Will Scotland Really Want to Bear the Cost of Independence?

Personally I have no idea at all if the complex economics of the situation mean that Scotland will be better off as part of the UK, or as an independent nation. To me it seems that it largely depends on the outcome of the negotiations that would follow a Yes result. Yet, this seems to be a crucial point that has largely been missed in this referendum campaign.

The Scottish referendum is not technically a referendum with a Yes result that automatically confers independence on Scotland. It is actually simply a referendum which, with a Yes result, would give the Scottish Parliament the authority to open negotiations for independence.

Sitting down at the negotiating table, Alex Salmond will quite obviously be attempting to negotiate the best deal he can for Scotland. He will want to minimise the debt burden that the Scottish government want to take on, he will want a special deal to use the British Pound and he will want to pay as little as possible towards the relocation of UK assets to England/Scotland as required.

The Anglo/Welsh/Northern Irish Government conversely will be looking to get the best deal for the remaining nations of the old United Kingdom.

Perhaps negotiations will be concluded quickly and easily and a deal will be done.

But perhaps not. Perhaps instead there will be a stand-off with the Scottish demanding a low debt and low exit price and the EWNI (England, Wales, NI) Government demanding a considerably higher one. It seems very likely that this will happen.

What happens then?

I would imagine the Scots cry foul and launch a campaign to get the support of majority of Scottish to the idea that the nasty EWNI Government are trying to rip them off.

Simultaneously the EWNI will launch a campaign to convince it’s own nationals and the Scottish that the Scots, after hundreds or years of subsidy, are trying to renege on their responsibilities. There is a general idea around that the Scots are very stingy with cash – so it will play to existing prejudices and easily garner huge support.

If things get really out of hand we could have social unrest and even the rise of Terrorism – a new ISA (Independent Scottish Army).

But perhaps it will not come to this:

It seems strange, and a very poor negotiating stance, that Alex Salmond recently threatened not to pay Scotland’s share of the national debt when independent.

Surely this threat just means that a Scottish Government will not be given independence without having paid off it’s debt first? And how will this fledgling nation borrow the huge sums of cash involved? Who will lend to this self confessed debt reneging government with their strange new Scottish currency?

Perhaps the markets will, but at very much higher rates than are currently being ‘enjoyed’ on the UK national debt.

So how will the prospect of Scottish Independence then look economically if a huge proportion of it’s tax take is going to go on debt interest repayments and restructuring costs and they have lost the UK Barnett Formula subsidy from the UK that they currently do enjoy?

Will the gusto and bluster of the Independence supporters stutter to a halt as the realisation dawns that the future looks horribly bleak. A high tax, low spend, low inward investment economy with the majority of it’s public sector jobs gone south – literally.

Perhaps the Scottish people will demand another referendum before the Scottish government takes them to independence because suddenly the deal doesn’t look so great and the future isn’t bright. It’s cold, wet, miserable, lonely and poor.

It’s interesting that Cameron’s promised ‘if I am the boss’ EU referendum in 2017 is to be proceeded by a negotiation so we know exactly what the EU deal (if there is one on offer) is. Seems like quite a good idea really doesn’t it.

Of course leaving the EU will be much easier for us than for Scotland to leave the UK – the EU doesn’t raise our taxes or control our currency.

All in all, it’s less Braveheart. More broken hearts. Scottish ones.

England’s World Cup Failure is Fault of the Working Class

Ok. I hope that got your attention. If you are a staunch Labour voter it’s precisely the sort of outrageous slur and pile of old steaming horseshit you expect from a dirty filthy Tory boy.

I shall now explain why you are wrong you flat cap wearing low-life scumbag.

But before I go into this I should just explain one thing. I know absolutely nothing about football whatsoever. I didn’t play it at school apart from on the odd occasion in the playground and I rarely ever watch a game other than during a World Cup.

But, that in essence is what I think qualifies me to be able to see the cause of the problem so clearly because, I believe, a big part of the problem is that everyone involved in football has almost always been involved in football and therefore is simply incapable of seeing where it’s going wrong. They are too conditioned, too used to seeing things from one perspective and too concentrated on the detail to see the big picture.

The problem with English football is that it is a game for the uneducated lower classes. And I don’t think I am, in fact, committing some kind of class slur by saying so – I am simply stating facts.

I remember a kid at school getting picked out as a talented footballer and then in the last year of school seeing him waiting for the bus every morning as he went off to Aldershot Football Club. I remember hearing that the money was terrible and that he spent most of his time cleaning the senior player’s boots – but that was apparently the way it worked. He was serving a servile apprenticeship that required no intelligence - in fact it demanded limited intelligence to be endurable.

And that I gather is the way that everyone gets into football. They get spotted as a talented kid, encouraged to spend as little time in the classroom as possible and as much time on the pitch as they can and then get fed into the football club machine until they are either cruely spat-out and rejected or until they ultimately make it to the big-time and start earning a decent living playing the game.

I guess there must be some smart academic kids in England who show some early talent for the game but no doubt even if they do manage to combine study with lots of time playing football their most likely well-educated parents wouldn’t dream of sending them off to do 5 years boot cleaning at a football club and give up on any reasonable level of education.

So the result of all that is that the lucky few who do make it to become players, then eventually retire and become pundits or presenters (Lineker etc) or get into management and coaching and then eventually one or two such as Venables, Hoddle or now Grandpappy Hodgson get to coach/manage the National side.

It should therefore be no surprise that the sort of analysis that comes from the TV studios only has any real insight or depth of analysis when it comes from the increasing number of foreign luminaries who are drafted into to displace the mindless drivel of our home-grown football monkeys droning on about a game of two halves, ‘it needs more vision and more communication on the pitch’ sort of nonsense.

And equally it should be no surprise that England has for so long failed to deliver any kind of promising performance on the pitch – because the same type of people with the same lack of analytical nouse migrate from the pitch to management.

I remember a story a few years back when it emerged that a particular Chelsea player, whose name I frustrating can’t remember, was derided by his fellow players because he read a broadsheet newspaper. Apparently he was an outcast because he was thought to be wasting his time exercising his mind instead of his legs.

It’s not that I am suggesting that England players should all have first class degrees, be capable of reciting great tracts of Shakespeare or harbour ambitions to get into brain surgery after their playing careers finish.

But I am suggesting that if we largely deliver poorly educated, generally lower working-class kids into the system who then have their entire lives run by football clubs staffed by people with a similar background then it should be no surprise if when the select few do eventually reach the top of the pile that they do lack the vision, analytical skills and insight that are required to build and hone a successful National team.

When Sir Clive Woodward finished up as England Rugby Coach having won the 2003 World Cup he turned his attention to football. In one newspaper interview he claimed that he never really liked Rugby and had always preferred football. He said one of his mates was someone senior at Southampton Football Club and he was going to get into coaching or managing football clubs through that route.

I think he probably could have made a big impact by applying some of the world beating continuous performance improvement techniques that he applied to English Rugby that so spectacularly turned us into World Cup Winners and World Cup finalists four years later.

But equally, I am not at all surprised that he is not part of the English Football setup. I just can’t imagine anyone having opened that door to him. To be involved in English football at any senior management level I imagine you wouldn’t get a look in unless you were one of those who had trodden the same path as all the others – i.e. been a football apprentice done good.

So lets stop all this nonsense about Roy Hodgson being a lovely old bloke – give him a break – look forward to the Euros in 2 years time-crap!

Bollocks. Hodgson may be a nice bloke but barring at least a five goal margin in England’s favour against Costa Rica on Tuesday he needs to be sacked along with his unshaven, miserable faced Captain – Gerard. England’s self-respect demands that at least. A public flogging (particularly for Gerard – it couldn’t make him look any more miserable) would be more appropriate.

And then the England setup needs to look deep into the abyss. Stop deluding themselves about ‘building a young team’ and ‘looking to the future’ and accept that the meaningful failures are not the on the pitch tactical failures. They are far more serious. They are systemic - so the system needs to change.

And that means breaking out of football being a working class game, run for working class people by working class people and all that old nonsense. Football gained a classless appeal for it’s audiences a long time ago but it’s still clearly run on that old failing basis.

Because while playing and managing English football remains the unintentional preserve of the working classes the world has moved on. The inverted snobbery of football simply cannot be sustained – the class divide must be smashed and the finest analytical minds from all areas of sporting experience and performance must be employed to dismantle the entire system and rebuild it as as a high performance machine that can deliver.

England Expects. Still.

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Another Epic Clegg Fail

Last night’s debate between Nigel and Farage and Nick Clegg was, in the early stages, quite a close run thing. But as Farage warmed up and Clegg failed to land any compelling arguments, lost his cool and lapsed into a patronizing approach, he started to fall further and further behind.

The YouGov poll just released says that 68% think Farage won with just 27% for Clegg.

But while everyone seems to be obsessed with who won, I was more interested in the substance of the debate that is finally being heard.

The central question on Europe is obviously - Are we better off in or out? The debate wasn’t exactly a forensic examination of this question but it did at least start to unravel some of the main issues.

On the issue of economics (i.e. would we be financially better off out) Clegg failed to make any compelling argument for the EU. Farage mentioned that the EU costs Britain £50million per day (£18billion a year) but Clegg seemed unable to justify any real cost benefits of membership.

He said that if Britain were out of the EU it would cost jobs but he entirely failed to justify why and instead resorted to pointing out that Britain would have to negotiate separate trade deals with other countries if it were outside the EU but again failed to justify why this would be a problem.

I was disappointed with Clegg. This was his opportunity to deliver real compelling Pro-EU arguments but he completely failed to do so. It really makes me wonder why he bothered to take part without having come armed with some solid arguments.

Until now, the advantage that Clegg and EU supporters in general have had was that in the absence of any real debate, many have been concerned that the prospect of leaving the EU involved a significant risk or peril – the uncertainty was an argument for the status-quo.

Yet having taken the opportunity to enter the debate, Clegg entirely failed to outline any significant risk or issue and so in failing to make this case he removed a degree of that uncertainty.

Instead Clegg made some fairly ridiculous claims. He tried to give the impression that the EU cost no more than Derbyshire County Council – ‘Some Superstate’ he sneered.

This is complete nonsense. Derbyshire County Council’s annual expenditure is around £1.1 billion. Britain alone pays £18 billion per year to the EU!

He also adopted a somewhat contradictory approach on defence. He claimed that, contrary to many reports, there are no plans for a European Army, Navy or Airforce, yet at the same time tried to claim we are safer in the EU. How exactly Nick?

Even on the subject of immigration, a subject on which even some of Farage’s most outspoken proponents disagree with him, Clegg again failed to make an argument. Instead he spent his time trying to suggest that Farage had claimed that 480million people would turn up in the UK as a result of EU free movement of people. It was a clearly ridiculous assertion.

On the subject of democratic accountability again Clegg failed to make an argument. He seemed to accept that the EU is not democratically accountable and ‘needs reform’.

All in all Clegg completely failed to champion a Pro-Eu argument. He simply used wishy-washy phrases about countries ‘working together’ and tried to paint the EU as being ‘the future’.

Farage effectively demolished that notion by pointing out that the EU in fact is an out-of-date protectionist block in a globalized and relatively free-trading world and Britain would be better of unshackled from it’s restraints.

Clegg came across as a blind bureaucrat incapable of envisaging an alternative to the EU yet also entirely incapable of making an argument for it.

You would think that, as polling has proved, the majority of the country are highly skeptical of the EU, or against continued membership, that Clegg or someone else would feel compelled to argue forcefully and convincingly for it’s merits.

But perhaps Clegg fundamentally believes that no British government will ever give the British people the opportunity to vote on membership of the EU. Perhaps he fails to make the argument not simply because of his own inadequacy but also because there is no situation that merits it. Perhaps he only entered the debate to try and revive his own flagging credibility.

If so it was, following the tuition fees fail and his stunning failure in the AV referendum (68% against), yet another Epic Fail.

Is Government Funding Killing the Arts?

This evening I attended the final of Woking's Annual Drama Festival. Over the last two weeks, amateur drama groups from as far afield as Bristol and Essex have competed to win one or more of 16 awards. The festival is apparently quite well known and highly regarded.

So I was surprised to find that on each of the three nights of the festival that I attended, the theatre (a modest 260 seater) wasn't even close to full. Even on the last night, tonight, when three of the best plays were recalled to be shown again, the theatre was only around half full.

Why?

The only reason I knew about the festival was that I am a member of a group who took part, but sadly weren't nominated for any of the awards. Otherwise I wouldn't have known about it. I have never heard of it before despite being a reasonably regular and local (30 years plus) theatre goer - surely indicating a major communication failure.

Following tonight's three performances, the adjudicator gave his assessment of the quality of performances he had seen throughout the two weeks of the festival.

'Was this year a vintage year for Woking Drama Festival?', he asked.

'Not Really', he said, 'Some of the groups didn't really bother to try very hard.'

It was a fairly damning indictment from someone who clearly knows his stuff.

He went on to implore the drama groups who attended the final night (not all bothered) to make use of the unusually high standard of facilities available at the theatre which has recently been gifted £300,000 by the local council for improvements.

And that £300k really got me thinking. The typical theatre goer is relatively wealthy. Why on earth should £300,000 pounds of local taxpayers money be lavished on a tiny, wealthy majority? And why is it?

An email I received earlier this week perhaps helps answer that question. It was imploring me, as someone who had bought a ticket for a previous festival night, to attend last Tuesday's festival night as the mayor was attending and given the £300k the council had spent they wanted to create the false impression that the festival was well attended and deceive the mayor into thinking that local taxpayers money had been wisely spent...

Isn't this madness?

What usually happens when you give people money for nothing? Are they incentivised to work hard and be creative?

Theatre is a unique and brilliant art form. But is government funding helping or ultimately hindering?

Does it help drive innovation and creativity when government hands out money to the arts?

Some would argue that without government money, the arts would die. But isn't it true that with government money the most creative people spend their time and energy competing for grants rather than working out how to attract audiences? - Isn't it therefore a downward spiral?

I suspect that the organisations at the top of the tree, who manage to garner national government funding and who should be telling the big story about the unique and compelling attractions of theatre are not doing as much of it as they would be, if they weren't being gifted taxpayers cash.

The UK's big-name football clubs are not subsidised yet they manage to inspire millions of people to play football at clubs around the country and further millions of others around the world. You will not find a city in the world without hundreds of Manchester United supporters..

So is government funding actually killing the arts by removing incentives and rewarding mediocrity which in turn creates a less compelling product for audiences?

If all direct and in-direct funding were suddenly withdrawn certainly some theatres would fail - the ones that produce a poorer quality product. But those that were left would succeed and perhaps out of the improved average quality, the result would be that more people would view theatre as something desirable to be involved with either as a member of an audience or as a participant.

And perhaps the major theatres and theatre production companies would do what major football clubs in this country have done and invest in creating sustainable mass audiences by effectively marketing the appeals of their product rather than making grant submissions. Not simply selling each production, but the very idea and appeal of going to the theatre.

And in turn perhaps thousands of people who attended and enjoyed this exciting well marketed medium of theatre would be tempted to join small drama and theatre groups and compete against each other in increasingly well attended, high quality festivals and competitions... thus driving standards and participation ever higher..

Does it seem like the perhaps counter-intuitive answer to the original question is yes?

Conservative Denial and Wishful Thinking

Denial and Wishful Thinking

I quite liked David Cameron's speech. As one of the media commentators noted 'he has realised he doesn't work as a man of the people so now he is just telling it like it is.' It was a good observation. He looked and sounded workmanlike. His messages appealed to his Conservative membership audience but also had the scope to appeal to a wider audience but without attempting to please everyone and therefore diluting appeal to all.

Unfortunately, you could say exactly the same about Ed Miliband. So whilst both leaders have pleased their own crowd, their core-vote, they are both left competing for the none of the above vote, both with reasonably compelling messages.

On the one hand, Dave is talking about dismantling some of the wilder excesses of the welfare state - requiring the unemployed to work for benefits and potentially withdrawing benefits from younger people who are not in training whilst out of work.

On the other, you have Ed embracing Socialism and constantly reminding everyone of his pedigree by lashing out repeatedly at the Daily Mail for picking on his deceased Father.

All in all, things are shaping up nicely for a long running and stimulating scrap as we head towards to the 2015 General Election.

But. Considering the electoral arithmetic - with the Conservatives requiring a larger share of the vote than Labour to win a majority, I simply cannot understand the degree of complacency that exists in the Conservative supporting media.

The general consensus seems to be that now that Ed has turned back to Socialism it is only a matter of time until the electorate comprehend the full horror and implications of his direction and reject him wholesale. And, furthermore, it is equally inevitable that those wayward Ukipers will see the light, decide that their vote for UKIP would usher in Ed and his nasty socialism and put aside all the abuse that they have suffered from the Conservative leadership and luminaries aside - and vote Conservative..

I am not so sure.

My reckoning is that for every UKIP vote that Dave can win back, Ed can win a Lib Dem vote to Labour on a similar basis - few think that a Lab/Lib Coalition is credible in 2015.

And equally, for every none of the above vote that can be persuaded of the evils of Miliband Socialism, there is another that can be persuaded that in a post crash world, Capitalism is discredited and the answer must be some kind of reconstructed Socialism.

Dave now needs to develop and demonstrate a ruthless, inspiring, competition crushing energy and conviction or yet again he will disappoint.

A Conservative majority at the next election is possible but only if Dave makes it happen - the kind of entitlement expectation that led him to lose the unlose-able 2010 General Election will end in complete disaster in 2015..

Conservative Conference Review

For the last few years, I have posted a detailed review of the Conservative Conference, rating each of the speakers that I have watched. This year I have decided not to do this, partly because I haven't had the time to watch each speech as carefully as in previous years.

Sadly, from what I have seen so far, this year's Conference looks like a slightly grey version of previous years Conferences. The set, rather than being a vibrant blue, is a slightly shaby grey looking dark blue and many of the speakers seem to lack the energy they had in previous years - I guess running the country in coalition must be taking it's toll.

Boris's speech, as usual has been a highlight, but even his speech has lacked the extent of humour and engaging style of previous years.

Many of the speakers are now tending towards a 'lecturing' style, something which I guess is a feature of a ministerial team who now, with over three years in government, know their business extremely well. But it does have a slightly patronising air to it and fails to persuade in a way that a more appealing delivery would.

But I suppose at least they look serious and workmanlike.

Michael Gove's speech was solid as usual. And, as usual, he preceded his own words by inviting some guests to speak about Education.



Let's hope this approach was intentionally low-key and they are planning a big, fresh, colourful, engaging and inspiring conference in 2014 before the 2015 General Election.

A Review of ‘Power Trip’ by Damian McBride

I have been off Politics for quite a while lately but I really couldn’t resist getting hold of a copy of this new revelatory book by Gordon Brown’s ex-personal spin-doctor and chief skullduggerer Damian McBride. To my surprise I was able to buy a copy on iTunes on Monday evening – before it was supposedly released on Tuesday to coincide with Ed Miliband’s big speech. I guess that shows how keen I was and the book didn’t disappoint.

McBride was famously responsible for the nasty habit of briefing against politicians in his own party (Labour) and for fabricating various unpleasant stories and placing them in the media to discredit Gordon Brown’s opponents and others. Ultimately, McBride’s dirty tricks ended in his sacking in 2009 when a series of incriminating emails from him were exposed.

Damian’s book is a real page-turner. He doesn’t waste time telling us about his childhood but barrels straight into the story building a very clear picture of exactly what it was like working behind-the-scenes first at the Treasury and then at No 10 for Gordon Brown.

In the days leading up to the launch of the book, in various media appearances on Newsnight and other places, Damian’s response to the question that everyone was asking, about Gordon Brown’s knowledge of what he was up to at the time was that Brown had not known about his ‘dirty tricks’.

In his book, McBride explains exactly how his method for ‘Lying Without Actually Lying’ worked.

If you read this book and watched any of those interviews there maybe moments during which you recollect what he said that you feel like involuntarily shouting the word ‘snap!’

As Damian said in various interviews, whilst using the patent-pending McBride ‘Lying without Actually Lying’ Method, Gordy probably didn’t know the specifics of all of Damian’s ‘dirty tricks’.

However, with the use of this book, a modicum of common-sense and just seven brain cells you too would have to conclude that Gordon understood exactly the approach that McBride was adopting on his behalf.

All in all, this simply confirms what many of us suspected about Brown’s approach to Politics and the book goes on to confirm other stories of Gordon Brown’s moodiness, bad tempers, repeated habit of blaming others for his own failings and general boorishness.

Yet despite recounting all this, Damian repeatedly says how much he admired Brown. In fact, in one interview with LBC’s Nick Ferrari he confessed to actually loving Gordy although I gather not in a fumbly, sexy way. I think it was more like Nelson and Hardy but with a different tragic ending.

And that very apparent contradiction leads me to a conclusion of what I think actually drove McBride to do the things he did. He didn’t do it because he, as he sometimes seems to suggest, actually really, at the root of things, admired Brown for his absolute greatness - he didn’t.

Instead he was initially in thrall to Brown’s position because of the desire to do a really good job for someone who he had only ever known as being very important.  He first met Gordon when he was Chancellor, wanted to do the best job possible and wasn’t limited by any of the sort of moral and ethical boundaries you might hope would exist. He then smothered his conscience by telling himself it was devotion to Gordon and his brilliance and thus the end justified the means – something he continually wrestled with until the end.

So for me the answer to the big, ‘neatly avoided without appearing to avoid’ (think I might patent that myself!) question of who was responsible for Damian’s approach and activities is simple – Gordon Brown and of course, as he admits, Damian himself.

Damian’s book is brilliantly written. I would strongly recommend it to anyone even slightly interested in Politics as a real insight into how things actually work.

There were two revelations that I found particularly intriguing:

When recounting the period of ‘The Election that Never Was’ when Gordy, despite riding high in the polls, failed to call an election in late 2007, Damian reveals that one of the headline policies for the planned General Election campaign was the scrapping of tuition fees.

As Ed Miliband and Ed Balls were Gordon’s closest political allies at the time, I wonder now if this will be one of their headline policy announcements in the run-up to the 2015 GE?

The other revelation was that Damian seems to suggest that out there, somewhere is some incriminating evidence that Ed Miliband was directly involved in some dirty tricks in the form of some emails.

Is someone keeping their powder dry until 2015?

Incidentally, there is a particular moment in his interview with Paxman on Newsnight on this Monday 23^rd (around 17.5 minutes in – available on iPlayer! here) when McBride is being asked by Paxman if he still ‘speaks’ to senior people in the Labour party.

Damian momentarily blanches until Paxman helpfully goes on to ask him when he last ‘saw’ Ed Balls - rather than pursuing the original question. Damian then describes his last physical meeting some time ago. He then asks him about Miliband and again McBride is able to answer that he hasn’t seem him for a long time.

My bet is that the answer to the original question, which Paxman mysteriously fumbled (perhaps he thinks McBride has something on him!), would have given a very different impression. But then I have read the book and have an insight into the McBride methods.

You should read it too.