraction of its threats issue. How could we afford it all was all synergies in establishing a strong Scottish (border posts to hem us in, total lack of I was asked. Eventually I did lose my presence in the rapidly-growing Latin military or security cooperation and all patience a little - “is your understanding American nations). the rest) then London should undersand that we will be given the national debt, It is time that we had a proper that pig-headedness works two ways. deprived of all of our share of national discussion about what sort of country So for example, in that context the next infrastructure and be asked to muddle we want to rebuild. To do that we need time the British military were to see any along as best we could, rebuilding people to have a better understanding of its assets in Scotland might be on what has been taken from us at our of the conditions in which we will be TV. If anyone is spluttering at that idea, own expense?” That seemed to be the rebuilding. Those conditions will be why is ‘you’re not using our currency’ understanding. much more favourable than you would any different than ‘fine, you’re not using So let’s reset this discusion. If believe from our newspapers. Scotland Cape Wrath’. We might decide simply we vote for independence, Scotland would do a good job of negotiating our to stop selling electricity to England. would need to rebuild an redesign a independence, of that I’m in no doubt. It Or perphaps we might designate all large amount of the architecture of the would leave us in a good position to start members of Tony Blair’s government state. We’d need to rebuild a national to rebuild the architecture of our society. as war criminals and post arrest notices state broadcaster, a tax system, a foriegn What we do with that opportunity is for them. We could reposess Daily office, a military and much more. But up to us. So let’s start thinking about it Mail editor Paul Dacre’s 3,000 acres of we will be doing this with a mutual properly. Scottish land and see him in court. Or recognition that we are rebuilding things Robin McAlpine is Director of the we could just cut off the phone lines to we own because they are being retained Jimmy Reid Foundation

9 Graveyard or get-together

aving had years of experience in were around and not in the SNP was some were attracted for what they saw as HScottish politics may not be the probably quite small. But the splits were idealistic ‘middle-ground’ reasons. The best qualification for discussing political disastrous and came very early. SDP had an electoral alliance with the realignment; it can seem like wandering Let’s next turn to a UK-wide Liberals and they didn’t compete against through a graveyard. Certainly the example which each other. Their record of starting new parties is had an impact combined vote in dispiriting but the prospect of movement on Scotland. The So any post- the 1983 election between parties or new coalitions may left shift in the referendum ideas of was 25 per offer more potential. Labour Party after cent. But there But let’s remember some of the 1979 produced a new party have to were leadership disasters so that we can start from a a breakaway by recognise that the tensions and realistic perspective. The ‘breakaway’ part of the Labour declining support. Scottish Labour Party was formed in right. Former odds are that it will The momentum 1976 because of Labour’s perceived senior ministers – start in a blaze of had gone. After failure to produce a strong Scottish Shirley Williams, the1987 election devolution scheme. Jim Sillars and John Roy Jenkins, optimism and end when all the Robertson left the Parliamentary Labour David Owen, a few years later in leadership lost Party to start the new party and were Bill Rodgers – set their seats, the joined by Alex Neil who was a Labour up the Social bitter recriminations. majority voted research officer. They were supported by Democratic For people who want to merge with an impressive group of young talent – Party. They had the Liberals but Colin Boyd (later Lord Advocate), John considered but to see an effective there were bitter McAllion, Charlie Gordon (later leader rejected joining left space in Scottish divisions and of Glasgow City Council), Tom Nairn, the Liberals David Owen Joe Farrell, former MP Maria Fyfe, Sheila because they post-referendum refused to join. Gilmore MP, Martin Sime (Director of thought they politics, there are The SDP’s main SCVO). They had strong support from could build legacy was to some of the most influential journalists a larger base three other possible ensure that in Scotland and big media coverage. Yet among former approaches - a focus Thatcher had large within two years they were a spent force. Labour voters. majorities given Internal disputes followed by expulsions Some cynics also on strengthening the the nature of had torn the party apart. One side thought that there left in one existing the Westminster argued that entryism by the IMG was the were some very electoral system problem and the other side that it was big egos involved party, sustaining and to give the autocratic leadership. The MPs lost their who would not cooperative alliances Liberals/Liberal seats at the 1979 election and Jim Sillars have transferred Democrats then joined the SNP. easily into another across parties or some increase in The SLP had a lot going for it. established bringing the left in credibility. There was at this stage a very lacklustre party. They Into the and divided Labour Party while the had a massively the two major parties more recent SLP had well-known leading figures, an supportive media together in a new period we agenda that should have been popular and a number of have the case and, to begin with, very good media. senior journalists coalition. of Respect in But it was less clear whether there was like Polly Toynbee England. Set up political space for them. The SNP had were active members. While 25 per cent in 2004 as an initiative driven largely high credibility, eleven MPs and had of their members had previously been by George Galloway and the SWP. won over 30 per cent of the vote in in the Labour Party and 10 per cent had By 2007 there was bitter feuding and October 1974. Many of the people been Conservative members, most had expulsions with two separate conferences they might have attracted were already never been party members so they were and years of dispute over the name. The in the SNP or were supporters and the making an appeal to a wider constituency principal but not the only fault-line was SNP was a social democratic party. On of political ‘virgins’. Roy Jenkins won the Galloway/SWP battle with George’s the Labour side there was a strong core a by-election in Glasgow Hillhead in ethnic support base being more socially ‘payroll’ membership – MPs, Regional 1982 demonstrating that they were conservative and patriarchal. The battles and District councillors, trade union able to make some inroads in Scotland are too complex and tedious to recount officers – and still quite a strong section at the expense of Labour and the SNP. but have continued to the present. Even of traditional loyalist members. Voters Some of it was just tactical; voters saw after Galloway’s Bradford by-election already had a choice and the number it in some seats as the best chance of win in 2012 and council seat gains in the of radical devo-max activists who beating the Thatcher government. But city, the splintering continued with five

10 Isobel Lindsay looks at the history of setting up new political parties and expresses little faith that such an initiative in post-referendum Scotland would be any more successful. However, there are alternatives...

Respect Bradford councillors resigning and cultures. The people forming new determine its own policies and structures earlier this year. It can only be described parties will tend to have a considerable without Westminster so there will have as a mess, discrediting the left yet again. proportion of strong personalities with to be a lot of change and, perhaps, The Scottish Socialist Party saga high expectations. They will expect to opportunity. Especially if there is a Yes is so recent and the wounds are still so have direct control over most decisions vote, both the Greens and the SSP will be raw that we are probably better avoiding and many on the left have an automatic in a stronger position having campaigned contested territory. The sad thing is distrust of leaders who rise above the rank actively for independence. They have that for several years it looked as if and file. When disagreements arise, they limited but sufficient organisational it was going to make a coherent and can quickly become toxic and there isn’t structure to get involved in the major viable contribution to Scottish politics. a big enough base to contain them. The initiatives that will follow from Yes like Formed in 1998 just before the Scottish Westminster electoral system makes it developing the new constitution and Parliament was established, it brought extremely difficult for any new party to preparing policies for the first elections. together Militant, SWP, individuals break through unless they have a very The SNP would clearly be in a strong from Labour and SNP and community concentrated geographical base. It is position for a few years but debates campaigners. The new electoral system much easier in Holyrood elections but would open up after the necessary gave small parties opportunities. Tommy the electorate will still tend to prioritise discipline of the pre-Referendum period. Sheridan won a seat in the first election getting the government they want rather Overall we could expect politics to be and this brought some credibility. than voting for the party which best genuinely interesting even exciting and Whatever people may think about later reflects their opinions irrespective of this might mean the potential for big developments, Tommy was politically whether it has any chance of being in increases in party membership. If it was astute in his parliamentary tactics power. a No vote, it would be the SNP which focussing on attainable objectives like So any post-referendum ideas of would require major internal debates warrant sales and school meals. There a new party have to recognise that the about its future direction but it would was enough self-discipline in the party odds are that it will start in a blaze of have the Holyrood elections to give it to keep internal problems subdued and optimism and will probably end a few purpose. fairly private. In the 2003 election they years later in bitter recriminations. This Unlikely as it seems at present, there won six seats and prospects seemed very doesn’t mean it should never be tried, might eventually be some opportunity promising. The divisions in 2004 put just that alternative strategies should for left sections of the SNP and Labour an end to this and the rest is history. be tried first. For people who want to to come together in a new alliance. This Tensions which had been there were see an effective left space in Scottish and other forms of cooperation would be intensified and brought into the open post-referendum politics, there are difficult in the early years because of the around the Sheridan trial. All their seats three other possible approaches - a electoral cycle with Holyrood elections were lost in 2007. focus on strengthening the left in one less than two year after the Referendum One fairly new party which has existing party, sustaining cooperative and (if the vote is No) Westminster survived but not succeeded in growing alliances across parties or bringing the elections in less than a year. The self- much is the Scottish Greens. There had left in the two major parties together in interest of parties large and small tends to been a UK Green Party (previously a new coalition. The first option doesn’t take precedence close to elections. The Ecology Party) since 1985 and elections require organised ‘entryism’. In the one thing which should and can be done in Scotland were contested, for example late 1960s many people on the left saw quickly is to develop structures within the 1989 Euro election. They became a the development of the SNP and the which those on the left in different separate Scottish Party amicably in 1990. possibility of a Scottish Parliament as parties and organisations can come They won one MSP seat in 1999, seven offering fresh opportunities and on an together and work on policy objectives. in 2003 and down to two since 2007 entirely individual basis joined the SNP The challenges of independence or the and they have a number of council seats. and helped to make it a predominantly problems likely to develop in Scotland The Greens have played a positive role in centre-left party. The substantial growth after a No vote are big enough to Scottish politics. They have managed to in membership in that period and the bring a substantial number of the left avoid damaging splits but have not been social democratic nature of its policies to the table. Some of these structures able to grow significantly in members made it a major player in Scottish are in place – RIC, The Jimmy Reid or votes. They do have the advantage of politics, winning over 30 per cent of Foundation, the STUC. Whatever we having a clear ideological position which the Scottish vote by 1974. So post- do, it needs to be organic and flexible, is distinctive although others may share referendum (whatever the outcome), not a doctrinaire, rigid initiative. We some of their policies. activists might quite informally decide don’t know yet what the opportunities What can we learn from the that joining the SNP or Labour or will be in the post-2014 circumstances experience of new parties that could offer the Greens or the SSP was the most but we do have an idea of what we would any guide to post-referendum initiatives? promising way forward. like to achieve. All parties have personality and policy If it is a Yes vote, the party which Isobel Lindsay is a Member of the tensions but it is easier to contain them in will have to face radical reorganisation is Project Board of the Jimmy Reid larger parties with established structures Labour. For the first time it will have to Foundation 11 Welfare Nation State

p until the end of 2012, 51,700 Ujobs have been lost in the public sector in Scotland since 2009. Local government workers in Scotland have had a 10 per cent real-terms cut in wages in the last three years, even greater for workers who have been hit by the increase in pensions contributions, civil servants, health workers, etc. The Scottish government resources budget will amount to £4.5 billion by 2017/18. Sixty per cent of these cuts have still to be made. Sadly, while making the case for an independent Scotland the SNP government continues to pass on the Westminster cuts. As Scotland heads toward the referendum vote next September, people on the left are beginning ask what kind of Scotland we want to live in. This is an opportunity to seriously consider what kind of Scotland can be built. If independence is to mean anything it must mean an end to sharing out the cuts, it must mean a clean break from the austerity agenda through measures like major wealth redistribution and widespread public ownership. It must mean a genuine political alternative, a commitment to reverse the cuts and to rebuild and repair the coalition government’s economic vandalism, in other words - socialist policies. The market worships ‘choice’ while restricting it for the broad mass of the we develop them, nourish them and the myths and lies of neoliberalism and population. At its most basic austerity protect them from right-wing market worked toward social and economic is actually about limiting the choice driven attack, justice would be a very attractive prospect between health privatisation indeed for the overwhelming majority of and illness, There must and people. education and outsourcing. Take the Department for Work and ignorance and be democratic And of course Pensions (DWP); why is this department so on. The accountability, genuine how do we regarded so negatively by so many ruling elite aim ensure that users? In simple terms the job of this to destroy the consultation and they are department is to stop people falling into welfare state effective economic accountable. poverty – surely a good thing worthy that has offered There of respect - but it is now viewed as people at least planning as to what needs to be a punishing the unemployed and disabled some measure public services people serious debate and driving people to extreme poverty of social about why and to the food-banks through a vicious security in a need and how they are public services sanctions regime. system they to be delivered and are vital to any There is a real choice here for run for profit civilised society, politicians who want to build a fair, equal not people. where are they to be what citizens and economically efficient Scotland - a The located are entitled to choice that would require some honesty real question expect in terms from them. Just sticking with the DWP is what do we want from our public of a welfare state and a national health example, all evidence shows societies with services and how can we make sure service too. A Scotland that rejected strong supportive welfare systems are

12 John McInally argues that if a vision emerges in the independence referendum debate for investment, rather than cuts, in public services that are democratically run to meet the needs of all Scots, they will be on to a winner.

economically more efficient and wealthier Education, health and welfare were effective economic planning as to what with better rates of equality than those all taken into public ownership because public services people need and how they run on the neoliberal model. There is the private sector and charities were are to be delivered and where are they to no mystery to this: motivation works incapable of delivering them. Politicians be located. If we are really to contemplate better than punishment – so why won’t prepared to take on the *Daily Mail* and a new Scotland, the where, why and the ‘progressive’ politicians say so? argue for a supportive welfare state might status of public services and delivery in Let’s have a debate that cuts just find they are tapping into a huge Scotland post-referendum should not be through the nonsense sprayed out daily vein of popular support. viewed through a model that carves off by corporate-backed politicians and the How ‘government’ is perceived is chunks and slices - and drops them on media. On the question of choice for crucially important. The debate has to plates marked local govt, central govt, example: - if I break my leg, I don’t want broaden out so that it is not just about health or Edinburgh, Glasgow and then 1112 ScottishLeftReviewAd_Layouta choice of hospitals to be sent 1to, 20/12/2011I just Scottish 20:15 ‘governance’ Page 1 but about Scottish of course, everywhere else. want the care and reliability of the NHS government services: who runs them and To build a Scotland with a future to look after me, and give me the best for who’s benefit? for all it would require a change of care available, regardless of the size of my There must be democratic mindset that public servants are just there wallet. accountability, genuine consultation and to collect taxes and dole out benefits. Effective government planning can be embarked upon, linked to an extension of public ownership of the utilities and ASLEF CALLS FOR AN a progressive taxation system that could, even under capitalism, greatly improve the lives of the Scottish people through INTEGRATED, PUBLICLY a strengthened economy that rejects the great lie that only profit matters. This would mean rejecting the OWNED, ACCOUNTABLE demented neoliberal narrative that holds public services as some kind of drain on RAILWAY FOR SCOTLAND an economy rather than what they truly are; an intrinsic part of our economic infrastructure To show this through a negative example, currently for every job lost in the public sector at least one, (which used to be the SNP’s probably two and sometimes even three are lost in the private sector. position – before they Scotland could make the choice to build a welfare state that rejects the myths and lies of ruling elites who want became the government!) to cut as much of the welfare state as they can and privatise what can’t be cut. My union has consistently argued for an economic alternative that puts the public services where they rightly belong, at the centre of society and at the centre of economic planning. It is entirely possible as socialists to both point out the failure of capitalism while arguing for economic alternatives that give working people greater control over their lives and the impersonal corporate forces that dominate them. I suspect those who present a vision of this nature would celebrate victory in the independence referendum. John McInally is National vice- president Public & Commercial Mick Whelan Alan Donnelly Kevin Lindsay Services Union (PCS), he writes in a General Secretary President Scottish Officer personal capacity.

ASLEF the train drivers union - www.aslef.13org.uk Labour and the trade unions

Gregor Gall reviews Len Labour’s own version of neoliberalism or This means no reversal of public sector McCluskey’s Annual Jimmy even the beginnings of it. spending cuts, maintenance of effective Reid Memorial Lecture and Just to put the situation into wage freezes for public servants, means some perspective first, let’s remember testing of benefits and so on. After some concludes that the Unite leader the manifesto Labour fought the 1997 Blairites were dumped from the shadow is perhaps too generous in election on. Amongst the pledges was a a cabinet after Miliband’s speech, the identifying signs of real change windfall levy on the new appointees in the Milliband’s Labour Party. privatised utilities All these moves of Tristam Hunt to fund training to the left are and Rachel Reeves t the second annual Reid for under-25s, a announced support national minimum undeniably positive for performance AFoundation lecture, Len McCluskey, general secretary of the largest union in wage, a statutory advances from a related pay Britain, Unite, proclaimed that at the union recognition for teachers, September 2013 Labour conference Ed law, nursery places Labour leader and academies and Miliband had delivered the most radical for all four year-olds Labour Party which further tightening party conference speech for thirty years. and so on. This of eligibility for The reason for this, McCluskey argued, manifesto was the have consciously benefits. Just to was that Miliband had broken with high tide of Labour’s chosen not to more make the obvious neoliberal dogma of ‘New’ Labour. neoliberalism (i.e. point – there was If this is true, it has massive Blairism) but it vehemently oppose no talk of raising ramifications for politics in Britain, and did include some the Coalition and income tax on specifically for the debates on Scottish elements of progress the rich, closing independence and union affiliation (even if they neoliberalism. the evasion and to Labour. Simply put, the case for were inadequate But it is a very avoidance tax independence bringing about social compared to what loopholes, or hiring justice would be torpedoed and no union was needed). grave over- more HRMC staff would think of leaving Labour now – So historically, estimation indeed to collect billions and all because the son of a Marxist had and without even unpaid in tax. moved towards his father’s politics by looking at the to see Miliband’s If Miliband being on the side of working people and previous election speech as a break is to make the being prepared to stand up to the rich manifestos of 1987 necessary break with and powerful by using the state against and 1992 when with Labour’s neoliberalism and them and the market. Kinnock was leader, own version of Labour’s adaption to What was the evidence McCluskey McCluskey’s claim it, he must become cited for this massive and unequivocal does not stand neoliberalism a social democrat statement? First, there was the policy up. But let’s move or even the and adopt social of a 20-month price freeze on energy to what wasn’t democratic policies bills if Labour won the next general in Miliband’s beginnings of it. (such as those election. Second, there was the plan speech such as the outlined above). to build 200,000 new homes by 2020 renationalisation of the railways, ending This won’t make him a socialist because (again, if Labour won the next general the Tory anti-union laws, providing a social democracy is about maintaining election). And, third there was saying proper statutory union recognition law, capitalism while regulating the processes no to attacking Syria and stopping the bringing back into public ownership the and outcomes of the market in order Coalition from rushing to war. (He utilities, placing proper regulations upon to ameliorate its excesses. It’s about could also have mentioned pledges on the financial system and so on and so on, Keynesianism – tax in the boom years the enforcement of the minimum wage, and all of which are Unite union policies. in order to be able to spend in the bust support for the ‘living wage’, action Then there’s the practice of what years so as to reflate the economy. Key to on blacklisting and abolition of the Miliband and Labour do. Within days all of these is using the state to regulate ‘bedroom tax’ in the days running up to of the Labour conference voting to take capitalism. the speech.) Royal Mail back into public ownership, Of course, to be fair to McCluskey, All these are undeniably positive Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Shadow he did say in his lecture that Miliband advances from a Labour leader and Business Secretary, disavowed this as too hadn’t gone far enough, that more was Labour Party which have consciously expensive. Then there’s the small matter needed and Unite would press for it. chosen not to more vehemently oppose of Labour policies on austerity. There is He also re-iterated several times that the the Coalition and neoliberalism. But it no rejection of austerity but a version challenge is for Labour to show that it is is a very grave over-estimation indeed of it, dubbed ‘austerity-lite’ by Mark on the side of working people. All this, to see Miliband’s speech as a break with Serwotka, PCS union general secretary. he said, was based upon Labour being

14 In light of another period of debate about the relationships between the unions and the Labour Party, we ask three writers to give their perspectives - Gregor Gall, Richard Leonard and Bob Crow

- despite everything - ‘the only game in aims enshrined in my own union’s rule later, all too commonly and without town’. Yet McCluskey has not presented book include industrial democracy and shame comprising many of the same a credible strategy for achieving more collective ownership, an equal society, individuals. from Miliband. And the danger is that as well as extended legal rights to trade And now this same tendency with he will sow the false seeds of hope in unions and greater social and economic some of the same people again founded a leader that is not anything close to a welfare and environmental protection. Progress the limited company, and social democrat. These all require political action. brazenly “New Labour” (capital “N”; So what is going on? Is it all part So the trade union movement needs capital “L”) pressure group. Progress is of a McCluskey long game to bring a political voice. Anyone who thinks busy falsely accusing the trade unions Miliband under his wing by calling him that trade unions and politics can be of the domination of everything from a ‘saint’ where previously he went to war separated doesn’t live in the real world. candidate selections to the decisions with him by calling him a ‘sinner’ – that That’s why over a century ago the of the Party’s National Executive is under the control of the Blairites? It’s GMB’s forerunner the Gas Workers and Committee. Its supporters are now more likely that Unite is doing a trade- General Labourers Union worked with baying for the collective disaffiliation of off with Miliband – not opposing the other new unions like the London and trade unions from the Labour Party. reform of the union-party link for policy Liverpool Dockers and the Amalgamated It is an important matter of political pledges. This is a dangerous exercise. Railway Servants to establish the principle that trade unions affiliate Not only have the pledges been few and Labour Representation Committee collectively to Labour. Trade unions are weak but no Labour government has a to secure “independent working class not a random collection of consumers in particularly good record on abiding by representation”. Founding Conferences a market. We refuse to be run according its promises when made in opposition. in Edinburgh and to an iron law of For example, Blair allowed the CBI to then London were It is impossible individualism, turn a simple manifesto pledge on union convened following indeed the very recognition into an extremely weak resolutions carried to be an effective point of trade mechanism in practice. at the Scottish and democratic unions is that we Returning to the opening issues, British Trade Union live and breathe where to stand on the issues of Scottish Congresses of 1899. socialist without democratic independence offering a relatively better A year before working in collectivism. Our prospect of gaining social justice and the Keir Hardie had aspirations are Union under Miliband being the right called for “the same combination and collective ones, road to social democracy? Unfortunately kind of working solidarity: these and devised for the and depressingly, no different to where agreement nationally common good not they were before. This is not to sow as already exists for are defining to feed individual alternative illusions in independence or municipal purposes principles. To win greed but to advance the SNP. Independence or the Union will in Glasgow”. So the greater social only offer avenues to substantial social Hardie’s vision and change we have to and economic progress once the left gets its act together the pioneering role build, organise and welfare of all. Trade and starts growing again. of trade unionists, unions not trade socialists and persuade as well unionists affiliate to Gregor Gall is professor of Industrial co-operators in as stir emotion. the Labour Party. Relations at the University of Scotland became That is democratic, Bradford highly influential The principal it is also right and in the new political vehicle for doing keeps alive the formation. collectivist tradition Richard Leonard argues that the Of course that is still the upon which Labour best way for unions to influence down the years Labour Party. was also built and politics is to maintain its close there have been should live by. links with the Labour Party those who claim that the decision by The distinctive nature of the Labour Hardie and the other ILP’ers to create an Party as a party of democratic socialism independent working class party built on founded by the trade unions should he role of the union in fighting the trade unions was a mistake. During not be supplanted by a version of the for justice for its members is not T my lifetime in politics this ‘historic US Democratic Party stripped of its confined to the workplace. Nor should mistake’ tendency defected from Labour commitment to socialism and robbed it be. The standard of living goes beyond to help found the anti-trade union of its trade union roots. The GMB and the monthly salary or the weekly wage. Social Democratic Party in 1981, later other unions are not merely donors to It is about quality of life, both inside the Alliance. It then returned to help the Labour Party but affiliates. The link and outside work and from the cradle create New Labour a decade and a half is first and foremost not financial but to the grave. The noble and enduring

15 constitutional. To move to an American is democratic Socialism. There is only requests from the Scottish Regional style system where the donor with the one party in Great Britain which can do Council and a number of Scottish biggest buck chooses the policy, and the it - and that is the Labour Party.” branches to affiliate to the Scottish candidate, puts the political process itself I make no apology for remaining on Socialist Party. An RMT AGM decision up for sale. This would not be a change the side of Keir Hardie, those courageous in 2003 had already cleared the route for the better but a change for the worse. women and men, those trade union and to create a more flexible political So too the idea floated of US-style Independent Labour Party pioneers who fund, freeing the union up to support primaries with Labour ‘supporters’ voting founded the Labour Party, or for evoking candidates in addition to Labour. to select Labour candidates will not the spirit of Nye Bevan. For this is not to The SSP decision provoked a huge herald the end of a so-called ‘politics of look back to a heroic golden age but to political furore with the likes of Ian the machine’, it would institutionalise understand better the eternal challenges McCartney wheeled out across the media it. For anyone to become a candidate and the defining purpose of Labour’s link to denounce RMT and to issue dire in a primary-style system demands with the trade unions today. It is also an warnings that the union was consigning not reduced but significantly increased important reminder that the future of the itself to the wilderness. financial backing. Labour Party is well worth fighting for. Nearly a decade on nothing could It is impossible to be an effective be further from the truth. democratic socialist without working Richard Leonard is GMB Scotland By freeing ourselves from the in combination and solidarity: these are Political Officer and was a Labour shackles of automatic Labour support, defining principles. To win change we Party candidate in the 2011 Scottish RMT’s political influence is thriving have to build, organise and persuade as Elections with political groups established in the well as stir emotion. The principal vehicle British, Scottish and Welsh parliaments for doing that is still the Labour Party. and assemblies that involve a base of Affiliation to the Labour Party and the Bob Crow looks at his union’s supportive Labour representatives, TUC and STUC is a direct expression influence in UK politics today Greens and SNP. The condition for of solidarity and an overt act of and concludes that disaffiliation joining is that elected members must combination with other unions. It is also to the Labour Party was one of sign up to the core political priorities laid a declaration of the union’s identity, that the best things that happened down by the union. it is part of the wider Labour Movement In many ways, RMT’s decisions with sister parties across the world. to it from ten years ago put the union well And what is the alternative to this ahead of the game when it comes to the solidarity and combination? A place MT was expelled by the Labour relationship with the Labour Party. This in the political wilderness of non- RParty in 2004. Our crime? Allowing year, major unions have said that they engagement? A dalliance with a political our regions, branches and members to will be cutting their affiliation fees to group to the left of the Labour have a democratic say on what political Labour to reflect the number of Party liable to end in bitterness members who genuinely support and recrimination, doctrinal By freeing ourselves from the organisation. Others are faction fights and splits? Either the shackles of automatic reorganising their parliamentary way it represents a false trail. groups to clear out the There is no evidence past or Labour support, RMT’s opportunists who take the union present that a breakaway has political influence is support and then back policies brought with it greater political that are clearly anti-worker and effectiveness. thriving with political anti-working class communities. The link between Labour groups established in But the biggest leap of all and the unions is forged by remains supporting candidates shared interests and a common the British, Scottish and other than those from the Labour understanding that for the quality Welsh parliaments and Party. It is both inevitable and of working people’s lives to be essential that that issue remains improved there must be radical assemblies that involve a firmly on the agenda. RMT social and economic change. That base of supportive Labour judges candidates solely on their will require a renewal of political merits as advocates of policies education, a commitment to be representatives, Greens that match the union’s own transformers not simply reflectors and SNP. The condition programme and which would of public opinion, active not deliver for our members, their passive, with a new intellectual for joining is that elected families and their communities. edge alongside the old tradition members must sign up to Let me pull out a couple of of pragmatism. examples. It was Aneurin Bevan who the core political priorities First up, the anti-union observed that “our movement is laid down by the union. laws. Part of the reason why based primarily on the industrial RMT made the decisive changes masses. It is not based so parties and candidates they chose to to our political funds that led to much upon ideologies, as upon social support. out expulsion from Labour in 2004 was experience.” He also famously said “There The expulsion centred on Scotland. that halfway through its second term is only one hope for mankind - and that RMT’s executive had agreed to support the Blair Government had not a lifted

16 Bob Crow, General Secretary Peter Pinkney, President a finger to repeal any of the anti-union the power to act, refused point blank to generation highlights both a poverty of laws introduced under the Tories in the renationalise the railways. Far from it, it ambition and a total lack of concern for wake of the Miners’ Strike. Not only had was under John Prescott himself that the the lives of those you are depending on they not made any moves to unshackle PPP privatisation model was rolled out to bringing you to power. the union’s but we had the grotesque site on London Underground until Metronet There has to be an alternative. of the Labour Prime Minister touring went bust midstream plunging the RMT has supported, and will continue the world boasting about how we had system into chaos and forcing a reluctant to support, TUSC candidates and our the most lightly-regulated workplaces retreat. How could a rail union sign a union is pledged to encourage rank-and- in the EU – a boast designed solely to blank cheque for Labour against that file, working class candidates wherever encourage bad bosses, the exploiters and backdrop? the opportunity arises. Next year, RMT the ‘filthy rich’. Even now, after losing an election will play a leading role in fielding The latest attack on our basic and seeing polls showing that 70 per cent a full slate of “NO2EU – YES TO rights under this current Government of the people support renationalisation, WORKERS’ RIGHTS” candidates in is the levelling of huge fees on those Labour offers little or nothing. They talk every seat with the exception of Northern seeking redress in the Employment about the possibility of retaining the Ireland. That is a major political Tribunal, designed to deter those seeking successful, publicly owned East Coast/ operation that will challenge both the a fair hearing and loading the whole DOR under state control but only as a neoliberal, pro-boss agenda of the EU process even further in the direction ‘public sector comparator’. On the simple and the cynical opportunism of UKIP of unscrupulous, wealthy and bullying and straightforward question of full head on. bosses. It is surcharge on justice. And public ownership they remain in total At this year’s Durham Miners Gala, what has Labour done? Nothing. and abject terror of the train companies we issued a call for a new party of labour. Running scared of the employers’ and the Tories. RMT has every intention of keeping organisations and the right-wing press If you can’t even walk the talk the debate and discussion going across they have allowed the ConDems to force in opposition we know exactly what the broad sweep of the labour, trade through measures that allow hiring and that means from a potential Labour union, environmental and social justice firing on an industrial scale and which is Government in power – absolutely movements about what that new political solely designed to hammer workers and nothing. Ed Miliband blew it the operation should stand for and what it their unions financially. moment he fell into the old Blairite trap should look like. I hope that you will Running parallel to this betrayal was and pledged that a Labour Government engage with us in those discussions. the stance on privatisation. Even after the would stick to this administration’s smashing up of British Rail in the name spending levels. Boxing yourself in to a Bob Crow is the General Secretary of profit led to the avoidable carnage of spending straightjacket laid out for you of the RMT Hatfield and Potters Bar, Labour, with by the most right-wing government in a

Bob Crow, General Secretary 17 Peter Pinkney, President Real energy answers

eyond all the political froth stirred properly with 2,000 dying of severe cold which controls the electricity distribution Bup in recent debates over energy every winter. Proportionately, the figure is company for the north of England. prices, the future of Grangemouth, double that of Finland and far more than The markets that are constructed and the Clyde shipyards, there is one Sweden and Germany – countries with (they do not exist naturally!) by unacknowledged consensus between all their far harsher winter climates. governments are not really markets in the mainstream parties in Westminster Beyond such appalling human anything like the form that Adam Smith and Holyrood. This is the continuing consequences, energy policy has made would have recognised. They are not commitment to ‘free’ markets (whatever a few key individuals and groups very only devoid of real competition but they that means in a corporate global wealthy; not only the chief executives take almost all of the risk away from the economy) and private ownership in the and directors of privatised utilities who private sector – and put the cost of that organisation of our economy. In the receive City-style bonuses and salaries for risk onto the consumer and taxpayer – by energy sector in particular, and after three chronic underperformance but also the guaranteeing inflated prices over a long decades of impressive policy failure on few and often ennobled landowners that term period to cajole companies to invest all fronts, there remains a bewildering have receive massive benefits from the in a carbon-free energy future. consensus in the privatised regime that recent push towards renewables. To cite Interestingly, much of the rest of the has held sway now for almost three but one example, the Duke of Roxburgh world is waking up to the consequences decades. is set to make £1.5 million per year from of privatisation and taking energy utilities We argue in our recent paper for a new wind turbine development in the back into public ownership. Major the Jimmy Reid Foundation - Repossessing Lammermuir Hills. remunicipalisation drives have been the Future: A Common Weal Strategy for The latest largesse aimed at the taking place in France and Germany Community and Democratic Ownership of wealth elites of ‘old’ and ‘new’ money to take the essential utilities back into Scotland’s Energy Resources - that things reflects two other monumental failures of public and democratic control. Even can and should be different. In this public policy: climate change obligations the European Union’s commissioner regard, we are solidly in step with broader and security of supply. In relation to the for energy policy has recently suggested public opinion. A recent survey by former, the UK, with less than four per that if key strategic priorities are going YouGov found that sixty-eight per cent cent of total energy consumption from to be met, the electricity grid across the of the public wanted the energy sector renewables, is fast becoming Europe’s continent should be returned to public to be renationalised and even a majority laggard in meeting its own climate hands. of Conservative voters. Yet, with the change obligations. This is increasingly As I have written about in the past honourable exception of the Greens, all tied in with real problems of energy in these pages, there are plenty of good the political parties with representation supply and the increasingly likely threat examples of effective public ownership of in Holyrood and Westminster have set of the lights ‘going out’ because of the the energy sector overseas which could their face against the idea of bring the failure of the privatized utilities to invest be the model for Scotland. Denmark energy sector back into public ownership. in infrastructure for a post carbon future, is particularly compelling for its fusion It is an abject example of the divide as older power stations come to the end of grassroots mobilisation, local and between a political elite seeking to curry of their lives. To meet the minimum of community forms of ownership, and favour with private (and usually foreign) £100 billion required to invest in new state directed longer term planning in corporations, and the citizen’s everyday energy generation and infrastructure developing one of the most successful social needs and experiences. over the next decade or so, governments wind turbine sectors in the world. It is worth stating the basic failures of whatever hue are having to stitch up In our report, we suggest that of UK energy policy since the electricity, a contorted market which guarantees five key priorities should underpin an gas and energy generation sectors were massive returns to private investors while alternative democratic and publicly privatised in the 1980s and 1990s. pushing electricity prices to consumers owned energy sector: Prime amongst these must be the failure through the roof. • resources should be commonly to deliver cheap energy to consumers. Current UK energy policy is not owned to benefit the whole of Digging beneath the recent furore, the only bewildering but it is perverse. society rather than vested interests; UK has the fourth highest electricity Setting its face against both any form of • resources should be geared to social prices in the European Union despite major public ownership of the sector, and need rather than private economic having an abundance of renewable and any form of strategic planning, there is return; non-renewable energy. Married to this either an ignorance or wilful deceit over • respecting the rights of future are shocking levels of fuel poverty. Our what ‘private’ ownership and ‘market’ generations and the planet, report shows that getting on for forty per solutions actually mean in practice. resources should be used sustainably cent of Scots suffer fuel poverty, defined Private ownership of course means large and geared towards tackling climate as a situation where energy bills account corporate, and predominantly foreign, change and developing a post- for ten per cent of total income; a figure ownership. Sometimes our private carbon economy; likely to rise substantially with current and owners are actually the French or Chinese future price increases. Fifty six per cent of state. At other times, it is private equity • Scotland’s energy system should be pensioners can’t afford to heat themselves companies such as Berkshire Hathaway, planned by public bodies to achieve

18 Andy Cumber, author of a Reid Foundation report on how to take Scotland’s energy back into public ownership, explains why tolerating the current energy market in Britain makes no sense

security of supply as a priority ensure equity in pricing arrangements as a result. Scotland could do the same. policy concern; and service delivery across the system, Giving the SEA the power to • public policy should be informed whilst allowing opportunity for cross- oversee this development would also by collective decision-making and subsidisation and income redistribution enable it to play a role in encouraging public deliberation (rather than faux to tackle fuel poverty and inequalities existing local oil and gas- based consultation). in production and consumption costs. companies to diversify their skills and To achieve this, we also need In partnership with the SEA it would knowledge to renewables, especially to acknowledge the past failings of have key climate change objectives (e.g. in the offshore wind field through nationalised entities that made them increasing energy efficiencies, reducing appropriate subsidies and incentives. such an easy target for Thatcher and the CO2 from non-renewable sources) but The question that media and other other neoliberals in the 1980s. Over- its primary role would be in dealing with commentators always put at this point is: centralised, bureaucratic entities that energy supply issues. how do we pay for this? There is a very exchange one group of elites running Aside from these two national simple answer. Keeping the lights on is things for another will clearly not do. We strategic public bodies – which could going to cost us hundreds of billions of need forms of organisation and public both have a large proportion of their £s anyway, especially given the neglect of institution that can combine central boards democratically elected – much renewal issues by the existing privatized strategic direction with democratic of the rest of the sector, particularly that regime. Our public solution will actually accountability and radical public tasked with generating power could cost far less and mean lower prices to participation. In our paper, we outline be locally owned by communities, consumers than the status quo because a structure that we think will deliver on cooperative and local government, as is it is far cheaper for governments to these key dilemmas. the case in Denmark. In the interests of borrow than the private sector: about At the apex of the structure would promoting more localised forms of public 3.4 per cent compared to an average of be a new body, the Scottish Energy ownership it is proposed that a separate six per cent according to our estimates. Agency charged with overseeing the branch for renewable energy should be Even allowing for the expected increase Figure 6: Proposed Structure of Scottish Energy Sector created, the Scottish Renewable Energy in borrowing costs in financial markets Network (SREN). SREN would provide over the next few years, it is still plausible SEA the main impetus for achieving a shift that an independent Scottish government towards renewable energy and would – or a devo-max style institution - be composed of local energy companies could issue energy bonds (typically for SEGC (LECs) established under local authority twenty years given the lifespan of many - grid - large new generation and community control throughout energy projects) at between three and - distribution - supply Scotland. The scale that these companies four per cent as a way of financing the SREN should operate at would be a subject larger capital investments required (e.g. for debate and should be contingent on major offshore wind or tidal projects). LEC LEC LEC LEC local conditions. For technical reasons, This solution would both be cheaper it would make sense to introduce LECS in the longer term for the government sector and setting key objectives and with their own grid networks at the – because it would own the assets targets. It would have overall strategic old strategic regional council level for being created – and have the added control of energy policy, but with a some parts of Scotland (Strathclyde, advantage of keeping fuel prices lower for strong remit to shift the country towards Lothian, Grampian) to develop greater consumers. a post-carbon future. The SEA would integrated local energy capacity. Clearly Depressingly, the independence also develop its own research capacity for many remoter highland and island debate has so far been mired in short- and expertise in energy matters – in communities, different logics would term thinking about the economic partnership with universities, other apply where more community-based returns from energy without public agencies such as SEPA and associations might develop. fundamentally challenging the status relevant private companies and interests. It should be recognised that given quo. A much longer term approach Another national body, the Scottish Scotland’s lack of an industrial strategy to Scotland’s energy is required where Electricity Generation Corporation thus far towards renewables, much of the energy resources are owned, managed (SEGC) would have overall responsibility expertise is foreign owned, with the result and distributed for the collective good, for making sure ‘the lights stay on’, i.e. that there is a lack of local content in and on behalf of present and future energy security, akin to the UK’s old emerging supply chains. Scotland could generations rather than continuing to be Central Electricity Generating Board. have similar policies followed by Norway appropriated for private and corporate It would take over much of Scottish in the 1980s with respect to North Sea interests. Power and SSE’s existing assets and oil in compelling foreign companies to infrastructure and would be the main build up local technology, research and Andrew Cumbers is Professor of body in charge of the energy mix, development capacity, and local skills Political Economy, Adam Smith in ensuring the right degree of spare in the industry. Norway created its own Business School, University of capacity in the system. It would also indigenous industry in less than a decade Glasgow 19 The logic of conflict

photograph showing wreath-bearing Second World War: to prevent many agencies involved for any ultimate Apoliticians standing solemnly at the an authoritarian, militarist, cause to be identified. He begins his – in Cenotaph in London; a camera panning expansionist enemy achieving many ways highly impressive – book over endless white crosses somewhere in hegemony in Europe and thus by invoking ‘contingency’ and ends by the French countryside; a lone bagpipe imperilling British security. Most describing the war as ‘a tragedy, not a playing ‘The Flowers of the Forest’ over historians argue that Germany and crime’, concluding that ‘the protagonists an explosion of red poppies - these Austria-Hungary were primarily of 1914 were sleepwalkers, watchful but familiar scenes and sounds instruct us in responsible for initiating the war unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind how to perform remembrance of the First (recent attempts to blame Russia are to the reality of the horror they were World War. We can expect to be, so to not wholly convincing). Whoever about to bring into the world’. While this speak, bombarded by them even before started it, the fact is that in 1914- avoids making Germany solely or mainly the commemorations begin next August. 18, Germany waged a war of responsible for the war, it also dispenses What are they expected to teach us? aggression that conquered large with the notion of responsibility The war involved a tragic loss of life, tracts of its neighbours’ territory. As altogether–or dissolves into a myriad of especially of the young. Proportionally, has often been pointed out, there decisions leading to an unintended, if Scotland suffered greater losses than were distinct continuities between disastrous result. every other nation except Serbia and the policy and strategy of imperial Neither scapegoating (of Germany) Turkey. 26.4 percent of those mobilised; Germany and its Nazi successor.” nor absolution (of the Great Powers 10.9 percent of males of fighting age; The ideological manoeuvre here is not more generally) are adequate here. But 3.1 per cent of the population as a exactly subtle: since most people who nor is merely criticising the conduct of whole. The comparable figures for are not absolute pacifists tend to accept the war. In Britain, for example, it has Britain and Ireland were 11.8 per cent, that Hitler’s Germany had to be fought, long been acceptable to rail at the leaders 6.3 per cent and 1.6 per cent. On the the comparison with imperial Germany of the British Expeditionary Force, the tragedy, everyone can agree; but ask nudges us towards the same conclusion ‘donkeys’ of Alan Clark’s influential why young and old had to die and the in relation to the earlier conflict, thus book and Oh! What a Lovely War! This unanimity shatters immediately. Already conferring on it the undeserved dignity sounds radical (and in Joan Littlewood’s the bookshelves are groaning under of a war against fascism. The focus on show it actually was) but, as Clark’s own the weight of new volumes offering to German untrustworthiness also neatly Conservative politics suggest, it can also explain the outbreak of war, in quite aligns with contemporary Europhobic function as an evasion rather than an different terms. Some of these, like the fantasies about the emergence of a Fourth explanation. Socialists should beware efforts by Max Hastings and Jeremy Reich within the EU. the easy satisfactions of denouncing Paxman, are essentially journalistic, Was there nothing authoritarian, Haig and Co for their stupidity, for this respectively expressing the views of the militarist or expansionist in British is both to insult and to exculpate them. conservative and liberal wings of the behaviour then? Before the war Britain They were not lacking in intelligence, metropolitan elite. Others, like those had allowed the death from starvation nor necessarily unfeeling. They chose by Christopher Clark and Margaret of five million inhabitants of Madras to send thousands over the top to their Macmillan, are genuine contributions and presided over the invention of the deaths because the military options were to historical knowledge. As we shall see, concentration camp in South Africa. relatively limited and an ineradicable risk however, in all cases the arguments have During the war Britain was allied with of being a soldier – although admittedly inescapably political implications. the feudal-absolutist Russian autocracy one under-emphasised by the Ministry There are essentially two dominant and engaged in violently suppressing the of Defence – is to die in the pursuit of explanations of the war, both well national aspirations of the Irish. By the strategic objectives. After all, would the represented in the centenary literature. end of the war – presumably in another war have been acceptable if the levels of One dates back to 1914 and was later of its regular ‘fits of absence of mind’ death and mutilation had been lower? enshrined in the Treaty of Versailles. It is, – Britain had ‘acquired’ several more In fact, the generals, like the of course, that primary responsibility lay oil-producing territories in the Middle politicians and state managers, were with Germany and to a lesser extent its East and helped establish the Zionist trapped within a structural logic which allies Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman colony in Palestine. None of this exactly first led to war and then determined Empire. Here is a recent example by provides moral high ground from which their conduct of it. All historians Gary Sheffield, appropriately enough a to criticise Germany, which after all only obviously recognise that the main former lecturer in Department of War sought what Britain already had – an players were established or aspirant Studies at the Royal Military Academy at empire. imperial powers; but this fact is rarely Sandhurst: The second dominant narrative given any explanatory power, so long “Britain went to war with Germany is to move from what Clark calls an as ‘imperialism’ is simply regarded in August 1914 for similar reasons ‘overdetermined’ explanation involving as coextensive with colonialism. Yet to those for which the country German agency to an ‘undetermined’ the concept, at least within Classical fought Hitler’s Germany in the one. From this perspective there are too Marxism, does not simply involve

20 As an antidote to the burgeoning jingoism as the centenary ‘celebrations’ of the First World War approach, Neil Davidson outlines the real causes behind the conflict relationships of domination by the were of economic value, like India. And of geopolitical rivalry. And here again the metropolitan powers over the colonial in some cases the diplomatic alliances First World War is relevant. and semi-colonial world, but also – which eventually plunged the world into The key participants had already and in this context, more importantly catastrophe had direct economic origins. been engaged in conflict-at-one-remove – relationships of rivalry between the In the case of Russia, for example, before 1914. The Boer War can be seen metropolitan powers themselves, a rivalry grain exports and raw material imports as a proxy war between Britain and which fused economic and geopolitical for industry passed through the straits Germany who backed, encouraged, competition. For Connolly in Dublin, between the Black Sea and the Sea of trained and supplied the Boers. In the Maclean in Glasgow, Luxemburg in Marmara or the Dardanelles and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, Germany Berlin, Lenin in Zurich and Roy in Aegean. Early in 1914 Russia and her supported Russia and Britain supported Delhi, the allies forced Japan. Since the end of the Cold War outbreak of war The logic of conflict the Ottoman we have once again seen war ‘by proxy’, may have been Empire to grant where the dominant states jostle for unintended, was set in motion by autonomy to the influence by supporting different sides but it was not tensions between the partly Armenian in inter- or intra–state conflicts. The thereby avoidable, provinces of different sides supported by France, except by socialist metropolitan centres eastern Anatolia Germany and the USA during the revolution. themselves. In this in order to pull disintegration of Yugoslavia was perhaps The example the Christian the first example of this strategy in of the First historical moment, Armenians under the post-Cold War world; the conflict World War is threats to overseas Russian influence. between NATO and Russia over Georgia important for As a result the (and the divisions within the NATO the left because markets and sources Turks began to member states over attitudes to Russia) is it illustrates both of raw materials form an alliance the most recent; but similar alignments the inherently with Germany in are beginning to take shape in Central warlike nature would have been order to protect Africa where France is already in the of capitalism causes for war even the integrity of dominant position among the Western and the way in their empire. powers, but where China is rapidly which seemingly if the territories In the extending its influence. irrational involved had not case of Britain, If the argument here is correct, then decisions were in surely the most we may be entering a world situation fact inescapable been actual colonies. ‘capitalist’ of all the which resembles in several important given the European Great ways that of 1914. The moment of compulsions Powers, economic maximum danger for humanity will of competitive specialisation, and the consequent come if the contemporary capitalist great accumulation. All the major participating lack of self-sufficiency in food and raw powers no longer express their different states were either already capitalist or in materials, made her dependent on these competitive interests by proxy in the the process of completing the transition. being constantly available from overseas, Global South, or assert their interests Their empires were important to the which in turn required the Royal Navy to over lesser states in the developed world metropolitan centres for economic protect the merchant marine. Challenged itself, but when they directly confront reasons; principally as captive markets, by the other European Powers, above each other on the geopolitical stage. In less so as a source of raw materials (except all Germany, in the naval arms race this perspective the origins of the First in the case of Britain) and least of all as from the 1890s, Britain began to create World War are not a matter for academic the destination of investments. the continental system of alliances that dispute, but a warning of what may await But even where colonies or would pull her into war. us, with different participants but even ‘mandates’ had no direct economic In both cases the logic of conflict greater destructive capacity. In that sense rationale, this did not mean they were was set in motion by tensions between we commemorate those who opposed detached from the logic of capitalism. the metropolitan centres themselves. the war, not simply because they were Once the race for imperial territory In this historical moment, threats to right, but because we may have cause to began in earnest during the closing overseas markets and sources of raw emulate them. decades of the nineteenth century, it materials would have been causes for became necessary for strategic reasons to war even if the territories involved Neil Davidson is a winner of the Isaac seize territories which were often of no had not been actual colonies. This has Deustcher Memorial Prize for his value in themselves–indeed, which were contemporary implications, not because book The Scottish Revolution. He is often net recipients of state expenditure– war is necessarily imminent between the a Professor of Sociology at Glasgow but which were essential buffers from core states of the world system; but direct University. which to protect those territories which confrontation is scarcely the only form

21 When Growth Fails Us

conomic growth was the driving water, clean air and sunlight, which are technological wizardry and scientific Eforce behind the unprecedented not and cannot be produced. All three progress. How do you respond to these development and prosperity enjoyed by can be traded off against each other, but concerns? the Western world in the second half only up to a certain point. We all need of the twentieth century and to this someone to love us, but common sense n my work as a sociologist, I have day, it remains the defining feature of dictates it would be undesirable to have Istudied perceptions of the ecological the societies in which we live and the to pay for this love. Likewise, there is crisis. If, for example, the matter comes cornerstone of the neoliberal economic no “economic product” able to replace up in a discussion group, the concern model. clean air or fertile land. Development often manifests itself in a knot of anxiety For decades, the tendency has been is precisely economic growth at the (comments such as “we are destroying to measure progress predominantly in expense of the other two spheres, and the planet”), but this knot comes undone terms of increasing GDP, despite the like anything else, there are benefits when someone says: “they’ll invent shortfalls of such a narrow criterion and drawbacks. It is useful while the something.” There is always someone becoming increasingly clear. To this benefits outweigh the drawbacks, as was who says it. This is an expression of faith, day, however, the orthodox wisdom of the case in Europe, generally speaking, of an irrational and extremely strong growth-driven economics remains widely between the end of the Second World faith. unchallenged, with solutions to the War and the end of the 1970s: during This faith, when all is said and current problems facing the West often this period, economic growth helped done, is one of the pillars of the modern couched in terms of a “return to growth.” improve our well-being. However, since religion of progress. The other is the There is however, a growing school then, the contribution has diminished belief in social reform (or revolution of thought that suggests we may reach to the point of stagnation: the economic when pushed to its limit). There is a (or indeed for that matter already machine requires considerable effort belief that we will be able to find a have reached) a point at which further to maintain the status quo and it is technological or organisational solution growth becomes unnecessary, or even highly possible that the current crisis is (or a combination of both) to any counterproductive—a point at which a sign that even this zero contribution is problem we encounter. Modern social growth begins to cancel itself out. coming to an end and that a new phase theory in its entirety, all the political Ernest Garcia is one of the main of growth would result in irremediable ideologies of industrial society, are proponents of this view and in this deterioration. different versions of the same faith. The interview he explains why growth is Ivan Illich laid the philosophical idea that there are problems without no longer sustainable and discusses the foundations for the idea that it is a technological or political solution is implications for the way we live. possible to reach a point at which growth almost unimaginable. Ecological limits becomes counter-productive and there are, however, one such problem: in a Can you explain why you believe we are those who have attempted to quantify world with a population of nine billion have reached a point at which further this using ideas proposed more than there will be just 0.16 hectares per person growth offers little to improve the way 20 years ago by the economist Herman to produce food. This means we will have we live? Daly. In fact, it has been shown that the reached the limit, with hardly any room real contribution made by growth to our for manoeuvre. There is no technical or more than two decades, economic well-being stops at around US$7,000 miracle that can prevent the situation Fgrowth has not improved the life of per person. The truth is that everybody from being extremely challenging. the majority of people. All the evidence knows that the growth machine is going Furthermore, all this has happened points to the fact that if we break from nowhere. The problem is that no one extremely quickly, making it even harder the current paralysis and do return to knows how to stop it without the process to assimilate. When we talk about how growth, it will make things visibly worse. being traumatic. Perhaps though, the we have exceeded the limits of the planet, The argument is as follows: we current crisis is pointing the way: the we are talking about a phenomenon experience well-being when we satisfy machine is coming to a halt on its own that has occurred in just a few decades. our needs and there are three sources of and the cost is extremely high. We were As recent as 1950, the world was still this satisfaction, three “spheres of well- afraid things would change, but they half empty. Thirty years later, powered being.” The first is the economy: goods are changing. The process is painful. by the religion of development, both and services produced and distributed by Why not grab the bull by the horns and the population and the economy were the market or the state (e.g. food, clothes, consciously face up to the path down? already unsustainable. In just 30 years, furniture, education received at school we have gone from a situation in which or medical care in hospitals). The second Most people would accept the idea the Earth was half empty (sustainable, in is non-mercantile, non-bureaucratised that there are limits to how much we today’s speak) to one in which it is full. personal relationships, which provide can consume. Others, however, argue This kind of process is unprecedented, a us with care, love, identity and social this is merely a value judgement, that sort of mega-crisis caused by globalisation recognition. The third is the useful we will somehow manage to keep and acceleration. In a nutshell: the functions of nature, such as drinking pushing back the boundary through physical scale of human society is too

22 Spanish sociologist Ernest Garcia explains why returning to growth is increasingly less plausible and discusses the ramifications in an interview with James Kelly. large and the speed of its actions too fast. economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya rises. Yet they face a different reality: a De-growth is inevitable: and de-growth Sen to preside over it. Upon reading the shameless, thieving government, backed will lead to de-globalisation and slowing news, I felt hopeful. Unfortunately, the by intellectually corrupt experts from down. opportunity was squandered and the the universities, Brussels and the IMF, final report was of little substance: in the threatening further cuts to their pensions How might we adapt our economic end, when all was said and done, GDP without changing the conditions of models to tackle these challenges? How wasn’t so bad and the alternatives were those around them in the slightest. There feasible is such a project in the short to not mature enough… But in spite of can only be frustration, depression and medium term? all this, there is much to be learnt from resistance to change. the episode: everybody (even those on It is striking how reality is becoming here is no doubt that it is feasible. the right!) now know they are looking reduced to a simplistic and deceptive TWe know what needs to be done: at economic reality through deforming schema based on austerity, which must promote glasses and be overcome, and growth as our modus policies The real contribution that the operandi. Indeed, given that more that free up information growth is impossible, austerity in fact time for our made by growth to our they provide becomes inevitable. It is an inevitable personal lives well-being stops at is no longer consequence of the ecological overshoot and reduce valuable but and monstrous financial bubbles. The environmental around US$7,000 per deceptive. We planet won’t give more and we can’t go costs. person. The truth is that need to find on living on credit. In other words, our Succinctly put: the courage to circumstances will force us to live with work needs everybody knows that throw these less. Luckily, in some aspects, we can live to be better the growth machine glasses into the better with less. The dominant voice of distributed, bin once and the European left in this debate strikes inequality is going nowhere. The for all and try me as rather incoherent: how can there moderated problem is that no one out others. be “no cuts, no austerity, no rescue of and excesses For the banks,” and at the same time be no curbed. knows how to stop it ordinary problem in continuing to increase debt, There are without the process people, what both public and private. This is the flip already good matters most is side of the same ideological lunacy of approaches being traumatic. everyday life. “bubble plus innovation” that has got us that show how Perhaps though, the In, Spain, it into the current mess. to measure the is becoming In the midst of the crisis during results, such as current crisis is pointing increasingly the 1970s, Enrico Berlinguer, European the Genuine the way: the machine common for Communist leader at the time, stated Progress pensions to that “under the current circumstances, Indicator or is coming to a halt on be used to a genuine and effective fight for a better the Happy its own and the cost support the society is unimaginable without starting Planet Index. recipient and from the essential requirement of The truth is extremely high. We their partner, austerity.” This was true at the time, in is, there’s no were afraid things would their long-term spite of being widely misunderstood. It is great mystery. unemployed even truer now. What, then, is change, but they are sons and missing? changing. The process daughters, Can you outline some of the main Perhaps and perhaps aspects of such social changes? the most is painful. Why not grab even their urgent task the bull by the horns and grandchildren n a word: de-growth This will entail is to find the who are in Ire-localisation, decentralisation, scaling courage to consciously face up to education. down, etc. The difficulty, however, lies really look the path down? People living in the fact that these things can take at the world this reality on diverse and contradictory forms. In differently. would perhaps be more inclined to practice they may be associated with all The Fitoussi report was telling. Just a few accept cuts to their pension if they saw sorts of opposing effects, functioning by years ago, the then president of France, their relatives were able to find jobs with trial and error. Re localisation implies Nicolas Sarkozy commissioned a panel minimal career prospects and a stable more weight for the community. Yet of experts to design a new framework income, or that university fees were while the community is associated with for economic accounting, inviting the falling instead of the current outrageous greater levels of cohesion and solidarity, it

23 is also associated with greater uniformity, however, it will be noted in everything then, is to devise and implement benign control and restrictions on individual in our social existence with a physical forms of de-growth that are compatible freedom. We know that decentralisation dimension. Both socio-mass, a somewhat with maintaining sufficient levels of does not result in generalised ugly but suitably graphic term coined well-being and freedom. It goes without improvement or deterioration, but by Kenneth Boulding to refer to the saying that this won’t be easy, but since diversity. We also know that small can be population of individuals and artefacts, de-growth will take place regardless, beautiful, but it can also be fragile. The and throughput, which refers to the flow perhaps it would be best not to leave it crisis of globalisation may favour curbing of energy and materials that sustains the in the hands of a dangerous combination unnecessary excesses but may at the same socio-mass, must be reduced. When you of the requirements imposed upon time result in the temporary scarcity look at the bigger picture, this much is us by nature and the free market. We of basic resources. Finally, a stationary more than clear. can all find unpalatable aspects of state favours equilibrium, but this also The problem, however, is that the demographic control, restrictions on means less social change and that it reduction in scale will be achieved by consumption or giving up the right to comes at a slower pace. All this may seem reducing one thing at the expense of certain technological playthings, but unattractive from the point of view of the another. Choosing what to target is, it is hard to imagine this being even prevailing values of our industrial society: at least in part, political, and this will remotely as unpleasant as the effects as early as the nineteenth century, Stuart become an essential feature of politics the aforementioned combination is Mill was criticised because a stationary over the coming decades. beginning to produce and those it state would be boring. In the end If the environmental impact of promises in the near future. though, what is so wrong with a prospect the activities of our societies is too of comfortable boredom? high, it will be necessary to reduce the Ernest Garcia is Professor of underlying factors. In other words: the Sociology at the University of And the political implications? population, patterns of consumption Valencia and the aggressiveness of technology. hen faced with the question of Moreover, we must act on all these James Kelly is a freelance Spanish– Wwhere de-growth will be felt, I factors, not just one, since if we only English translator who specialises in always come to the conclusion that it is act on one, the others will cancel it out. social and environmental sciences hard to say in specific terms. Inevitably, This is de-growth The role of politics,

In 2007 Is There a Scottish Road to Socialism? was published.

Seven years later, with a financial crash behind us and the referendum on independence ahead, 24 authors return to the question.

Is a better Scotland possible - and how do we get there?

With chapters from John Aberdein, Cat Boyd and James Foley, Pauline Bryan, Maggie Chetty, Jim and Margaret Cuthbert, Neil Davidson, Stuart Fairweather, Neil Findlay and Tommy Kane, John Foster, Colin Fox, Lynn Henderson, Bill Kidd, Richard Leonard, John McAllion, Mhairi McAlpine, Robin McAlpine, Conor McCabe, Peter McColl, Gordon Morgan, Mike Small and Dave Watson

£7.99. ISBN: 978-0-9550362-5-5

Available from

24 Reviews

Class, Nation and issue of political strategy. Consequently, In terms of the implicit conclusions Socialism: The Red Paper it misses a trick so that neither is the of many of the chapters, it is not until On Scotland 2014 political strategy of the Red Paper the very last chapter that Pauline Bryan Collective fully articulated and nor can lays out the case for a federal Britain. Edited by Pauline Bryan it be assessed. This is a great pity and This is much too late and much too little and Tommy Kane, Glasgow a missed opportunity. When the book (in terms of the length and depth of the Caledonian University Archives, does actually address 2014, it hits out at argument) because it potentially provides ISBN: 9781905866687, £7.99, false targets, merely compounding this not only the scaffolding for all the other pp197. problem. articles but is the one of the two key his Red Paper follows on from The starting point for the volume cutting edges of the Red Paper Collective Tits two predecessors in 1974 and is given in the introduction: “any against Better Together (the other being 2005. It comprises 25 contributors constitutional change must be measured radicalism). It leaves earlier views on (consisting of academics, trade unionists, against its potential to challenge the devolution within Scotland and the use campaigners, MPs/MSPs, political power of capitalism and bring the of existing devolved powers looking at campaigners and councillors) and 25 economy under democratic control” little bit adrift. substantive chapters plus an overall (p3). That, I think, we can all agree In some other contributions introduction and section introductions. upon. Then it states we must use the (like those of Lynn Henderson and Like its predecessors, the 2014 version SNP’s version of independence to make Tommy Kane, James Gillies), there is an provides a comprehensive overview the measurement. That, however, is only unhelpful tendency to say that regardless of the state of Scotland in terms of a partial truth. It would be like saying of the constitutional outcome, the left de-industrialisation, the influence of that the case for the Union can only needs to win x or y. The problem here is neoliberalism and the outcomes of social be measured by the Better Together’s that this leads to a form of abstentionism inequality and poverty. Many of the version of it (and not also the Red because the constitutional settlement chapters also have fairly clear ideas on Paper’s version). And, it seems to rule does have an important bearing upon what needs to be done to right these out any potential movement in a radical the ease and possibility by which x or y wrongs. direction under independence. This poor can be won. It will reflect the balance That said, for a volume with the formulation is then compounded by of political power in society and certain title of Class, Nation and Socialism and blithely asserting that “the answer to the outcomes open up or close down targeted upon 2014 in its subtitle, it has problems facing people in Scotland is particular avenues. remarkably little explicit bearing on the not to be found in a flag [or] a border … In light of this critique, the issue of Scotland’s combined political [with some] mistak[ing] constitutional strongest chapter is probably that by and constitutional future. Moreover, change for social change” (p4,8). Vince Mills and Stephen Low precisely only a few chapters directly deal with the This formulation is repeated on other because it starts to put some meat on occasions by Katy Clark (p67) the bone of political strategy. But it and Roz Foyer (pp159, 164). is also worth mentioning that Katy I think you’d struggle to find Clark provides a sober and realistic anyone on the pro-independence assessment of what the left needs to do radical left that would think this and what it can actually do as a result so there is a perverse political of its own marginalisation. This sense perspective here. This does the of the left’s own limitations must very occasions on which serious much guide what the Red Paper aspires arguments are made later on in to, namely, working class unity north the volume a grave disservice. and south of the border as the basis of The chapters by John Foster resistance to neo-liberalism rather than and Richard Leonard are as solid the ‘classless nationalism’ of the SNP as ever but they do not answer and Labour. Ironically, the responses to their own key question, namely, the aforementioned deficiencies of this if control of the economy in Red Paper are to be found – not in the Scotland increasingly lies outwith pro-independence chapters – but in the its own borders, why is Britain chapters by many of the same Red Paper any more able to rein in the authors in Time to Choose: Scotland’s road capitalists than a Scottish state to socialism published by this magazine. might be? Is not the direction we need to travel in to have supra- Gregor Gall is professor of industrial state regulation of a globalised relations at the University of Bradford. and neo-liberalised capitalism? “This book is an important contribution to renewing a crisis-ridden left. The outcome of the current debate in Scottish politics has clear ramifications in Britain and elsewhere.” Owen Jones 25

£7.99 Glasgow Caledonian University Archives Available by post from Scottish Centre for Work Based Learning, Glasgow Caledonian University Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow G4 0BA £11.00 including postage payable to “The Red Paper Collective”. Web Review

o wonder the popularity of the a tendering exercise or through • the authority will need to ensure NEU has taken a knock in the UK. a contract performance clause. transparency about the fact that Every time there is a dispute over the Public bodies can, if they wish, still it has a Living Wage performance interpretation of EU legislation there encourage contractors to pay their condition by making this clear on is no one body in the UK you can employees a living wage.” the face of the OJEU notice and/ go to in order to receive a definitive A requirement regarding the payment or the tender documents. Ideally we interpretation. The latest stooshie is of a ‘living wage’ would in practice would advise specific reference to the over the introduction in Scotland of a be linked to the tasks necessary for condition in the OJEU notice itself.” “living wage” through the public sector the performance of the contract, So it seems the Scottish Government procurement system. As it so happens and therefore be used as a contract gave up much too early. Paying a ‘living this is being done in London by Boris performance clause. Such clause would wage’ has a range of potential benefits to Johnson but was challenged through no have to be non-discriminatory and workers, companies and the government, less than two separate legal opinions by known in advance by all candidates for according to an academic study his own party’s ministers. Here’s a report transparency reasons. The EU Parliament, commissioned by campaigners. The study of the maelstrom: in response to a parliamentary question looked at the experiences of workers and “Ministers commissioned two about Living Wage contract conditions, companies in London where the living separate legal opinions on the provided helpful clarification on this wage has been introduced. The London London Mayor’s scheme in the issue: living wage was calculated to be £8.30 an last two years and both found “Living wage conditions may hour in 2011, based on what was needed “risks” that it breached rules on be included in the contract by the average household type to cover procurement, the Telegraph has performance clauses of a public basic living costs. This compares with the learnt Mr. Johnson is understood procurement contract ‘provided current minimum wage of £6.08. The to reject the assessment. The they are not directly or indirectly key findings of the report were: Mayor’s office said thousands of discriminatory and are indicated • Over half of employees (54 per people working on the capital’s in the contract notice or in the cent) felt more positive about their transport network, policing and fire contract documents’. In addition, workplace once the living wage was authorities had already benefited they must be related to the introduced. Staff leaving rates fell by from his policy. They will be execution of the contract. In order 25 per cent. entitled to at least £8.55 per hour to comply with this last condition, • Reputational benefits to companies this year, the minimum judged contract performance clauses were significant, including helping by the “living wage” campaign to including living wage conditions to attract new business/customers be necessary for a decent standard must concern only the employees and recruiting professional staff. of life. Mr. Johnson called for involved in the execution of the the rate to be paid by all local relevant contract, and may not be • Wage cost increases associated with authorities in London, as well as extended to the other employees the living wage averaged 6 per cent, across Whitehall departments. of the contractor. In summary our despite low-paid staff receiving “By building motivated, dedicated advice to authorities is therefore: much higher increases than this in workforces, the Living Wage helps • for all service contracts their hourly rate of pay (an average businesses to boost the bottom a consideration of social value must of 26 per cent). The cost increase line and ensures that hard-working be carried out pre-procurement was offset through savings such people who contribute to London’s and this may be an opportunity to as new working practices, lower success can enjoy a decent standard consider whether the Living Wage management overheads, and in of living.” The Greater London is a relevant and proportionate some cases reduced working hours. Authority group, including the matter for the contract under • The London living wage made Mayor’s policing, fire, and transport consideration; a significant difference to the departments, includes the living • it may be easier (arguably less disposable income of households wage “as a requirement” when amenable to challenge) to include that did not claim (or were contracts are let or renewed. the Living Wage as a contract ineligible to claim) social security The Scottish Government’s opinion was performance condition than to use benefits and tax credits. contained in a policy note after taking the Living Wage requirement as a • If all low-paid Londoners were paid advice from the European European contract award criterion; a living wage this could save the Commission. No brave rejection from • a Living Wage contract condition government £823 million a year by Edinburgh: must be relevant and proportionate increasing the tax base and reducing “The European Commission in respect of the contract being benefit spending. has clarified that public bodies tendered and should not seek to go • The minimum wage should be cannot require contractors to pay beyond those employees engaged raised to the living wage level. their employees a living wage as on the contract, in line with the EU a condition of participating in Henry Mcubbin Parliament clarification of 2009; Vladimir McTavish’s KICK UP THE TABLOIDS Referendum finally comes alive - cake or chips?

he last time I stood in for this and elevate thinking. That’s more than reaction to the possibility of being an Tcolumn of Vlad’s, I took the most politicians achieve in a career. For independent country as a response to the opportunity to bemoan the fact example, the only questions Danny question does Scotland prefer chips to that the efforts of the hardworking Alexander has ever provoked me to cake? In fact, there’s a strong argument satirical comedian were being seriously ask is if suicide really is an option. So to suggest that question would be far undermined by the I can’t but admire more passionately fought over. The politician’s sheer The only Brand’s poking. My fight wouldn’t last for long, be quite capacity for farce. Now problems are not with sweaty and involve a lot of timeouts for it seems that my words questions his questions but his heart resuscitations and diabetes related may have had some Danny answers. By propagating injuries but the passion would be there. effect as the comedy the idea of the non- For a nation so obsessed with its past, it’s fraternity have retaliated Alexander has vote as a real form of frustrating to see such a flippancy about with Russell Brand ever provoked political expression, Scotland’s future and the very worst and his party political Brand has legitimised possible outcome for this referendum broadcast for those with me to ask is if apathy. He’s now given is that we sleepwalk into a decision fuck all understanding suicide really is permission for people because people mistake not voting with of politics. to excuse themselves the forming and expressing of an actual You can see how an option from thinking, from opinion. this has happened... politically engaging As much as I disagree with Brand’s The public perception is that there’s with the world that they live in because method of registering dissent I do very little to separate your average they’re waiting on some mythical however, envy his ability for aspirational politician from the infamous erstwhile revolution to kick in. This is essentially thinking. As a Yes supporter I am comedy child catcher; one is a sexually the same strategy that fundamental dismayed that the little argument that depraved narcissist with a penchant for Christians have used for decades to has managed to permeate the national antagonising pensioners... and the other excuse themselves from doing anything psyche, has been focused on what is Russell Brand, and it’s perhaps for this that might be considered Christian Scotland would be after independence as reason that his Paxman interview has by anyone other than themselves. By opposed to what it could be. More than resonated with so many. The sweet relief adopting the same Waiting for Godot that, I also agree that the definition of of a political ideal being expressed by a approach, Brand has further thwarted insanity is to repeat the same behaviour man who knows he’s an idiot as opposed any chance of anything remotely and expect different results. If Scotland to the same old lies being stuttered by an revolutionary happening for the were able to adopt a small modicum of autobot, convinced despite all evidence foreseeable future. And that’s a problem Brand’s positive thinking, it might be to the contrary that he is not, is such a for Scotland because we could be on the the very thing to help propel us into bold change from the mind-numbing verge of one. A democratic one, but a into a fairer, more accountable and more norm that there’s not been this many revolution none the less and the only way transparent political landscape. Now that people talking about voting since Susan to make it happen, is by doing exactly would be revolutionary. If only we’d vote Boyle gave up her job as a Johann what he’s suggesting we shouldn’t. for it.... Lamont impersonator and auditioned for Less than a year from the most Britain’s Got Talent. important decision our country has In one sense, I cannot help but made for 300 years and I’m still struck applaud Brand’s furthering forays into by the national nonchalance that is demagoguery. He has at least tried to prevalent. There are times when it use his position to provoke questions would be easy to mistake our collective

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