From my Daily Record column 12/05/17
Analysing the fine detail of Labour's leaked manifesto is missing the point. Manifestos are not a question of content, they are a question of competence.
Enacted in office the Labour document would be the most radical since Clem Atlee's 1945 government gave us the NHS.
Or, for those with shorter memories, the boldest since Gordon Brown imposed a windfall tax on the privatised utilities in 1997 that banked £5 billion for modern apprenticeships.
Nationalising the railways, taxing the rich to pay for the NHS and a living wage of £10 an hour are brilliantly popular policies.
But voters know in their hearts none of them will come to pass. It is because Labour do not meet the tests twin tests of competence and credibility that every opposition in waiting needs to pass muster on. Diane Abbott alone is enough for voters to reach that conclusion.
A manifesto is a not just a prospectus, how many people read them? What is more important is what it represents, a ticket to the future, a vision of the journey you want to take people on.
Four weeks out from the election voters aren't buying it from Labour. While message might chime for many the messenger does not.
Where did it go wrong? A long way back but I reckon if there was a tipping point it was very early on when Corbyn, in his first public engagement as leader of the opposition, did not sing or even mouth the national anthem.
It is a trifling, picky detail yet we expect standards from our leaders that we would not reasonably impose on ourselves.
In politics you are seen as you arrive and people made their judgement on Jeremy Corbyn there and then. It was over before it began.
Tuesday, 16 May 2017
Saturday, 13 May 2017
Comhairle airson a' Chomhairle
Sùil Eile airson colbh an Daily Record
Tha na h-Eileanan an Iar ann an seòrsa de staing 's gun boireannaich sam bith air a' chùis a dhèanamh ann an taghaidhean na comhairle.
Chan eil a' chomhairle ach mar shamhla air mar a bhios na coimhearsnachdan fhèin - fireann agus glas - mur an gabh luchd-poileataigs aire.
Bu chòir sin a bhith ann an inntinn a h-uile comhairliche, sean agus ùr.
Às dèidh dhaibh an stèidheachadh fhèin, bu chòir dhaibh dèanamh cinnteach gu bheil cùisean ann an coimhearsnachd anns an àm ri teachd mar phrìomhachas.
Mar sin feumaidh na fìr fòram a stèidheachadh airson bhoireannach agus coinneachadh riutha ann an seòmar na comhairle gu cunbhalach.
Feumaidh taghadh a bhith ann airson Comhairle na h-Òigridh, gus beachdan an ath ghinealaich a phiobrachadh agus a riochdachadh.
Ann an àm airson an ath thaghaidh, feumaidh e bhith follaiseach gum bi taic ann airson chomhairlichean le clann òg gus cothrom a thoirt do phàrantan.
Gu h-aithghearr, feumaidh na comhairlichean seo oidhirp a dhèanamh iad fhèin a chur à bith.
Feumaidh na h-Eileanan comhairle a tha a' riochdachadh an latha an-diugh, neo bi iad air am fàgail anns an latha an-dè.
Translation
The Western Isles are in kind of a crisis after no women succeeded in the council elections.
It will not be a council but a symbol of how communities will be - male and grey - unless politicians pay attention to the problem.
After they settle themselves councillors ought to make sure the future shape of the island community is a priority.
As such these men need to set up a Women's Forum and meet with it regularly in the council chamber.
There need to be elections for a Youth Council, to encourage and represent the views of the next generation.
In time for the next elections it needs to be clear that there will be support for councillors with young children in order to give parents a chance to serve.
In short, the councillors need to make an effort to put themselves out of existence.
The islands need a council that represents the present day, or they will be left in times past.
Tha na h-Eileanan an Iar ann an seòrsa de staing 's gun boireannaich sam bith air a' chùis a dhèanamh ann an taghaidhean na comhairle.
Chan eil a' chomhairle ach mar shamhla air mar a bhios na coimhearsnachdan fhèin - fireann agus glas - mur an gabh luchd-poileataigs aire.
Bu chòir sin a bhith ann an inntinn a h-uile comhairliche, sean agus ùr.
Às dèidh dhaibh an stèidheachadh fhèin, bu chòir dhaibh dèanamh cinnteach gu bheil cùisean ann an coimhearsnachd anns an àm ri teachd mar phrìomhachas.
Mar sin feumaidh na fìr fòram a stèidheachadh airson bhoireannach agus coinneachadh riutha ann an seòmar na comhairle gu cunbhalach.
Feumaidh taghadh a bhith ann airson Comhairle na h-Òigridh, gus beachdan an ath ghinealaich a phiobrachadh agus a riochdachadh.
Ann an àm airson an ath thaghaidh, feumaidh e bhith follaiseach gum bi taic ann airson chomhairlichean le clann òg gus cothrom a thoirt do phàrantan.
Gu h-aithghearr, feumaidh na comhairlichean seo oidhirp a dhèanamh iad fhèin a chur à bith.
Feumaidh na h-Eileanan comhairle a tha a' riochdachadh an latha an-diugh, neo bi iad air am fàgail anns an latha an-dè.
Translation
The Western Isles are in kind of a crisis after no women succeeded in the council elections.
It will not be a council but a symbol of how communities will be - male and grey - unless politicians pay attention to the problem.
After they settle themselves councillors ought to make sure the future shape of the island community is a priority.
As such these men need to set up a Women's Forum and meet with it regularly in the council chamber.
There need to be elections for a Youth Council, to encourage and represent the views of the next generation.
In time for the next elections it needs to be clear that there will be support for councillors with young children in order to give parents a chance to serve.
In short, the councillors need to make an effort to put themselves out of existence.
The islands need a council that represents the present day, or they will be left in times past.
Fishing for votes in Scotland's Brexit Corner
Election trail in Banff and Buchan, May 10th 2017
IT is just 7am and Ruth Davidson is already taking the fish wars to the SNP in the noisy Peterhead market.
Most voters are only waking up but the largest daily white fish auction in Europe is in full swing and so is the Scottish Conservative leader.
Davidson is firing off sound bites faster than the merchants can bid for boxes of coley, all while posing for her trademark photo opportunities.
Having ridden buffaloes in previous campaigns Davidson is today willing to share the limelight with a sizable cod, and local Tory candidate David Duguid.
This is the glamour of the election trail but neither the cod nor the candidate get a kiss from Davidson. The photographers are pushing their luck with the can-do politician who thinks she's about to land an election catch.
Across the north east the Conservatives are wooing Brexit-supporting fishermen into their nets with the promise that only Theresa May can deliver a good deal from Europe.
Banff and Buchan, that box of fertile farming land and fishing ports in the top right above Aberdeen, is home to the UK's biggest fishing fleet. It is also Scotland's Brexit corner.
When the referendum votes were weighed up this was the constituency that definitely voted to leave Europe.
The reason is simple - the hated Common Fisheries Policy. Fishermen on the coast, and farming communities inland, feel control over their livelihood and industries have been ceded to foreign powers for the last 40 years.
The place has been an SNP stronghold ever since Alex Salmond snatched the seat from the late Buchan Bulldog, Tory MP Albert MacQuarrie, back in 1987.
The SNP has prospered over the years from the story of how UK fishing grounds, and Scottish fishing communities, were bargained away by a Tory government as the price of joining the EU in the 1970s.
Sitting MP Eilidh Whitford, who has nursed the seat since taking over from Salmond seven years ago, enters the race on what should be a comfortable 14,000 majority.
But now the Brexit fishermen and the pro-European SNP appear to have fallen out. Conservative polling hopes are borne out by voting in the council elections last week, leaving the SNP on the defensive.
The nationalists welcomed Davidson to Peterhead by leaking a partial account of a letter from UK Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom. It claimed to show that fishing was an expendable Brexit pawn.
The charge has been dismissed out of hand by the fishermen's leaders like Bertie Armstrong who has had the letter for a month and found that far from threatening it delivers the assurances the Scottish Fishermen's Federation were looking for.
Davidson accuses Nicola Sturgeon of a "grubby" attempt to sink her visit to Peterhead.
In the comfort of the port authority board room she emphasises the message she gave to the market below: "We've got one chance to get a good deal out of Brexit, I'm committed to that and so are the Conservative Ministers and fishermen know that any attempt to take us back into the EU would mean we go straight back into the Common Fisheries policy."
Up in town, and batting for Europe , Eilidh Whiteford has a simple reply for that. She says: "The Tories betrayed the fishermen on the way into Europe and they would betray them on the way out."
The fishermen want all the fish in the sea and all the markets to sell them too. But what would be unacceptable would be for the Common Fishery Policy rules to keep applying after Brexit.
That, Whiteford warns, is what a Tory Brexit would mean - a second sell-out of the fishermen.
She says: "The Leadsom letter couldn't be clearer - the Tories are simply going to translate the CFP into UK law and it is going to be business as usual with the same foreign vessels fishing in our waters but with restrictions on our exporters."
She adds: "The wise heads in the industry see this, the risks will fall on processors and exporters. You can have much quota as you want but if you don't have a market to sell to no one is winning."
But echoing across the Peterhead market, voices can be heard willing the Conservatives to win.
Jimmy Buchan, the skipper who starred in the popular Trawlermen TV series, now represents the processors onshore through the Scottish Seafoods Association.
"We need a strong Prime Minister in there," he says. "This is is not about completely excluding our European counterparts it is about getting the balance and the share in our favour as the nation that has the fish, that is not unreasonable."
Davidson highlights that the SNP has nothing left to offer the fishing communities: "The EU fishery commissioner has made it clear, no new entrant to the EU will be able to modify the CFP. You're straight back in that would be a huge disappointment to people here who see the opportunity Brexit gives to their industry."
The North east has been rewarded for its loyalty by the SNP government. Big infrastructure investment in the SNP's favoured corner has transforming the road network but there has been another change of late.
In the council elections Conservatives were ahead in first preference votes in every ward, even SNP strongholds like Fraserburgh.
"There might be people who voted Scottish independence but they voted with even more passion to leave the EU," says Tory hopeful David Duguid.
"I can be a voice for the whole community in the heart of parliament, not just shouting from the sidelines of opposition"
Duguid and Whiteford are politicians unlike Ruth Davidson or Alex Salmond.
Whiteford is no blowhard but the quiet-spoken veteran has a native feel for the communities that make up Banff and Buchan.
There is more to the seat than fishing. On the doorstep she hears a lot about the problems of lay offs in the oil and gas industry, the quiet disaster that has left once wealthy oil workers facing their overstretched credit lines.
She is also still getting a warm response to that other referendum question, the one on independence.
Like the fishermen Whiteford knows not all fishing expeditions end in success.
She says: "We were returning SNP MPs here when the party was at 14 per cent in national polls.I think a lot of people with the loudest voices don't always represent the common sense of the majority."
IT is just 7am and Ruth Davidson is already taking the fish wars to the SNP in the noisy Peterhead market.
Most voters are only waking up but the largest daily white fish auction in Europe is in full swing and so is the Scottish Conservative leader.
Davidson is firing off sound bites faster than the merchants can bid for boxes of coley, all while posing for her trademark photo opportunities.
Having ridden buffaloes in previous campaigns Davidson is today willing to share the limelight with a sizable cod, and local Tory candidate David Duguid.
This is the glamour of the election trail but neither the cod nor the candidate get a kiss from Davidson. The photographers are pushing their luck with the can-do politician who thinks she's about to land an election catch.
Across the north east the Conservatives are wooing Brexit-supporting fishermen into their nets with the promise that only Theresa May can deliver a good deal from Europe.
Banff and Buchan, that box of fertile farming land and fishing ports in the top right above Aberdeen, is home to the UK's biggest fishing fleet. It is also Scotland's Brexit corner.
When the referendum votes were weighed up this was the constituency that definitely voted to leave Europe.
The reason is simple - the hated Common Fisheries Policy. Fishermen on the coast, and farming communities inland, feel control over their livelihood and industries have been ceded to foreign powers for the last 40 years.
The place has been an SNP stronghold ever since Alex Salmond snatched the seat from the late Buchan Bulldog, Tory MP Albert MacQuarrie, back in 1987.
The SNP has prospered over the years from the story of how UK fishing grounds, and Scottish fishing communities, were bargained away by a Tory government as the price of joining the EU in the 1970s.
Sitting MP Eilidh Whitford, who has nursed the seat since taking over from Salmond seven years ago, enters the race on what should be a comfortable 14,000 majority.
But now the Brexit fishermen and the pro-European SNP appear to have fallen out. Conservative polling hopes are borne out by voting in the council elections last week, leaving the SNP on the defensive.
The nationalists welcomed Davidson to Peterhead by leaking a partial account of a letter from UK Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom. It claimed to show that fishing was an expendable Brexit pawn.
The charge has been dismissed out of hand by the fishermen's leaders like Bertie Armstrong who has had the letter for a month and found that far from threatening it delivers the assurances the Scottish Fishermen's Federation were looking for.
Davidson accuses Nicola Sturgeon of a "grubby" attempt to sink her visit to Peterhead.
In the comfort of the port authority board room she emphasises the message she gave to the market below: "We've got one chance to get a good deal out of Brexit, I'm committed to that and so are the Conservative Ministers and fishermen know that any attempt to take us back into the EU would mean we go straight back into the Common Fisheries policy."
Up in town, and batting for Europe , Eilidh Whiteford has a simple reply for that. She says: "The Tories betrayed the fishermen on the way into Europe and they would betray them on the way out."
The fishermen want all the fish in the sea and all the markets to sell them too. But what would be unacceptable would be for the Common Fishery Policy rules to keep applying after Brexit.
That, Whiteford warns, is what a Tory Brexit would mean - a second sell-out of the fishermen.
She says: "The Leadsom letter couldn't be clearer - the Tories are simply going to translate the CFP into UK law and it is going to be business as usual with the same foreign vessels fishing in our waters but with restrictions on our exporters."
She adds: "The wise heads in the industry see this, the risks will fall on processors and exporters. You can have much quota as you want but if you don't have a market to sell to no one is winning."
But echoing across the Peterhead market, voices can be heard willing the Conservatives to win.
Jimmy Buchan, the skipper who starred in the popular Trawlermen TV series, now represents the processors onshore through the Scottish Seafoods Association.
"We need a strong Prime Minister in there," he says. "This is is not about completely excluding our European counterparts it is about getting the balance and the share in our favour as the nation that has the fish, that is not unreasonable."
Davidson highlights that the SNP has nothing left to offer the fishing communities: "The EU fishery commissioner has made it clear, no new entrant to the EU will be able to modify the CFP. You're straight back in that would be a huge disappointment to people here who see the opportunity Brexit gives to their industry."
The North east has been rewarded for its loyalty by the SNP government. Big infrastructure investment in the SNP's favoured corner has transforming the road network but there has been another change of late.
In the council elections Conservatives were ahead in first preference votes in every ward, even SNP strongholds like Fraserburgh.
"There might be people who voted Scottish independence but they voted with even more passion to leave the EU," says Tory hopeful David Duguid.
"I can be a voice for the whole community in the heart of parliament, not just shouting from the sidelines of opposition"
Duguid and Whiteford are politicians unlike Ruth Davidson or Alex Salmond.
Whiteford is no blowhard but the quiet-spoken veteran has a native feel for the communities that make up Banff and Buchan.
There is more to the seat than fishing. On the doorstep she hears a lot about the problems of lay offs in the oil and gas industry, the quiet disaster that has left once wealthy oil workers facing their overstretched credit lines.
She is also still getting a warm response to that other referendum question, the one on independence.
Like the fishermen Whiteford knows not all fishing expeditions end in success.
She says: "We were returning SNP MPs here when the party was at 14 per cent in national polls.I think a lot of people with the loudest voices don't always represent the common sense of the majority."
Sunday, 7 May 2017
For every Corbyn voter crossing the street we have nine going the other way
For my Daily Record column
"FOR every one voter crossing the street to vote Labour because of Corbyn we're getting nine or 10 going the other way because of him," said the despondent candidate.
The dispatches coming back from Labour's frontline in this snap election echo the doom-laden messages of Scotland two years ago.
In Scotland, Labour are, we know, fighting to stay on the map in Ian Murray's Edinburgh South constituency with the forlorn hope that tactical unionist voting kicks in big style for the wave to break any other way.
Labour expect to hang on in the north of England around the Tyne but that band of Brexit seats across Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire are danger zones.
Private polls show seats that have been Labour since 1931 going to the Tories with big majorities.
A lot of it is Brexit but most of it, according to activists, is down to the radioactive qualities of Jeremy Corbyn, whose senior aides secretly calculate if Labour come within touching distance of 30 per cent of the vote, as much as Miliband did, then he can stay on.
It leaves you wondering how delusional the Labour leader's office is.
The idea of Corbyn staying on is as fanciful as that 30 per cent showing for Labour is just now.
But remember how Tony Benn had the scent of victory in Labour's catastrophic 1983 defeat because eight and a half million voters had endorsed a socialist manifesto.
It kind of explains why Corbyn is spending time touring constituencies where membership has expanded because of him.
The confrontation between pensioner Malcolm Baker and Tim Farron, one of the rare encounters between a party leader and a voter, rails might have served as a snapshot of the real world election.
As Baker, a Leave voter, berated the Lib Dem leader (who stood up for himself) he was very revealing.
"I've always voted Labour but I will be voting for Theresa May," he said.
Not for the Tories, but willing to make the exception of a lifetime for the Prime Minister who will lead Brexit negotiations.
Focus groups show Labour voters flirting with the idea of backing May but not the still-toxic Tory brand.
It should be in the bag for the Tories but with five weeks to run a campaign can still go off the rails.
The awkward photo-ops and staged soundbites cannot be sustained for that long.
Eventually the opposition, the media, or God forbid, the public will break into the bubble and hold May to some kind of scrutiny.
Anticipating the scenario, the Tories used the symbolism of a Downing Street podium to launch an extraordinary attack on the European Union.
It was a blatant attempt to scoop up Labour voters and homeless Ukippers at the expense of being unfriended by the 27 neighbouring states she hopes to negotiate a smooth Brexit with.
Politics can often be a low calculation, but May has stooped to conquer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
