Fishermen vs environmental colonialists - the unequal battle over Marine Protected Areas

My column for the Daily Record

What do Fisheries Minister Richard Lochhead, an American Insurance charity and a board member of broadcaster BSkyB have in common?

Read on for an insight into how political power is wielded in the new Scotland.

Last week while the rest of us were mulling the choice between prawn cocktail and smoked salmon fishermen on the Clyde coast and Western Isles were scrambling to save their industry and way of life.

That was because Richard Lochhead, the SNP Fisheries Minister, delivered an early Christmas present by extending consultation over plans for a network of Marine Protected Areas by a mere month.

Announcing a short consultation over the festive season smacks of cynicism. Fishermen's leaders say these conservation zones would ban trawling and dredging for shellfish and so destroy fishing communities.

With politicians of every stripe representing on the west coast telling him he is wrong, who is telling Richard Lochhead he is right to press ahead with MPAs?

Well, ranged against the fishermen are a well-financed and well-connected network of conservation organisations.

Stunning amounts of money are used to cherry pick science and lobby politicians with a slew of data that portrays fishermen as plunderers.

A web of inter-connected environmental organisations ply the waters of Scotland and the corridors of Holyrood.

The Marine Conservation Society had £10 million at its disposal over the last four years. 

Scottish Environmental Link, the umbrella organisation for conservation bodies,  raised over £400,000 in the last three years. Revive the Clyde, closely linked to SIFT, a similar amount in two years.

The BSkyB connection comes through Nick Ferguson, chair of corporate governance at the broadcaster and a noted philanthropist who supports projects that benefit young and old in Argyll, where he has a holiday home.

He was also on the advisory board of SIFT, the Sustainable Inshore Fisheries Trust, that has applied for Regulating Order covering the Firth of Clyde. Such an order would grant power over who fishes and who does not. 

No prize for guessing how the "community" interest would stack in that situation. But prizes galore for one side of the debate.

The Goldman Foundation, funded by the legacy of a wealthy family of American insurers, gave their annual prize of  $175,000 prize to Coast, a self-appointed group campaigning for the South Arran seabed to become an MPA. Coast had an income of over £500,000 in the last three years, charity returns show.

Let's be honest, some fishermen are greedy rogues that took some species to extinction. However, regulation and voluntary participation in conservation measures, like increased mesh sizes, have taken the industry and stocks back from the cliff edge.

For me the jury is out on prawn trawling and scallop dredging. Dredging the seabed for shellfish was once described to me as cutting down orchards to pick apples.

Objectors say it destroys everything, fishermen say it renews the bottom, just as ploughing enriches the soil in an onshore field

The science and effectiveness of conservation zones is hotly disputed but the fishermen are right in one respect.

Whatever the damage to the seabed by fishing, that will be as nothing compared to the damage done to coastal communities if a whole sector of the fishing industry is banned.

Sterilising the west coast as a playground for the gin palaces of the rich and for rigid inflatables is not a viable plan to replace working communities.

After the thin varnish of consultation next month expect the pretence of "community" control of these protected areas.

But follow the money and you will see ultimate control of a campaign to effectively kill off our fishing communities rests in America and in London.

It is the kind of colonial environmentalism that, were it being targeted an the fragile population of an  Amazonian jungle, would have Scotland's right-on brigade indignant with fury.

Instead all that power and finance is being brought to bear on closing down the prawn fishery, the only major fishing industry left on the Clyde and west coast.

All this is all being done with the complicity of a government whose main selling point is self-determination and standing up for Scotland. Exactly which part of Scotland, fishermen ask?

East to west, Scotland's transport system needs a reboot

For today's Daily Record

AS a totem of a nation at a standstill, the empty decks of the Forth Road Bridge can only be matched by that list of delayed and cancelled flights to and from the islands of Scotland.

The east coast has suddenly discovered, as the west coast islands already have, how failing transport links quickly become an economic stranglehold.

The closure of the Forth Road Bridge now looks as inevitable as the rusting stanchion on which the excuses hang.

There was the populist abolition of the £1 bridge tolls, which meant £12 million had to be found from somewhere as the maintenance list grew.

A new bridge was commissioned, an obvious step, because the current one was already beyond the expected lifespan.

There were the engineers’ warnings that more maintenance was needed, and somewhere in the middle of this Nicola Sturgeon had a spell as cabinet secretary for infrastructure.

With all ministerial eyes distracted by their role in the nation’s destiny, tenders were drawn up and dropped amid budget cuts. Trying to cross the river to a nationalist Jordan, it looks like the SNP government neglected the country’s basic infrastructure.

In an ironic twist for an avowedly left-of-centre government privatisation saw the bridge authority cease to exist.

This privatisation agenda runs like a stain across the whole transport brief. Who is pushing it?

On the west coast, Transport Minister Derek Mackay is hawking Caledonian MacBrayne to private sector buccaneers in preparation for the next transport fiasco.

On the east coast, he has to take the brunt of motorists’ anger over the bridge closure.

Being a Minister isn’t such fun when things go wrong. Mackay strains every political sinew to achieve the look of an underweight Atlas, mythically holding up the globe all on his own.

He is left defending the past while firefighting the present. With no sign of back-up you have to worry about his own long-term structural integrity.

There are calls for an investigation into what went wrong, who knew what when.

Engineers, professionals who can be relied on not just to read what is written on the tin but test the contents too, gave ample warning of defects. Ah, but not the exact defects that emerged last week, respond the government, though that tune is whistling like the wind in a cable stay.

In a Scotland of two truths, empirical evidence versus political certitude, I doubt the worth of any inquiry.

An investigation would not move a single vehicle across the crippled Forth crossing.

For my tuppence, all that political energy would be better spent turning a crisis into an opportunity.

The bridge collapse, if it has done anything, has exposed the glaring inadequacy of Scotland’s public transport system.

Yes, Scotrail have pulled in extra carriages so Scottish commuters can get the sardine tin experience of the crowded south-east, minus the property prices and the milder weather.

There are expanded bus services, a sudden interest in car-sharing schemes and forlorn demands for featherweight cyclists to be allowed to zoom across the Forth (of course they should be).

So, if there has to be an inquiry it should be into the massive rethink Scotland needs to move dormitory commuters permanently onto public transport and off the roads.

Out road addiction shuts our eyes and ears, though not our lungs, to the carmaggedon of pollution and climate change.

Labour, in a search for 21st century principles, should be less consumerist, more conservationist and take the lead, especially if the Greens in Scotland remain a client state of the big oil party.

Just as in health and in education, it should be possible for a nation of five million to devise public transport policies that match the needs of the country. Big task, no easy answers, but put the engineers on the job.

That would require a bit of a political cease-fire to take place, a bit of bridgebuilding if you like. The Forth Road replacement might be falling into the water before we get that.

Hilary Benn - "What we know about fascists is that they need to be defeated"

From the Commons, for The Record

After a long day of speeches, some distinguished ones by backbenchers, and mediocre ones by the main party leaders, Hilary Benn arrived at the despatch box.

The speech by the Shadow Foreign Secretary was always going to have some drama to it. He stood at odds with his party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, but his rousing words left everyone in the shade.

In a short speech the son of the late Tony Benn elevated himself to the ranks of the parliamentary greats.

He showed principle, loyalty and what many moderate Labour MPs had been crying out for - leadership.

He told MPs in the Commons: “Although he (Corbyn) and I will walk into different division lobbies tonight, I’m proud to speak from the same despatch box as him.

“He is not a terrorist sympathiser. He’s an honest, a principled, a decent and a good man and I think the Prime Minister must now regret what he said yesterday and his failure to do what he should have done today - which is to simply say ‘I am sorry’.”

Of course Benn was for striking ISIL, and he laid out the case in detail and with rigour. The packed Commons listened in rapt silence.

Chancellor George Osborne leaned out of his seat, watching intently a politician who might one day be a direct rival.

His case for Syria was made, but it was his closing remarks, addressed directly to his own party, that distinguished Benn.

Fascists need to be confronted, he said. Labour has always stood up to them. We must now confront this evil, he said.

This is what he told Labour MPs: “As a party we have always been defined by our internationalism. We believe we have a responsibility one to another."

“We are here faced by fascists; not just in their calculated brutality, but their belief they are superior to every single one of us."

They hold us in contempt, they hold our values in contempt... they hold our democracy, the means by which we make our decision tonight, in contempt. 

"And what we know about fascists is that they need to be defeated and it is why, as we have heard tonight, socialists and trade unionists were just one part of the international brigade in the 1930s to fight against Franco. 

"It’s why this entire House stood up against Hitler and Mussolini. It’s why our party has always stood up against the denial of human rights and for justice and my view, Mr Speaker, is that we must now confront this evil."

Slowly, he concluded: “It is now time for us to do our bit in Syria and that is why I ask my colleagues to vote for this motion.”

The Commons had been silent throughout. Corbyn was stonyfaced behind him.

But when he finished MPs broke into applause. In extraordinary scenes, MPs roared and waved their order papers. The SNP, who have been banned from clapping, pointed to the Speaker in outrage. Mr Bercow let the applause run, and the electric atmosphere drain from the chamber. 

Gaelic TV loses £1m in cuts, UK gov loses influence

Gaelic television is to lose £1 million of UK government funding as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review.

That shouldn’t be a surprise, given that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport has a budget cut of five per cent and S4C, the Welsh channel, has had a chunk of funding cut too.

But the £1 million represents 100 per cent of the UK government’s  stake in Gaelic broadcasting.

The funding, about five per cent of the Gaelic channel BBC Alba’s total budget, is not a huge amount of but its loss has cultural and political symbolism which appear to have escaped John Whittingdale, the Culture Secretary. 

BBC Alba, the Gaelic language TV service (you’ll find it on Sky ch143) is funded from a combination of public sources.

The service was set up the in the 1990s by the then Tory government with funding of £8 million a year, and a dedicated channel came along in 2008 and is well supported by viewers, both Gaelic and English speakers.

It is now funded by the Scottish government to the tune of  £13.8 million, with £1 million from the Department of Culture Media and Sport in Whitehall and £8 million from the BBC in terms of cash and technical services.

In television terms it is not much, but with £1 million the channel was able to produce a drama series, Bannan, which is in its second run.

The loss of the DCMS funding will be a disappointment for MG Alba, which had lobbied for the cash stream to be maintained.

The funding was guaranteed by Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Highland MP, when he was chief secretary of the Treasury.

He understood the value of the small amount of support, but Gaelic now has few friends inside government, and no one was on watch in Westminster looking out for it. 

Culturally, it now looks as if the UK government is just turning its back on one of the country’s oldest indigenous cultures and the medium it has become most accessible in.

In political terms it is a bigger mistake. The funding was the last toe-hold the UK government had on Gaelic broadcasting.

Earlier this month the Scotland Bill included a little-noticed clause devolving power to make appointments to the governing board of the channel to the Scottish government. Now the UK government has surrendered its financial influence too.

Politically, the SNP government wants control of state broadcasting in Scotland,  and in terms of Gaelic it now shares that control with the BBC, as well as the responsibility for funding it.

It is only a hop and a step to extend that argument to English language broadcasting too. 

It may be that the DCMS is cutting the cash to prime the argument that the BBC ought to step in to fill the gap.

There is a BBC review going on right now, which openly questions the value of minority broadcasting and makes some unfavourable comparisons.

Anyone with an interest in Gaelic broadcasting (or a stake, as I do myself as a freelance contributor) should respond to that consultation.

Pressure ought to be brought on Whittingdale and the Scotland Office to revisit the decision,  it is not a lot of money after all.

How much of that pressure will come from the SNP, in whose interest it is not to have UK departmental involvement in Scottish broadcasting, remains to be seen.

SNP up and down the hill on Syria

My Daily Record column today

Jeremy Corbyn’s not the only politician exposed in the searchlights over Syria. 

On an issue as serious as war, Nicola Sturgeon began showing leadership worthy of the Grand Old Duke of York.

Trapped in no-man’s land between being on the right side of the  party activist base and the wrong side of public opinion, the SNP’s spin operation was uncharacteristically skittish.

First Alex Salmond, the party’s Foreign Affairs spokesman and hefty voice in the party, ruled out backing for UK airstrikes. So far so predictable.

But he was countermanded by the First Minister.

She was “prepared to listen” to the case for airstrikes.

Westminster leader Angus Robertson held that line on Sunday morning. He sounded more sceptical by Wednesday.

Then up popped his colleague Stewart Hosie, party deputy leader, saying “at the very least” UN support would be needed for the SNP to back UK action.

Everyone knows there will be no UN security council motion approving air strikes. China and Russia would veto that simply to keep the UK out of the conflict.

Then, on the same day as the First Minister handcuffed her leadership to the sinking stock of Natalie McGarry, she sharpened the position.

“It has got to be action that is right, that will make a positive difference, rather than make the situation worse,” said Sturgeon.

This was beginning to sound like war policy driven by opinion polling.

It may be with the world on a knife edge after a Cold War skirmish that downed a Russian jet that public opinion, hardened by the Paris attacks, has cooled again.

Cameron makes the case for war today, but aren’t we at war in Syria, anyway?

A Freedom of Information request reveals the UK has flown 196 armed drone missions over Syria in the last year, with no civilian casualties the MoD insist.

We have special forces on the ground, RAF pilots flying with Nato allies, a Royal Navy frigate escorting the French carrier,  with our Cyprus airbase and  surveillance and refuelling facilities on call. 

Though the SNP do try to overstate their importance in Commons vote  when it comes to bombing ISIS, Downing Street calculates nationalist votes will be irrelevant.

From Cameron’s point of view, the most important minority votes are these of the eight Democratic Unionist Party MPs.

They’re on board, and we’re well down the road to war in Syria.

We've been expecting you, Mr Monaghan

The SNP’s Paul Monaghan MP might not be paranoid, but it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get him.

With MI5 on high alert for a jihadi attack the Caithness MP thought the best use spy time was to ask if he was subject to personal surveillance?

In the Home Office written answer (they cost £164 on average) the spooks hilariously refused to confirm or deny what they were up to. 

Poor Paul, he’ll have to keep looking over his shoulder, though I suspect James Bond has better things to do.

Glimpses of another country

My Daily Record column

Wandering on the Aberdeen esplanade during the SNP conference I glimpsed another country.

Inside the black box conference hall, Scotland was ordered – coming blinking out on to the seafront was to see economic reality.

On the eastern horizon, rig supply boats were lined up far as the eye could see.

These ships are not waiting for a berth in a busy port. With their skeleton crews, they are going nowhere.

The idle fleet is a symbol of the impact the dramatic fall in oil prices has had on the fortunes of Aberdeen and the North Sea industry.

It was like having the central flaw of the independence White Paper writ large.

For each one of its 670 pages of oil-borne promises, 100 North Sea jobs and more are gone.

The jobs pain is spread evenly across the UK but a switch to three-week shifts offshore has effectively cut a third out of the onshore economy that services the turnarounds.

Real jobs, real livelihoods and mortgages hang on the fickle graph of oil barrels across dollars determined far from wellheads and safe harbours.

It has taken a year for senior SNP figures to publicly acknowledge the economics of independence let them down so badly in the referendum.

Whatever the excuses, voters didn’t accept the case. Internally the party has accepted the lesson, as the passionate conference debate on fracking demonstrated.

In their hearts, delegates wanted to ban the industry but Ineos boss Jim Radcliffe’s timely warning about fracking being Scotland’s best chance (last chance?) of “economic independence” rang true for them.

Independence remains the prize, it is just that with diminishing oil resources the price might be getting higher.

On Friday, the gathering storm over the Tata closures in Dalzell and Clydebridge, the outside world interrupted proceedings again.

Nicola Sturgeon promised to do what a Government can to bind the wounds, but for some the grasp on economic reality was slim.

One MSP claimed if Scotland had been independent then the Ravenscraig steel works would have been saved.

Possibly, but unlikely, though that sentiment captures both the strength and weakness of independence economics

Most Scots don’t believe independence could provide any better insulation against the rigours of global markets. That makes independence a hard sell.

Yet the very feeling of powerlessness and fury we feel about rampant globalisation is what makes many people look for alternative economic accounts, for other way of looking at reality.

The corporate muscle that stretches and bends our lives has had its own strong backdraught.

It has driven many voters to turn angrily away from conventional solutions to our problems, to a place where the price of oil will not matter to jobs and the long line of supply boats would not exist.

I dare say that anger over Chinese dumping of steel on the global market provided a distraction as Tata dispensed of what remains of the Scottish steel industry without too much scrutiny.

It is not entirely the fault of the Chinese that steel coming from Scunthorpe to Dalzell cost £325 a slab, wheras the same material could be purchased on the world market for half the price.

We cannot demand Chinese steel workers take redundancy to save ours.

It is one of the contradictions of this complex world that if Scottish steelmaking is to be revived it will likely be rescued by the very people now being scapegoated for its demise, our new friends in the Chinese Communist Party.

Maybe with the honour guard for President Jinping, the demise of steel in Scotland and these lines of boats off Aberdeen during the biggest ever SNP gathering, we all glimpsed another country this week – the one formerly known as Great Britain.

Sturgeon with the whole world in her hands

When will the second referendum be?

It is the question on the lips of hundreds of new members turning up for their first ever SNP conference in Aberdeen today. It’s also the only story really exercising the media in the carnival tent in carpark 4 of the exhibition centre.

Jim Murphy in his exit speech from politics said it would be “as soon as they can get off with it”, and you can forgive the cynicism of Scottish Labour’s lost leader.

Nicola Sturgeon finessed it rather better this morning in her opening speech to the 81st SNP conference.

In a fair attempt at that old circus trick, riding two horses, she assured No voters, the majority of Scots, that there will be no commitment to an independence referendum in next year’s manifesto for the Holyrood.

Simultaneously she warned the result of the referendum we do see coming down the road, the EU vote, could be the trigger for Scotland to exit the UK. “Unstoppable” was her word, not inevitable.

But while trying reassure half the country that they are not entering “neverendum” land with the SNP she has clearly signalled that within months of winning office she could be preparing for a second referendum vote.

For rank and file SNP members, even the newbys who want a Indy2 yesterday, that should suffice. 

Sturgeon, who bestrides Scottish politics, has great command and respect from her party and there will be few, if any, dissenting voices.

It is that level of personal trust and respect that the SNP leadership want to replicate with the Scottish public over the next few months.

The election campaign is going to be all about Nicola (no Alex at all) and how much you trust and respect her to run the country. So the assurance on the referendum is a strong message.

Sturgeon said there would have to be “strong and consistent” evidence that the mood in Scotland has moved to independence before there is a second vote.

How will they know that? Polling evidence for sure but with 114,000 members, about two per cent of the population, the party ought to be able to judge the mood well enough.    

But asked if the future direction of the country would be weighed on the outcome of opinion polls by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg the First Minister let slip the proper answer.

“ It will be down to whether we judge, I judge, that people who voted no last year have changed their minds,” she said.

“I judge” - Nicola Sturgeon, she has your whole world in her hands.