Complaint to the BBC

A copy of my complaint to the BBC, regarding their slur on the Celtic Support during the Scottish Cup Final programme on 21st May 2011.

I would like to complain, in the strongest possible terms, about comments made by Rob McLean and Pat Nevin during half time in the Scottish Cup Final programme, pertaining to alleged "sectarian singing" by a section of the Celtic Support.

This allegation was baseless and unsubstantiated, yet was afforded a full discussion, effectively tainting the Celtic Support with unfounded accusations of sectarian behaviour. I would ask, under what authority Messrs McLean and Nevin commented on alleged singing, which they admit they didn't hear. McLean himself mentioned "reports from outside the ground". Is it BBC editorial policy to comment on and give credence to uncorroborated reports with no right of reply?

I also note that in response to previous complaints on alleged sectarian singing from the Rangers Support in the CIS Cup Final, made available to me, your department averred that  "...it is not and has never been custom and practice for our commentators to offer opinions on chants from the crowd. They are there to describe the game."

I would be grateful if you could point me in the direction of the editorial change to those guidelines - or clarify if they were in fact changed on a whim by a commentator. If the latter is true, I believe this calls the impartiality of said commentator into question.

I believe that the BBC, this season, are open to the allegation of having acted openly and clearly to an anti Celtic editorial line, devoid of any notion of neutrality. This allegation, given the above, was given further vindication during yesterday's programme.

As a licence fee payer and a Celtic Supporter, I would ask that Messrs McLean and Nevin apologise for clearly deviating from their remit as commentators and bringing your guidelines into disrepute. I would, further, request that a clear and unequivocal apology is offered to the Celtic Support for this groundless slur as a matter of urgency.

I look forward to your response.

A personal tribute to David Cairns, MP

I’ve debated whether or not to post a blog on the premature and tragic death of David Cairns, MP for Inverclyde. However, as a former constituent and someone who previously campaigned alongside him, I feel it may be therapeutic to get some thoughts on paper.

A lot has been said of David, and it is to his eternal and deserving credit that he has been universally recognised as a man of great intellect, humour and undoubted integrity. Many of us on Twitter have lost a man of great and cutting wit. I can say that, in what I knew of David, his twitter account was reflective of his personality and that has been corroborated by those who knew him most.

Moreover, the universal praise being bestowed on David is awe inspiring. The Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, his colleagues and friends from all parties have united in one to praise a good man, who was in politics for the right reasons.

All of these things, from the various times of having met him, I can testify to. However I would go one step further. David never took the voters for granted. He genuinely believed he had to work for every vote – however he did that, not just in campaigning at election time, but by being an MP that any constituent would be proud to have. He made it a point not only to say that he represented all of his constituents, regardless of how they voted, but consciously and assiduously did so!

David held the safe seat of Greenock and Inverclyde from 2001, with a majority consistently around the 13,000 mark – increasing to 14,000 in 2010. A personal endorsement of the man!

He will, to varying degrees, be missed by a great number of people. I am one of them.

Rest in Peace, David – the bhoy from Broomhill Court who became a Minister of State.

What next?

As polling day approaches, and with only the benefit of opinion polls at my disposal, I’d like to spend a bit of time following up on my previous blog in terms of the ‘primary’ discussion.

In my previous blog I suggested that the predominance of safe Labour First Past The Post (FPTP) seats in the Scottish Parliament has had a detrimental effect on the party’s ability to provide opportunities to new, up and coming politicians more attuned to the modern day campaign.

I rhetorically asked whether someone elected in 1999 could still, in 2011, after 12 years in a safe seat, offer the same intellectual input into modern political debate – particularly if that person has offered little more than a backbench position in a parliament of 129 MSPs.

That said, I’m a supporter of FPTP, although I do accept that it does – on occasion – offer the problem of creating safe seats. Needless to say that AV does not in any significant way solve this problem.

However, I believe that whilst any member of a party will strive to be selected for a safe seat and the parties themselves love having them, it can in ways offer a pyrrhic victory in terms of that party’s quest to remain relevant and in government.

This is best illustrated by the Scottish Parliament in which of 129 seats, 72 are  FPTP and the bulk of which (until tomorrow) are safely Labour.

Is Labour’s position strengthened by its reliance on the army of FPTP MSPs it can rely on? My contention is that, not only is the answer to that question no, it is in fact detrimental to the party and offers an almost insurmountable obstacle to identifying and nurturing new talent.

I'll mention no names, however it is likely that the same old faces, doing very little, will be elected on the basis of a labour rosette tomorrow evening, whilst some very talented people are rejected by the electorate. Is that any way for a party to progress?

If the opinion polls are correct and the SNP do in fact win, then that may be as a result of a system that allows the SNP to remain dynamic and to nurture talent, whilst the Labour Party stagnates with, by and large, the same faces since 1999.

Incidentally, I use the Scottish Labour Party as an immediate example, however the problem of safe seats offered the same problems to the Conservative pre-1997!  

Therefore, I contend that every party should consider a means of implementing some degree of ‘primary’ system throughout the Country. This will, in my opinion, be of benefit to parties with safe seats, if done properly.

Involving the electorate prior to the election itself could reinvigorate a system currently considered stale and party orientated. It isn’t right that only a small selection of people (a local party membership) can select someone for a safe seat. It leads to lobby fodder and generic candidates who know what to say and when to say it.

The Labour Party has particularly bitter experience in this regard and should embrace the primary idea. The Conservatives have done so with some reward!

I have consciously lived through two proper Labour Leadership elections. Blair and Ed Miliband. You’ll note a leader in between.  A leader responsible for a defeat similar to that suffered by Michael Foot in 1983 in terms of percentage share of the vote. The same leader who did all he possible could to avoid a leadership election when the then PM Tony Blair resigned.

Accountability is key! The days of preservation of political self interest, particularly for the labour party given the example just outlined, should be over! No person, regardless of their devotion or servitude to a party, should be guaranteed a place in parliament! That is the sole preserve of the electorate!

I, for one, am sick of a party system being used to engineer certain people of adequate sycophancy or servitude to a party message, being elected to seats for which they will rarely be held truly to account.

A primary system, open to an electorate outwith party membership, could be a truly revolutionary development in modern day UK politics. I believe this will serve two purposes;

Firstly, it will allow political parties a wider and more positive scope for selecting potential candidates.

Secondly, it will bring forward a new group of people who may not necessarily feel the need to conform to narrow party political prejudice or its leadership, but more to the concerns of the electorate at large - even the diverse electorate of the beneficiary party in any given safe seat!

There will be many people in this country who do not particularly like or associate with their MP/MSP but who will, through loyalty to a party (and fear of another party), vote for that person. Now if that’s the case in a single seat, what worth does that representative have to the Country and, overall, to the well being of his or her party?

Come tomorrow, I think the Scottish Labour Party may have a serious period of introspection on its hands and the aforementioned idea should be considered in the up and coming debate. That said, the problems outlined are not the sole preserve of the Scottish Labour Party and should be equally considered in the aftermath of the failed AV referendum.

Let's have a debate on the electoral system, but most importantly, let that debate take place outwith the flawed pretext that AV is the only reform in town.

The end is nigh...

Napoleon once said “...never interrupt your enemy when he’s in the middle of making a mistake” and I’m certain that this message was relayed to SNP campaign offices across the Country. In truth, Alex Salmond, the First Minister, has not had much to do in terms of gaining the initiative. He has looked measured, assured and confident throughout this campaign.

This is in stark contrast to the display of prospective First Minister Iain Gray whose campaign will be terminally associated with seeking refuge in a Subway store, in full view of the TV cameras. Perhaps the defining moment in an otherwise lacklustre campaign, together with poor performances in the TV debates. Tonight’s STV poll showing an SNP lead of 18% in the constituency vote will have a few Labour MSPs sweating this evening.

However, having cast a critical eye over the campaigns of all parties I’d make the following observations. In terms of credibility, both the SNP and the Scottish Conservatives come out (irrespective of the end result) with their reputations enhanced. The SNP have produced a solid, efficient and effective campaign and have managed to portray their message as one of hope, positivity and vision. Admittedly, they’ve not been held to a great deal of scrutiny, however it is now increasingly likely they will be rewarded with a second mandate to govern.

The Conservatives, ably led by the affable Annabel Goldie, have gained respect for their unapologetic message that certain policies in Scotland are unsustainable – most notably the issue of Higher Education funding. There is an admirable honesty in giving the electorate a message they may not want to hear. Whilst this is unlikely to be rewarded to any great extent this election, the Conservatives have at least re-positioned themselves as a credible political movement in Scotland.

Moving onto the Lib Dems – led by the amiable, relatively articulate, but somewhat ineffective Tavish Scott. Mr Scott’s message to the country has been that his Scottish Lib Dems are a different entity to the National Lib Dems and that he would safeguard certain policies, such as the now infamous pledge not to increase tuition fees. Unfortunately, this is a message likely to fall on deaf ears. Too long were the Liberal Democrats able to pontificate from the sidelines and make pledges on which they were never likely to be held to account. The Scottish Lib Dems are irrevocably associated with the toxic brand of the Clegg deceit on the one fundamental issue which gained them support in previous elections. The electorate will simply look at the protestations of the Scottish Lib Dem leader and disregard them. Once bitten, twice shy.

This leads onto the “doorstep campaign” being waged by thousands of labour activists the length and breadth of Britain. The commitment of these voluntary foot soldiers is deserving of great credit. However, the comrades have been badly let down throughout this campaign by their leadership.

They were not helped by the aforementioned subway incident; they were not helped by the Andy Kerr performance on Newsnight in which he single handedly demolished the party’s mandatory sentencing for knife carrying policy; and, most importantly, they were not helped by an appalling, unapologetically negative campaign based on a re-run of the 2010 General Election and the subsequent relaunch of the unsuccessful 2007 campaign. To use a Geoffrey Howeism – it is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease, only for them to find, as the first balls are being bowled, that the team captain is back in the shop as he bought the wrong kind of bat in the first place!

This election will be, if polls are correct, a bitter pill for the Scottish Labour Party to swallow and I make no apologies for saying this. Too long have they been open to the accusation that they take the Scottish electorate for granted. This will be denied, but what other conclusions can be drawn from a campaign based on demonising the UK Government in a Scottish Parliamentary Election?

What other conclusions can be drawn from a party which sends its brightest and best to Westminster? With no disrespect intended, whilst one can easily envisage a UK Cabinet consisting of Alex Salmond, I have great difficulty envisaging likewise of anyone on the current Scottish Labour front bench. Moreover, one must ask why Cathy Jamieson saw fit to swap the front benches of the Scottish Parliament for the backbenches of Westminster?

Every party will have something to learn from these elections, but it is often the party with most to lose that has most to learn. A loss for Scottish Labour this week should precipitate a clear out throughout the Scottish Parliamentary Party. There are too many Labour MSPs who have been sitting on safe seats for too long, offering very little in return for their generous parliamentary salary. Come the next election, there will be more than enough Labour MSPS who will have been in their seats for 17 years and undoubtedly seeking a further 4 year term. That would be unacceptable.

Post election, the Labour Party should embrace the now seemingly forgotten issue of local primaries in every Constituency in Scotland – whether or not that seat has a sitting Labour MSP. In fact,  especially if it does!The whole electorate should be given the opportunity to vote – not just the small group of labour party members – and candidates should be encouraged from all sections of society. If sitting MSPs are strong enough to retain their seats then they will do so, otherwise – they will not.

For the sake of the Labour Party in Scotland, the days of incumbent MSPs (and MPs) sitting in safe seats until they stand down or lose a selection vote should be numbered.  Every party should be open to bringing in new, fresh people with ideas relevant to the modern day campaign. Otherwise there will be stagnation, loss of political relevance and perennial election defeats. As long as Scottish Labour continue to fight the battles of the past and wage negative campaign warfare on an electorate looking for vision and ideas – the longer it will remain in opposition.