An appeal to equity.

 Since 31st October 2020, I have been officially semi retired. In fact I have been nothing of the sort.

Partly this was because in the middle of the pandemic there was little to be retired for, particularly during the Winter months when it wasn't very pleasant to go out outside while the restrictions gave little scope for going out inside. But, in addition, when I retired I still had a full caseload which required my full time attention until it was worked off, even as I was only taking on selected new business.

As time has passed however the former issue has eased up, hopefully permanently, while I no longer have enough work to keep me occupied five days a week. So at the beginning of the year I agreed a new working pattern with my my former partners. Unless we had something substantial in court I would not work Mondays or Tuesdays. On a Wednesday I would come into the office to see my residual clients as required and on Thursdays and Fridays, unless I was in court, I would work from home.

This all came into effect last Monday, 31st January. So, the following day Andi and I agreed that we would start behaving as if I was retired and go on a pensioners' expedition. We would go in to Glasgow, have a wee wander around the shops, have a bit of lunch and then see a movie. 

This all transpired but what I write today is inspired particularly by the lunch. It was in a most excellent French Brasserie. We had three courses, wine, water and coffee and were left with a bill of c,£80 before a tip, so it was not particularly cheap but, on a Tuesday lunchtime, it was also really busy. However just about every other person there was a pensioner. Not just couples but mixed groups of diners in varying numbers eating and drinking amidst animated conversation. Having, it appeared, a really good time. And not on an isolated occasion or involving anybody unduly worried about the cost.

What is the point of this minor anecdote? By no means all pensioners are poor. I'm not quite the full bhuna yet but when I am, I certainly won't be. A couple of retired professional people or any number of other final salaried pension recipients are likely to have a joint income, on reaching state pension age, of at least £4000 a month after tax and, if they retired from senior positions, often significantly more. Now, that's a lot more than many working couples are earning. But there's more. Working couples are likely to have significant mortgage costs whereas pensioners will almost certainly have long since paid their mortgages off.. Younger working couples are very likely to have the financial responsibility for children, whereas pensioners children, in the vast majority of cases, will long since have reached the point when they can fend for themselves. Even if pensioners are in a household who expects to have a car, pensioner couples would seldom need two whereas, again, a working couple might, of necessity, require two and be incurring the other travel to work  costs that that very work implies.

Then there are the other benefits. The free bus pass is perhaps the most glaring example but there are numerous other discounts or reduced prices for which the sole qualifying criteria is being a pensioner. Or at least a pensioner prepared to pay a modest joining fee.  Sometimes a  pensioner being defined as having reached the grand old age of 60. Just one example, the annual cost for an adult (admittedly under 65) of non pension age to use the indoor leisure facilities of  North Lanarkshire Council is £374. For someone over 65 it is £50. Now, the full increased minimum wage brings you an income of £17,290 gross. Many pensioners have a higher income than that but even if it is only the same amount they would still have more in their hand because, in another pensioners' perk, while they do pay income tax they do not require to pay National Insurance contributions.

It is that last point which has also prompted this blog. Working people are facing a squeeze on their income through inflation and increased energy prices unprecedented in forty years. But in the very middle of this the Government is proposing to increase National Insurance Contributions. Paid for the purpose of initially providing additional resources for the NHS and subsequently to improve care services. This will cost pensioners not a penny, yet the principal beneficiaries of care services (and, whisper it, in numbers at least, of the NHS) are pensioners! 

Now this is not to argue all pensioners are well off. Far from it. Those surviving on the basic state pension and pension credits are significantly worse off than anybody in full time employment, even allowing for the non existence of housing costs for the former group. But my argument is not that these people should have less, it is that taxation should be based on income, no matter what age is its recipient..

It is difficult to see the reasons against this conclision, on right or left, beyond politics. Pensioners vote in hugely disproportionate numbers so all Parties are apprehensive about incurring their "wrath". Just look at the row over abolishing free TV licenses for the over 75s. But in my view, this move towards greater equity, would not be nearly as toxic for a Tory Government as they fear, not least because it is difficult to see any Labour Government reversing it or even offering to reverse it. But perhaps we could make that offer to the Chancellor now and see how we get on. 

And while we are at it, make him a wider offer on social care costs. It has been obvious for decades that the solution to the cost of social care is a modest flat rate but uncapped Inheritance Tax. When we proposed this in 2010 however the Tories attacked it as a "Death Tax" while, when they did in 2017, our characterisation was a "Dementia Tax".. This will only ever be resolved by a cross party consensus, so let's offer a Royal Commission with a commitment to join the Government in implementing its recommendations. That's in our interests too, for otherwise it will only become a problem that we, one day, in a different way, will inherit. 

I'd happily sit on such a body. I am not without experience in the area and, being semi retired, have some time on my hands.

P.S. The film we saw was "House of Gucci". It was excellent. Oh, and during the trailers there was an advert as to how pensioners might get half price cinema tickets.

The Tyranny of Cranks

 Happy New Year.

I want to start this blog with a minor example of my wider argument. Although it is a minor example it is one to which I will return. It is about the television biography of Walter Smith which was shown on the BBC a few days back. .

Walter Smith was one of an increasingly small number of working class Scots who successfully managed major football clubs at the highest level. Busby, Shankly, Stein, the too easily forgotten George Graham, and, of course, Sir Alex. We will not see their likes again. Smith died on the 26th of October last year and it was an entirely appropriate thing for his life to be celebrated at the New Year.

But the New Year is, in truth, two days. Hogmanay and Ne'erday. And his biography wasn't shown on either day but rather on 30th December, despite there being a very obvious slot, nine to ten PM on the 31st, when when we were treated instead to an ersatz Masterchef episode. 

Now why would that be? Because Smith was overwhelmingly associated with one football club, Rangers, and marking his life in such a prime time slot would have have been loudly protested by a fringe element of their rivals, Celtic. I emphasise the fringe element, but they would have been very loud in their protests that this was an "outrageous" insult to a different tradition (for in truth Rangers and Celtic are "more than football clubs). In this they would not have spoken for anything like the majority of "Celtic minded" people but they would have claimed to do so. And there would have been a confected social media row. And the opposite tradition would have weighed in, equally vociferously. So somebody at the BBC decide they would head this off by showing the film in a less "controversial" spot. That they would submit to the tyranny of cranks. 

And what else have I seen over the holiday? Well I saw the Harry Potter reunion film. It's very good and, towards the end, very moving. But if ever there was Hamlet without the Prince, this was it. For J,K. Rowling did not appear except briefly in some archive footing. We had the contemporary recollections of almost all the (surviving) major character actors, of the films' directors and producers and of course of Harry, Hermione and Ron. They have real world names which I can probably, with a bit of effort, recall. But they are not famous for their real names..Wwhat we didn't have was the woman who thought the whole thing up. Who made the former groups very rich and the latter group very famous (and rich as well into the bargain). 

Why? Because Rowling had expressed a view on the gender recognition debate with which a small,  though this time cubed in their intensity, number of people object. . A view that while people can live their lives how they want, that can't be on the basis of a small group of people, 50% of whom are, as part of their own argument., mentally ill, asserting their "rights" at the expense of a much larger group of people, indeed a majority of people. Women.

Now this is where I want to expand briefly on what I mean is the tyranny of cranks. No matter what you think of the trans lobby, it expresses its view strongly and repeatedly, whereas most other people have other priorities. So the temptation is not to bother engaging with fanatics, leaving that to others. Particularly if it is unlikely to affect you personally. Men in day to day women's spaces, such as toilets and changing rooms, does not affect men at all, other than a small number of perverts who might see an opportunity. When it comes to refuges and prisons, thankfully, though the former are undoubtedly essential, relatively few women will ever need use of them, while the latter will only ever accommodate a small, small minority. When it comes to the idea that, one day, we might see people born male contesting women's sports and, by reason of physiological advantage, winning women's events and breaking women's records? We'd cross that bridge when we come to it. Even if by that time they were on the other side. So why bother with engaging in an argument that will only bring you abuse "Somebody else will fight this battle". So, in that spirit, why not just quietly sideline Rowling rather than stir up a lunatic fringe who will traduce you, and worse, for supposedly being her ally. All power to those who have not been prepared to go along with that in the year past and more power to their elbows in the year ahead.

Which leads me to my third example. Compulsory Covid vaccination of NHS and care staff. Now, I am in favour of that. So is the UK Government and the Labour Party. 

But, before Christmas, there was a vote on this in the House of Commons and a significant number of Labour MPs voted against. Why? Because Unite the Union was against. and Unite the Union remains an organisation to which a small but significant group of Corbynista MPs owe loyalty before that  which they owe to the Labour Party.

But why was that the policy of Unite the Union? 

Unite is not the major TU player in the NHS. That is Unison, who have a more nuanced position.. But presumably the other members of Unite hold views similar to those of the general public who are overwhelmingly in favour of compulsory vaccination of everybody, never mind just NHS staff. Insofar as I can decern from googling, Cuba, a country from which Unite seek example, if it hasn't yet got to compulsory vaccination, is certainly close to that. You can understand, if not agree, to opposition on the libertarian right but why, on the communitarian left, would you see such opposition? Because they had surrendered to the tyranny of cranks. Those activist members who had quietly, indeed enthusiastically, been vaccinated, had no appetite to debate anti vaxxers who gained their information from dubious sources on the internet, maintaining, in the face of all objective evidence, that, at best,  vaccination would  do them no good and, at worst, that it might do them actual harm. And the latter, pro vaccination,  group also assumed that whatever the views of Unite the Union compulsory vaccination of NHS staff would become Government policy anyway. In which view they were thankfully correct. But in the meantime they had nonetheless surrendered to the tyranny of cranks.

And that brings me to my final example. Insofar as it impinges immediately on everyday life, the most important.

Domestic gas prices are imminently going through the roof. Choosing about heating or eating is not an empty slogan, it will be a reality not just for poor people but even for not so poor people over the next six months. Because we import the vast majority of our gas and the wholesale cost of that imported gas has, for various reasons, gone through the roof. 

Yet all of this is completely unnecessary. Domestic gas prices here are FIFTEEN times more expensive here than in the USA. Why? Because they frack and we don't. Because, on that matter, we have once again surrendered to the tyranny of cranks. 

I have literally no idea why. Those who initially opposed fracking here were a combination of anti-science loons and nimbyers. But they realised these were not winning arguments. So they settled on three. That fracking might compromise the water table, that it might cause earthquakes and that it would encourage us to rely more on fossil fuels. That was maybe fifteen years ago. Since which time, in the USA, admittedly with others in office but mainly under two Democratic, environmentally conscious Presidents, the Americans have conducted the largest of control experiments. Has anything come of these concerns? Is the water table compromised? Have there been earthquakes? Are they more reliant on fossil fuels? No.to all three. 

So what is the argument now? That we shouldn't be using fossil fuels at all or, at least, to discourage that, only at huge expense. Easy to assert if you are a middle class tosser who can quietly pay whatever required.  Not so attractive if you a low paid single parent trying to keep your kids warm in the depths of Winter. And anyway, we can't stop using fossil fuels immediately. It is wholly impractical. We can start, indeed have started, down that route and that is entirely a good thing but why not use domestically available fuel in the interim? It would be much cheaper and would create jobs here. If ever there was a tyranny of cranks, this is it.

But I want to finish where I started: Walter Smith. In many ways his biography was a standard football one, "He memorably won this and nearly won that." But there was one very clear exception. He carried the coffin at Tommy Burns funeral. For those few of you who do not follow football, Tommy Burns was a player at and then manager of Celtic. And a devout Catholic. Walter Smith could not have been more the opposite. But they worked together in the Scotland management team and became personal friends. Burns died tragically young and on his death his widow asked if Smith would help carry his coffin.in to the church.  Now this was a big thing in the west of Scotland. The manager of Rangers, as he then was, carrying a coffin in to a Catholic Chapel. And a lunatic fringe of the Rangers support would undoubtedly take issue with this, And not disguise their views, 

But Smith (and Ally McCoist beside him) did not hesitate. For they realised that for progress to be made, you needed to stand up to the tyranny of cranks.

Let that be for all of us our motto this new year,

 

Always read the small print.

 And so this is Christmas and what have we done?

Well. in the three working days between Christmas and New Year, I'll be in Court every day, A trial in theory on each of the 29th and 30th.. Although it is already agreed one will plead out and, since the other involves a boy charged with allegedly assaulling his mother, I have some scepticism if  the Crown witnesses will turn up. This is followed by a Police Bail undertaking on Hogmanay which has a taint of the Polis deciding that if they are working that day so will we.be. 

But to be honest I'll be quite pleased to get out the house as there are only so many old films you can watch or chocolates you can eat without becomimg bored, or at least a bit nauseous. I have actually already reached that point. At some point I might even reach that point with wine drinking.

So, with a day before I have some proper work to do, I have decided by way of diversion. to write a blog.

I'll start by referencing a blog post I wrote back in March 2018: Not what it appears On reflection, it would have benefited from a good edit, but in that I posited (for the first time anywhere I think) that the SNP' leadership's s next move might be to introduce a Referendum Bill, pass it through Holyrood and wait for it to be struck down in the Supreme Court. Nearly four years on that appears to be where they actually are, insisting to their rank and file zoomers that only the pandemic is stopping them getting on with that right away'

But when I wrote back in 2018 I had missed one vital point. I assumed a Reerendum Bill could be got running by means of a Minister signing a certificate of legislative competence in bad faith. (The Presiding Officer must also opine on this matter but the Parliament, by simple majority, can ignore that opinion), The point I was then unaware of however, was Section 3(4) of the Scottish Ministerial Code. It provides:

"A Bill must also be accompanied by a statement, which will have been cleared with the Law Officers, that the Bill is within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament."

[My emphasis]

Now. we have new Law Officers, Dorothy Bain as Lord Advocate and Ruth Charteris as Solicitor General. These positions, in a process started by Jack McConnell and continued by Alex Salmond, are no longer determined by the political affiliations of their occupants. That is an entirely welcome development. But it has consequence.

When Dorothy Bain was appointed the press were briefed that she believed that Holyrood could legislate for a referendum but the key was in the small print. For it was only on the basis that the referendum would be purely advisory. 

Now there is a body of academic legal  opinion that believes that to be true. It would be fair to say it is a minority view but it has reputable adherents. The point however is that the SNP is not proposing an advisory referendum. Why do we know this? Because in March 2021 they published the Bill they propose (supposedly) to introduce and the word "advisory" or any synonym does not feature.

But, in any event, what if the Lord Advocate says she believes, notwithstanding the text of the Bill it to be purely advisory and then competent, and even sustains that argument in the Supreme Court, what would holding this referendum achieve? Who is being advised? The SNP Government were more than advised in September 2014 but did they stop campaigning for independence? Of course they didn't. Indeed by the Summer of 2016 they were officially calling for the referendum to be re-run and have done so continuously since. If there was engagement from the electorate to the extent, again, that Scotland says No, would they take that advice? Of course they wouldn't. That would involve them resigning office and winding up the SNP.

So why would the other side engage? There would be literally no point. And, as I have pointed out before, if the other side don't engage, what are the chances of the nationalists getting even the 1.6 million votes they got in 2014. In this, entirely hypothetical, advisory referendum, what would be learned from the "advice" that fewer people had voted for independence then  than had done so in September 2014?

This is not happening. It's illusion of happening, to be fair, serves the purpose of getting Sturgeon through SNP Conferences. But that is its sole function.

Merry Christmas. War is over.

P.S. You'll be astonished to learn that, as I typed this, my client tomorrow has been in touch to advise his mother can't come to court tomorrow to give evidence against him as she has had a positive Covid LFT. He's even sent me a copy of her test result. Or at least of somebody's test result.

Two unanswered questions

We are having the second SNP Conference in three months. Oddly, given that all the other parties have now defaulted to in person conferences, the SNP have kept their event online. No real surprise however because anybody who has ever seen a live SNP Conference will be aware that they are dominated, whatever the nominal subject of debate, by speeches about "William Wallace", grievance of supposed English perfidy, regular departure from even a semblance of reality and, above all "Traitorrrs" (sic) who have the audacity not to support the SNP. Speeches delivered by people who are at best politically unattractive and at worst actively frightening.

Now these people hold identical views to the SNP leadership, you don't get to be in the leadership of the SNP without first have been immersed in its grass roots without demur,, but the leadership has worked out that they owe their current positions from giving these views as little visibility as possible and a virtual conference delivers that perfectly. Only the on message ever get on screen and certainly none who believe Nicola Sturgeon herself is  fast becoming one of the traitorrrs. 

But you'll not be able to hold virtual conferences forever and these angries are getting steadily angrier at the lack of progress towards "Freeedum". Sturgeon has handled this situation as well as possible (I've never been one who underestimates her abilities as a politician) by promising them a second referendum is just around the corner at every conference since 2016 but at a certain point no group can be that gullible forever. At some point it will be the Autumn of 2023 (actually that point will be the  Autumn of 2023) at which time it will be clear there is not going to be a Referendum in 2023 and even Sturgeon will then struggle to deliver the message that there will definitely be one in 2024. Or indeed any time in the forseeable future. 

So, the first ananswered question is what happens then? 

It is not a question with an easy answer. It might be that the SNP continues to hold office as a Party that nominally believes in independence in a way that much of the Church of England continues to function as an institution that nominally believes in God. It would certainly lose members but if it could show a basic competence in delivery of public services (Big if but the subject of another blog) it might yet remain in possession of the trappings of power in Scotland based on the impossibilty of the opposition parties co-operating. Or at a certain other point, while the angries would still be angry, the electorate might just decide to move on. Or, Sturgeon might depart and, in a more presential system than we care to concede, the electorate will look for who is available as a credible alternative First Minister. It is genuinely difficult to pick such a person from within the current SNP Holyrood group and with the greatest of respect to Douglas Ross, he is no Ruth Davidson. However, in an exact reverse comparison, Anas Sarwar is no Richard Leonard and Scotland as a whole has not been a Tory nation for a very long time. Let's await events. Or, in the case of another referendum, non events.

But that leads me to my other unanswered question. What happens in Scotland if it looks like Labour might win a UK General Election?  Or, more accurately, what happens if it looks like the Tories might lose a UK General Election? 

There have been lots of things going on in the background of purely Scottish politics since 2014. Brexit, certainly but also the car crash that was Labour's internal politics under Corbyn leading to many to conclude that a UK Labour Government was an impossibilty. Never mind that the current Prime Minister is easily the worst qualified for that office then any incumbent during my lifetime. But before all that there was the Tsunami election of 2015 where, let's be frank, there was little anticipation of a Labour Government and, that aside, in my view unfairly, little enthusiasm for Ed Miliband as Prime Minister. 

That might be changing. Were it not for our loss of our traditional fiefdom in Scotland (nobody's fault but ours so that's not a complaint/excuse) Labour would now be comfortably ahead of the Tories in the UK polls. We are not that however and certainly nowhere where we were under John Smith or Tony Blair. 

But let's assume by the time of the next UK Election the polls are pretty much where they are now. Labour ahead of the Tories but not so much to as to gain an absolute majority if we have 40+ hostile SNP MPs from Scotland. 

What happens then? The SNP's opening gambit will be that they would not support any Government that wouldn't give them a second referendum. But we'd just call their bluff. "We will not sanction a second referendum so voting SNP might occassion a second election where the Tories might win." Good luck to them at the ballot box if they sustain their bottom line until polling day and better luck to them still if they maintain that until that second election. 

That's not however my second unanswered question. 

That is, if the conclusion of the SNP is that, inevitably, before or after polling day, they'd have to support a Labour Government without the offer of a second referendum or face electoral oblivion, what will that mean for the internal politics of the SNP? Then we'd really find out if the the modern SNP is truly a social democratic Party that happens to believe in independence or one which, if they are not continuously engaged in a battle for independence, regards the game as not worth a candle.

I finish with the old Chinese proverb Ted Heath quoted on the day Thatcher resigned. "If you wait by the  river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by."

. 

About a telephone call

 In the course of today I had cause to speak to Brian Monteith on the phone. Terrible Tory Bastard that he is, he is also a good pal. Actually he is no longer a terrible Tory Bastard for he has defected to UKIP. Not sure that's an improvement. 

Anyway, he initially phoned me for my thoughts on a piece regarding the internal workings of the legal establishment which had been submitted for the Think Scotland website, which Brian runs, and I was happy to share my opinion on its strong and not so strong points.

But as you do in such occasions our conversation thereafter went on to wider issues and to the parallels between the early eighties, when we first became acquainted, and today.

Throughout my lifetime, the Scottish Tories have always been more on the liberal wing of their Party. As I moved on from student to "real" politics their dominant figures: George Younger; Malcolm Rifkind: Ian Lang and indeed my old boss Ross Harper were happy to metaphorically shake their heads at the wider excesses of Thatcherism without openly breaking ranks. Brian however was, actually still is, a true devotee of the Iron Lady and his Secretary of State of choice undoubtedly Michael Forsyth.

But on one matter the whole of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party from 1979 to 1997 were united upon. That there was not to be a Scottish Assembly, let alone a Scottish Parliament. 

Brian was one of the strongesr proponents of that view. 

But I was on the exact opposite side of the argument. Furious at the failure in 1979 and even more furious of the Tory strategy in that'year's referendum; that people should vote No in the hope of something better, only then to announce, in government, that something better was actually nothing at all. 

I was thus "determined" that there had to be a parliament. So, personally and with others, I did many of the things that the Nats are doing today. I advocated cross Party and non-Party working, I supported the formation of the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly (later the Campaign for a Scottish Parliament), I was instrumental in the formation of Scottish Labour Action after the 1987 General Election and in the campaign thereafter for Labour to enter the Constitutional Convention. I nodded enthusiastically when (as it later turned out loose) Canon Kenyon Wright declaimed that even if the UK Government said "We are the Establishment and we say No" , we would respond "We are the people and we say Yes". I argued that Scottish Labour should disrupt, possibly selectively boycott, Westminster to force home our point. I even went on a number of marches. The Labour leadership:: big Donald, wee George and briefly inbetween Tom Clarke, made tub thumping speeches to the Scottish Labour Party Conference about "democratic outrages" and I cheered them to the echo. 

Now all of this did have its achievements. At the 1987 General Election, the Tories lost half their, previously significant number of, seats in Scotland, The Consitutional Convention did agree on a much more attractive devolution scheme than that on offer in 1979 but most of all it succeeded in making a Scottish Parliament the "settled will" of the Scottish people. It had not just a marginal majority across Scottish public life but the support of almost all civil society, excepting perhaps big business. Every significant church, every Trade Union, almost all local authorities, every major third sector organisation, every Political Party* except the Tories, and even then, within their ranks, the support of more than a few dissidents. Most importantly of all it had the consistent support of an overwhelming majority of Scottish public opinion as demonstrated by the 74% Yes vote in the eventual referendum.

But did any of this actually achieve a Scottish Parliament? The answer is no, A Scottish Parliament was only eventually established as a result of the election of UK Government who, subject to an affirmative referendum, promised to establish one.

Now this is exactly the position the Nats are in today. You will have a distinct sense of deja vu about their suggested ways "forward", even up to the proposal for a new Constitutional Convention. But they also  do not have two things we then had. They do not have that consensus. The occasional marginal 51/49 poll is nothing like 74%,  never mind that 51/49 only ever being occasional in to the bargain.  And they do not have the deus ex machina that was the New Labour landslide. Or ever will have. The Tories will always say no. And the Tories will always be in Government unless Scotland returns to voting Labour. And if Scotland returns to voting Labour there is not going to be an Independence Referendum either. Because QED the electorate wouldn't have voted for one. 

I've been saying for ages that this was effectively over on 19th September 2014, reiterated in spades on 12th December 2019. Indeed, I've said before that I stopped blogging for fear that the thought it was worth blogging about at all helped fuel the fiction that the issue was not resolved. 

I say to my Nat readers however this: Organise; discuss; conference; disrupt; march; cheer.  Do what you like. I don't mind.  It won't make any difference. I've been there, I've got the T-Shirt. 

Meanwhile Brian and I will be having a pint in Edinburgh next month. He will not succeed in persuading me of the merits of Brexit and I will not succeed in persuading him that devolution remains a project worth persevering with, But we will part on good terms, both getting on with our lives thereafter. Time others got on with theirs. 

* A pedant will no doubt observe that pre 97 the SNP were nominally opposed to a "mere" devolved institution but that was a ludicrous position not understood by most of those voting for them and abandoned virtually overnight after the 1997 General Election.

September

 I am writing from Italy. From Passignano on the shore of Lake Trasimeno to be precise. It is brilliant here in early September. The absolutely searing heat of the high Summer is gone but in daylight it is still far warmer than in Scotland just about ever. In the evenings it is a bit cooler but all the better for that for it helps you sleep and discourages at least some of the mosquitoes.

THe only slight downer is a slightly elegaic atmosphere. A month ago the place would have been buzzing but now you don't need to worry about booking a retaurant or wait for the opportunity if you want to have a proper swim in the comunal pool. Summer is over already for the Italians. It aleays is on the 31st of Augusr but it is increasingly also over for the middle aged foreigners, such as ourselves, who flock here as well. To match the mood I am writing this to the strains of Bruckner's 7th Symphony. If you know that work you will appreciate its resonance. 

So, anyway, what has any of this got to do with politics, for it is that about which I normally write? 

Well, sometimes you just have to accept things are over. Like Summer. And like Independence referendums. 

One of the big things that has changed in the more than thirty years I have been coming to Italy is that you can still keep in touch with events at home. No more trying to find a day old British broadsheet newspaper on a visit to a big city. The frst time big Donald was ill Maureen and I were away and indeed were back several weeks before a reference to "acting First Minister Jim Wallace" on Reporting Scotland alerted us to something having happened. Yesterday evening Andi and I listened to wee Emma winning on 5Live before going for dinner as easily as we could have done in our own front room.

So, by that improved communication,  I know about every twist and turn over the coalition and the Programme for Government. Including the ludicrous commitment to there being another referendum in 2023. Nobody, nobody believes this to be the remotest possibilty. Even as the words passed Nicola's lips she knew that herself. In 2011 Salmond committed himself to a referendum. For good or ill, David Cameron agreed to such a happening, subject to agreement on the detail. Even then it took three and a half years for the actual event. Now, no matter what you think of Boris, he is not going to agree this time. He has a manifesto commitment to not having a referendum (I know, I know but he has no reason to break this one) and he also has a majority of 80 in the only Parliament which matters on this one. 

So, there won't be a referendum by agreement. But there will also be no meaningful referendum without agreement. It is common territory that a binding referendum would require the consent of Westminster. Don't ask me, ask Alex Salmond. He didn't go to all that trouble to get his s.30 agreement (important word here "agreement") if he thought it unneccesary. But the Nats think they might have a way around that. They are not proposing a binding referendum, just an "advisory" one. Indeed, that appears the only basis that Dorothy Bain, The Lord Advocate, was prepared to take the gig. Since she has to sign off on the legal competencd of this exercise. Now, I have considerable doubr about that competence  but put that aside. WE HAVE HAD A REFERENDUM where 1.6 million people voted for independence. It was just unfortunate, from a nationalist perspective,  that far more voted against. Yet that is an incontestible fact. 

So what is the point of an advisory referendum? We wouldnt play so the Nats only objective would be to get more votes than they got in 2014, But 2014 was an exceptional event, with blanket media coverage and an 85% turnout. To think you could still get 1.6 Million votes in an advisory vote, never mind the 2.1 Million of the winning side in 2014 is a "bold" assumption. And to go through the exercise knowing it might leave you having scored the most spectacular of own goals by getting fewer vtes than 2014 assumes a degree of stupidity on tthe part of Sturgeon and her inner circle which even I think would be undeserved.

So there is not going to be a second "advisory" or any other sort of referendum ever but, even if there was proposed to be one, given even Nicola does not, even nominally, propose legislation before the Autumn of 2022, given Parliamentary process,  the inevitable legal challenges that would follow and the almost certainty of a UK General Electiion in that year, it could not conceivably happen within that timing. And yet that gets reported without that absurdity being pointed out in the press. I've  written before as to why that latter omission might be the case. 

All this will, nonetheless, be sufficient to get the FM through the imminent SNP Conference but that says nothing except as to the gullibilty of her audience and, less admirably,as to her willingness to surf on that gullibility.Yet she undertands  a more honest approach woukd only lead to her being booed off the stage and invited to fuck off back to England. She knows her audience. They have put her where she is. So she has to play to it. Or more precisely play with it. 

To return to my opening mtaphor, there is nothing weong with promising that Summer will come again, But it is dishonest at the least to suggest it is going to be in November or even February. For you risk simply bouncing off the ice on the swimming pool, breaking a few bones and then freezing to death. And, believe me, Sturgeon has no intention of doing that

September

I haven't blogged for ages. For nearly two months in fact. That was partly because I appreciated that even blogging about why there was not going to be a second independence referendum sort of fed the narrative that there might. 

But slowly others are also pointing that out, most immediately Euan McColm in today's Sunday Times. So long as Westminster says no it will not happen and so long as a majority, or even a narrow minority, of Scottish residents agree with that veto then that's that.

SNP Conferences might eventually lose patience with Nicola over this but that would only be a cause of rejoicing on our side. Her opponents have no better idea of the way forward (or more correctly backward) than she has. Even the Albanians demand "something must be done" without being able to say what that "something" might be. to many pre  existing conditions. It is terrible for those affected but how many are they in truth?

Two weeks ago, Andi and I went to Bristol and then Bath for a long weekend. As I waited in a pub to come up the roasd, Andi having taken herself off to see the Bath Costume Museum, an expedition on which I passed, I got a text message that "Track and Trace" had determined I needed to isolsate fot ten days as I had been in contact with someone who had tested postive, I interpreted the contradictory messages that I should "go home immediately" and "avoid public transport" in favour of not walking from Bath to Scotland but instead on getting home. But on getting home I felt required to follow the rules. These rules might be absurd but I had no desire to be potentially making that poinr before the Scottish Solicitirs Discipline Tribunal.

Except my being stuck in the house had knock on effects for other people. On the Monday I had a deferred sentence for a guy who, having done the crime, might well ultimately have to do the time. Hell mend him, you might say, but he was surely entitled to know. He won't now until August. On the Wednesday a trial for a guy who, eighteen months after he left his ex, found himself  facing an allegation he had assaulted their child while they were still together. An allegation not even made until he acquired a new girlfriend but proved sufficient for him only allowed to see that child under social work supervision. Again, if it is true, Hell mend him. But whether it is or not, nobody will now know until September. And in another case, it could be "covered" by somebody else.  Normally fine but occasionally not with adverse consequence for the client. 

And during all this, there was literally nothing wrong with me! I have had Coronavirus, I'd had had my two jags, I'd even had  my required negative test. But I still couldnt go to my work! 

Now, I'd also make this point. If these cases I refer to had concluded I would also have got paid. .That is how the Legal Aid Scheme works. You get paid when it is finished. To be fair, the Scottish Government has made exeptiotions to that when Coronavirus has affected the accused or the witnesses but not the lawyer. And on any view I am not starvung as a result. 

But  still, let's assume I was a tradesman, expecting  a cheque on finishing a  job and then booked out well  beyond the  week ahead?  I'm not getting my money and the client is not getting their new kitchen because.....?  Or a restarant owner required  to shut down because the boy employed to wash dishes on a Saturday night has  tested positive but interacted in the process with pretty much everybody else? 

This is getting beyond absurd, 

But it is driven by a public sector agenda. Nothing can ever be safe enough for those who get paid in full nonetheless