The Colonial Governor, Michael Moore talks down his country, or rather, the country whose interests he is supposed to represent. His country is, of course, the United Kingdom - a failed state.
He 'wholeheartedly' supports the union, as does his questioner - but it is not a Scottish heart, nor is it a brave heart.
A Tory MP, Ann McIntosh and another Establishment figure, Sir Menzies Campbell (LibDem) make planned mischief over the UK Supreme Court and the Scottish Expert Group headed by Lord McCluskey.
The hoary spectre of Jim Sillars, yesterday's man (1992!) is invoked by David Mundel as a "former Deputy Leader of the SNP". It is left to Pete Wishart SNP to defend his country, Scotland and his Parliament to these two Scottish unionists acting in concert with a unionist Tory.
The West Lothian Question, the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament and the two Assemblies, the the UK Supreme Court debacle - the contradictions mount, the English get restive and the Unionists begin to panic.
Ah, the decline of an empire! What a pathetic spectacle it presents ...
POSTSCRIPT – JIM SILLARS
I should have some affinity with Jim Sillars. He is of my generation, two years younger than I am: he is a Scot, his politics have always been of the left, he is a former Labour man, he moved from Labour to the SNP and he comes from the Scottish working class. There the similarities end.
He also has a record of significant political action (which I do not), and was a pivotal figure at key points in the history of the SNP, and is a former Deputy Leader of the Party. For that legacy, he retains a certain respect among SNP members and activists.
But he has, in my view, been recklessly squandering that legacy since he lost his Govan seat in 1992, at which point he effectively ceased to have any real relevance to Scottish politics. His pejorative comment about Scots being “90 minute patriots” became a kind a epitaph for his political career.
His recent interventions into the Scottish political debate have, in my view, been at best unhelpful, and at worst, damaging to the cause of Scotland’s independence, especially at this crucial time. He has become a kind of icon for the unionists, who quote him at every opportunity (see David Mundel in the above clip) and is a favourite choice for inclusion in television news discussions for the same reasons. He chose recently to mount one of his more intemperate attacks on the Scottish Government through the medium of a letter to The Telegraph, the Pravda of the Tory Party and the Union.
I do wish he would shut up, but I fear he won’t – he probably sees himself as the prophet in the wilderness, and the Union is more than happy to accommodate him in this role.
Colonial governors have tended to fall somewhere along a spectrum from amiable and bumbling to pompous but dangerous. It would probably be unfair to try to fit Scotland’s latest colonial governor, in these last days of empire, into that spectrum, although pompous and bumbling but not yet dangerous come to mind.
Moore strains for gravitas and achieves pomposity: he attempts clarity and attains incoherence. Last night, he was metaphorically hunted around the studio by a relentless Gordon Brewer, as Moore lurched around trying vainly to dodge the blows raining down on him.
The cause of his woes was his two referendums quote -his woefully ill-conceived attempt to make a decisive entrance into the great independence debate by firing a warning shot from the ramparts of unionism across the rampaging, upstart Scottish nationalist mob running around in triumph after their electoral victory. The result of this misconceived shot was to blow the hapless Moore backwards on to his arse, to the ill-concealed contempt of his masters and the delight and derision of peasants like me.
He deserved everything he got last night from Gordon Brewer, who ideally should have been masked, stripped to the waist, wielding red-hot pincers, his eyes glittering at the prospect of pulling bits off Moore. BBC Scotland should give more attention to its mise-en-scène.
Enough, enough - I’m ashamed of myself for enjoying this medieval spectacle.
And now for something completely different and unrelated – a bit of light relief from the politics …
I was always a fan of the Addams Family, both the books and the 1960s television series, and one of my favourite characters was Lurch. Here is Lurch attempting to dance.
We have come to expect Scottish Secretaries of State (SSoS) to not have the interest of their country, Scotland, at heart - after all, they are colonial governors, the arm of the rump of an old, discredited empire, lacking only the plumed hat. But the last three - Murphy, Alexander and now the pompous, hapless Michael Moore have reached a new low.
Moore put his mouth in gear and left his brain in neutral. That's one explanation. The more likely one is that he was given the task of flying a kite for David Cameron and the shadowy unionist figures of the British Establishment, his kite got struck by lightning, and the slippery Cameron, in typical old Etonian style, has rapidly distanced himself from Moore.
After all, there is always another Scot to be found who places his country, Scotland, a poor second to the UK - Scottish Secretaries of State are dispensable.
The Scottish National Party said that Scottish Secretary Michael Moore was in an "ever more lonely place" over his personal position that two referendums on independence would be required, as University of Edinburgh and Constitution Unit academic Alan Trench said on BBC Radio Scotland this morning that this proposal was "very problematic" (having been a supporter of the idea), while former Lib Dem councillors who have defected to the SNP said that the Lib Dems have become "the Tories' face in Scotland".
And in the Scotsman newspaper today Professor Stephen Tierney, Director of the Centre for Constitutional Law at Edinburgh University, said that: "But let's be clear, there is no constitutional requirement for a second referendum following negotiations."
Commenting on Alan Trench's remarks, SNP Campaign Director Angus Robertson MP said: "Michael Moore has blundered into this, and finds himself in an ever more lonely place, as Alan Trench - who has been an advocate of Mr Moore's idea - says that he is “unhappy with the implications of a two-referendum approach”, and that it is “politically very problematic”. “It is a daft idea without constitutional precedent, and very bad politics for the Lib Dems in Scotland."
South of Scotland SNP MSP, Chic Brodie, who was a member of the Liberals and LibDems for 36 years, a former member of their Scottish Executive, and stood aside for the SDP's Roy Jenkins to fight and win the Glasgow Hillhead by-election in 1983, said:
"The Lib Dems have gone from the party of federalism in Scotland to a ridiculous Tory notion called 'muscular unionism'. No wonder so many former Lib Dem supporters voted SNP in the election, and why elected Lib Dem members are now moving to the SNP.
"This is the latest example of a party which now has no principles. We've seen it with tuition fees, with VAT and with their support for Tory cuts. We saw it when they said they wanted to abolish the position of Scottish Secretary, then comfortably took up the role of the Tories' man in Scotland. Now we are seeing them abandon their support for maximum devolution."
A former LibDem councillor in Renfrewshire Cllr Marie McGurk, who joined the SNP in May and is now an SNP councillor, said:
"It was LibDem MPs from Scotland giving up on their principles and allying with the Tories in London that led me to join the SNP. They left me unable, in all conscience, to continue my membership of the party.
"The comments by Michael Moore just show I right I was. I am sure this latest example of abandoning liberal democratic principles will be the last straw for many other LibDem members."
Another former LibDem councillor from Renfrewshire who also defected to the SNP last month, Cllr Mike Dillon, said:
"Instead of supporting the Scottish Government to acquire the powers for the Scottish Parliament, which they previously supported, the LibDems at Westminster have just become spokespersons for David Cameron's Tory-led government. Sadly, the Lib Dems are now just the Tories' face in Scotland.
"Many LibDem members will now be questioning what has happened to the party under the likes of Michael Moore and Danny Alexander. They will be seriously questioning if they can continue with so many sell outs of long held principles just to be in office with the Tories at Westminster."
Cllr Glynis Sinclair, a former LibDem turned independent in the Highlands who joined the SNP last month, said:
"It is never easy to change to another political party but it became clear, even before the last Westminster election, that the Liberal Democrats were losing touch with ordinary people in the Highlands.
"Michael Moore's comments just show how they have gone from being the Highland party of Home Rule to one that bears more resemblance to the Tory Party which ignored Scotland's wishes in the 1980s and 1990s.
"I can see many remaining members of the LibDems asking just why their party cannot even stand up for their own policies on more powers for the Scottish Parliament."
OTHER QUOTES
1. On BBC Radio Good Morning Scotland today, Alan Trench said: "I have to say I find myself unhappy with the implications of a two-referendum approach. I think that while constitutionally it has a good deal to be said for it, politically it's very problematic."
2. [Michael] Moore said: "We will not be bringing forward a referendum ourselves, it's entirely a matter for the Scottish Government."
Press Association, 8th May 2011
3. Professor Matt Qvortrup has been described as the "world's leading expert on referendums".
Professor Qvortrup, in the Scotsman of 29th March 2007:
"There has been a great deal of debate and discussion in recent times over the question of the Scottish Parliament holding a referendum on independence. Like any other parliament, the Scottish Parliament would be quite entitled to do so if its members so desired.
"In the United Kingdom, all referendums are advisory, though if the Scottish people did vote for independence in a referendum that met normal democratic standards, Westminster would be obliged to recognise that result.
"There are no examples of two referendums being held before independence was granted."
referendum: the process of referring a political decision to the electorate for a direct decision by general vote
Well, that clears that up then. Not in Michael Moore’s mind it doesn’t, nor in the murky, expedient, panic-stricken, confused, unscrupulous depths of the unionist Establishment, for which Moore is the mouthpiece - as every Secretary of State for Scotland has always been - with the Telegraph is the house organ.
Before coming to the Scottish papers, it is useful to contrast the Telegraph with the Times on this ‘story’, since both papers considered Moore’s witterings to be worthy of the front page headline.
The Telegraph headline presents the issue authoritatively as a statement of fact - Scotland will need second poll to leave UK - supported by two equally confident sub-header bullet points - Moore: SNP referendum ‘advisory’ only and Commons to fix second ballot question.
This assertive tone continues in the Leader article - Westminster fights back -and quotes Moore as having Downing Street approval.
The bearded rumbler, Alan Cochrane, brings his basso profundo(profundo in pitch only, not in ideas or quality of analysis) to bear with - Moore’s tough talk finally puts paid to the bogus SNP ‘respect agenda’
The Times, which has a true, objective journalist as political editor, Angus Macleod, also leads with the story, but is more circumspect, and its headline reads Scots ‘will have to vote twice on independence’, recognising by the use of quotes that this is a briefing statement by one figurehead, the Scottish Secretary. It underlines this point in its sub-header - Scottish Secretary claims that two referendums must be held.
The detailed, balanced objective reporting that follows, typical of Angus Macleod’s entire approach to journalism, sets out the facts and the arguments, and explores in some detail the vital question of whether or not this is Government policy, quoting Downing Street’s apparent rebuttal of Alex Salmond’s claim that Moore did not speak for Cameron -
A No 10 spokesman said: “The constitution is one of the many areas the UK Government is responsible for in Scotland and the Secretary of State’s comments reflect that fact.”
Close examination of this statement shows that it is a long way from explicit support for Moore’s briefing. It simply says that Moore had a right to comment on matters affecting Scotland. Had Cameron wished to offer support publically, he could have made a statement of support personally. My view is that they are cautiously flying kites. Lurking in the background is our old friend Vernon Bogdanor, Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford, who chooses to paint terrifying - and entirely irrelevant - parallels with Ireland in the 1920s and the Czech/Slovak “divorce settlement” in 1993.
The Times and Angus Macleod also quote a balancing expert view from Professor Matt Qvortrup of Cranfield University, who believes one referendum is enough, and is on record as saying that no country in the world that has moved to independence has required more than one.
No such balancing views are presented by the Telegraph, who present this farrago of nonsense as legal and constitutional fact. Their Leader comment doesn’t even pretend to be objective, cheerleading Moore on in his ‘fightback’, using highly coloured and emotive language. The bearded growler rampages across this territory in his commentary piece, with an attack on Alex Salmond in virtually every paragraph.
The Scotsman, which in many regards - in spite of its belated support for the SNP in the final stages of the election campaign - sometimes sounds like the Scottish Telegraph, unionism in a kilt, essentially mirrors the Telegraph approach to the Moore statement.
Its headline baldy states Two referendums needed for UK split, with the sub-header Salmond reacts with insults as Scots (sic) Secretary insists independence vote.
The Colonial governor (with no mandate whatsoever) has spoken and, in spite of 'insults’ from ‘Salmond’ (not from the First Minister of Scotland, recently elected with a decisive mandate by the Scottish people) that’s that - there will be two referendums.
However, the Scotsman calms down a little inside on page 4, and presents a balanced report, with a welcome highlighted box entitled Double poll a radical change, which effectively demonstrates how ludicrously inappropriate a second referendum would be, totally without precedent.
The Herald doesn’t lead with the story, and just gives a wee front page lead-in - Referendum row - to a substantial piece on page 7. It also gives a highlighted likely timetable for independence, with a date 0f 2019 for final achievement. This is may be realistic, but I find it depressingly long, and hope for a much shorter lead-in than this, since it reduces the likelihood of me seeing my country independent in my lifetime. I hope my impatience is matched by the impatience of the young Scots who want their freedom now and have watched other countries achieve it much more swiftly than this.
The other significant fact is that the UK government will attempt to bog the process down, and even frustrate it, with bureaucratic delays and nit-picking. They will try to turn Scotland’s independence into another Edinburgh trams project, where the lines are laid, the business of the capital disrupted, but due to unforeseen works below ground and the inability to resolve difference, the whole thing is shelved indefinitely.
The long journey to Scottish independence has been a slow, careful one with many setbacks, but characterised throughout by patient democratic process and rational argument, relying on the ballot box to achieve the ultimate goal.
With the exception of a few incidents in the 1950s during the EIIR pillar box rows, involving a few misguided youths and some very sinister agents provocateur and dubious special Branch involvement, (see Diomhair’s account of this period) the nationalist movement has been completely free of violence and direct action.
It must be kept that way, because the British Establishment has a long, contemptible record when it comes to trying to suppress the wishes of their subject peoples to be free, in India, in Rhodesia, in Kenya and of course in Ireland - a record that includes the use of agents provocateur to instigate acts of political violence that were then used to justify repressive force in response, and the suspension of democratic procedures and legal rights.
Two dangers exist in the present state of panic among the unionist establishment and their compliant media shills - one is that, in their confusion they overplay their hand in opposing independence, the other is that they are deliberately provocative. Both would have the same dangerous results - a growing resentment among those supporting Scottish independence, especially the young supporters, and a growing impatience with democratic processes.
The young live in a world where they see subject peoples seizing their freedom with great courage and personal sacrifice, often at the risk of their own lives. They believe, however, that they live in a civilised, free democracy with a free press and media, where such radical measures are not necessary. But if they are regularly given evidence that they are mistaken in these beliefs, that their media are not as free as they thought, that their democratic rights and processes are being distorted and manipulated, that their democratically elected leaders are being treated with contempt, and that their legitimate aspirations are being suppressed, then they will find different routes to their goal.
Radical social and political change belongs to the young, not to the old. It also belongs to the activist, not to the silent majority, the Nixonian idea of a group in the body politic that will do anything for their beliefs except act on them. No revolution, velvet or otherwise, was accomplished by old men. However intellectually conceived, change is carried forward by the young.
The Middle East revolution caught the Western power brokers entirely by surprise. All their intelligence, all their analysis, all their careful realpolitik was turned upside down by events driven by the young, and they are now running behind the movement of history.
A great and legitimate expectancy has been created by the mandate given to the nationalists on May 6th 2011. It may well create a tide in the affairs of Scotland that will accelerate at a pace that takes both nationalist politicians and unionist politicians by surprise. I don’t think the young want to wait till 2019 for their freedom and I know that I don’t.
Unionists - don’t play with fire! Nationalists - speed up your timetable and your game! History won’t wait and the young won’t wait …
Another sordid chapter in the history of Scottish Secretaries of State - a sad procession of men who, with a very few remarkable exceptions, consistently betrayed the interests of Scotland in favour of the Union, but benefited personally from having held this colonial governors post, even if only briefly.
In the period of the closures of companies and the destruction of entire Scottish industries in the video, three Tory Scottish Secretaries were in post -
Malcom Rifkind, now Sir Malcom Rifkind, now cosily ensconced in the safe Tory seat of Kensington, as far as possible from his electoral failures in Scotland
Ian Lang, now Baron Lang of Monkton, safely ensconced in the House of Lords.
Michael Forsyth, now Baron Forsyth of Drumlean, a sworn enemy of Scottish devolution and the Scottish Parliament, also safely ensconced in the House of Lords
The Labour Scottish Secretaries, with a couple of notable exceptions - exceptions that prove the rule - have been as bad as the Tories, and have tended to have a close, sometimes intimate association with defence matters and defence companies.
Why? Because the UK exists to perpetuate the concept of war as the operating principle of the state, and war and armaments are very profitable businesses.
(Jim Murphy, last Labour SSforS but one (the brief Danny Alexander), is now predictably Shadow Minister of Defence, following the template closely.)
And what of Michael Moore, the current incumbent? He is quoted as saying -
"I've just done (sic) the worst crime a politician can commit. It's one of the reasons most folks distrust us as a breed"
Brian Taylor, BBC, asked him today what on earth he was doing in coalition with the Tories in the light of Moore's previous criticisms of them? Moore glibly replies that he was talking about the situation 30 years ago. Will he resign? Of course not - there's the ministerial salary car, the illusion of status and the guarantee of reward at the end of it all.
Join the ancient and contemptible club, Michael - you deserve the perks. But Scotland doesn't deserve you or your ilk.
Alex Salmond offers a careful, considered critique of the Calman tax proposals, their weaknesses and speaks of his wish to find a way to improve them. This is a statesman – and an economist – speaking, with the interests of Scotland and the Scottish people at heart.
David Mundell, under Gordon Brewer's questioning, waffles frantically about Calman, and displays an almost total inability to come to grips with the numbers and hard facts. Instead, he relies on political generalities and attacks on the SNP.
This is Moore's man in the Scottish Office. He had high hopes of being Scottish Secretary under a Cameron Government (as the Scottish Tories' sole MP, there was little choice!) but the coalition, plus perhaps a little local difficulty with his election expenses (those pesky numbers again, David!) put paid to that.
He had to watch two young LibDems fill the post he had coveted - first Danny Alexander and now Michael Moore.
Not that numeracy - or anything much else - is required of a Scottish Secretary - only blind loyalty to the Union and the willingness to be Westminster's man in Scotland instead of Scotland's man in Westminster.
Colonial governors never did require much between their ears, only the ability to salute the Union Jack.
The last three incumbents of this ignoble role - Murphy, Alexander and now Moore - have filled the role in the way required by their UK bosses. Scots expects nothing from the office of Scottish Secretary, and nothing is what they get, except regular protestations of loyalty to the Union.
Let’s start with a couple of laughs, because there’s not many to come …
The long-running lethal farce called ‘The Coalition’s War against Terror in Afghanistan’ descends even further into the absurd as a top Taliban honcho, Akhtar Mohammed Mansour meets President Karzai and top Nato commanders. This is it, the tipping point, when the tide will turn, the West will be vindicated, the light at the end of the long dark tunnel of death and futility shines brightly, and Western values and culture will at last prevail in this benighted land.
The secret negotiations take place, the Mullah is feted, and leaves carrying oodles of goodwill cash. The world will soon be safe for democracy, Nato/US style.
But there’s bad news for Barack Obama and David Cameron. The Mullah wasn’t the Mullah after all, but The Conman from Quetta (in Pakistan) – a grocer - and he has simply vanished with the cash. The real Taliban fall about laughing in their hideouts in the mountains, Karzai, safe amidst his own mountains of coalition cash, shrugs philosophically, and the American military commanders utter unprintable - and most unchristian - oaths as they reflect on their future career prospects.
The Sunday Herald’sTom Gordon, scratching around for anti-SNP stories to fill the gaps left by the dearth of real journalism at the Herald and the Sunday Herald - twin house organs of the Labour Party in Scotland - lights on the Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill and a ‘story’ about the sybaritic highlife enjoyed by Scotland’s prisoners, already lying on beds of down, attended by maidens bearing grapes, soothed by soft music as they revel in the luxuries of incarceration in Scotland’s jails.
They are going to get flat screen TVs with built-in DVD players. This is bad enough, but – shock, horror – the Freeview tuners will be able to access the many porn channels now available. Why does this matter? Why will it be a gift to Richard Baker, Labour’s justice spokesperson, starved of raw meat since the Megrahi release?
Delicacy inhibits me from being too explicit, especially on a Sunday morning – let me just say that, for those with a long memory, it has something to do with rhyming slang and a film maker from the heyday of British filmmaking – J. Arthur Rank. I look forward with keen anticipation to Richard Baker putting his little mouth in gear at precisely the same moment that he puts his brain in neutral on this most sensitive of subjects. Perhaps he will link his indignant assault with the dangers of prisoners going blind. I think we should be told …
Bill Aitken, MSP has predictably already sounded off on this weighty matter – there is never a shortage of Tory rent-a-mouths to comment on justice matters.
Of course, the cold facts of the matter are safely tucked away at the end of the article, remote from the rabble-rousing and misleading headline and opening nonsense, something that has now become the Herald’s signature style, seamlessly replacing the objective investigative political journalism that used to characterise one of the world’s oldest English language newspapers. When Labour and the Union are threatened, anything is admissible.
TVs have been the norm in Scottish prison cells since 1999: this is simply an upgrade from CRT sets to the new, cheap flat screens with built-in DVDs as a routine inclusion. But with that money, Labour and the Tories could have bought whips, birches, thumbscrews, pincers, tongs, perhaps even budget-priced racks! It’s an outrage!
FISCAL MATTERS
The strange ways of the Sunday Herald with hard news is demonstrated clearly today over fiscal matters – the tartan tax row and the Calman proposals – or what’s left of them.
Contrast the approach taken by Scotland on Sunday with the Sunday Herald -
SoS lead article today -
‘Retreat’ on new Scots tax powers – two levies not included in next Scotland Bill
Eddie Barnes’ opening paragraph encapsulates what has happened -
“Two tax powers that were destined to be handed to MSPs will not now appear in ground-breaking new laws designed to create a stronger Scottish Parliament.”
On page two, Barnes develops the theme under the sub-header Scotland Bill to leave out key Tax powers. The tax powers are “less ambitious than first proposed”. The SNP position and comments is fairly and objectively reported, with the Party claiming that the proposals fall far short of what is needed, that they are half-baked and damaging to the Scottish economy.
In other words, this is Calman minus – a hollow and ominous echo of Tavish Scott’s vainglorious posturing about Calman Plus.
But in the Sunday Herald? Buried away at the bottom of page four, we have a small headline Bill to give Holyrood new income tax powers, and a couple of hundred words which grudgingly include the following, by Tom Gordon – Scottish political editor.
“The Scotland Bill will omit several Calman ideas. including devolving the aggregates levy, which could raise £50 million a year, and air passenger duty, which could raise £100m.”
Well, not a lot on this fundamental issue for Scotland, Tom, but then you had to save your energies for a full-blown attack on the SNP and John Swinney (backed up by a Leader article) – The Week it all went wrong on page 20. Here, our heroically objective political editor, in what is an opinion article in the guise of political analysis, devotes an entire page to a non-issue – the tartan tax – and the attempt at the political lynching of a decent man of high integrity that disgraced our Parliament last week.
Here are a few choice examples of Tom Gordon’s objective journalism and political analysis -
After what I can only describe as a faintly contemptible lead-in referring the John Swinney’s three-week old son, Gordon opens with -
“Within 48 hours, he would be denounced and vilified, and within a week he would be forced into a grovelling apology at Holyrood.”
You got it right about the denunciation and vilification, Tom – a sad hysteria that Patrick Harvie had the good grace to try to offset by his genuine tribute to the Finance Minister, as he belatedly realised that he had become part of a political lynch mob. Describing John Swinney’s dignified and clear apology as ‘grovelling’ is a patent distortion of the facts, as anyone who watched and heard it knows. (I have the clip and I will post it on YouTube).
“First Iain Gray, in probably his finest turn as Labour Leader, accused Swinney …”
If that was his finest turn, God preserve us from his worst performance.
In the last column, there is a long list of what the Sunday Herald sees as the sins of the SNP government, then this, from Tom Gordon -
“Suddenly the gilt is peeling off the administration, and the opposition sees it.
‘This raise the whole issue of competence,’ sighed one senior SNP source. ‘It all came across as shabby. We’re supposed to have a team you can trust, but they were keeping people in the dark’ “
Ah, the ubiquitous ‘unnamed source’, Tom. What would your brand of political reporting be without it.
Well, two can play that game, Tom …
My unnamed source Holyrood Unionist opposition politician says “Even by our standards of desperately trying to marginalise the government elected by the Scottish people, regardless of their real needs, this was a new low in gutter politics – an attempt at the political assassination of a good man with the interests of Scotland and the Scottish people at his heart.”
CALMAN
Let’s look back in time for a moment and remind ourselves just what the Calman Commission was. Here’s what I said way back in the summer of 2009 -
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Playing Unionist politics with Calman
The Calman Commission, an invention of the Unionist Opposition Parties in Holyrood, specifically set up to strengthen the Union and frustrate the progress of the Scottish People towards full independence, has made its report.
Anyone who doubted the thrust of the Calman Report only had to look at who commissioned it (the Unionist Opposition Parties) and the composition of the Commission itself.
Its fifteen members included -
Two Knights
Five Lords
One MBE
Three CBEs
One OBE
The three non-ennobled, knighted or gonged members included -
A youth activist and former member of the Scottish Youth Parliament
A professor of Islamic studies from Glasgow University
The Chief Executive of the Telegraph Media Group
CONSULANTS
I do go on a bit about the monumental waste of scarce taxpayers’ money by government on consultants. Well, I made my living for about twelve years as a freelance management consultant and trainer, and before that, as a senior manager and director, negotiated with consultants, so I’ve seen the game from both sides of the table.
But nobody in government seems to want to listen. I wonder why …
Today, the trams project is in trouble over consultants, and TIE says that they underestimated their consulting budget spending by a factor of 25 times. Yes, well …
Here’s a little fact to chew over -
The average industrial wage is somewhere around £21k, and that is also the watershed at which the pay freeze for public sector workers commences. Let’s allow a little licence and call it about £400 a week.
About the lowest day rate a consultant will charge these days is £500 a day – yes, a day … This would be the low end of individual freelance consulting rates, with £750 probably being more typical, and £1200/1500 quite common. But charge-out rates for the large consulting firms can easily be double these figures or even more, with £1000 a day being very much the low end.
Reflect on this. The bottom end trainers and consultants earn in a day one and a quarter times the average industrial wage. So their weekly earnings are six and a quarter times those public service workers who by current wage restraint figure highly enough paid to have their earning frozen, with no increases – in the national interest. And that’s the bottom end of consulting rates.
But the big consulting firms charge from twice to four or five times that as day rates, giving a multiplier on the £21k public service worker of twelve and a half to twenty five times their earnings.
Consultants and consulting firms can – and will – legitimately argue that they have overheads – office, pensions, holiday, other costs and benefits – and that not every day is a fee earning day. This is true, but it is grossly overstated. A generous allowance to cover all employee benefits would be 20/25% for an individual freelance consultant. There is cold calling and marketing when no fee is being earned, and this does bear on the freelance. But they do very nicely, thank you, in spite of it all …
A net working, fee earning year of about 150 delivery days (as against say, a working year of about 230 days for an employed person) would deliver £75,000 gross. Not bad for many of those at that end of the market, given their experience, qualifications and skills base. Most freelances would gross from £100k to £150k per annum , some much more, especially if they can get long periods of continuous fee-earning days from large public service organisations.
As for the big boys – well, the holy grail for them is to bill more fee days per consultant than there actually are in the working year – a holy grail that is regularly found, but rarely acknowledged. And many of them do not in fact maintain large numbers of salaried consultants on the payroll – they sub-contract out to freelances, but charge the client often as much as three times the day rate being paid to the freelance. (I myself have worked for many large organisations on exactly this basis.)
It’s called the fee law of thirds – the day rate paid by the client represents something like three times the rate they would have to pay to hire someone with equivalent qualifications and skills to do the job in-house, including all overheads.
What am I arguing for? Not for stopping the use of consultants – there are many ethical, competent and capable consultants and consulting firms, delivering value and charging reasonable fees. But there is also gross incompetence in resourcing consultants, in the failure to use competitive tendering, in the negotiation of fee and in the management of consulting contracts and delivery. If private industry is guilty of this, hell mend them – they should know better. But when government does it, it’s our money – our taxes – and it has to stop.
There are other malpractices in the use of consultants, some of them bordering on corruption – the use of consulting contracts as political patronage, of cronyism, of revolving doors, of jobs for the favoured boys – and girls.
But they are a matter for the National Audit Office and where appropriate for the polis!
The undernoted was published by the SNP today, and includes a letter to the Scottish Secretary, Michael Moore, by the First Minister today – the highlights in colour of certain passages are mine, and were not in the original document.
Salmond puts UK straight on Scottish tax power
2010-11-19
Alex Salmond has set the UK Government straight over the tax powers available to the Scottish Parliament. In a public letter to the Scottish Secretary Mr Salmond responds to a series of inaccurate claims from the Scottish secretary about the future of the 3p tax power.
The SNP has always made clear that the current tartan tax is an unfair and regressive tax.
The full letter is below:
LETTER FROM THE FIRST MINISTER – ALEX SALMOND TO THE UK GOVERNMENT 19t Nov 2010
Your letter of 18 November about the Scottish variable rate of income tax (SVR) is a travesty of the position. The reality is as follows.
The then Scottish Executive paid the UK Government £12 million in 2000 to add SVR functionality to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) tax collection systems. Thereafter, an annual fee of £50,000 was paid.
HMRC said in 2007 that additional work was needed to maintain the readiness of the IT system, and in summer 2008 made clear that they would be installing a new IT platform. Scottish Government officials attempted to elicit information on what this meant for Scotland and the functionality of the 3p tax power.
We were finally asked on 28 July this year to pay over the sum of £7 million to HMRC for this purpose. Why nowhere in your letter did you mention this.demand?
Anyone proposing paying this £7 million to HMRC would need to explain where the equivalent cuts would be made in Scottish public spending.
And even if we had paid it - at a time when Scotland is on the receiving end of massive cuts to our budget from your government - the SVR under the new system could not have been implemented until 2012/13: another key point which you failed to mention.
In any case, at that stage it seemed an academic debate because the SVR itself is set to be replaced under any version of the legislation which you intend to introduce in the next few weeks.
On 20 August, Scottish Government officials offered talks with HMRC on the issue of the SVR - an offer which has not been responded to. The first we have heard from the UK government on the matter since 20 August is your letter of yesterday.
It is clearly unacceptable that Scotland should be asked to pay, again, for something which millions of pounds have previously been paid for. If HMRC choose to replace their IT systems, that is clearly a matter for them. However, anyone would expect them in specifying their new systems to replicate the functionality of the old.
No Scottish administration has used the 3p tax power, none of the main parties in Scotland advocate using it now, and it is intended to be overtaken by the Tory/Lib Dem Calman financial proposals - flawed measures which, had they been established for the start of the current spending review, would have resulted in the Scottish Budget being £900 million lower in 2009/10.
The real issue, therefore, would appear to be about the future.
You stated - as did Danny Alexander in his letter to me of 20 October this year about the Spending Review settlement - that: "it is an established principle that the costs of devolution should be met from the Scottish Budget."
This is not the case - in fact, the opposite is true.
HM Treasury's recently-updated Statement of Funding Policy states at paragraph 3.2.8 that:
"Where decisions of United Kingdom departments or agencies lead to additional costs for any of the devolved administrations, where other arrangements do not exist automatically to adjust for such extra costs, the body whose decision leads to the additional cost will meet that cost."
The clear impression can only be that your letter was not about the cost of financial powers that are going to be superseded, but rather about establishing a precedent for the Scottish Government paying to install and administer the Calman tax proposals - which unlike the SVR will require to be used every year.
Given the huge pressures on the Scottish public purse because of your government's spending cuts - and the further threat to our budget from the Calman proposals themselves - we need answers to these key questions as a matter of urgency:
How much is the UK Government intending to ask the Scottish Government to pay for the Calman tax powers - measures which could reduce Scotland's budget, as indicated above?
When do you propose asking the Scottish Government, and therefore the Scottish people, to pay?
Exactly when would these financial powers be capable of being implemented?
A copy of this letter goes like yours to Annabel Goldie MSP, Iain Gray MSP, Margo MacDonald MSP, Tavish Scott MSP and Patrick Harvie MSP, and David Gauke MP, and also to the leaders of the Scottish parties at Westminster: Angus Robertson MP, Ann McKechin MP, and David Mundell MP. I am also sending copies to John Swinney and Fiona Hyslop.
Given that you released your letter to the media, I am also releasing this.
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