Kilts and tartan: Perspectives comes over all Scott-ish radical feminist green

No 41 | SUMMER 2015 | £3

Greece and the euro Policing the polis Why Scotland can flourish Women for independence The ugly side of the beautiful game

SKETCHES FROM A SMALL WORLD TIM HAIGH’S SURREAL MURDER MYSTERY

TREVOR ROYLE IS THE HAT ISSN 2041-3629 REVIEWS •BRIAN COX’S 07 HUMAN UNIVERSE •GRAMSCI’S EARLY WRITINGS •BIG-SCREEN FILTH 9772041362010 MAGAZINE OF SCOTLAND’S DEMOCRATIC LEFT Editorial “His name was The Labour Party, sir. Looks as though he Perspectives No 41, summer 2015 was mugged. Beaten savagely about the credibility with a blunt instrument.” – Tim Haigh on page 33

Contents 3 Sketches from a small Paying the price of no PR world Eurig Scandrett he return of a majority 2012, conveniently ignoring the Conservative government in fact that AV (as observed in the The general election 5 TMay’s general election has article “Two cheers for AV ”, and after: can Labour demonstrated, to an even greater Perspectives 28) is not a form of survive? degree than previously, the proportional representation. David Purdy dysfunctional character of the Of course, no-one expects the system used to elect the Tories to go for PR at Westminster The Greek crisis and the 8 Westminster parliament. elections when the current system crisis of the euro Consider: the Tories win an gifts them a majority of seats on Pat Devine absolute majority on the basis of just over one-third of the votes, the support of little over one third but Labour, who to their discredit Policing the polis 11 (36.8%) of voters; the SNP take 95% have supported (and similarly John Finnie of the seats in Scotland on 50% of benefitted from) first-past-the- the vote; and Ukip on 12.6% and post in the past, would do well to Wee white blossom – 14 the Greens on 3.7% take just one become advocates of some form why Scotland can seat each. of PR . flourish Fair? Hardly! But I remember e British public are badly Lesley Riddoch one senior Tory trying to kick the n Letters and served by the current electoral electoral reform ball into the long contributions system and it is the poorest in our Women for 16 grass when confronted with these (which we may society who will, quite literally, independence: figures on the radio a few days edit) are welcome pay the greatest price for a the what next? after the election. He told the and should be Conservative government most of Marsha Scott interviewer that this issue had sent to the the electorate did not vote for. been resolved by the referendum editor – contact Sean Feeny The ugly side of the 17 on the alternative vote held in details below Editor beautiful game Stephen Morrow FUTURE PERSPECTIVES 20 Sir Walter Scott and the As we publish this 41st edition of Perspectives , the magazine of Democratic Left Scotland kilting and tartaning of and now well over 10 years into its current format, we should apologise for the nine- Scotland month gap since issue 40. While we aim to print four issues a year, we rely to a very large Neil Davidson degree on the mainly unpaid input of a small number of people. Inevitably, this arrange - ment can cause problems, especially where the demands of paid employment overlap 25 Review: Alone … in an with the production schedules of the magazine. uncaring universe Democratic Left Scotland will be discussing what it can do: whether print production Ken Macleod should cease; if there are other possibilities in, for example, an enhanced website; or whether the two might exist in complementary roles. 27 Review: A great and We will let subscribers and DLS members know after full discussions and a decision is terrible world taken. If you have any feelings about this please contact us with your thoughts. Andy Pearmain 30 Review: Irvine Welsh – Perspectives is published by wallowing in his own Democratic Left Scotland, Number Ten, 10 Constitution Road, Dundee DD1 1LL Tel: 01382 201622 / e: [email protected] / www.democraticleftscotland.org.uk Filth? Willy Maley ISSN 2041-3629 Editor: Sean Feeny / Depute editor: Davie Laing / Circulation and promotions manager: David Purdy 33 We’re the Sweeney, son Articles in Perspectives are copyright. Requests to reproduce any part of the magazine should be Tim Haigh addressed to the editor. For further information on Perspectives or to submit articles or letters, contact: 34 Diary Trevor Royle is The Editor, Perspectives, Democratic Left Scotland, Number Ten, 10 Constitution Road, Dundee DD1 1LL The Hat e: [email protected] Printed by Hampden Advertising Ltd, 70 Stanley Street, Glasgow G41 1JB.

2 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 Eurig Scandrett Eurig is an environmental activist and a member of Democratic Left Scotland Sketches from a small world

ast December saw the 30th anniversary of the The legal India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is currently Bhopal disaster – 30 years of a community’s pursuing an inward investment campaign across the struggle for justice from transnational system has world to “Make in India”. Survivors’ groups have corporations Union Carbide, Dow and others, consistently angrily highlighted the contrast between the red and their state collaborators. I was in Bhopal let the carpet treatment recently given to Barack Obama in Lfor the commemorations, with a delegation of trade India to attract US capital in the future, and the union activists from Scotland (and one from Wales). survivors negligence at pursuing justice for the victims of US Along with joining angry protests and visiting down, investment in the past. Modi’s aggressive neo- grassroots rehabilitation centres, delegates attended especially in liberalism is not unique but its pace is breathtaking. the opening of the Bhopal holocaust museum. is He is dismantling safety and environmental immensely powerful memorial is the brainchild of the USA regulations, weakening institutions of justice such as journalist and curator Rama Lakshmi and was where green tribunals, and clearing away social protection developed in collaboration with the survivors and enforcement in the interests of global capital. Campaigners have campaigners in Bhopal. It contains artefacts, suggested his approach might be more appropriately reflections, photographs, banners and objects agencies have called “Make more Bhopals in India”. donated by the Bhopal survivors and those who have refused to stood alongside them, representing the horrors of co -operate hilst in India, the delegation also met trade “that night” and the 30 year struggle for dignity and with Indian union activists in Mumbai and Delhi. Indian justice. e museum also represents a political act of Wlabour is highly fragmented, with 80% of defiance of the state of Madhya Pradesh whose courts workers in casualised employment. e trade unions official intention is to establish their own museum, are largely small and organised into a number of where the public presentation of memory can be congresses and centres, mostly affiliated with controlled. political parties ranging from the BJP far right (Modi’s Trade unions have played an important role in the party) to the Maoists on the left and a great deal of Bhopal struggle. e union representing workers at sectarian divisions result. Nonetheless, alliances do the Union Carbide factory raised concerns about form around class mobilisation and militant action in health and safety several years before the disaster and certain areas. In Mumbai, the activists we met were mounted protests following the death in 1982 of a drawn from different unions and left traditions yet worker in the factory. A trade union relief committee work together as the Mumbai trade union solidarity was also established in Mumbai immediately after the committee. In Delhi we met Gautam Mody, the disaster and conducted important assessments and General Secretary of the New Trade Union Initiative, information gathering. ere has been support for the fourth largest trade union centre in India and the the survivors’ demands from unions in India and only significant non-party affiliated trade union across the world. Over the past year there has been a congress, with particular strengths in metal workers, series of solidarity statements from Scottish Trades extractive industries and construction. Where Union Congress sectoral conferences and this year organised workers collaborate in India, there are the delegates brought the issue to the STUC . real opportunities for trade union solidarity Trade Union Friends of Bhopal has been with trade unions and workers’ established to support solidarity organisations in Scotland. initiatives. Trade union action is an e Bhopali groups welcomed essential component of the our solidarity and emphasise that campaign for justice. In March “we all live in Bhopal” – nowhere 2015, Dow again did not show up is immune from the toxic to a court hearing after being chemical capitalism. Wherever summonsed, the second time in trade unions, along with six months. e legal system has environmentalists and consistently let the survivors community activists, are down, especially in the USA where campaigning to defend the health, enforcement agencies have refused to safety and dignity of workers and co -operate with Indian courts and have their communities, we act in solidarity always taken the side of the corporations. with Bhopal.

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 3 People and politics In Scotland, as in the rest of Britain, there is widespread disillusionment with politics. There’s The mainstream parties have lost touch with ordinary people and issues are trivialised and distorted by the media. We are continually told that “there is no alternative” to global capitalism. Yet this is more doing untold damage to our environment, our communities and the quality of our to lives, while millions of people remain poor and powerless because the market politics dominates our society and we do too little to protect and empower them. Democratic Left Scotland is a non-party political organisation that works for than progressive social change through activity in civil society – in community groups, social movements and single-issue campaigns – seeking at all times to promote parties discussion and alliances across the lines of party, position and identity. Political parties remain important, but they need to reconnect with the citizens they claim to represent, reject the copycat politics that stifles genuine debate and recognise ¡ that no single group or standpoint holds all the answers to the problems facing our society. Joining and supporting We are trying to develop a new kind of politics, one that Democratic Left Scotland starts from popular activity – in workplaces, localities and voluntary associations – and builds bridges to the world of I support the aims and values of Democratic Left Scotland parties and government, on the one hand, and the world and have decided to join and/or to support the of ideas and culture, on the other. organisation. (Please tick as appropriate)

J I wish to join Democratic Left Scotland What does Democratic Left add? Please indicate the level of annual membership you Our approach to politics is radical, feminist and green. wish to pay (from £5 unwaged to £60 high waged) Radical because we are concerned with the underlying, J J J J J J £5 £12 £24 £36 £48 £60 structural causes of problems such as poverty, inequality, J I wish to support DLS’s campaigns violence and pollution and aspire towards an inclusive, more equal society in which everyone is supported and Please indicate the amount you wish to donate encouraged to play a full part, within a more just and J £5 J £10 J £15 J £20 J £25 sustainable world. J Other £______Feminist because we seek to abolish the unequal division of wealth, work and power between men and Please indicate if your donation is women and to promote a better understanding of the J monthly J annual J one-off intimate connections between personal life and politics. Payment Green because we believe that our present system of Payment for membership and/or support for our economic organisation is socially and environmentally campaigning work can be made either by cheque, destructive, and that a more balanced relationship payable to Democratic Left Scotland, or banker’s order. If between human activity and nature will be better for us, neither method is suitable, please let our office know and for our descendants and for the other animal species with another arrangement can be made. whom we share the planet. J I enclose a cheque to the value of £______J Please send me a banker’s order form Who can join Democratic Left Scotland? Name ...... Membership is open to anyone who shares our general Address ...... outlook and commitments. Whilst many of our members are involved in a range of political parties, others are not...... Postcode ......

Telephone ......

E-mail ...... Democratic Left Scotland Please return this form to Democratic Left Scotland, na Deamocrataich Chli an Alba 10 Constitution Road, Dundee DD1 1LL P41 Labour’s future The general election and after: can Labour survive?

e surprise Tory victory in May has raised a whole host of questions, not least how Labour might continue as a meaningful force in British politics. David Purdy attempts to unravel the Gordian knot and suggest some answers

he 2015 general election will be remembered mainly for ty Tory government or an overall Tory majority. Certainly, both the stunning success of the SNP in winning half the SNP and the Tories, each for their own separate, but mutual - Scotland’s votes and all but three of its 59 seats to ly reinforcing reasons, took the prospect seriously. Nicola become the third largest party at Westminster, and for Sturgeon repeatedly dismissed fears that voting SNP would let the unexpected success of the Tories in achieving an the Tories in, by insisting that a Labour- SNP bloc both could and oTverall majority, their first since 1992. Of lesser moment, but should lock them out. e Tories, for their part, with little to still striking were the humiliation of the Lib Dems, who lost all lose in Scotland, did not scruple to put the Union at risk, warn - but eight of their 57 seats along with two-thirds of their vote; the ing voters in England that a “left-wing” Labour government led surge in support for Ukip and the Greens, by Ed Miliband but beholden to the SNP whose shares of the vote rose from 3% In the last two weeks of the would be at once “anti-business, profli - and 1% in 2010 to 13% and 4%, respec - gate, unstable and unconstitutional.” tively, though each won only one seat; campaign, a centre-left Tory scare-mongering seems to have and the discrediting of the pollsters, who majority looked distinctly more worked: it helped to bring Ukip waverers throughout the long campaign had been likely than any of the back into the fold; to fend off Labour forecasting another hung parliament. challenges in Tory marginals, even To be fair, the prospect of an SNP land - alternatives though Labour’s share of the vote in slide had loomed ever since last year’s England rose by 3.6 percentage points; independence referendum and had been factored into most and to wrest 27 seats from the Lib Dems – compared with the 12 election forecasts. e polls were also roughly right about the that fell to Labour – including all their seats in the south-west, a shares of the vote going to Ukip, the Lib Dems and the Greens. traditional Lib Dem stronghold. But this cannot be the whole What they got spectacularly wrong was the result. At least ten story, for scare tactics only weigh with undecided voters when final polls put the two main parties neck and neck. In the event, they play to weaknesses in the opposition’s offer. Labour’s main the Tories ended up 6.5 points ahead of Labour, with 99 more problem was that voters did not trust it to manage the economy. seats in the House of Commons and an overall majority of 12. In the run-up to the 2010 election and in the crucial months that Pending an inquiry by the British Polling Council, the most followed, when the party was distracted by a leadership contest, plausible explanation for the error is a late swing to the Tories. Labour allowed coalition myths about the economic crisis to become embedded in public consciousness. is enabled the WHY LABOUR LOST new government to pin the blame for its fiscal austerity pro - e more important question is why Labour lost. e proximate gramme on the (supposed) fiscal sins of its predecessor. causes seem clear enough. To compensate for anticipated heavy In fact, of course, the financial crisis was global. It originated losses in Scotland, the party needed to win roughly half its top in the US , but affected the UK so severely because of the size of 80 targets in England without losing ground in Wales – not its financial sector. It was not the result of excessive or uncon - enough for an overall majority, but enough to become the senior trolled public expenditure: that rose from 37.8% of GDP in partner in an anti-Conservative coalition or, more likely, to form 1997 –8 to 40.4% in 2006–7 (compared with 49.7% in 1975–6 a single-party minority government dependent either on a and 48.1% in 1982–3). At the start of the crisis, the current formal “confidence and supply” pact with one or more other budget deficit was 0.6% of GDP and the ratio of government debt parties or on informal deals negotiated vote by parliamentary to GDP was 46% (compared to 64% in Germany and the US and vote. 73% in France). e subsequent sharp rise in the deficit and then e polls suggested this was a feasible outcome and, indeed, in debt was a consequence, not the cause, of the recession, as Labour gained momentum in the last two weeks of the cam - assisted by a sharper drop in tax revenues from the City than the paign, a centre-left majority looked distinctly more likely than Treasury or anyone else had expected, plus a small amount of any of the alternatives: another centre-right coalition, a minori - fiscal easing (mainly the temporary cut in VAT ). And a rise in the

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 5 Labour’s future

budget deficit in a recession is just what most academic econo - ceed”, would change the rules of the game so that the fruits of mists (as distinct from those employed in the City) would (and growth were shared more equally.* did) recommend. Redistribution on this limited scale was hardly going make Labour made a further mistake in failing to highlight a much impression on the mountains of inequality that have risen marked softening of the government’s fiscal stance in 2012 after up since the post-war settlement was overturned by the neo-lib - two years of near-zero growth. From then on, budgets were eral revolution of the 1980s. Even so, the measures might have broadly neutral in their impact on the economy, while the been defended as initial, cautious, pragmatic steps on the road timescale for eliminating the deficit (current and capital com - to a fairer, less predatory, more responsible kind of capitalism. bined) was put back by two years, from the original target date How long it would take to travel this road no one knows or can of 2014–15 to 2016–17. Osborne glossed over this shift, no know: certainly more than one parliamentary term, perhaps a doubt because to admit it would have been to accept that his whole generation. But the longest journey starts with a single “Plan A” had failed. But Labour also ignored it. Had the opposi - step. tion seized on the government’s U-turn, it would have been able is was not, however, Labour’s pitch to the voters. When Ed explain the (modest) output recovery that then ensued, rather Miliband told a BBC QuestionTime audience on 30 April, “It is than allowing Osborne to hail it as proof that his “long-term better to under-promise and over-deliver than to over-promise plan” was working and that Labour had been wrong about aus - and under-deliver”, he was not explaining the politics of the long terity. haul, offering a sober assessment of near-term prospects within a more expansive, hopeful, long-term frame; rather, he was on wo lessons can be drawn from Labour’s failure to defend its the back foot, struggling to repair Labour’s (unmerited) reputa - own record in government and to debunk coalition myths. tion for fiscal irresponsibility. is is not a criticism of the TOne is that economic policy-making demands not just Labour leader. Not even the most gifted communicator can technical expertise, but active statecraft. If they are to steer the change the terms of political debate in a two-minute response to economy, retain control of events and confound their oppo - hostile questioning, let alone shift an adverse balance of forces nents, especially at times of crisis, governments need to chal - in the country at large. e problem is more profound and per - lenge misguided beliefs and vested interests. If, for example, plexing, forcing to us ask what kind of politics is needed not prevailing ideas about “sound finance” block or impede plans to simply to win elections, but to change a society’s direction of escape from a slump by instituting a programme of loan- travel. financed public investment, then the case for this policy must be Elections should be thought of as moments in an ongoing and spelled out ad nauseam: in managing their finances, govern - many-sided power contest stretching back into the past and on ments, unlike households or businesses, must take account of into the future, and reaching well beyond the confines of the the consequences of their actions for the economy as a whole; state into every sphere of social life, from workplace and high premature steps to reduce a budget deficit in a recession risk street to schools and homes. And because advanced capitalist intensifying it; and the time for “fiscal consolidation”, should this democracies are dense, stable formations, the struggle for prove necessary, is when recovery is assured. e other lesson is power necessarily involves movement in a resistant medium. that electoral outcomes depend less on bribes offered, ploys Hence, a party that seeks radical change – whether this entails pursued, sound-bites honed or gaffes committed in the course shrinking the state, enlarging it, reforming it or founding a new of the campaign than on positions gained or lost over many one – is engaged in a project that can be started, but not com - years beforehand. “e counting of votes,” Gramsci once pleted within a single parliamentary term. A project, in other remarked, “is merely the final ceremony in a long process.” words, is a long-term undertaking, a reasoned account of where the party hopes to go – if you like, its vision of a better future – POLICIES AND PROJECTS coupled with a strategy for getting there or achieving it. Policies, Voters often say they have no idea what Labour stands for or by contrast, are responses to specific situations and nearly that the party no longer speaks for them. Such complaints can always need to be adapted, revised or replaced as the situation be variously interpreted. But applied to the 2015 election, they changes. are, on the face of it, surprising. Labour’s central message was that whereas the rich have prospered since the crash, the great PARTIES AND POLITICS IN AN AGE OF REALIGNMENT majority of British citizens have yet to benefit from the recovery. is distinction sheds light on Labour’s election defeat, its And many of the party’s specific manifesto pledges – to end prospects of survival and the future of British politics. When non-dom tax status, to restore the top rate of income tax to 50%, people say they have no idea what Labour stands for or no to limit tax relief on pension contributions, to introduce a “man - longer identify with the party, they are more likely to be thinking sion” tax, to abolish the “bedroom” tax, to cap rents for private of its project than of its policies. e policies on which Labour tenants, to build a million new homes by 2020, to freeze energy fought the 2015 election were reasonably clear and distinct both prices pending a revamp of the energy market, and to clamp from those of its opponents and from those of New Labour, at down on zero-hours contracts – were popular. is package was any rate prior to the financial crisis. But most voters pay less designed to demonstrate that a commitment to fiscal discipline attention to a party’s policies than to the general character or did not preclude progressive reform and to show how Labour, themes of its offer: policies matter only in so far as they encap - believing that “Britain succeeds when its working people suc - sulate or signpost its project. Here Labour sounded an uncer -

6 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 “Scottish Labour remains dysfunctional, divided and demoralised and it is hard to see how a new leader, the seventh in 15 years, can turn the party’s fortunes round by next May tain note. Having been elected leader on a promise to break with and sluggish earnings growth; that half the country’s poor are in the past, Miliband was keen to focus on the future – and on his some form of paid employment, while the UK is the one of the vision of a new and more equal Britain. But Labour’s legacy was most unequal societies in the advanced capitalist world; or that a millstone around his neck, his enemies were determined to while public services shrink, money and markets continue to keep it there and he never found a way to get rid of it. advance into every corner of social life. But Tory weaknesses and economic maladies will not benefit Labour unless the party he SNP presents the opposite case: firm project, flaky poli - thinks long and hard, not just about why it lost the last election cies. Its ultimate goal remains an independent Scotland, and how to win the next, but about its wider purpose and hori - Tbut this side of a second referendum it has set its sights on zons in an era when two-party politics is dead and a disunited “full fiscal autonomy”, though a lively debate is under way about kingdom is pulling away from its European neighbours. when would be the best time to hold another referendum, with some keen to strike while the iron is hot, while others argue for abour’s headlong rush into a fresh leadership contest and a long game, fearing another defeat. But on policy questions, the the tenor of the debate so far do not inspire confidence on party is prone to wishful thinking. It appears to believe, for Lthis score. A key test will be the party’s attitude to electoral example, that a Scandinavian welfare state can be sustained on reform and political alliances. From 1918 when it became a the basis of US tax levels, and that fiscal and regulatory autono - membership organisation to the days of Blair and Brown, my will somehow of itself transform Scotland’s economic per - Labour dominated the British left, enjoying a near monopoly in formance, generating faster growth, full employment and electoral politics thanks to Britain’s first-past-the-post voting healthy public finances. In time, as the Scottish government system. With the eclipse of class-based, two-party politics and acquires more powers and comes under more effective scrutiny the rise of parties concerned with national autonomy and the from its opponents, these beliefs will be put to the test. For now, future of the planet, Labour faces competition on the left – as however, the SNP is free to press on with its project, fighting the well as on the right, from Ukip – and can no longer argue that good fight at Westminster, strengthening its grip at Holyrood, the only alternative to a Tory government is a Labour majority and using both power bases to resist Tory austerity and to cam - in the House of Commons. Indeed, Labour cannot now form a paign for devo max, while holding open the option of a second government at Westminster without the support of these par - referendum in case the UK votes to leave the EU . ties and to pretend otherwise merely invites incredulity and Labour’s prospects, by contrast, are bleak – on both sides of scorn. the border. It is unlikely that the party’s candidates at next year’s It is, therefore, in Labour’s interest to re-open the debate about Holyrood election will suffer the fate of their Westminster coun - electoral reform. It could, for example, propose an all-party con - terparts: the Scottish electoral system is designed to prevent vention to consider alternatives to first-past-the-post, with a view disproportional representation. Nevertheless, Scottish Labour to reaching a consensus on a replacement to be put to voters at remains dysfunctional, divided and demoralised and it is hard to the next election. If the Conservatives refuse to attend, they risk see how a new leader, the seventh in 15 years, can turn the becoming isolated, for the other parties have every reason to take party’s fortunes round by next May in the face of overwhelming part. ere is, of course, no guarantee that a consensus would SNP superiority. Indeed, Labour could easily lose constituency emerge, but if, as seems likely, the Tories were alone in defending seats to the SNP , as well as regional list seats to the Greens and a the status quo, an anti-Tory bloc might form, including Ukip and resurgent Scottish Conservative Party. If that happens, the the Lib Dems. is would set the stage for an electoral show - “strange death of Labour Scotland” could well presage the rapid down, opening up debate about wider constitutional issues. e demise of Scottish Labour. Its best and perhaps only hope of general point is that political realignment sets up pressure for avoiding extinction is to reconstitute itself as an independent political reform and unless Labour takes up the cause of reform party, to embrace the cause of Home Rule for Scotland within a and thereby renews itself, it may not survive at all. federal UK and to work with other progressive forces – including not only its sister parties in England and Wales, but also the SNP , n DavidPurdyisaregularcontributorto Perspectives anda Lib Dems and Greens – towards a new constitutional settle - memberofDemocraticLeftScotland. ment and a better kind of capitalism. On the Westminster front, the lesson of 2015 election is that NOTE unless Labour can get back into the game in Scotland, it will * In its election manifesto, Labour pledged to cut the budget struggle to defeat the Tories in 2020. To be sure, the Tories’ posi - deficit every year, to ensure that public debt fell as a proportion of tion is not as strong as it seems. eir parliamentary majority is GDP and to achieve a current budget balance (i.e. excluding capital small; the bulk of their MP s represent constituencies in the south expenditure) by the end of the next parliament. It had previously of England, most northern cities being Tory-free zones; and announced that it accepted the expenditure cuts planned for with Ukip on the march, the coming EU referendum is fraught 2015–16. These pledges left room for manoeuvre and, according to with potential for internal strife. Moreover, Britain’s economic the Institute for Fiscal Studies, differed little in substance from the recovery remains fragile and unbalanced. You would never policy of the SNP . The main difference between the two parties guess from the election campaign that the UK has a record bal - was rhetorical. It suited Labour to talk up its commitment to fiscal ance of payments deficit, excessive personal debt, a chronic discipline, just as it suited the SNP to play down the difference housing shortage, deficient investment, lagging productivity between Labour and the Tories.

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 7 Greece and the euro The Greek crisis and the crisis of the euro In a piece written prior to the July referendum of the Greek people rejecting the eurozone-drafted bailout plan, Pat Devine examines the background to the crisis of the Greek economy … and of the euro

he election in Greece of the Syriza- the Frankfurt-based European Central has to be made through fiscal policy led government committed to a pro - Bank ( ECB ), and the eurosystem, consist - alone – changes in government income Tgramme of both anti-austerity and ing of the national central banks ( NCB s) of and expenditure. As a consequence, the remaining in the euro represents the first the eurozone countries. As an independ - entire burden of adjustment falls on the major challenge to the prevailing neo-lib - ent central bank, the ECB has sole author - individual country rather than on the eral orthodoxy and to the eurozone itself. ity to set monetary policy. Euro countries constituting the monetary e financial crisis of 2007 –08 precipitat - banknotes do not show which central union as a whole. ed the most severe global recession since bank issued them. e ECB issues 8% of the 1930s. A systemic collapse of the the total value of banknotes issued by the n order for monetary union to work it financial system was prevented by con - eurosystem. e other 92% of euro ban - needs to be accompanied by fiscal certed government action to bail out the knotes are issued by the NCB s in propor - Iunion, which would have to be under - banks which resulted in widespread tion to their country’s respective shares, pinned by closer political integration. increases in government budget deficits. calculated using the national share of Productivity differences within the euro - is in turn enabled the problem of irre - European Union population and the zone are roughly equivalent to the differ - sponsible bank lending and inadequate national share of European Union GDP , ences between the states in the US , but regulation to be recast as a problem of equally weighted. the US is a political union with a federal sovereign debt, the remedy for which was government that is able, at least in princi - presented as austerity. e slump sparked FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED ple, and to some extent in practice, to off by the financial crisis resulted in To participate in the eurosystem, redistribute resources between the states. increased expenditure on social security member states are meant to meet strict Within the eurozone the stronger coun - as unemployment rose and decreased criteria: a budget deficit of less than 3% of tries of north-west Europe have sought to revenue as output and incomes fell. is GDP ; a debt ratio of less than 60% of GDP ; impose the burden of adjustment on the increased budget deficits further and then low inflation; and interest rates close to weaker countries of south Europe, rather interest on the additional borrowing the EU average. However, by 2004 the two than sharing the burden as would happen increased them still further. e combi - biggest economies in the eurozone, with a fiscal union and closer political nation of higher borrowing and lower Germany and France, had already broken integration. GDP resulted in increased National Debt the rules for three years running. It is e so-called “troika” (the European to GDP ratios. e countries most affected generally agreed that the underlying Central Bank, the eurosystem and the were those with the largest budget deficits design of the euro and the eurozone was International Monetary Fund) has – Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland fundamentally flawed. Sovereign coun - imposed draconian conditions on those within the eurozone, of which Greece was tries use monetary policy and fiscal countries needing a bailout, similar to the the worst affected, and Iceland and the UK policy to manage their economies. “structural adjustment programmes” outside it. Monetary union, the creation of a single imposed by the IMF on developing coun - e euro is the official currency of the currency, means that member countries tries over the years – austerity, deregula - eurozone which consists of 19 of the 28 have no direct control over monetary tion and privatisation. What is EU states. It is the second largest reserve policy and are unable to alter the value of conveniently ignored in these pro - currency and the second most traded cur - their currency by devaluation or revalua - grammes is that all countries cannot rency in the world, after the United States tion; they lose one of the two policy increase their competitiveness at the dollar. Launched in 1999, it replaced pre- options. Any macroeconomic adjust - same time and all countries cannot have a existing national currencies on January 1, ment needed by a country due to cyclical balance of payments surplus. 2002. It is managed and administered by crises or balance of payments imbalances Competition creates losers as well as win -

8 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 “Since 2012 Greece has had a primary budget surplus – a surplus of current government income over expenditure once expenditure on interest payments to service the national debt is excluded ners, and balance of payments surpluses gramme imposed on, and implemented In the decade since its formation in some countries are necessarily offset by by, the pre-Syriza government. Syriza has built upon its roots in the balance of payments deficits in others. e main stages in the evolution of social movements in civil society. Since Greek crisis are as follows. In April 2010 the onset of the current crisis in 2008 and SAVAGE AUSTERITY PROGRAMMES Greek government debt was downgraded the austerity programme imposed on Countries that have implemented the to junk status and it was no longer able to Greece by the troika it has been actively troika’s savage austerity programmes borrow on the international bond market. involved in promoting movements and (Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and particularly In May 2010 the troika agreed a €110 bil - organisations of solidarity, assisting Greece) have experienced devastating lion loan to Greece, conditional on gov - people and communities to survive the social damage, with falling output and ernment expenditure cuts, structural assault on living standards and social life incomes, high levels of unemployment, “reforms”, and €50 billion of privatisations carried out by the pre-Syriza govern - especially youth unemployment, dimin - by 2015. In February 2012 an additional ments, and arguing for a new, anti-aus - ished access to health services, widespread €130 billion loan was agreed, together terity programme. e hard fought homelessness, hunger, child poverty, and with a “haircut” in the form of extended negotiations with the troika, with Syriza psychological disturbances, including maturity dates and lower interest rates on seeking to implement its anti-austerity greatly increased suicide rates. e very Greek government debt equivalent to a programme, began immediately after foundations of a civilised society have been 53.5% face value loss for private investors. Syriza formed the government in January undermined, and yet, after years of intoler - In May 2012 “Grexit”, the possibility of 2015 and soon created strains within able suffering, they have eventually started Greece leaving the euro, was first raised. Syriza, which is still basically a coalition. a slow process of recovery, however pre - In December 2012 an additional €8.26 bil - e far left has become increasingly crit - carious. Except for Greece. Greece is the lion IMF loan was agreed. Since 2012 ical of even the so-far minor concessions exception. In 2013 Greece had the highest Greece has had a primary budget surplus that Tsipras and Varoufakis have been debt to national income ratio, the largest – a surplus of current government forced to make in their attempt to reach budget deficit, and the largest fall in GDP of income over expenditure once expendi - an agreement with the troika and the eurozone countries. It had also experi - ture on interest payments to service the Germany. is has been personified in enced the most sustained cumulative national debt is excluded. In 2014 GDP the uncompromising criticism of budget deficit and the largest cumulative started to grow and Greece returned to Manilos Glezos, iconic hero of the fall in GDP , 25%, over the previous five the international bond market. However, wartime anti-fascist resistance and Syriza years. Why is this? the overall budget deficit remained member. Historically, in the period leading up to unsupportable; nearly half the loans since the onset of the financial crisis, Greece 2010 have been used to service debt, to NEW AGREEMENT WITH NEW suffered from chronically weak institu - pay interest on previous loans. CONDITIONS tions, with weak budgetary control, wide - At the time of writing (mid-May) the spread tax evasion and endemic he political and constitutional crisis negotiations have been going on for four corruption. In 2007, before the crisis arising from the austerity pro - months. Most debt is now with public broke, it already had the highest ratio of Tgramme of the previous government institutions. Total debt is roughly €317 national debt to national income, 103%, resulted in December 2014 in the failure billion, of which €24 billion is to the IMF , and the highest budget deficit as a percent of the National Assembly to elect a new €27 billion to the European Central of GDP , 6.7%, of the eurozone countries. President. is precipitated the January Banks, €142 billion to the European In 2010 it emerged that prior to Greece 2015 general election which Syriza won, Financial Stability Fund, and some small - joining the eurozone its statistical data forming a government, in coalition with er amounts to other public sector institu - had been falsified, understating the dire the small right-wing Independent Greeks tions. e starting point of the state of the country’s finances. In January Party, committed to ending austerity negotiations was that a new agreement 2010, the Greek Finance Ministry pub - while at the same time remaining in the with new conditions was needed. It was lished revised data showing that between eurozone. Syriza was formed in 2004 as clear that there would be no agreement 1980 and 1996 the ratio of National Debt the Coalition of the Radical Left, with its without conditions and if there was no to GDP rose from 21% to 95%, and symbol of three flags, red (representing agreement on conditions Greece would between 2004 and 2009 GDP rose by 40%, the labour movement), Green (represent - have to leave the eurozone. On 20 government expenditure by 87%, but tax ing the ecological movement), and purple February a preliminary agreement was revenue by only 31%. Government expen - (representing feminist, migrant and gay reached: the term “troika” was replaced diture levels were relatively normal, but rights movements). It became a unitary by “institutions” because Syriza’s election revenue levels were not. Since the crisis party only in 2013, combining seventeen campaign had rejected any dealings with broke, this trend has continued with the previously existing parties or political the troika; and it was agreed that the National Debt to GDP ratio rising from groups. Its electoral progress in the par - “Master Financial Assistance Facility 103% in 2007 to 175% in 2013, and the liamentary elections has been: 2004, Agreement”, i.e. the loan facility, would budget deficit rising from 6.7% to 12.2%, 3.3%; 2007, 5.04%; 2009, 4.6%; 2012 May, be extended and the commitments (con - despite the troika’s brutal austerity pro - 16%; 2012 June 27%; 2015, 36.3%. ditions) set out in the original

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 9 Greece and the euro “Syriza wants to stay in the eurozone, but not the existing eurozone. The institutions’ conditions amount to class war and are a form of international class struggle

“Memorandum of Understanding”, the US or the UK ”. e budget deficit for suggest that a clear majority of the popu - signed by previous governments, would the euro area as a whole was much lower lation wants to stay with the euro, a sig - be reviewed within four months. than that of the United States, and the nificant section of the left, including Critically, release of the €7.2 billion out - euro area’s government debt/ GDP ratio of many Syriza supporting academics and standing from the previously agreed 86% in 2010 was at about the same level economists, argue that Greece would be loans would be postponed until agree - as the US . “Moreover, private-sector better off leaving the euro and returning ment on the revised conditions had been indebtedness across the euro area as a to the drachma, albeit recognising that reached. whole is markedly lower than in the the process of transition would be decid - highly leveraged Anglo-Saxon edly painful. e key question is whether y mid-May full agreement on a set economies”. e authors conclude that it would be more painful than continuing of revised conditions had not yet the crisis “is as much political as econom - austerity as the price for keeping the Bbeen reached. Syriza had agreed ic” and the result of the fact that the euro euro. some 70% of the institutions’ demands, area lacks the support of the “institution - covering reform of the tax administra - al paraphernalia (and mutual bonds of t should be remembered that Iceland, tion, tax evasion, corruption, and mod - solidarity) of a state”. outside the eurozone, emerged rela - ernisation of public administration, but Itively unaffected by the sovereign-debt 30% were still in dispute. e institutions’ POLITICAL CRISIS crisis after it defaulted on its debts. It was insistence on a 4.5% primary budget sur - However, the crisis is also political in the country that experienced the most plus implied continuing severe austerity; another, more profound, way. e elec - severe banking crisis in 2008, when its its privatisation proposals amounted to a tion of a party into government commit - entire international banking system col - “fire sale” of public assets at rock bottom ted to rejecting austerity and to a lapsed and the government was unable to prices due to the crisis; and the labour fundamental change of direction is an bail out the banks. Unable to reach an market changes it demanded violated unprecedented challenge to the prevail - acceptable agreement with the interna - International Labour Organisation ing neo-liberal orthodoxy. Syriza wants tional financial institutions the govern - norms. Greece agreed to refrain from to stay in the eurozone, but not the exist - ment consulted the electorate in two unilateral actions until the end of the ing eurozone. e institutions’ condi - referendums and the people chose agreed four month review period when tions amount to class war and are a form default rather than externally imposed large debt repayments become due and of international class struggle. If Syriza’s austerity. It may also be relevant that in further loans will be needed. In the challenge is successful it will be a direct the 1975 UK referendum the left argued meantime, the Greek government has threat to the eurozone governments that for leaving the European Union, on the been having difficulty meeting its wage have imposed draconian austerity on grounds that it was a business friendly bills and loan repayments and the institu - their own societies and will undoubtedly “free market” which would weaken the tions have repeatedly broken off negotia - strengthen the anti-austerity movements power of the subordinate classes and tions, but so far the European Central in those countries. e Greek people’s undermine the hard won gains of the wel - Bank has continued to raise the threshold electoral verdict also highlights a contra - fare state. Broadly speaking this has of its emergency liquidity assistance to diction between the democratic will of proved to be the case, although much of Greek banks, which has in part been used people in different countries, in particu - the left has since changed its position in by the banks to purchase Greek govern - lar between Greece and Germany, where the light of the EU ’s stated commitment ment bonds, thus supplying necessary public opinion appears solidly behind to human rights, the social charter, and funding for the government via the back Angela Merkel’s hard line refusal to allow parliamentary democracy. door. Negotiations continue. Greece any room for manoeuvre. So in the end, in the absence of any While the immediate crisis is one of Initially the rest of the eurozone coun - movement by the troika, we come back to day-to-day liquidity, there are several tries were thought to want Greece to stay the agonising choice for Greece of fur - fundamental underlying issues that have with the euro, but more recently the ther externally imposed austerity or leav - to be resolved. Everyone knows that mood seems to have changed, with the ing the euro. What does not seem to have Greece can’t repay all its debts. Even if the institutions/troika (for that’s what it is), been fully faced by the troika, and by the immediate liquidity crisis is temporarily refusing any compromise. In the absence public in Germany and elsewhere that dealt with, it is difficult to see how the of any change in the position of the supports the troika’s hard line, is that underlying bankruptcy crisis can be troika, and above all of Germany, Greece either outcome is likely to have severe resolved without a de facto default on will be faced with the choice of accepting consequences for the eurozone itself. Greece’s debts. Monetary union without further austerity or leaving the euro, with political and fiscal union is unstable. the choice perhaps being made by a refer - n PatDevineisaneconomistconcerned According to the Economist Intelligence endum. As things stand, the polls suggest mainlywithindustrialeconomicsand Unit in 2011, “[I]f the [euro area] is treat - that Greek public opinion so far supports comparativeeconomicsystems.Heisa ed as a single entity, its [economic and the stance taken by the new government, jointauthorofthebook An Introduction fiscal] position looks no worse and in with support if anything having to Industrial Economics andauthorof some respects, rather better than that of increased. However, while the polls also Democracy and Economic Planning .

10 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 Police Scotland Policing the polis: holding Scotland’s new service to account

In the wake of the establishment of Police Scotland, a whole series of controversial issues has arisen. MSP John Finnie argues the organisation needs to change and that that may only happen when the current chief constable departs

ver since being asked to write an arti - consent applied to the various constabu - number of “work-streams” as there were cle, a few months ago, on Scotland’s laries discharging their duties in assistant chief constables so everyone got Enow two-year-old police service, its Scotland. a new, albeit temporary, title. Self-inter - already rancorous birth has been com - In April 2013, Scotland’s eight regional est among those individuals led to inertia pounded by almost weekly controversies. forces and “central services”, such as the and it was only after the appointment of Since the new service started there has Scottish Police College, were merged into Police Scotland’s first chief constable, been a wholesale change in policing a single entity, Police Scotland, since Stephen House, hitherto the chief con - methods: armed officers have appeared which time the police’s commitment to stable of Strathclyde Police, that things on our streets attending routine non- that concept has been seriously ques - got moving. firearms incidents; and a significant tioned by local and national politicians Stephen House is a former number of Scotland’s children have been and the Scottish Human Rights Metropolitan Police officer who believes stopped by the police, asked to “consent” Commission. that a “performance culture” is what is to being searched, then having their required to evidence sound policing prac - mobile phone numbers requested. Stephen House is a former tice. So, whilst some things, such as public I’m a member of the Scottish parlia - reassurance, are very hard to quantify, it is ment’s police committee and during evi - Metropolitan Police officer who easy to count the number of drivers dence taking have been assured by senior believes that a “performance charged with not wearing a seat belt or officers that those unpopular, and in one culture” is what is required to the number who have dropped litter. instance legally questionable, practices Now, as someone who owes their life to had stopped only to subsequently learn evidence sound policing practice wearing a seat belt, I place very great store that’s not the case. Whilst this informa - in educating the public about road traffic tion was not given on oath, as senior I fought for and secured improving safety and, of course, I dislike litter. public servants it was reasonable to amendments to the legislation and, as However, in each of those instances, if the assume that we would not subjected to chair of the parliament’s cross party offender is someone who will respond to false, misleading or inaccurate state - group on human rights, was delighted my advice, then much better that, rather than ments. proposed revised oath to be sworn by all reach for their notebook, officers deploy So what is going on? Who is really in new recruits: “I, do solemnly, sincerely their most significant power: the power of charge? And, amid press reports of senior and truly declare and affirm that I will discretion. at way you have two citizens officers having lost confidence in their faithfully discharge the duties of the grateful for not being charged and two chief constable, was the First Minister office of constable with fairness, integrity, future potential witnesses to help the wise to give him her vote of confidence diligence and impartiality, and that I will police. But if you give a clear focus on when many think she should be giving uphold fundamental human rights and numbers then that’s what front-line offi - him his P45? accord equal respect to all people, cers will concentrate on. I will examine the background to according to law”, was unanimously Scotland’s police service, what checks agreed by parliament. e previous oath SCRUTINY PROCESS and balances exist, whether the advent of made no mention of “upholding human e period running up to the amalgama - the single police service heralded the rights”. tion was frenzied. On paper at least, the police being the controversial political scrutiny process was designed to be issue they have become, whether those TORTUROUSLY SLOW enhanced. Each council ward now has its controversies have another genesis, and e transition from nine bodies to one own policing plan and each local author - what the future might hold. was torturously slow. Police are very ity its own police committee, rather than Until fairly recent times it was widely rank-conscious and the preparatory work the joint board system of members for accepted that the principle of policing by for the new service had exactly the same various authorities in all but two of the

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 11 Police Scotland

former forces. Overseeing it all is the “using their professional judgement”. My boasted he can and does ask for explana - Scottish Police Authority, a board of request that the guns be returned to the tions from officers, bizarrely adding “that appointees with various backgrounds safe in the car boot has been roundly is quite an impressive development as far and officials with a variety of skills. rejected. as human rights are concerned.” e Until about 20 years ago, the Scottish “development” that has seen young Police service was always unarmed. hen used proportionately, stop - people stopped, searched, and had inap - Trained officers could be sent to inci - ping and searching citizens is propriate details requested is “impres - dents where firearms were needed, Wlegitimate crime prevention tool sive”: an impressive disregard of human invariably the aftermath of an armed rob - for the police. Indeed, common law rights which will now stop. bery, a murder using firearms or whilst powers of search and statutory powers on close protection duties for VIP s. relating to things such as drugs and KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS About 20 years ago saw the advent of the weapons have always been a feature of Every profession has its own language Armed Response Vehicle ( ARV ): two effective policing. e laws relating to and when we are told “there are no tar - highly trained uniformed officers in a stop and search did not alter when Police gets for volume of stop and search” yet vehicle on constant patrol. Within the Scotland came into being, nor did the are aware that each of Scotland’s divi - last decade each of the forces had them threat level suddenly change; what did sional commanders has 23 key perform - but only Strathclyde and Lothian & alter was the police’s approach to stop ance indicators to satisfy, you can see Borders officers have the firearms carried and search. how scepticism can arise. overtly on the officers; Tayside’s ARV Councillors on local authority com - crews carried the weapons covertly mittees have little to scrutinise and were whilst the other forces had weapons con - Since I became an independent cynically by-passed on the armed police tained within a locked safe in the boot of MSP, the government no longer issue whilst the police authority, initially the vehicle with withdrawal and use has a majority on either the distracted by a turf war about who’d be in requiring the approval of a senior officer. charge of what, has been absent without When a constituent contacted me justice or police committees and trace on both the armed police and stop saying they were concerned armed offi - seems to wish to characterise and search issues, belatedly and ineptly cers were patrolling on foot in the criticism of the police as “an reporting events long since pored over by Inverness area I was initially sceptical but the press and politicians. I made some enquiries and found it to be opposition campaign” Since I became an independent MSP , correct. the government no longer has a majority One of the changes that followed the One year in, we learned that levels of on either the justice or police committees move to the single service was the signifi - stop and search in Scotland exceeded and seems to wish to characterise criti - cant change I encountered trying to get those of the Metropolitan Police and cism of the police as “an opposition cam - replies to constituents’ enquiries. I wrote New York Police Department. paign”. I fear that misjudges the important to the chief constable asking if there was More reports and explanations, and scrutiny role expected of parliamentari - a plan to put in place a correspondence then the sad spectacle of assistant chief ans and, whilst we must all support the protocol and was effectively told “we’ll constable Mawson, in the full light of the rule of law, that does not mean a blank decide what’s important”. For those rea - resulting publicity, explaining to parlia - cheque to an over-bearing policing style. sons, rather than send off another letter ment that the “loss” of “20,086 (search) What do we learn from all of this? which could go unanswered for months, I records … between May and July last Well, it’s not that all that Police Scotland raised the matter through the Herald year” was because “a computer program - does is bad. e proactive work targeting newspaper. mer pressed the wrong button”. I’m not serial domestic violence offenders has sure even he believed it, but within a few rightly been widely welcomed by DISMISSIVE RESPONSE days the story changed anyway. Women’s Aid and others. Yet, even with Police Scotland’s response was dismis - Whether terrorism, organised crime that positive issue, rather than work with sive. I was told that only I and one other or drugs, the police like to tell us their the legislative tools they are given, the had ever complained. I sought and operations are far from random, rather police became active and vocal support - secured a meeting with the assistant chief they are “intelligence led”. Of course, were ers of ending the age-old Scots law con - constable responsible for firearms and that the case then we wouldn’t see com - vention of corroboration, the invited all my Highlands and Islands MSP munities targeted for stop and search requirement for two separate sources of colleagues to attend. operations resulting in four out of five evidence to convict someone. at issue Now, almost a year and three official stopped and searched having nothing on was eventually kicked into not very long reports on we are told the “terrorist them, something the hapless ACC grass by the Scottish government, and threat” means our armed officers will described as “a good success story”. will emerge again at the end of the year in retain their “standing authority” to Later, having assured parliament that time for proponents of this dangerous openly carry their firearms and they will searching of under-12s would cease, only change to pontificate that some rights are still intervene in non-firearms incidents for it to continue, the chief constable more important than others.

12 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 ose opposed to the creation of the that, they would be considered to be e stop and search issue has likewise single service will feel vindicated that the unreliable, would they not?” Sir Stephen continued unabated, however, the series of events I have related show that House replied “we would certainly be Scottish government has seized the ini - they were right. I disagree; I believe they interested in why the story was changing. tiative by setting up an independent advi - show a single-minded chief constable, sory group to examine the whole issue. unchallenged by his fellow chief officers, We must all remain vigilant and e group, chaired by John Scott QC , who isn’t held in check by his police the highly regarded human rights lawyer authority, and who needs reigned in. demand that our police service and Convenor, Howard League Scotland, Sir Stephen House is quick to say he “uphold fundamental human will make recommendations for Scottish understands the need for him to be rights and accord equal respect ministers to consider by end-August 2015. accountable; however, you do not need to be an expert in body language to read to all people, according to law” n JohnFinnieisanindependentMember that’s not really his view. oftheScottishParliamenthavingresigned I support local policing, and were I still We are trying to explain why the story fromthe SNP in2012overtheissueof a local councillor I would have been has changed.” NATO membership.InOctober2014John asking questions about armed officers on e story that is Police Scotland needs joinedtheGreenPartybutcontinuestosit my beat. Why was it not picked up at to change and, whilst that may only asanindependent. local or national level? In fairness to the happen with the departure of the present Johnserved30yearsinthepolice:start - police they did tell the police authority. It chief constable, we must all remain vigi - ingonthebeatinLeith;thenservingata was the last sentence of Paragraph 5.9 of lant and demand that our police service ruralsingle-officerstationinhisnative agenda item 8: “Work is therefore well “uphold fundamental human rights and Highlands;hewasadoghandlerfor10 underway and on track in terms of accord equal respect to all people, yearsandspenthislast14yearsasan Armed Policing provision for Day 1 when according to law”. I’ve not given up hope electedfull-timeofficialoftheScottish a standing authority for Armed Response yet! PoliceFederation,therankandfileoffi - Vehicles ( ARV ), Tactical Firearms Unit cers’“union”. (TFU ), airport coverage and other polic - POSTSCRIPT Johnservedascouncillorforthe ing operations will be implemented.” Police Scotland have rarely been out of InvernessNess-sidewardbetween2007 Now, despite my intimate knowledge of the news since this article was first and2011. the police service, I would not have read penned. JohnisconveneroftheParliament’s it as “routine arming”. Deliberate or not, My request that the Police Authority Cross-partyGrouponHumanRightsand it is now academic because, as with many makes public what changes, if any, they campaignsonarangeofsocialandenvi - other aspects of the controversies, the made to their original report on armed ronmentalissuesincludinghomelessness, story has constantly changed with there policing met with blank refusal and I gypsy/travelleranddrugsharmreduction being several versions of how it hap - have now progressed it to the initiativesandwasactiveinpromoting pened. Information Commissioner. Exposure of theongoingenquiryintorenditionflights A colleague on the police committee the facts will confirm one way or another inScotland. recently asked the chief constable “if a the deeply held suspicion that Police In2014Johnwonthe Herald witness in a police investigation changed sought to have the original report Community MSP oftheYearawardforhis their evidence as quickly and as often as altered. campaigningonarmedpolice.

Visit Democratic Left Scotland’s website for news, views, events listings, articles, blogs and downloads from Perspectives .

democraticleftscotland.wordpress.com

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 13 A difficult journey Wee white blossom – why Scotland can flourish

One of the great positives of the referendum campaign was the number of people it energised, way beyond those who normally turn out for parliamentary and local polls. Lesley Riddoch toured Scotland in the run-up to the vote and recounts some of her experiences

he independence campaign began in In 2014, while animosity reigned in the Unexpectedly, and as the by-product earnest for me in September 2013. public arena, kindness was the currency of an independence campaign backed by Tat month Blossom was first pub - in the local, grassroots and private only a minority of voters, the whole of lished, I began a book and speaking tour domains where the Yes campaign flour - Scotland seemed to switched on. that eventually took in 190 venues and ished. One cold Lochinver evening, forty started a course of chemotherapy for an crofters packed into a tiny side room of auto-immune condition called vasculitis. GETTING ORGANISED the village hall, sitting on each other’s Mercifully I had a fairly mild version of it, Folk in far flung places slept on sofas so I laps and standing in door-wells for a with tiny blood vessels going wrong only got the spare bed. I stayed in the snug Blossom talk. Discovering there was only in my kidneys – it can occur in other Stromness home of a fisherman’s mum one light switch, which meant pitch- organs. e bad news is that it still can. while she was “aff sooth”. I shared fresh darkness or dazzling light, they rum - e good news is that it seems to be con - Hebridean salmon at the home of a maged through the cupboards and found tained. So when I said on QuestionTime retired Free Church minister in tea-lights and a head torch. e meeting that 2014 was the best year of my life, I Stornoway, a riotously funny evening went ahead in subdued but flickering really meant it. Despite weekly blood with kirk elders in Aberdeen, an eye- light until an older lady at the front tests, three-hour chemotherapy sessions opening weekend with the troubled picked up the head torch, squashed it every fortnight until February 2014 and tenant farmers of Islay and a long simmer over her newly permed hair and looked joint problems that left me hurpling for dim day with musicians on Shetland. Two up from her seat. “I’m your spotlight, months, 2014 was a topper. I say this not young snowboarders from Aviemore lass.” for sympathy (though if you’re thinking took the day off work to organise a mini of flowers, my favourites are still lupins). bike tour – and wait for me without com - young mum called Raghnaid trav - Many folk struggle with illness, and I am plaint at the top of every hill. I sat in some elled from Farr to a Blossom event in much better. spectacular locations to write newspaper AAberdeen. Back home the next day I say this because Scotland, lit up by columns fed with home-made and often she chatted enthusiastically to another the possibility of real, profound political home-grown food. After one event in mum at the local play park. Neither change, helped me through. e generos - Stewarton, I was presented with two woman had organised a political talk ity, humour and courage of folk on the blocks of delicious local cheese and a before, but standing at the swings, referendum trail was quietly inspirational bottle of “e Optimist” wine. Folk in the Raghnaid and Kirsty decided to give it a and the luminous beauty of the landscape poorest communities were always the go. e mums enlisted friends to design, was breathtaking – in every season. ones who had a thoughtful whip-round print, laminate and hammer hundreds of It was a strange bit of synchronicity. In to reimburse train fares or petrol costs posters onto fences beside road junctions 2013 I published a book arguing Scots and non-professional groups seemed to within a 20 mile radius of the village. had the capacity to heal their country and demonstrate the strongest ability to get Volunteers replaced the signs up to four themselves. In 2014 I was experiencing organised and self-start. It was Blossom times to cope with rain and naysayers. the truth of that dynamic myself, at first in action. Heartening, gratifying and life- On the night, they produced a PA system, hand. Very few people realised anything affirming. e enthusiasm and frenzied badges, stickers, homemade food and was wrong – early kidney problems have activity was as infectious and self-rein - drink, with a donations box to cover no symptoms apart from tiredness – so I forcing as the previous long decades of expenses and a fabulous, local all-women know what I witnessed was the real deal. forelock-tugging disempowerment. band to open the gig. Around 250 people

14 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 “Independence was a difficult destination, supported until that last extraordinary week by fewer than 40% of Scots. And yet in its difficulty lay its beauty

finally packed into Farr’s tiny remote hall, meeting there was always Scotland her - paint can and then thought, why not?” he the discussion lasted for hours and that self. I walked through salty foam after a explained sheepishly. It takes a lot for a night Maree – another young mum – storm on the beach at Storr, collected man to admit he’s wrong. And in any went home to Strathpeffer, with the germ brambles along the cycle path at Deeside, case, he wasn’t. He just hadn’t previously of an idea. She spoke to friends about basked on Berneray during a heatwave been engaged. Inside that intoxicating Farr and together they reproduced the and stood by the ancient graves at “can do” environment, his perspective same warm and relaxed Finlaggan. I saw grouse changed because people changed, hesi - atmosphere with another flying beside train win - tant, uncertain behaviour changed and capacity audience a few dows, counted hundreds Scotland’s possibilities as an independent months later. Since then of deer in Assynt and country started to change as well. Maree herself has gone marvelled at the snow- from strength to strength. capped otherworldliness I CHANGED “I am much more confi - of the Trotternish ridge Me too. At the start I used to avoid offi - dent and can-do. I on Skye. It was like being cial Yes events fearing immersion in an applied for and got one of in a dream. Indeed, in the uncomfortable and unquestioning sort of the few places on a pre - hard-bitten months and Yes evangelism. I was reluctant to wear a scribing course and am years ahead, some folk Yes badge, preferring to use the guid aiming to combine outpa - may wonder if all of this Scots word Aye. I changed. tient clinic appointments actually happened. It did. We all changed – at least those who with a teaching role – Quietly, below the radar, made that difficult journey. quite cutting edge for and initially beyond the And that is what still divides Scots pharmacy. So the interest of the main - today. e nature of the path most catalysing effect has defi - stream media, momen - recently travelled. nitely gone beyond poli - tum gathered. Artists Some folk got up on 18 September and tics.” is phenomenon – of personal who once described themselves as “apo - voted No. Some swithered. Others wres - empowerment through political activi - litical” joined National Collective’s tled with the arguments. But most folk on ty – is hugely significant for Scotland. All Yestival tour, young folk who’d never the Yes side did so much more. ey got too often the flow of energy has been the voted before turned up at weekends to engaged with new people and issues, other way around – with individuals feel - canvass “hard to reach” housing estates educated themselves, canvassed others, ing disappointed or crushed by their and women who’d never discussed poli - attended political meetings, wore badges brush with the political world. tics organised informal, drop-in meet - – even at work – found new media In his book eTippingPoint , ings near schools and shopping centres. sources, spoke in public, booked halls, Malcolm Gladwell described “doers” like fund-raised, backed crowd-sourced proj - Raghnaid, Kirsty and Maree as Mavens: it by bit even the most hardened ects and joined grassroots movements “almost pathologically helpful … infor - cynics conceded something special and political parties. mation brokers, sharing and trading what Bwas happening. e Spectator ’s Alex Independence was a difficult destina - they know” and starting “word-of-mouth Massie wrote: “is vigorous political tion, supported until that last extraordi - epidemics” due to their knowledge, social carnival … has been a revolt against poli - nary week by fewer than 40% of Scots. skills and ability to communicate. tics as usual: a cry, from the heart as And yet in its difficulty lay its beauty. An much as from the head, for a different easy journey demands little of its trav - MAVENS IN ABUNDANCE way of doing things.” ellers. Perhaps that’s why the Labour Party In Scotland there have always been But actually, grassroots campaigners is currently in disarray. A difficult journey Mavens in abundance. In 2014, though, weren’t crying for change – they were demands organisation, camaraderie and they came into their own. On Orkney, a creating it. Without seeking permission, creative solutions and produces precious single mum came up to speak after the waiting for guidance or looking for things like willpower, stamina and friend - opening of the Yes shop in Kirkwall’s approval. ship. at’s also why the independence bustling Street. She said she’d just quit And like most transformational campaign is merely suspended in the her zero-hours contract job to work flat change, it was very personal. minds of most Yes voters – because the out for a Yes vote in the final fortnight. My husband – who cancelled work to desire for change is not. “With benefit cuts and all the suspicion, I drive me round during the worst months can’t cope with Westminster any more. I – began to share my experience, meet the n LesleyRiddochisajournalistand have to do this.” After a Blossom event in folk I met and reassess his original doubts broadcaster. Wee White Blossom ispub - Fife an old man came up to volunteer for about independence. Soon he become a lishedbyLuathat£5.99.It’saimedatfolk action. “If someone can push the wheel - multiple badge-wearing enthusiast. One whohavealreadyreadthemain Blossom chair I can sit with the leaflets on my lap.” day I came home to discover the word bookandcontainsupdatesonthereferen - In 2014 inspiration was all around. And YES in sky-blue paint on the concrete dum,landreform,localpower,andthe of course, travelling from meeting to driveway outside our house. “I dropped a influenceofwomeninMachoCaledonia.

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 15 Women for Independence – Independence for Women: the what next?

Marsha Scott on the campaign for independence and women’s equality … and what follows

omen for Independence (WfI), launched before the View fame, and addressed by speakers like Carolyn Leckie, official Yes campaign and emerging from Elaine C. Smith, Jeane Freeman and Natalie McGarry, we Wcommunications online amongst activist women started to talk about the second part of our mission, keen to hear and see women in the national debate, was independence for women, that is, gender equality. We from its beginnings focused on two things: independence started to talk about feminism, what that meant to us, and and women’s equality. Never were the two divisible, and what it meant in terms of the Scottish constitutional debate.” women from Shetland to the Borders responded in a mass Defining what next is of course the all-consuming task in mobilisation that none of us could have foreseen. both the national and local groups. At national level, what As Kate Caskie says on the WfI website, “WfI was never just next includes crafting an infrastructure that is fit for about the referendum campaign. From the start our full purpose, creating a democratic organisation that is suited name was double-barrelled and reflective; Women for for the long haul. And finding a way to pay for it. Independence – Independence for Women. Our common Perhaps even more interesting is what local groups are cause was not just support for independence, but also doing. And not doing. Autonomous and self-defining, the support for gender equality … Scottish independence did groups are anything but homogeneous, anything but not guarantee gender equality – it simply offered us a better politics as usual. They meet in cafes, church halls, opportunity to get there.” community spaces with play areas so women with children WfI launched itself in Stirling in September 2012, with can come. Edinburgh WfI launched a national petition to fewer than 100 members. International Women’s Day the stop the government from building a new women’s prison following March saw a nationally co -ordinated action with to be presented to the new Cabinet Secretary for Justice. stalls set up on high streets across Scotland. By January Some groups are involved in anti-fracking activity locally. 2015, over 60 WfI self-organised “groups” were in existence; The Indy Quines in Aberdeen (who saw their members grow interestingly, about a third of those had established from 70 during the referendum campaign to 280 two themselves since 18 September. months after the vote) sponsored a “Meet and Greet” for Women who had never been politically active, never members that welcomed new members but promised “no joined a party, never voted, were organising public greetin”. meetings, speaking at rallies, challenging politicians, urging As Caskie says of building the national structure, other women into the campaign. And these women were “Currently most of this work is being done by women doing a different kind of politics: Referendum cafes, where voluntarily, often at night when they’re home from work women shared coffee and discussed child care and Trident; and their children are in bed, e-mails flying from kitchen meetings held in creches, in tea rooms, leafletting outside table to kitchen table. So we are becoming an organisation, primary schools. No shouting, no point scoring, no egos. but we’re not sure yet what that’s going to look like.” This is Just questions, conversation, “information sharing” in the being replicated in some fashion across Scotland. Sue Lyon, best possible meaning of the phrase. WfI-provided 50, who attended the Perth event from the Highlands, was connection became a lifeline to communities of women quoted in Libby Brooks’s article in the Guardian and who were finding their voices and their power in each other described the power of WfI this way: and in their links to a network of all kinds of women doing “I’ve always described myself as politically aware and a the same all over Scotland. feminist, but I didn’t go to university and I’ve never been a It became clear well before the vote that, whatever the member of a political party, so it was always in my own wee outcome on 18 September, WfI couldn’t walk away. A post- world. I’ve never had an outlet for that, but Women for referendum meeting was planned – a “What Next?” meeting, Independence have given me a place and given definition to be held in Perth. What happened after the vote was a to those beliefs … What is really powerful is making me and revelation. As Caskie recounts, women like me believe we have a voice.” “Mid-afternoon on 19 September something incredible started to happen: the numbers seeking to attend the Perth I Dr Marsha Scott is a feminist activist, researcher and event started to rocket. The numbers getting in touch to bureaucrat who has done everything from emptying the bins sign up for the newsletter went through the roof. (Our in her local refuge to presenting on women’s rights at the newsletter subscription list has tripled since 18 September.) United Nations. Marsha works for a local authority and does a Eventually we had to move out of our planned hotel in Perth little consulting and research on the side. Like so many women, and a frantic but successful search for a larger venue saw Marsha does at least as much unpaid work as paid, including 1000 women coming together in St Matthew’s Church. Scottish Women’s Budget Group and Engender, Scotland’s “The meeting was extraordinary. There was some national feminist organisation. Marsha joined Women for mourning, some reflection, but, more importantly, there was Independence in early 2014 and is constantly inspired by the a huge strength of feeling from those who attended that our energy that tired women bring to making our world a more work was not over. Chaired by Kate Higgins, of Burdzeye equal, more just, more peaceful place to live in.

16 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 FIFA in crisis The ugly side of the beautiful game

It has been a long time coming, but the recent announcement of FBI investigations into high-ranking FIFA officials has thrown the governance of world football into disarray. Stephen Morrow explores the context that has led to the showing of the proverbial red card

014. A World Cup year. A World goal for Germany. A year in which almost nesses, these arising inevitably out of Cup in Brazil, home of “the beautiful as many column inches have been devot - fundamental contradictions in the role of 2game”. A World Cup which saw ed to FIFA ’s decision to host future World world football’s governing body. Germany become World Champions, Cups in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022 Founded in 1904, FIFA is a non-profit beating Argentina 1–0 in the final after as to the one that was held in Brazil. A organisation. Like other global sporting extra time. A World Cup of many excel - year in which words like “corruption”, organisations ( GSO s) it lays claim to being lent football matches and performances. “bribery”, “patronage” and “cronyism” a public interest organisation and to A World Cup in which the hosts and have been as prevalent in World Cup holding an important place in global civic most successful team in the history of the reporting as Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar and society. Its current strapline is: “For the tournament contrived to lose 7–1 to Muller, as commentators sought to make game. For the world”, while its objectives Germany – a record defeat for the coun - sense of a decision to host the tourna - include the following: try and the most goals it has conceded in ment in Qatar, a country in which there is “To improve the game of football con - a World Cup match. A World Cup in no discernible football culture and where stantly and promote it globally in the which a non-toxic spray applied from a summer temperatures average around light of its unifying, educational, cultural small aerosol became an unlikely star. A 41° C. and humanitarian values, particularly World Cup in which one of the world’s 2014. Could it possibly be the World through youth and development pro - finest football players, Luiz Suarez, was Cup year? Or more accurately, could it grammes” ( FIFA Statute, 2014 Edition, suspended from all football-related activ - possibly be the year in which FIFA is final - Para. 2(a)). ity for four months after biting his Italian ly held to account? (F IFA is not alone among sport GSO s in opponent, Giorgio Chiellini, Suarez’s having such ambitious objectives. For third such offence. A World Cup pref - SELF.SERVIENT INSTITUTION example, FINA , world swimming’s gov - aced by widespread protests and unrest FIFA ’s association with governance fail - erning body, includes among its objec - in Brazil, these focusing on: the cost and ure and lack of accountability is not new: tives “to promote and encourage the social impact of the tournament; the it has long been seen a self-servient insti - development of international relations” destruction of favelas and forced dis - tution, one reluctant to allow any exter - (FINA C5 Objectives, para c, 2013).) placement of up to 1.5 million citizens; nal involvement in its activities (see, for and claims and counter-claims of the example, Jennings, 2004, 2007; FLOURISHING MULTINATIONAL likely economic impact of the tourna - Tomlinson, 2014a, b). To those unfamil - But as well as being a non-profit organi - ment. iar with sport and sport governance sation concerned with broad sport and 2014. A World Cup year. A year in FIFA ’s repeated failures and failings social policy objectives, FIFA is also one which the World Cup organiser, world will be difficult to compre - of the most flourishing multi - football’s governing body, the Fédération hend. Yet arguably national enterprises in the Internationale de Football Association FIFA ’s governance world. It has success - (FIFA ), a non-governmental organisation challenges and fully expanded into located in Switzerland, has been at the failures are emerging markets centre of media and political interest long akin to struc - and has even before and after Mario Götze’s winning tural weak - begun to make

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 17 FIFA in crisis

inroads into the American market. Uruguay in 1930 – fundamentally Robert Pielke in a paper published in According to consultants, AT Kearney, changed the relationship with its mem - 2013. His approach was to critique differ - football represented 43% of the world - bers. Far from FIFA being dependent on ent mechanisms of accountability; his wide sports market by value in 2009 national and regional associations, foot - overall conclusion depressing. (Gapper, 2014). Its former Chief ball via the World Cup, controlled and Executive, João Havelange, was instru - owned by FIFA , became the means by BEHIND CLOSED DOORS mental in recognising the commercial which it attained its goals and asserted it Supervisory accountability – the rela - potential of football in the global market, dominance. Moreover many of FIFA ’s tionship between organisations – pres - and he worked closely with Horst Dassler national member federations and region - ents challenges in terms of holding FIFA of Adidas to establish markets, attract al federations now have a high degree of to account for two reasons. First, where global sponsors and reshape FIFA ’s pri - dependence on FIFA . there is a close relationship between mary product, the World Cup e abstract nature of FIFA ’s objectives domestic football governance and a (Tomlinson, 2014). More than that, the then compounds the ends-means inver - national government, the pre-eminence monopoly nature of the World Cup, cou - of football as a global sport, coupled with pled with the fact there continue to be FIFA remains accountable solely the presence in FIFA ’s statutes of a right to many bidders willing to host the event, suspend national football associations enables a great deal of the tournament to its Congress, where the single where there is evidence of “government costs to be passed directly to host votes of American Samoa or interference”, acts as a disincentive for nations. Players are drawn from profes - Vanuatu continue to be as most national governments to demand sional clubs who are obliged to release supervisory accountability. Second, in their players. While the redistribution of significant as the single votes of many countries, national associations – economic power to football players and Argentina or Spain; and the including those in Scotland and England football clubs over the last three decades benefits of FIFA patronage are – have an arm’s length relationship with or so has been well documented, two government. Hence, the supervisory points are worth highlighting in the con - not cheaply given up by authority of member associations is lim - text of the World Cup: first, that for the Congress members/delegates ited to that set out in FIFA ’s own gover - most part the motivation for the world’s nance rules, often requiring “super best players tends to be non-pecuniary in sion. Its objective is not apparently to gen - majorities” or permitting decisions to be nature, apparently focusing more on erate profit or revenue. Furthermore it taken behind closed doors (Pielke, 2013). things like patriotism and footballing has no shareholders or investors to hold it Fiscal accountability – mechanisms of ambition than on finance; and second, to financial account. Ostensibly FIFA is control over funding – is restricted both by that cognisance of the continuing accountable to those member associa - the limited transparency which results demand shown by supporters, national tions and regional federations in terms of from FIFA ’s status as a Swiss-based organi - associations and players for the tourna - its abstract objectives, but in circum - sation, and the challenges of compelling ment, results in clubs accepting an stances where those same stakeholders greater transparency from associations agreed compensation of $2800 per day are the principal financial beneficiaries of and confederations in terms of their use of for their players’ participation over the the commercial success of the World Cup. funds distributed by FIFA . In relation to defined World Cup period. Furthermore those stakeholders are also supervisory and fiscal accountability, it is responsible for electing those same FIFA certainly true that there has been some n seeking to understand the develop - officials who are in control of the distribu - recent comment attributed to current and ment of organisations like FIFA and tion of financial rewards. e result? previous football administrators in Itheir inability to cope with the chal - Good governance principles like trans - England and Germany to the effect that lenges they face in areas like governance, parency, accountability and equity end up further unwillingness on FIFA ’s part to act Forster and Pope (2004) set out an ends- replaced by poor governance outcomes transparently should result in countries means inversion hypothesis. ey sug - like circularity, patronage and opacity. As leaving FIFA and/or boycotting future gest that a non-profit organisation like Tomlinson notes: “ FIFA remains account - World Cups (see, for example, DW , 2014; FIFA has a tendency for its original ends able solely to its Congress, where the Sky Sports, 2014). In Hirschman’s terms or objectives (in this case, promoting and single votes of American Samoa or (1970), this is the governance response of supporting football, its competitions and Vanuatu continue to be as significant as exit, i.e. withdrawal from the relationship. its regulations) and its financial means of the single votes of Argentina or Spain; and To date, however, a little talk by a very achieving those ends to be inverted. So, the benefits of FIFA patronage are not small number of people is all that there is, while the original ends of GSO s were ini - cheaply given up by Congress and hence to many observers we remain tially supported by membership fees and members/delegates” (2014b). with Hirschman’s governance by voice , contributions from national federations, So in the absence of an effective system where the aim is to influence through com - over time the creation and commercial of hierarchical accountability is there any munication or dialogue. FIFA ’s track record exploitation of hallmark events – in prospect of holding FIFA to account? is in this regard, however, suggests that this FIFA ’s case, the first World Cup held in was the question posed by the academic may well remain a dialogue of the deaf.

18 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 “But necessary and welcome as the intervention of the FBI is, all stakeholders – national governing bodies, media organisations, sponsors, supporters and more – and not just those with the greatest power must now take an active role in reforming FIFA’s operations and governance

Turning to public reputational tract (Reuters, 2014). It will come as n StephenMorrowisSeniorLecturerin accountability, notwithstanding its little surprise to most readers, however, SportFinanceattheUniversityofStirling claims to be a public interest organisa - that FIFA has claimed that these deci - andisChairofaScottishGovernment tion, FIFA has no direct accountability to sions are unrelated to the World Cup ExpertWorkingGrouponSupporter the public. Moreover, the extent to which bidding controversy ( SportBusiness , InvolvementinFootballClubs. weaknesses in football governance (how - 2014)! Leaving that partial view aside, ever serious) have a demonstrable impact such decisions are surely predicated on REFERENCES on the public reputation of the organiser the objectives of these multinationals – DW (2014), German football boss of the (finest ever?) World Cup is a moot and on their accountability to their own moots World Cup boycott. Available at point at best. shareholders. In the absence of any http://www.dw.de/german-football- other apparent means of effectively boss-moots-world-cup-boycott/a- hile Pielke’s overall conclusion holding FIFA to account or shaping its 18081042 accessed 27 November. to his question was “not easily”, governance, it is perhaps something of a – Forster, J. and Pope, N. K. Ll. (2004). The Whe does offer a little hope in the paradox that a combination of legal and political economy of global sporting form of legal accountability which he most particularly market accountability organisations (Routledge). suggests provides the “most significant may offer the most likely route to reform – Gapper, J. (2014). “The football disaster opportunity for stakeholders in interna - of a supposed public interest organisa - that conquered the world”, Financial tional football to hold FIFA accountable, tion. Times , 11 June. as it is grounded in governance process - – Hirschman, A. (1970), Exit, voice and loy - es broader than FIFA itself and where POSTSCRIPT alty (Harvard University Press). mechanisms of accountability are well e original article was submitted before – Jennings, A. (2014), Omertà: Sepp established”. Central to this is the indi - the intervention of the FBI in late May, Blatter’s FIFA organised crime family rect exposure of FIFA to legislation. meaning that 2015 is in fact to be the year (Transparency Books). Corporate sponsors for the World Cup that FIFA starts to be held to account. e – Jennings, A. (2007), Foul! The secret in Brazil included multinationals like decisions taken to host future World world of FIFA: Bribes, vote rigging and Adidas, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Cups in Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022), ticket scandals (Harper Sport). Emirates, McDonald and Sony. All of coupled with apparently endemic cor - – Pielke, R. (2013), “How can FIFA be held these multinational sponsors find them - ruption among so many of FIFA ’s key offi - accountable?”, Sport Management selves exposed to and at risk from their cials and their associates – these focusing Review , 16, 255–267. relationships with FIFA and hence have a on payments received for vote rigging – Reuters (2014), Sony does not plan to direct stake in FIFA ’s performance, repu - around the hosting of international renew FIFA sponsorship contract: tation and standing. Over recent years events and from the sale of media, mar - sources. Available at: http://www. the response of such sponsors to the keting and sponsorship rights – have reuters.com/article/2014/11/25/us- ongoing weaknesses in FIFA ’s gover - resulted in the organisation placing itself sony-soccer-fifa-idUSKCN0J90R020 nance has tended toward public state - in a maelstrom of geopolitical, business 141125 accessed 27 November ments expressing “disappointment” and and ethical issues and forces. While there 2014. “desire for change”, the suspicion being is much that remains unclear about – Sport Business (2014). “Sony and that unless or until there was an impact behaviour within and beyond the organi - Emirates moves ‘nothing to do with’ on their financial performance, spon - sation, what is emphatically clear is that FIFA World Cup bidding probe”. sors would be content with the notion of what has finally brought FIFA to the brink Available at www.sportbusiness.com voice discussed previously. However, the is its total absence of accountability. accessed 26 November. publication of the summary of ethics Ultimately it has taken the intervention – Sky Sports (2014), “World Cup: Lord committee judge, Hans-Joachim Eckert, of the world’s most powerful law agency Triesman says Europe should threaten in respect of the findings of Michael to provoke a reaction. But necessary and FIFA with boycott of event”. Available Garcia’s investigation into the bidding welcome as the intervention of the FBI is, at http://www1.skysports.com/foot - processes for the 2018 and 2022 World all stakeholders – national governing ball/news/11095/9573087/europe- Cups and subsequent fall out may just bodies, media organisations, sponsors, should-threaten-fifa-with-world-cup- have moved the goalposts. At least two supporters and more – and not just those boycott-lord-triesman accessed 27 of sponsors have now indicated an with the greatest power must now take November 2014. intention to exit, in other words to with - an active role in reforming FIFA ’s opera - – Tomlinson, A. (2014a), FIFA (Fédération draw from their relationship with FIFA . tions and governance. And crucially, the Internationale de Football Association): First to sever ties was Emirates Airlines, reform of world football’s governing body The Men, the Myths and the Money a sponsor since the 2006 World Cup in must be informed by international per - (Routledge). Germany, and an official partner from spectives on business, culture and ethics – Tomlinson, A. (2014b), “The supreme 2007 to 2014; followed on by news that if in future this public interest organisa - leader sails on: leadership, ethics and Sony, a long term partner of FIFA , did tion is to live up to its title and to its governance in FIFA”, Sport in Society, not plan to renew its sponsorship con - strapline: “For the game. For the world”. 17(9), 1155-1169.

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 19 Scott and “Scott-land” Sir Walter Scott and the kilting and tartaning of Scotland

Neil Davidson wonders how we should assess the great novelist who gave expression to a vision of Scotland that persists to this day

ir Walter Scott was a conservative and a Tory. e two visit to Edinburgh in August 1822, where His en-tartaned and categories have not always been coterminous, but in his be-kilted Majesty was greeted by the assembled Highland case they are both so obviously appropriate that histori - landowners (“chiefs”) and members of the Edinbourgeoisie, cal revisionism is impossible. One of Scott’s last political both in similar apparel – although Scott was quite aware of the acts was to drag his failing body to a meeting of free - historical falsity of the spectacle. He did not single-handedly Sholders in Jedburgh on 21 March 1831 to express opposition to secure the adoption of a caricatured Highland culture as sym - the First Reform Bill. Interrupted by “riotous artisans”, he bolic of Scotland as a whole, an impossible achievement for one informed his opponents, “I regard your man which other developments – above gabble no more than the geese on the all Highland participation as soldiers and green”. en – in a performance melodra - Should we renounce Scott, or colonists in the expansion of the Empire matic even by his exalted standards – he simply forget him, as we are – were tending towards anyway, but he withdrew from the meeting, uttering (in occasionally encouraged to do by certainly gave it coherent visual and liter - Latin) the words of the Roman gladiators ary expression. before the emperor: “We who are about those who apparently believe to die salute you.” His attitudes were as that Scottish literature MARXISTS’ FAVOURITE NOVELIST consistent in death as they had been in commenced with the publication Should we then renounce Scott, or life: during the run-up to the radical war simply forget him, as we are occasionally and general strike of 1820 Scott spent of Trainspotting in 1994? encouraged to do by those who apparent - much of his time urging exemplary vio - ly believe that Scottish literature com - lence against “mischievous blackguards” who were daring to menced with the publication of Trainspotting in 1994? is demand an extension of the franchise to the working-class. would be a mistake. His thought was more complex than his Nor was Scott’s notorious hostility to political radicalism the more ignorant traducers would have us believe and the contra - only aspect of his opinions objectionable to the left, then and dictions it contains are precisely what animate his greatest now. As a landowner he applied, in his own small way, the prin - work. Christopher Harvie once wrote that Scott was “the ciples of political economy he had absorbed at Edinburgh Marxists’ favourite novelist”; this was no joke; it certainly should University from Adam Smith’s (mis)interpreter, Dugald Stewart, not surprise us. Marxism resembles conservatism as a philo - as this journal entry from 1826 suggests: sophical tradition in at least two respects: both see society as being based on – admittedly very different – conceptions of We spent the evening in laying down plans for the farm human nature, rather than, for example, the arbitrary “values” and deciding who we should keep and whom dismiss asserted by liberalism; both share an extreme ambivalence among the people. is we did on the negro-driving towards the disruptive power of capitalist modernity, as we shall principle of self-interest – the only principle I know which see in the case of Scott. More specifically, Scott actually con - never swerves from its objects. We chose all the active tributed to the formation of historical materialism. Although young and powerful men, turning old age and infirmity Marx and Engels were directly familiar with some figures adrift. among the Scottish political economists, notably Smith and Steuart, they also indirectly absorbed its central tenets from But, for the nationalist left in particular, Scott’s greatest two other sources, Hegel and Scott. It is, as we say, no acci - sin has perhaps been what Stuart Kelly in his recent book dent that both men died within a year of each other, sig - calls the “invention” of a particular version of Scotland, or nally the end of the great period of bourgeois thought “Scott-land”. It was Scott who first suggested that the and the advent of what Marx called “the era of bad con - modern kilt had been traditional Highland dress – ironi - science and the evil intent of apologetics”. cally enough, in an article of 1805 for the Edinburgh According to his son-in-law, Paul Lafargue, Marx Review disputing the authenticity of Ossian. More considered at least one of Scott’s novels, Old importantly, he was responsible for stage-manag - Mortality (1816), to be “a masterpiece.” And, as ing the ceremony surrounding George IV’s state Eleanor Marx recalled, “Scott was an author to

20 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 “The first contradiction in Scott’s work is between his role as the last great figure of the Scottish Enlightenment and his conservatism

whom Marx again and again returned, whom he admired and knew as well as Balzac and Fielding.” But Scott was not admired by Marx for the same reason he admired Balzac. e so-called “Balzac paradox”, set out by Engels in a letter of 1888 to Mary Harkness, argues that, precisely because the novelist was a backward-looking Legitimist in politics, he could see the reality of French capitalist society – including the way in which the noble class with which he identified was historically doomed – in a way that actual members of the bourgeoisie were no longer able to do, since their very immersion in capitalism prevented them from acknowledging its inherent tendency towards eco - nomic crisis and class conflict. Balzac was a reactionary, but Scott was a conservative: he did not want to put history into reverse gear; indeed, as he makes clear in his greatest novel, Redgauntlet (1824), he thought this neither desirable nor possible.

he plot concerns an imaginary second attempt by Charles Stuart to regain the thrones of Britain for his dynasty, after Tthe defeat of the ’45. Scott imagines renewed French back - ing for an attempt to raise forces within Scotland with which to reimpose the absolutist regime across Britain as a whole. One of the Jacobites to attempt to mobilise his tenants for counter- revolution is the eponymous Sir Arthur Redgauntlet. In one dia - logue between Redgauntlet’s nephew Darsie Latimer, who opposes the rising, and Darsie’s sister Lilias, who supports it, the siblings discuss whether any of the peasantry will rise on behalf of the Stuarts. Darsie thinks not, but Lilias disagrees:

“Whatever these people may pretend, to evade your uncle’s importunities, they cannot, at this time of day, think of subjecting their necks again to the feudal yoke, which was effectually broken by the act of 1748, abolishing vassalage and hereditary jurisdictions.” “Aye, but that my uncle considers as the act of a usurping His en-tartaned and be-kilted Majesty, George IV, during the visit to government”, said Lilias. Scotland in 1822, as painted by David Wilkie “Like enough he may think so”, answered her brother, “for he is a superior, and loses his authority by the flawed, the last a masterpiece, but the theme is consistent and enactment. But the question is, what the vassals will think only in the weakest is there any suggestion that the outcome of it who have gained their freedom from feudal slavery, might be in doubt. is then brings us to the first contradiction and have now enjoyed that freedom for many years?” in Scott’s work, between his role as the last great figure of the Scottish Enlightenment and his conservatism. Consider the fol - is is laboured as dialogue – a recurrent problem in Scott’s lowing two passages. novels; but as a piece of historical analysis the passage effectively identifies the aftermath of the ’45 as the climax of the Scottish THE ADVANTAGES OF BACKWARDNESS bourgeois revolution, and makes it easy to see why Marx and e first, which previews an important aspect of the law of Engels admired him. But he was not only interested in conclud - uneven and combined development, is from the “Postscript that ing moments of convulsive transformation. A theme running should have been a Preface” to Waverley (written 1806, pub - through all the Scottish novels, good or bad, is the slow but lished 1814): “e gradual influx of wealth, and extension of inevitable breakdown of the feudal order, exemplified in the commerce, have since united to render the present people of attempt by Triptolemus Yellowley to overcome the old ways in Scotland a class of beings as different from their grandfathers, as Shetland in ePirate (1822), by the expulsion of the feudal the existing English are from those of Queen Elizabeth’s time.” landlord Ravenswood from his estates by the improver Aston in Here is Scott as standard-bearer of the Scottish Enlightenment eBrideofLammermoor (1819), and by the desperate attempt theory of historical change, of the fundamental differences by fishermen on the Solway Firth to destroy the new and tech - between human societies, and how “the advantages of back - nologically more efficient netting introduced by Joshua Geddes wardness” can favour the previously less developed. Implicitly, in Redgauntlet itself. e first book is a disaster, the second he drew not only on the “four stages of subsistence” theory

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 21 Scott and “Scott-land”

promulgated by of Smith and Kames, but also the more con - dependent on the water-mill the employer had no choice in his crete version of the theory associated with Steuart and Millar, location, but had to recruit workmen from the nearest village which identified the specific political form of the agricultural and consequently spent time trying to influence their behaviour. stage (“feudalism”) to be overcome before “commercial society” “is is now quite changed”: could emerge triumphant. e manufactures are transferred to great towns where a IDEALISED AGRARIAN SOCIETY man may assemble 500 workmen one week and dismiss the e second passage is from “Dedicatory Epistle” to Ivanhoe next without having any further connection with them (1820): “e passions … are generally the same in all ranks and than to receive a week’s work for a week’s wages nor any conditions, all countries and ages; and it follows, as a matter of further solicitude about their future fate than if they were course, that the opinions, habits of thinking, and actions, how - so many old shuttles. A superintendence of the workers ever influenced by the peculiar state of considered as so many moral and society, must still, on the whole, bear a Underneath the surface rational beings is thus a matter totally strong resemblance to each other.” Here unconnected with the Employer’s usual is Scott the conservative, clinging to optimism of the early novels in thoughts and cares. ey have now seen notions of a human nature which particular, lay a deeper the danger of suffering a great remains essentially unchanging, even as pessimism about the changes population to be thus separated from the all that was solid in his Scotland was influence of their employers and given turning into air. Like Smith, Scott ide - which capitalism was bringing over to the management of their own alised a stable mainly agrarian society in to Scottish society societies in which the cleverest and most which public-spirited landowners co- impudent fellows always get the existed with independent small producers and secure tenants, management of the others and become bell-weathers in all bound together in the spirit of Improvement. But Smith, every sort of mischief. once we rescue him from the misrepresentations of neo-liberal ideologues, was famously suspicious of commercial and indus - In effect, Scott wanted to contain capitalism at a certain stage trial capitalists and, along with Ferguson, was torn between in its development, before these ill-effects could become irre - understanding the necessity for the division of labour and versible; but capitalism will not suffer itself to be contained. In recognising the terrible mutilating effects it would have on the an extraordinary passage from the mid-1820s Scott extended human personality. Anyone who thinks that the description of his concerns to the environmental impact of industrialisation the pin factory at the beginning of eWealthofNations is an and urbanisation: uncomplicated endorsement of its efficiency has failed to understand that it is also a vision of Hell. e state of society now leads so much to great accumulations of humanity that we cannot wonder if it cott inherited these tensions, but in sharper form, as the ferment and reek like a compost dunghill. Nature intended process of capitalist industrialisation was much further that population should be diffused over the soil in Sadvanced in his lifetime than when Smith died in 1790. proportion to its extent. We have accumulated in huge Consequently, underneath the surface optimism of the early cities and smothering manufacturies the number which novels in particular, lay a deeper pessimism about the changes should be spread over the face of a country and what which capitalism was bringing to Scottish society. His disquiet wonder that they should be corrupted? We have turned is revealed clearly in his correspondence in 1819, during the healthful and pleasant brooks into morasses and great Scottish demonstrations in protest at the Peterloo pestiferous lakes; what wonder the soil should be Massacre. He constantly frets over the possibility of armed unhealthy? A great deal I think might be done by executing insurrections, but at the beginning of 1820 could still console the punishment of death without a chance of escape in all himself with this thought: “e poor are to be trusted in almost cases to which it should be found properly applicable, of every situation where they have not been disunited by circum - course these occasions being diminished to one out of stances from their natural superiors.” But, as he goes on to say in twenty to which capital punishment is now assigned. the same letter, these circumstances of disunity were becoming the norm, as the very nature of industrial capitalism was under - His only remedy is to recommend more carefully targeted mining the sense of obligation which had supposedly regulated repression to deal with the effects – although in fairness we the attitudes of feudal superiors to their tenants or the relation - should also note that Scott is also arguing for a massive reduc - ship between master and man that had been a feature of manu - tion in the list of capital crimes. is is the context in which we facture before the coming of the factory. should understand his conceptions of Scottishness and In the spring of 1820, as the crisis broke, he went further, Britishness; but here the contradiction is more apparent than writing: “e unhappy dislocation which has taken place real. betwixt the Employer and those under his employment has Some episodes in his life give a superficial impression that been attended with very fatal consequences. Much of this is his sympathies lay primarily with his Scottish side. Lockhart, owing to the steam engine.” In the days when manufacture was his first biographer, noted his reaction to proposed changes to

22 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 “Ivanhoe is an extended analogy for the creation of a British nation, with the reconciliation between Saxons and Normans standing in respectively for that of both the Scots and the English, and Highland and Lowland Scots

Scots law and his passionate contribution to a debate on this nation, with the reconciliation between Saxons and Normans subject in the Faculty of Advocates during 1806, after which he standing in respectively for that of both the Scots and the said to his friends: “No, no – ’tis no laughing matter; little by English, and Highland and Lowland Scots. On the other it looks little, whatever your wishes may be, you will destroy and under - forward to a further reconciliation, that between the working mine, until nothing of what makes Scotland shall remain.” Scott class and the bourgeoisie. But, although national unity had been expressed similar views, if rather more restrainedly, in 1826 achieved, class divisions were opening up which he saw no pos - when the government responded to a collapse in value of the sibility of overcoming. is is one reason why Scott almost pound by attempting to force the Scottish (and English) banks never discusses the contemporary world in his novels. ( e to curtail the issue of banknotes under the value of £5. His Antiquary and StRonan’sWell are partial exceptions.) He is only response was to compose three letters pseudo-anonymously, as comfortable writing about historical situations that have already “Malachi Malagrowther”, for publication in the Edinburgh been resolved, and for that reason protagonists on both sides WeeklyJournal : “What I do complain of is the general spirit of can be equally celebrated. slight and dislike manifested to our national establishments, by those of the sister country who are so very zealous in defending cott also saw Scottish national identity as a narcotic to be their own”. What he does not complain of is the Union itself. applied to an increasingly restless working class. Scott was Scott absolutely resists any suggestion that the Scots might rise Sconcerned to mobilise his version of Scottish national iden - up against English rule in the same way that the Irish did tity as an alternative to revolutionary class consciousness. ere against British rule in 1798: “We has better remain in union irony here is that the major contribution made by Scottishness with England, even at the risk of becoming a subordinate to the events of the radical years was a component, not, as is so species of Northumberland, as far as national consequences is often claimed, of working class militancy, but of the ideology of concerned, than remedy ourselves by even hinting the possibil - counter-revolution. In a letter written during the Malachi ity of a rupture.” Indeed, in the same letter Scott makes quite Malagrowther episode, Scott suggested that only the retention clear his admiration for the way Scots “have been … unhesitat - of the Scottish identity prevented Scottish people, or at least ingly devoted to the defence of empire” and describes Scotland their lower orders, from becoming “damned mischievous itself as “one distinct and component part of the United Englishmen”: “e restless and yet laborious and constantly Kingdoms.” watchful character of the people, their desire for speculation in politics or anything else, only restrained by some proud feelings AMBIGUOUS FIGURE about their own country, now become antiquated and which If Scott appears an ambiguous figure in relation to the balance late measures will tend to destroy, will make them under a between the Scottish and British aspects of his own identity, it is wrong direction the most formidable revolutionists who ever only because people have imagined a took the field of innovation.” His fantasy contradiction between Scottish national He had no interest in building a of the nation is an attempt to overcome consciousness and British national ism . It the reality of the class struggle. is perfectly possible to possess the former Scottish nationalist movement We should therefore be grateful to Sir while still seeing politics as taking place among his fellow-Scots Walter. We should be grateful because, in in an essentially British context – and his Scottish novels, he has left us the surely the phenomenon, during the recent referendum cam - greatest portrayal in English literature of the longuedurée of the paign, of “proud Scots” declaring their intention to vote for the bourgeois revolution and the transition to capitalism, the period continuation of the imperial British state proves that this is not that falls between the settings of ALegendofMontrose and only possible, but widespread, if now declining. ose who pos - Redgauntlet . But we should also be grateful because his own role sess a dual national identity in which – inevitably – one half of as a public intellectual presents an exceptionally clear example that identity is stateless, do not inevitably demand that it be of how national identities are consciously created. ere is no embodied in a nation-state unless they have good material rea - “real” Scottish identity waiting to be rescued from his inventions sons for doing so: as a fully integrated member of the British but, ironically, one benefit of Scottish independence – not the bourgeoisie, Scott, like the rest of his class, had no such reason. main one, some way behind the removal of nuclear weapons erefore, unlike the German Romantics who followed and, to and weakening of British imperialism – would be the end of the a large extent, were inspired by him, he had no interest in build - Scottish identity which he did so much to create. ing a Scottish nationalist movement among his fellow-Scots, but he was certainly interested in developing a Scottish national n NeilDavidsoncurrentlylecturesinSociologyattheUniversity consciousness among them. is is why in works like Marmion ofGlasgow.Heistheauthorof e Origins of Scottish (1808) he can effuse over the contemporary heroes of the British Nationhood (2000),theDeutscher-Prizewinning Discovering state like Nelson (“Deep graved in every British heart/O never the Scottish Revolution (2003), How Revolutionary Were the let those names depart!”), while later in the same poem relive Bourgeois Revolutions? (2012)and Holding Fast to an Image of the heroes of the stories of the Scottish national history like the Past (2014).Davidsonhasalsoco-editedandcontributedto Bruce (“And onward still the Scottish lion bore/And still the AlasdairMacIntyre's Engagement with Marxism (2008), scattered Southron fled before”). Or consider Ivanhoe . On the Neoliberal Scotland (2010)and e Longue Duree of the Far- one hand it is an extended analogy for the creation of a British Right (2014).

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 23 So stands Scotland where it did? Not on your nelly. e professional classes in Scotland may be busy with Commissions, vows, deals, submissions and General Election planning but the wider Yes Movement is busy with huge spontaneous meetings involving hundreds, even thousands of people – gatherings like birds flocking before winter or starlings swooping to throw shapes into darkening skies. Because they can. WeeWhiteBlossom is a post-indyref, poppadom-sized version of Blossom for folk who’ve already sampled the full bhuna. It updates Blossom with a new chapter on Scotland’s Year of Living Dangerously. Lesley Riddoch shares her thoughts on the Smith Commission, the departure of Gordon Brown, the return of Alex Salmond and the latest developments in land reform and local control. She considers the future of the SNP, the Radical Independence Campaign, Common Weal, Women for Independence and Scottish Labour in the aftermath of the referendum. is is a plain-speaking, incisive call to restore equality and control to local communities and let Scotland flourish. WeeWhiteBlossom is the ideal companion volume to Blossom , whether you want an update on the first edition or an appetiser before delving into the pages of the original.

emostinfluential,passionateandconstructivebooktoappearduringthereferendumcampaign. Blossom seizedreadersbecauseitarguedforindependenceasmeanstoanend–restoringcontrolovertheirownlives toScottishcommunitiessodisempoweredbytop-downauthoritythattheyhadnorealexperienceof democracy. NEAL ASCHERSON Abrilliant,moving,wellwritten,informative,importantandvaluablepieceofwork. ELAINE C SMITH Notsomuchaninterventionintheindependencedebateasaheartfeltmanifestoforabetterdemocracy. ESTHER BREITENBACH, Scotsman

£5.99, available in bookshops, or from Luath Press – www.luath.co.uk/wee-white-blossom.html

24 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 Reviews Brian Cox’s Human Universe Gramsci’s early writings Big-screen Filth comes to the small screen Alone … in an uncaring universe

Ken Macleod reflects on Brian Cox’s take on life, science and everything, and welcomes the probability that nothing like us is likely to exist in our galaxy

umanUniverse , professor Here?” With far-flung locations years ago. e odds are aptly and Brian Cox’s five-part BBC 2 and homely illustrations, he talks literally caught by the terms Hseries first broadcast in us through the fundamentals of “microscopic” and “astronomical”. October and November 2014 and physics, emphasising how chance In an observable universe of 250 now available as a DVD with the outcomes of physical regularities billion galaxies, something like this inevitable accompaniment of a can generate complexity from sim - may have happened elsewhere. In sumptuous coffee-table book, is plicity. His next deep question, our own Milky Way, though, prob - pitched as a love letter to the “Are We Alone?” mines the origins ably not. e only little green human species. Watching other Human Universe and improbability of life to reach aliens we can expect to meet are television output, notably the (DVD, Blu-ray and what Cox presents as an encourag - pond scum. For all practical pur - news, you can’t help feeling the book) ing answer: yes. Something like poses, we’re on our own. species could do with one. Brian Cox bacteria or viruses may yet turn e titles of most of the series’ (BBC) out to have arisen on other planets o the improbability of com - episodes ask big questions, but we even in our own solar system. plex life we can add the are reminded throughout that sci - Nothing like us, however, is likely Timprobabilities of human ence itself does not. Rather, sci - to exist in this galaxy. existence in particular. Two stand ence answers big questions by out. e first is that the asteroid asking small ones. “Why do things LONG.TERM SURVIVAL that finished off the dinosaurs always fall when you drop them?” is is, perhaps surprisingly, good could very easily have missed. Cox is a simple question, but Newton’s news – not because we’ve ever makes the point by holding up a answer to it gets us a long way. been in serious danger of alien stone spearhead and inviting us to e first episode, “Apeman – invasion, but because it ups our imagine one tumbling space rock Spaceman”, alludes to two influen - estimate of the chances of our own as small as that. If it had hit the tial works of science fiction. e species’ long-term survival. If the asteroid billions of years ago, its structure reworks the opening of reason why we haven’t encoun - infinitesimal impact would have Kubrik’s 2001:ASpaceOdyssey , tered aliens is that intelligent life is caused a tiny deviation. Over many while the title echoes that of so vanishingly rare that we’re millions of orbits, that nudge of far Apeman,Spaceman , a classic unique in the galaxy, that’s a lot less than a micrometre could have anthology of anthropological SF . more encouraging than the possi - built up to metres and kilometres, Cox takes us from a stone spear - bility that civilisations capable of and eventually have deflected its head in the Great Rift Valley in sending and receiving radio mes - path just enough to make all the Africa, via Petra (John Burgon’s sages usually destroy themselves in difference. For the dinosaurs a “rose-red city half as old as time”) short order. passing fireball rather than the end in Jordan to a Soyuz re-entry e emergence of life now looks of days – for us no chance of exist - module landing in Kazakhstan. His a lot less unlikely than it did until ing. delight at seeing a spacecraft that quite recently, but life more com - an hour earlier was in orbit, now plex than bacteria remains aching - SELECTION PRESSURES making the snow steam with the ly improbable. Cells with a nucleus e second improbability – or at heat of its friction-slowed descent, – eukaryotic cells, the only cells any rate, highly contingent cir - and his reverent placing of the capable of building up into animals cumstance – is the physical condi - Stone Age spearhead on the and plants – may have arisen from tions in which our hominid ground beside it, is evident and a single chance encounter of two ancestors lived in the Great Rift engaging. tiny organisms, one of which Valley. ere, climate fluctuations In the second episode, Cox against all precedent engulfed the over many hundreds of thousands poses the question: “Why Are We other without eating it, billions of of years may have set up the selec -

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 25 Reviews

tion pressures that drove the which Engels saw in measures of e condensation of stars and development of the human brain. state intervention in the economy. planets from clouds of gas, the Cox zooms the view even wider Altogether, the series is a strong emergence of life from primordial in “A Place in Space and Time”, statement of scientific humanism. molecules, the awakening of taking us from his own birthplace In this respect it stands on the humanity from the animal condi - and upbringing to the birth of the shoulders of the much longer and tion, and humanity’s future estab - present universe. Along the way now classic series, Jacob lishment of a better civilisation Cox traces a path of widening have all been seen as part of one human perspective, from Galileo long march of progress. e through Apollo to the Planck Victorian liberal philoso - orbital telescope, that he sums up pher Herbert Spencer as “our glorious ascent into saw all of them as con - insignificance.” sequences of the same Law of Evolution. Monod pointed out with some asperity that this view is also present in pop - ular expositions of “dialectical and historical materialism” including those of Engels. n the final episode Cox asks: A favourite “What is our future?” A book of Cox’s reference to “a develop - Ifavourite book of his own child - ment from the simple to hood was Spacecraft2000–2100 own Bronowski’s eAscentofMan and Athe complex, from the AD . Despite its being dated – by childhood was Carl Sagan’s Cosmos . e book of lower to the higher” as a general now, on its schedule, we should the latter series inspired Cox, and law of existence might easily be have cargo freighters to and from Spacecraft of course many others, as a child. from Spencer, but in fact it’s from Venus – it’s enjoyed just as much 2000–2100 Stalin’s DialecticalandHistorical by Cox’s son. at child’s future is AD . By now, CHANCE EVENTS Materialism . at once canonical likely to depend on whether But for me, the science popularisa - pamphlet may now be gathering democracy and science can over - on its tion whose theme it most strongly dust on the shelves of countless come the vested interests – includ - schedule, we shares is Jacques Monod’s Chance former communists around the ing our own – keeping us should have andNecessity (1970, translated world, but its influence persists dependent on fossil fuels. Cox 1972). Like Cox, the distinguished even among many who would points out that in the United States cargo French biologist insisted that repudiate its author. It is, after all, more is spent on pet grooming freighters to humanity exists as the result of a a concise summary of what than on fusion research. “Brush and from number of chance events, and that Monod called the “vulgate” of your own cat,” he urges, and give a this very contingency is a sound Marxism. few more tens or hundreds of tax Venus reason for our valuing and protect - But as Monod also argued, the dollars to developing a source of ing human existence – which on all discovery that humanity is alone in clean energy for millennia to come. available evidence is the only kind an uncaring universe, and that no Cox does not quite say that the there is. laws of nature or dialectic guaran - language of priorities is the reli - As Monod memorably put it: teed our existence or our future, gion of socialism, but he certainly “e universe was not pregnant restores to us the dignity and the implies that getting our social pri - with life nor the biosphere with necessity of choosing and shaping orities right on a global scale is a man. Our number came up in the that future for ourselves. “e necessity for our long-term sur - Monte Carlo game. Is it surprising kingdom above or the darkness vival. e American science fiction that, like the person who has just below: it is for [humanity] to writer Kim Stanley Robinson has made a million at the casino, we choose.” In the days of the ISS argued that science and democra - should feel strange and a little above and ISIS below, it still is. cy are the best working examples unreal?” we have of a post-capitalist way of A persistent temptation in n KenMacleodhaswritten14 doing things, the germ of the Marxism has been to regard the novels,from e Star Fraction future in the present – if not quite historical development of society (1995)to Descent (2014),andmany an “actually existing socialism” for as a continuation of that of life, and articlesandshortstories.Heblogsat our time, at least a component of life as a continuation and culmina - http://kenmacleod.blogspot.com “the invading socialistic society” tion of the development of matter. andtweetsas@amendlocke.

26 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 “Gramsci’s notebooks provided the theoretical basis for the Communist Party of Italy’s post-war strategy of political and cultural hegemony through social alliance, democratic engagement and economic reconstruction A great and terrible world

Andy Pearmain applauds a collection of the early writings of the Italian Marxist and political thinker, Antonio Gramsci

ntonio Gramsci was arrested When Gramsci died in 1937 in seded by a definitive American col - on 8 November 1926, in a almost complete obscurity, after lection, skilfully edited by Frank Around-up of communist lead - three years of crippling incapacity Rosengarten and beautifully trans - ers ordered by Mussolini. He was and just days before his condition - lated by Raymond Rosenthal, and held in squalid solitary confine - al release, the notebooks were recently published in an affordable ment for two weeks in Regina smuggled out of Italy and kept safe two-volume paperback edition by Coeli prison in Milan, as if to force in Moscow until after the war. the Columbia University Press. home his predicament, then sum - ey provided the theoretical basis marily sentenced to five years’ for the Communist Party of Italy he first selection in English internment on the remote A Great and (PCI )’s post-war strategy of politi - from the notebooks and other Mediterranean island of Ustica. Terrible World: cal and cultural hegemony through Tpolitical writings was pre - e fascist state had finally set The Pre-Prison social alliance, democratic engage - pared by Louis Marks and pub - about destroying all open opposi - Letters (1908– ment and economic reconstruc - lished by Lawrence and Wishart in tion, after four years of compara - 1926) of Antonio tion. is made the party, under 1957, against some doctrinaire tively free political conflict since Gramsci the canny leadership of Gramsci’s resistance within the Communist the March on Rome, and some lin - Edited and translated comrade and fellow Sardinian Party of Great Britain ( CPGB ). gering observance of liberal- by Derek Boothman Palmiro Togliatti, the largest and eir publication was an early democratic legal norms. As (Lawrence and most effective Communist Party local example of the political fascism grew into its full authori - Wishart) ever in the western world. “thaw” which followed tarian stride, Gramsci was subject - Togliatti’s signal achievement was Krushchev’s “secret speech” about ed to a show trial in May/June to protect the Italian party from Stalin’s crimes to the Communist 1928, alongside 31 other commu - the vicious internecine conflicts of Party of the Soviet Union’s 20th nist co-defendants, and his sen - the Comintern by apparently Congress in 1956, and heralded an tence extended to twenty years. unswerving loyalty to the prevail - all too brief period of relative polit - e intention was, according to ing Moscow line, while back in ical openness and theoretical het - the state prosecutor, to “shut down Italy encouraging as much genuine erodoxy. e “open democratic this formidable brain forever”. pluralism and openness in the Marxism” of Antonio Gramsci, as As we now know, the fascists’ party’s internal affairs as broader a parallel American primer was plan was only partially successful. political conditions would allow. entitled, was ideally suited to this Gramsci was effectively removed Gramsci’s writings – the note - new more expansive mood. en, from political and cultural life. He books, letters, political tracts and as the optimism of the 1960s gave was to be considered “out of newspaper articles – have pretty way to the pessimism of the 1970s, action”, as he put it himself in a much all been published in Italian, Gramsci’s thinking served other, letter from prison, when his opin - though letters still emerge sporad - more defensive purposes, as a ion was sought on the murderous ically from the archives and arti - valuable counterpoint to the conflicts of the late 1920s and early cles are newly attributed. eir revived and ultimately counter- ’30s inside the international com - publication in English has been a productive Trotskyism of “1968 munist movement. But for the first rather slower process. e first and all that”, the restored Stalinism six years of his settled imprison - English translation of Gramsci’s of post-Krushchev Russia, and the ment, at the State Penitentiary for Prison Letters, published to great tired compromises of social Sick Prisoners in Turi di Bari, he acclaim in Italian in 1947, was pre - democracy, all against the back - overcame censorship and bureau - pared by the Scottish poet Hamish drop of deepening cold war. cratic restrictions, as well as his Henderson just a year later, but not Apart from anything else, own indolence and despair and finally published in book form till Gramsci “the philosopher of frequent and worsening illness, to 1988. A lesser collection was defeat” helped to explain how cap - compose what became known as issued by Lynn Lawner in 1979. italist hegemony could refresh and his Prison Notebooks. Both books have since been super - restore itself – apparently revers -

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 27 Reviews

ing “the inevitable tide of human What we can to force through globalisation. We and university student, through his progress towards socialism” – with now observe, apparently unable to busiest years of political activism the active consent of those “subal - clearly see are resist their seductive/destructive during and after the First World tern groups” previously regarded the allure, the results of this most War, his brief period as the last as the exploited, oppressed and continuities in recent “passive revolution” all General Secretary of the PCI inherently revolutionary masses. around us. before it was driven into exile and His explanation for the historical Gramsci’s underground, and finally as a cap - ascendancy of fascism – a classic developing ver those 30 momentous tive of fascism. “Caesarist” manoeuvre in support thought years, from the “thaw” of the It also gives us a much fuller pic - of a “passive revolution”, radical O1950s to the high ture of Gramsci the human being, change imposed from above in atcherism of the 1980s, the particularly his fateful encounters order to sustain the economic and trickle of “Gramsciana/ and correspondence with the three social status quo – could just as Gramsciology” turned into a tor - Schucht sisters, the older Evgenia readily be applied to atcherism rent, with an estimated 20,000 pub - whom he met first in a sanatorium and Reaganomics. With the lished titles that dealt in some way near Moscow, the younger Tatiana Gramscian analyses of the British with the life and thought of the who supported him throughout his sociologist and star of the New long-dead Sardinian. e highlight later imprisonment, and the Left Stuart Hall, amongst others, in English was undoubtedly youngest and most beautiful (and we had a way of making sense of SelectionsfromPrisonNotebooks , least stable) Julia, whom he married widespread submission to “author - brilliantly translated, collated, and had two sons with (the younger itarian populism” and “regressive edited and introduced by Quintin of which, Giuliano, he never met). I modernisation”, the otherwise per - Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, found Derek’s early drafts of those plexing support of growing majori - and published in 1971 by Lawrence letters, which he kindly shared, ties for privatisation, globalisation, and Wishart (again against some especially useful in composing my the destruction of trade union official CPGB resistance). e novel. ere are also priceless pho - power and the welfare state, and all Selections was (and remains) the tographs reproduced here: gor - the other trappings of “radical best introduction to Gramsci’s own geous but plainly troubled Julia, a individualism”. writings, though Joseph Buttigieg’s “Byzantine Madonna” (as Gramsci Why was the previously unified three-volume complete collection described his first impression of western proletariat supporting this first published in 1992 (and in her) with high cheekbones and blatant assault on its unity, solidar - affordable paperback in 2011) “almond eyes”; Gramsci relaxed ity and material interests? Gramsci reveals its omissions and biases. A and grinning alongside Victor Serge showed how ideology was used, FurtherSelectionsfromPrison (another personal hero) in Vienna primarily though the efforts of cul - Notebooks edited and translated by in 1924; Evgenia in St Mark’s Square tural and technical, traditional or Derek Boothman in 1995 helped in Venice in 1926, holding onto to “organic” (by which he meant fill in some of those gaps. I have Gramsci’s son Delio and looking opinion-formers or “permanent made my own recent contribu - like some roaming hippie of the persuaders”) intellectuals, to con - tions, with ePoliticsofNew 1970s. fuse and disperse the industrial Labour–AGramscianAnalysis Let’s look at some of those conti - working class. e overall effect of (2011) and GramsciinLove (2015), nuities. A whole sub-section of cultural and intellectual discourse a fictional account of his tormented Gramsciology has been devoted to under capitalism was to propagate love-life (to be reviewed in the next showing some “rupture” or “antin - a constantly adaptable “common Perspectives ). omy” in Gramsci’s experience and sense” in support of a “historical e estimable Lawrence and thought, usually to support some bloc” of ruling social forces. Wishart also published editions of sectarian political claim on his Significant material concessions Gramsci’s political and cultural legacy. So we’ve had the “volun - were made to bring apparently writings from before his imprison - tarist” student of the pre -eminent conflicting social groups within ment. With Derek Boothman’s col - Italian idealist philosopher this prevailing consensus. In our lection of Gramsci’s pre-prison Benedetto Croce set against the own time and place, measures like letters, in preparation for nearly dialectical materialist Marxist- the right to buy council houses and twenty years, we now have the final Leninist, the “activist” of the Turin the spread of easy personal credit, piece of an extraordinarily rich and Factory Council years contrasted not to mention the demonisation engaging jigsaw. What we can with the dry theorist of the prison of the poor and marginal as clearly see are the continuities in notebooks, the political economy “scroungers” and “shirkers”, have Gramsci’s developing thought, of the avowed Marxian “histori - been creatively and cannily from his time as a talented but cist” against the later appropria - deployed by the neo-liberal right impoverished Sardinian schoolboy tions to the frivolous dead-ends of

28 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 cultural studies and postmod - tised “business-led” universities party was on collision-course with ernism. None of these “cleavages” staffed by demoralised and the Comintern, whose “prestige” stand up. Gramsci was always his deskilled academics, and the frac - was actually the only “force hold - own man, with an extraordinarily tured, grumbling, positively anti- ing the (Italian) party together” wide range of sources, inspirations He was insisting intellectual leftovers of the (unlike later on when Togliatti and insights of his own, always industrial proletariat. could only sustain the PCI by keep - developing and prepared to that any process At its best, the social alliance of ing it separate). Bordiga’s PCI was change his mind in the light of new of genuine freethinkers and grafters creates “a kindergarten of silly children evidence or argument, but with social and the basis for the hegemony of a new taking on the International with certain constant preoccupations. “historical bloc”, a “Modern Prince” toy swords … Amadeo has adopted economic active at every level and sphere of the standpoint of an international oremost amongst these was transformation society and economy, propagating minority. We must adopt the the way in which the political required a a new hegemonic “good sense” standpoint of a national majority.” Fculture of a society takes more or less readily accepted by Again, we see the themes of shape, the “battle of ideas”, and the conscious almost all social groups. Gramsci Gramsci’s celebrated Prison key place of intellectuals in that alliance of insisted that this required con - Notebooks taking shape. process. A major reason for the thinkers and scious, concerted action from a Finally, there are the deep conti - ascendancy of fascism was the fail - disciplined and united political nuities in Gramsci’s own sense of ure of the established intellectuals activists, of party. His increasingly desperate himself, a “person of the periph - of the older generation, formed intellectuals attempts to preserve the unity and ery” kept there throughout his life, within the essentially liberal- and organisers effectiveness of his own belea - on the side of the poor and down - democratic project of Italian guered Partito Comunista d’Italia trodden, even as he enters the Unification, to stand up to the new provide another recurring theme of political class and settles in the fascist state. Instead they lapsed his pre-prison correspondence. national capital, but always subject into sullen passivity or tawdry Under mounting harassment from to political exclusion, material compromise. Meanwhile, as the fascist authorities, his own deprivation, failing health and a Gramsci wrote to Trotsky in a “centrist” group within the party serious disability which he hardly famous survey of the political tra - leadership fought off the caution of ever mentioned and which seems jectory of Italian Futurism, “the its “liquidationist” right wing and to have been obscured in the eyes younger intelligentsia have almost the sectarian “abstentionism” of its of other people by the sheer force all become reactionaries”. intransigent left. Before the final of his personality. He refuses to Gramsci’s point was not to flatter round-up in late 1926, Gramsci’s buckle, even when effectively intellectuals, “organic” or other - PCI was actually in fairly decent ostracised by both his own birth- wise. If anything he could be bru - shape. family and most of the Schuchts, tally critical of their conceit, It becomes clear that even including his wife Julia, and by the pomposity, elitism and what he before his imprisonment, Gramsci party he founded and led and called elsewhere the “bloodless regarded ultra-leftism as the most which later canonised him as its erudition” of academia. dangerous and destructive tenden - “martyr/saint”. It is that determina - Rather, he was insisting that any cy within the movement. From tion, the constant struggle to bal - process of genuine social and eco - exile in Moscow and Vienna, and ance “pessimism of the intellect” nomic transformation – or revolu - then back in Rome with the tem - with “optimism of the will”, that tion, to use that rather over-used porary protection of parliamen - comes through most strongly in and devalued term – required a tary immunity, he fretted over the these letters, especially in the most conscious alliance of thinkers and utterly counter-productive and ill- beautiful to his wife, to whom he activists, of intellectuals and informed militancy of most of the wrote very early in their relation - organisers, based on the most party’s recent young recruits, who ship (while he was also ostensibly “advanced” sections of the educat - had little experience of mass dem - courting her sister): “I thought I ed middle class and the industrial ocratic politics or even legal politi - was totally barren and dessicated, proletariat. is provides the per - cal activity. For them, “lacking but I’ve discovered inside myself a sonnel for any successful historical organic understanding of agitation tiny reservoir of delicious melan - change, from the French and and propaganda”, conspiracy and choly and moonlight tinged with Soviet Revolutions to the post-war violence had replaced organisation blue.” social consensus of the welfare and persuasion. ey exhibited “an state and the corporate economy. excessively carping and irascible n AndrewPearmainistheauthor And after forty years of neo-liberal mentality, with comrades flaring of Gramsci in Love (outnow)and rampage, this is noticeably lacking up for the slightest reason”. Under e Politics of New Labour: A in our own shabby time, of priva - their leader Amadeo Bordiga, the Gramscian Analysis (2011).

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 29 Reviews “In his fiction, Welsh often presents us with home truths conveyed through a stream of obscenities Wallowing in his own Filth? Doing the dirty with Irvine Welsh

Filth (1998), Irvine Welsh’s fourth novel, scrubbed up well for the big screen in 2013, adapting to a new art form in a manner that suggests its themes and issues remain relevant, but in its latest airing does it still risk reproducing the very misogyny it exposes, asks Willy Maley

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile; fills the screen in every scene – is key to the film’s suc - Filths savor but themselves. ( KingLear , 4.2.38–39) cess, and a lot of credit must go to him and to the rest of a cracking cast who make the ninety minutes of lbany’s speech can stand sentry over this onscreen mayhem watchable, if at times through the review. It’s fitting that the Scottish figure in latticework of the fingers. Welsh is one of those writ - the play utters one of only ten occurrences of ers who tell it like they smell it and if there’s something the word “filth” in Shakespeare’s drama, rotten in the state of Scotland it’s the way women are because Scottish writers have a special treated – in art and in reality. Apropensity for what’s deemed unclean, as Byron found Filth when he read the letters of Burns: “ey are full of Jon S. Baird (dir.) FIFTEEN YEAR WAIT oaths and obscene songs. What an antithetical mind! (Lionsgate DVD and ere were only three years between Trainspotting the – tenderness, roughness – delicacy, coarseness – sen - Blu-ray) novel and Trainspotting the movie. Filth had to wait 15 timent, sensuality – soaring and grovelling, dirt and years for its film version. Was it worth the wait? It was deity – all mixed up in that one compound of inspired certainly a novel that flagged up a focus on film from clay!” 1 Elsewhere in KingLear , Edgar, disguising him - the outset, albeit in a fairly dismissive way. e main self as Mad Tom, proves that filthiness can come close protagonist has a boss who fancies himself as a screen - to godliness: writer: “He was trying to write a telly or film script or some shite. In police time as well”. 2 Inspector Toal’s My face I’ll grime with filth, draft screenplay, CityofDarkness:AMurderMystery , Blanket my loins, elf all my hair in knots is not to his subordinate’s liking: “Who the fuck does And with presented nakedness outface he think he is? Does he think he’s going to get out of e winds and persecutions of the sky. (2.2.180–3) this place, that Hollywood’s going to come along and say: Aye, you’re a thick Scottish cop who couldnae In his fiction, Welsh often presents us with home catch a cauld and cannae write his name, here’s a mil - truths conveyed through a stream of obscenities, lion quid for a fuckin screenplay? We’ll get fuckin Tom much like Kent giving Oswald his character, but as Fuckin Cruise and Nicholas Fuckin Cage tae star and with the king’s own misogynistic outbursts against his Martin Fuckin Scorsese tae direct … aye, sure. I want eldest daughters, there’s a blurred line between mas - to just rip up that cunt’s shite, fuckin well burn it in the culine self-abasement and rampant sexism. Irvine fire, keep me warm this Christmas, the only fuckin use Welsh’s hard cop gone soft in the head is no King Lear, fir it …” 3 but he is a malodorous manifestation of poor forked Welsh’s book felt for some readers like a novelisa - humanity. Welsh’s genius lies in soliciting sympathy tion of BadLieutenant (1992). For others it was all for characters who should really repel readers. Like about nihilism and the pushing of limits. Reviewing it William Burroughs he shows us what’s on the end of in the Observer in 1998, Alan Taylor said: the fork, the naked lunch we consume that we’d rather “Conceivably, Filth could be filthier. It could, for exam - not see close up. Welsh is an expert in sick fascination ple, have real worms, or lice or maggots, eating their and Swiftian disgust with a seasoning of Miltonic way through its pages rather than the imaginary one misogyny. James McAvoy’s brilliant performance – he which is gobbling up the novel’s protagonist, Detective

30 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 Sergeant Bruce Robertson, gnawing away at him like Welsh knows demons, pops up as a driver singing his 1977 hit Silver the Ebola virus. […] Few books fulfil the promise of Lady . No song better captures the soul-searching at their titles so graphically.” Peter Bradshaw, reviewing what he’s the heart of book and film, because despite its title and the film version in the Guardian fifteen years later, doing, digging supposed shock value, Filth is a moving portrait of a remarked: “is Irvine Welsh tale brings us what down deep brutal, brutalised man, who is, in Yeats’s words, “fas - amounts to Acid Rain on Leith – on St Swithin’s Day. tened to a dying animal” in the shape of his own body, It is a brutal screen version of his 1998 novel about into the dark racked with guilt and riddled with drink and drugs. Edinburgh’s own bad lieutenant: Detective Sergeant underbelly of In a key scene towards the end of the film fellow Bruce Robinson [sic], an alcoholic, cokehead bully human nature police officer Amanda Drummond confronts her who is having animal-themed hallucinations. James cross-dressing colleague about his misogyny, but in a McAvoy gives it plenty of welly in the lead role and, way that seems to me to be on his terms, and that’s the well … complaining about Welsh being unsubtle is like fault line in the film, as it was in the book and is in asking Motörhead if they wouldn’t mind awfully turn - other work by Welsh. Like Kirsty at the end of ing the noise down”. Both reviewers tell the reader MarabouStorkNightmares (1995), Amanda articu - little beyond the title. Filth is filthy, on page or screen. lates the very rhetoric of belittlement that her abuser But both are unfair, because Welsh is subtler than intones throughout, using her knowledge of Bradshaw allows and the work does more than live up Robertson’s digitally enhanced penis and her own to its name. boyfriend’s superior attributes as sticks with which to beat him. is is not to suggest that Welsh’s women SUSSED, SENSITIVE AND SELF.CRITICAL are mere ciphers, or the blow-up dolls and submissive So what about Filth , the movie? Or the DVD , complete glove puppets that fill his male protagonists’ waking with all the extras, including an interview with the fantasies. But there is a sense in which it’s the men author that I would recommend to all aspiring writers who carry the burden of believability in his books. as a masterclass in creative process and collaborative practice, tracking Welsh’s progress from individual TURNING POINT author to team player. After watching the credits roll In a critical essay published before the book was and seeing the number of hands that made this adap - adapted for film, Carole Jones observed that “ Filth tation possible I was amused to hear Welsh say he was constitutes a turning point in Welsh’s oeuvre, the one of about “five hundred million producers”. Under point on the trajectory after which queered male char - a gentle cross-examination from a disembodied acters largely disappear and women begin to become female interviewer whose name I couldn’t see in the more prominent and significant. Such a development credits, Welsh comes across as usual as sussed, sensi - can perhaps be thought of as an endeavour, though a tive and self-critical, with a keen eye for the larger slowly realised one, to reverse the colonisation of fem - political implications of his personal narratives. ininity and give women a voice and an opportunity to Listening to Welsh navigate his way through some be heard among Welsh’s cacophonous heteroglossia, a tricky terrain I realised that in some ways he’s arrived form of reparation but also proof that he can ‘do’ now as a major Scottish author to rank alongside women”. 4 at development may have reached its high James Kelman and Alasdair Gray. I’ve deliberately watermark with Welsh’s latest novel, eSexLivesof mentioned the men here because Muriel Spark is in a SiameseTwins , but don’t hold your breath. In Filth , the different league, although her short story, “You Should dirty little secret, or the effluent in the room, is the Have Seen e Mess”, should be prescribed reading extent to which Welsh’s portrayal of the wounded for all those who want their fiction tied up with a bow. Scottish male is a persuasive and profound study in Life’s not like that, and nor should art be. damaged masculinity that depends for some of its e screenwriter of Filth , Jon S. Baird, shares a effects on a series of compliant and ventriloquised middle initial with Robert S. Toal, Welsh’s fictional women. In Alan Bissett’s one-man show at last year’s screenwriter and Robertson’s immediate superior, but Edinburgh Fringe, BanisFilth! , Andrea Dworkin there the resemblance ends, because Baird is obvious - spoke “in her own words”, and other women’s voices ly no bumbling amateur but a gifted adaptor who has came into play. It’s not clear that Welsh gives the same brought his own unforgettable embellishments to the airplay to his female characters, but I would never ban table. When we used to watch TopofthePops as kids – this Filth , because there’s still more unpalatable hon - in more innocent days – and got absorbed in a partic - esty and hurtful truth in it than most of what passes ular video, my father would say “Ach, you don’t get that for art. To read the riot act to Welsh or moralise about on the record”, as if we were being cheated by a visual misogyny in his work would be akin to blaming Edgar glamour that would die when the needle touched the for assuming in extremity the mantle of Mad Tom. vinyl. I wonder what he’d have made of the most mem - Welsh knows what he’s doing, digging down deep into orable moment in Filth , the movie – a scene that’s not the dark underbelly of human nature. It’s dirty work, in the book – when David Soul, who has his own but someone’s got to do it. Welsh reflects in the inter -

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 31 Reviews

view on how writing a novel is like mental illness, and The industrial n WillyMaleyisProfessorofEnglishLiteratureatthe how much harder it was for him to “derole” or UniversityofGlasgow.Amonghismanypublications “decompress” during the six months of his immersion past hangs arethreerecentco-editedcollections:withRory in Filth than it appeared to be for McAvoy as an actor over Scotland Loughnane, Celtic Shakespeare: e Bard and the apparently equally absorbed in the character he like a pall Borderers (Ashgate,2013);withAlisonO’Malley- created. Younger, Celtic Connections: Irish-Scottish Relations and the Politics of Culture (PeterLang,2013);andwith THE PAIN OF THE PAST PaddyLyonsandJohnMiller, Romantic Ireland: From e promotion and self-promotion of the individual at Tone to Gonne; Fresh Perspectives on Nineteenth- the expense of the community is one of Welsh’s recur - Century Ireland (CambridgeScholarsPublishing, rent motifs. In the film, Bruce Robertson’s trauma at 2013). his culpability over brother’s death on a coal bing – the result of Bruce’s own urge to be “King of the Castle”, REFERENCES and to hell with the dirty wee rascals – finds an odd 1 Ian McIntyre, Dirt & Deity: A Life of Robert Burns echo in Welsh’s interview as part of the DVD ’s special (London: HarperCollins, 1995), p.ix. features, where he speaks of building “a kingdom of 2 Irvine Welsh, Filth (London: Jonathan Cape, 1998), castles”. e industrial past hangs over Scotland like a p.7. pall, as post-industrial wastelands are overlaid by a 3 Welsh, Filth , p.221. culture of consumerism and individualism. In the year 4 Carole Jones, “Welsh and Gender”, in Berthold Filth was published, a report in the Herald described Schoene (ed.), The Edinburgh Companion to Irvine one consequence of that legacy for Whitburn in West Welsh (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), Lothian. 5 Toxic clouds are everywhere. Robertson’s p.59. For a more elegant argument around gender desire to have his gas turned off is on some level an in Welsh, see Zoe Strachan, “Queerspotting: urge to be free of the foulness of history. e film Homosexuality in Contemporary Scottish Fiction”, starts like the book with a fart whose author won’t Spike Magazine , 1 May 1999, http://www.spike accept responsibility and moves through asphyxiation magazine.com/0599queerspotting.php as part of sexual arousal to a final self-strangulation, 5 “Coal bing’s toxic cloud is hanging over town again”, but as Welsh’s recent writings on Scottish independ - The Herald , Tuesday 7 July 1998, http://www.herald - ence imply, there are other ways out of the pain of the scotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/coal-bing-s- past. Choose life. toxic-cloud-is-hanging-over-town-again-1.337094

Back issues of Perspectives are available online to download in PDF format

democraticleftscotland.wordpress.com

32 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 Tim Haigh Tim is a critic, reviewer and broadcaster. His podcasts are posted at www.timhaighreadsbooks.com We’re the Sweeney, son, and we haven’t had any dinner

A surreal murder mystery tests the deductive powers of Inspector McGreet and his trusty Sergeant Dimbleby

nspector McGreet paused outside the crime “His name was “is was a Mr Liberal Democrat, sir. Somebody scene to light a cigarette. He always did this. It really went to town on him. To be honest, there was his trademark. He was an impressive figure, a The Labour wasn’t much left of him.” great bear of a man with a mane of silver hair. He Party, sir. “Any motive?” looked sourly through the door of Great Britain, Looks as “It’s Murder On e Orient Express, sir. e entire Ia location that had seen more than its fair share of country seems to have wanted him dead.” robberies and, from time to time, massacres. though he “Any other victims?” McGreet hated these psephological capers. ey was mugged” “Well, we have some missing persons, sir. Nobody always ended badly. knows the whereabouts of a Mr Ukip and a Mr He strode in to a scene of carnage. Green. All things being equal, there should be some “Alright, Sergeant; what are we looking at?” evidence of them around here somewhere.” “Carnage, sir.” Sergeant Dimbleby was the “You think they were killed as well?” finest female woman on the force. She was “Robbed, more likely.” a great bear of a man with a mane of silver “is all looks very hair. fishy to me, Dimbleby.” “Give me the headlines, sergeant.” “A crime of poisson, “At least two bodies, possibly more.” sir?” ere was a chalk outline of a pathetic McGreet chomped on figure in the centre of the room. his cigar. “Who was this?” asked McGreet. “Do we have any “His name was e Labour Party, sir. Looks as suspects?” though he was mugged. Beaten savagely about the “ere’s a plane-load of credibility with a blunt instrument.” dodgy looking Scots who turned “Did you recover the murder weapon?” up unexpectedly.” “is is it, sir”, said the sergeant, presenting “Dodgy looking Scots”, her superior with an eight-foot tablet of repeated McGreet, drawing stone. attention to his own name. “ere’s something carved on it. Dimbleby hurried on. “ere’s a Mr Big, sir – a Writing.” woman called Nicola. A sort of eminence paisley.” “It’s gibberish, sir. We can’t make “Do we like her for it?” any sense of it. Funny thing, sir, it “Not really. Sturgeon is caviar to the general.” belonged to the victim. He McGreet sucked on his pipe. seems to have used it on “Anybody else in the frame?” himself. By the way, sir, “We stopped these two foreigners at Dover.” A you can’t smoke in here.” constable wheeled them in. ey were great bears of McGreet rather smugly men with manes of silver hair. flourished his e-cigarette. “Names of Lech Walesa and Karol Wojtyla. We In the next room was a second chalk outline, but if don’t think they did it, but they looked suspicious. it was of a body, it was a body that had suffered ey were trying to leave the country.” terribly. It was barely a smudge on the floor. Continued on page 35 ‡

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 33 The Hat The Hat is our regular diary column with a guest writer in each issue Reflections on war and peace

e dream of a New Jerusalem in the wake of the Second World War gave Britain, amongst other things, the National Health Service. We should remember, says Trevor Royle , be thankful and not take it for granted

y the time that this is being It was one of Without stepping into the had been unable to deliver read I will have passed a the finer moral pulpit I keep in my head we economic recovery. Bsignificant date. ree score can sometimes forget how lucky e wartime coalition years and ten: once considered a things to we are as a nation to have such a government had demonstrated lifespan but nowadays just emerge from wonderful service in our midst. It what could be done when the will another staging post in life’s has been with us for many decades of the country was united in journey. To assuage any remaining the wreckage – since July 1948 in fact – and it common cause to defeat a vicious doubts my sons took pleasure in of the Second was one of the finer things to enemy and with over five million telling me that 70 is the new 50. World War emerge from the wreckage of the men and women conscripted into It’s a nice thought and one which I Second World War. True, it may national service they wanted that appreciate but it’s not really true not have lived up to all the hopes mood to continue into the as I know only too well. Shortly of its founders and equally true it promised brave new world. before I reached the great day I has sometimes lost its way along Nothing else would do. If Hitler had a small drama and ended up the road but by and large it has and his gang could be extirpated in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary managed to live up to the ideal by united national resolve then for a spot of attention to my ticker. professed by Aneurin Bevan when surely a similar effort could be Not for the first time I left the he decreed that “no society can made to defeat poverty, place owing a huge debt to the legitimately call itself civilised if a unemployment and social wonderfully professional and sick person is denied medical aid exclusion. ere was, too, the compassionate medical staff who because of lack of means.” added incentive that thousands of work within its hallowed walls. men and women had risked their e NHS is frequently maligned here you have it, simply lives on the front line and they and attracts the wrong kind of articulated by a great man. In were not prepared to see their headlines; it is used as a Tcommemorating the Second sacrifices dissipated by political convenient punch bag by World War we should try to inaction. politicians who should know remember that when the fighting Such a frame of mind is better and more often than not it came to an end in the summer of impossible to replicate nowadays is starved of funds when billions 1945 folk all over Britain had and for younger people it probably of pounds are wasted on things started daring to dream of a New seems to belong to the that don’t really make a difference. Jerusalem. With the benefit of irretrievable past. Even men and And yet it is all too easy to take the hindsight such attitudes are not women of my generation NHS for granted. When I pitched altogether surprising. During the sometimes fail to understand it. up at the ERI no one asked to see war people had become Written off as “baby boomers”, a my insurance policy, neither was a accustomed to a collectivist catch-all description dreamed up credit card requested nor was I approach to government. ey apparently by the WashingtonPost marched to the nearest cash could see what might be achieved in 1970, this post-war grouping machine before I was allowed to by state interventionism on a owes its existence to the rapid see a doctor or nurse. (Don’t raise grand scale and did not want to birth-rate which followed the your eyebrow: at least one of those return to the laissez faire free Second World War and continued conditions has been visited on market attitudes of the 1930s into the 1960s when, thanks to benighted American friends of which had not only failed to Philip Larkin, we all discovered mine.) confront the evil of fascism but the joys of sex. Many prospered as

34 | SUMMER 2015 | PERSPECTIVES 41 a result of Rab Butler’s Most people world was destined to become a at least in the surrounding years revolutionary Education Act of better place. All that is true but I there’s been no need to create 1944 which provided free born after prefer to think of it as the “blessed mass conscript armies and no secondary education for all and 1945 have generation” not because of any need for the nationwide mourning paved the way for the expansion of never heard overt spirituality it might possess that so often accompanies their the universities. Being a baby but because it and the succeeding existence. Dr Johnson might well boomer was a badge of honour shots fired in generations were the first never to have been right when he but with the passing of time the anger unless, be forced to face war at first hand. counselled that every man thinks phrase has been increasingly used of course, they Whereas our fathers and meanly of himself for not having in a pejorative or sarcastic way grandfathers fought in two world been a soldier but when all’s said and soon became lazy shorthand joined the wars – conscription saw to that – and done the alternative is a for selfishness and entitlement. forces of their most people born after 1945 have darned sight more appealing. own volition never heard shots fired in anger t’s easy to see why that unless, of course, they joined the n TrevorRoyle’slatestbookis happened. According to most forces of their own volition. Britain's Lost Regiments: e Isocial commentators baby at’s not to say that the world Band of Brothers Time Forgot boomers (at least in the western has become a quieter place; on the (AurumPress).Heisamemberof world) tended to be wealthier, contrary 1968 is the only year in theScottishGovernment's healthier and more ambitious which British service personnel AdvisoryPanelonthe than those who had gone before have not been in action since the CommemorationofWorldWar them and often believed that the end of the Second World War. But One.

We’re the Sweeney, son …

› Continued from page 33 “But, sir – we are this close to finding the killer. Something terrible happened here. And the Home McGreet shook his head. “You can’t blame the Secretary is pulling the plug? Doesn’t that sound exiting Poles”, he said. “Just confiscate their earnings suspicious to you?” and hand them over to the Italian coast guard.” “Suspicious?” Dimbleby’s phone rang. She passed it to her “Ask yourself, sir – who has the most to boss. “It’s the Home Secretary, sir.” gain from these killings? It all makes “New one?” sense. Some shadowy figure must have “e old one, sir. She kept her job.” orchestrated this crime, and all the “You’re kidding! After all those lost clues point to the Conservative Party.” lawsuits and being found in contempt “It’s a nice theory, Dimbleby. But of court, and the succession of wide of the mark. e Conservative unacceptable chairmen of the child Party are as surprised as we are by this abuse enquiry, and the failures of the mess. e real reason she’s shutting us UK Border Agency, and describing the down is there isn’t the budget to immigration figures as an aim not a pursue this investigation. Or any pledge, and her incompetent attempts ED STONE investigation. Or any police work of to deport hate preachers and hello MORY OF any kind at all. It’s austerity, Dimbleby. ma’am, congratulations on still being IN ME ere’s no money for public services. Home Secretary. Yes … Yes … Yes … THE VICTIMS OF We’ll all be seeing out our retirements Very good, ma’am. ank you.” THE 2015 working for Group 4.” He handed the phone back to his GENERAL ELECTION McGreet relit his reefer. sergeant. “Hang on”, said Dimbleby, “Wasn’t “Shut everything down, that a pipe a moment ago?” Dimbleby. e investigation is “is?” said McGreet. “Ceci n’est over.” pas une pipe.”

PERSPECTIVES 41 | SUMMER 2015 | 35