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Showing posts with label Moridura. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moridura. Show all posts

Saturday 14 March 2015

The “democratic principle”– and Unionist attempts to deny it when YES voters exercise it.

I wrote this in response to a Herald letter from a regular correspondent to Letters who echoed with uncanny accuracy the line being pursued by the UK unionist parties on YES Scotland’s (I refer to those who voted YES) temerity in not giving up after the referendum, but forging ahead with the SNP in exercising their legal and democratic rights to participate in the Parliamentary union the September 18th 2014 ballot result had compelled them to remain a part of. A great silence has followed my letter – so far …

Herald Letters March 11th 2015 

"SNP is a regional party ..." Peter A. Russell

Dear Sir,

I hardly know where to start with Peter A. Russell's letter on the SNP role in the 2015 general election. It reflects the deeply confused constitutional - not to say democratically questionable - assumptions that lie at the root of so many unionist arguments.

1. The "democratic principle" is that a government, once elected, is accountable to all the voters, not to the "majority of the voters" who may or may not have voted for the party or parties that form the government. In the 18 general elections since 1945, no single party forming a government has ever had 50% or more of the vote. The present combined Tory/LibDem Coalition had 58.08%. (As an aside, I have delivered leaflets and campaigned, at some level of involvement, in every one of them from the age of 10.)

2. The SNP has not "chosen to be" a de facto regional party in the UK". It stands candidates for the UK Parliament in Scottish constituencies determined legally and constitutionally under UK-wide law. No political party has a duty to stand candidates across the UK. It is committed to an over-arching objective of Scotland's independence, but it currently operates with a UK framework of law, offering itself to an electorate that contains voters in favour of and opposed to independence.  Once elected, SNP MPs represents all shades of political opinion within their constituency, in exactly the same manner as any MP anywhere in UK. It is clear beyond doubt that Scottish voters opposed to independence voted - and will vote - for the SNP.

3. The SNP forms the devolved government of Scotland. It can never be the main party in government of the UK, nor does it seek to be. While Scotland remains a part of UK, its objective is to represent Scotland's interests within the democratic structure and arithmetic of Westminster voting. It cannot pursue independence at Westminster, only further devolution within a UK framework. It has no intention of "dictating to 90% of the UK electorate" but will pursue an agenda for the electorate and the people of Scotland - all of them.

4. Independence can only be secured democratically by a referendum - the UK Parliament will never vote for the independence of any of its four component countries. The Scottish people rejected independence in the last referendum. If the SNP wins a large block of seats on May 7th, and subsequently wins a decisive third term majority in the 2016 Holyrood election, it will undoubtedly be a powerful democratic indicator that a majority of the Scottish people want a second referendum.

5. The UK electorate may vote for a party label, but they in fact vote for individual constituency MPs who, without exception, represent a "regional' constituency" under a first-past-the-post system. Most MPs run under a party label and accept a party whip, but in Westminster they vote as individuals MPs, whipped  or independently. That is UK democracy, however distorted on occasion by the party system.

yours faithfully,

Peter Curran

Thursday 12 February 2015

Don’t get fooled again, Springburn – look at Labour’s record and weep…

I wrote this in 2009 after Michael Martin, Labour MP for Glasgow North East and the Speaker of the House of Commons had announced his decision on the 19th of May to resign, to forestall the imminent historic humiliation of being the first Speaker in history to be forced out by a vote of no confidence. I really believed that the electors of Springburn, a district I had known well all my life, would awaken from their fantasy that Labour was on their side.

Not only was I wrong in November 2009 at the by-election, but wrong again at the 2010 General election in May 2010.

Despite all that has since happened, including the ignominious defeat of the hapless Gordon Brown Government, leaving us with the nightmare of the Coalition, the Ashcroft poll shows that Springburn is still set to do it again, lemming-like.

Glasgow North East

But the SNP has a strong candidate in Anne McLaughlin this time, and perhaps the electors will finally learn the lesson that the rest  of Glasgow has – Labour is no longer the people’s party.

Don't get fooled again, Springburn!

 

The 2009  Moridura blog

FRIDAY, 22 MAY 2009 

I wondered just how long it would take for Alf Young of the Herald to decide that a general election would be a bad thing right now, and here he is on cue today saying just that.

For those of you unfamiliar with Alf's deeply coded messages, let me translate - if a general election was announced swiftly, Labour would be wiped out at the polls, the Tories would win  in England, and the rickety United Kingdom would have a Tory government, making it completely unrepresentative of the will of the Scottish people.

The new Westminster government could not then deny the Scottish people a referendum on independence, which would happen around the time of the Scottish Parliamentary election in 2011, with the SNP being returned with a decisive working majority. The likely outcome would be a decisive vote for the freedom of Scotland.

This must not be allowed to happen. In the fantasy world of the Herald, the Scotsman and the Scottish Unionist, the general election must be deferred as long as possible, giving Gordon Brown's corrupt, incompetent, indecisive and rotten administration time - time to recover credibility over the next few months, aided by the full weight of the Scottish unionist press, more defence jobs bribery, more judicious patronage, as many distorted scare stories as can be mustered, and ideally a nice popular, winnable war against some far off country - the Falklands Factor.

But there's a worm in Alf and Labour's apple - it's called Glasgow North East, better known as Springburn, and a by-election is imminent. How imminent?

Well, it could be July, but if Alf's logic is applied, it could be deferred till September or October, and this would sit well with Gordon Brown's electoral cowardice and reflex procrastination instincts.

A recent Channel Four News report covered Springburn and Labour, gained great moral force by being presented by Sarah Smith, the daughter of Labour's lost Leader, John Smith.

Here are a few facts.

Under Labour for generations, and in recent times while its Labour MP, Michael Martin was one of the most powerful politicians in the land, Springburn has

about two and a half times the national rate of unemployment.

life expectancy 12 years lower than more prosperous parts of Scotland.

almost 12% more smokers, and 5% more deaths from smoking than the Scottish average

widespread deprivation and urban decline

The Channel Four documentary quoted an old Springburn joke - "You can't join the Labour Party in Springburn - it's already full!"

But most of the Labour voters questioned said bluntly that that old reflex loyalty could no longer be relied upon.

What Sarah Smith devastatingly stated as "the breach of trust between the party that is supposed to fight for the underprivileged and the people who need it the most" will be in the forefront of Springburn voters minds when they go to the polling stations.

Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University caught the echoes of the questions from last year's Glasgow East campaign - "What has the Labour Party ever done for this constituency? It's still as impoverished as it ever was ..." Glasgow North East is even more impoverished.

What was Michael Martin doing? He was living in a palatial palace as Speaker, and he was implicated in an expenses system where MPs were making claims related to luxury items of home furnishing when people in Glasgow North East were struggling to get basic, essential items, such as cookers and fridges.

Don't get fooled again, Springburn.

Don't be fooled by politicians who make snap appearances at old ladies's lunch clubs, smile and twinkle, then disappear in a chauffeur-driven hired limousine to grand civic functions and expensive dinners.

Don't be fooled by little successful interventions into small grievances when the main structural decline of your community and your life is accelerating unchecked.

This is not the Labour you knew for so many years, in opposition, fighting against the evil Tories, who could be blamed for everything - this is Labour who have been in government for 12 years, yet have frittered away the resources of the nation and the lives of Scottish servicemen and women in foreign wars, the party that is cutting the Scottish budget for essential services by £500 million pounds while spending fifty times that - £25 billion pounds - on outmoded. irrelevant weapons of mass destruction.

Don't get fooled again Springburn!

Vote for the party of your ain folk, the Scottish National Party.

Monday 9 February 2015

Wedding of the Year - the impending nuptials of Ed Miliband and the SNP

The National gets better by the day: in today’s edition, it excelled itself.

From its eye-catching, ‘Russian Roulette’ front cover through its news items to its articles, analysis and readers’ letters, it provided a wealth of information on key topics for committed supporters of Scotland’s independence – and hopefully many others as yet uncommitted – that helps to make them the driving force in the best informed electorate in the world, despite the efforts of the rest of the mainstream media to misinform and mislead them.

And of course, there’s the regular Monday delight – the Greg Moodie cartoon, in my view one his very best to date. (My cartoon consumption goes back to the 1940s and includes the American funnies, sent to me by relatives in the U.S., and I was viewing the great newspaper political cartoonists from early childhood.) This one had a real story to tell, with the word balloons driving the riveting, graphic wedding narrative – the impending nuptials of Ed and the SNP.

The second part of Alasdair Gray’s series, titled Towards Democracy contained - among his musings on explosions in munitions depots  and the nuclear risk, the following gem -

Everyone wants to live as far from such things as possible, so the London Government has placed the most dangerous in Scotland.”

He also observes that “British and North American armed forces have been bombing and blighting foreigners in wars where a minority of British and U.S.A soldiers died, and this caused no explosions in their homelands before a suicidal guerrilla group destroyed the New York World Trade Centre.”

But perhaps Alasdair’s most interesting proposition was that Alex Salmond adopted the high-risk strategy of moving the SNP towards NATO membership – which almost split the party in 2012 – to stop Obama, the U.S.A. and its supporters from “directing a global blast against Scottish independence before the referendum.”

Alasdair Gray advances the idea that this was in fact counter-productive -

As a result, President Obama spoke as gently against it as the Pope. I believe the strong blast Salmond feared may have given the Yes campaign a clear majority, because a lot of Scots were getting tired of being told they could not rule themselves ..”

Well, we’ll never know – but I, for one, think Alasdair Gray may be right. But in this, as in so many other vital, pivotal judgments, e.g. the currency question, I don’t envy Alex Salmond the agonising choices he had to make. Characteristically, he made them bravely, decisively and without equivocation, not as a gambler, but as the statesman he was - and is.

Alasdair is in no doubt, and has a view on what must be done -

NATO will keep its bases in Scotland no matter how much an independent Scotland protests, but that is no reason the SNP conference should not return to its former policy of total nuclear disarmament.”  and “Alex Salmond’s amendment is less than three years old, and can be scrapped.”

However, for me, the most insightful and immediately relevant article in this fine National issue was George Kerevan’sTime to face up to reality about the role SNP MPs will play post-election”. Kerevan is one of the true political thinkers in the SNP camp, and unlike many Scottish journalists, is capable of getting right down to the structural heart of complex political issues that others shy away from.

Anyone who wants to understand the complexities of the Westminster situation Nicola Sturgeon and the new bloc of SNP MPs will face if they are returned in the numbers the polls suggest must read this article - and then read it again.

In the maze of options, from coalition (currently ruled out) to confidence and supply deals (not “supply and demand” deals as one journalist suggested elsewhere!) the voting behaviours of an SNP/Plaid/Green bloc will demand fine judgements, as Kerevan’s keen eye detects.

Yesterday, Iain Macwhirter, in an excellent Sunday Herald article In this era of Coalition, the political map has turned yellow addressed similar questions.  But he used the language of negotiation  (a language most journalists should take care to avoid, since they rarely have any understanding of the dynamics of negotiation) to describe the dilemmas facing the SNP Westminster bloc.

In examining the choices the new SNP bloc will face, the choices that Nicola will have to mastermind – having ruled out the possibility that Alex Salmond “could become the back-seat driver from hell”, he adopts what I believe to be a false premise, namely that Nicola Sturgeon has ruled out “playing politics with the Tories

Leaving aside the fact that the SNP minority government of 2007-2011 only survived because Alex Salmond deftly played politics with the Tories to get his budgets through, what Nicola has ruled out – as I understand it – is entering into coalition or any confidence and supply-type arrangement with the Tories. To do either would clearly be political suicide for the SNP in Scotland.

But this cannot be extrapolated into saying that the SNP would never vote with the Tories on any issue. (If Nicola said this, I missed it!) One only has to illustrate by extremes, e.g. what if the Tories agreed to vote against the upgrading of Trident against a Miliband Government determined to do it?

Although such a scenario  stretches the bounds of probability, it does illustrate that distaste for the Tories cannot overwhelm common political sense, where there are key voting issues on which consensus exists. Such a distaste for the SNP from 2007 to date led the Scottish Labour group in Holyrood into utter folly, directly contributing to the decline of their party.

So when Iain Macwhirter says of voting with Tories that “Remarkably, the SNP has chosen not to do so and make clear that the only party it will play politics with is Labour” I believe him to be factually wrong.  He goes on to say that -

Sturgeon has thus handed an extraordinary advantage to Ed Miliband. He knows that the SNP will go into post-election negotiations with with precisely zero negotiating clout

I must disagree totally with this verdict of a journalist, Iain Macwhirter, for whom I have the highest admiration and respect. Politicians, lawyers (Nicola is both!) and journalists rarely have even a rudimentary understanding of negotiation, but Nicola Sturgeon is a unique politician, as is her mentor and close colleague and friend, Alex Salmond – and both, although rooted in fundamental political principles, are supreme pragmatists.

They will deal – when and how they need to deal – when the situation demands it, in the over-arching interests of Scotland and the Scottish people.

Sunday 8 February 2015

Labour’s crime – the Iraq War – and my March 2003 fears on the eve of war

I wrote this letter to the Herald on 17th of March 2003. I was then, at least still nominally a supporter of the Labour Party, as I had been all my life and as my family had been.

The war against Iraq began three days later on March 20th 2003 with the U.S. launch of the bombing raid on Baghdad - Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Never in my life have I more wanted to be wrong in a prediction, but what followed unleashed unimaginable death and devastation that lasted from 2003 –2011, beyond my worst imaginings - and, in a very real sense, is not over yet.

The long slow death of Scottish Labour began in March 2003, in significant part due to their moral cowardice at that pivotal moment in history. New Labour – the creation of Blair, Brown and Mandelson seemed to die in 2010, but the rough  beast is stirring again, slouching towards Westminster.

child1child 2

My letter, published in The Herald, 17th of March 2003.

Seventeen and a half per cent of the UK population are children of 15 years of age or younger. (Source of data – CIA website)

41% of the Iraqi population are children o 15 years of age or younger. (Source - CIA website)

Therefore in any “collateral damage” to innocent civilians, 41 children will die or be maimed in every 100. (My source for these statistics - CIA website).

To add to the misery of the Iraqi children already hurt by Saddam Hussein and our sanctions will be an international crime.

Much has been made of Tony Blair’s “sincere conviction” over his stance on Iraq. If sincerity of conviction was the touchstone, the actions of any misguided politician in history could be justified. I hesitate to offer a list of those who pursued policies destructive to justice and life who were “sincere” in their conviction, but produced horrific consequences by their actions.

This coming war is profoundly misconceived and unjust, and Tony Blair is profoundly mistaken to pursue it.

He has wrecked our relationship with our European allies, damaged our international status, weakened our democratic and parliamentary traditions, has perhaps delivered a damaging blow to the Labour Party, and will undoubtedly damage our economy and our security.

As for Scotland’s MSPs supporting Blair's action by their contemptible inaction – don’t look for my vote (Labour for more than four decades) in the May elections.

I now know where the politicians of principle are – a tiny minority in the Scottish Labour group, and a majority in the SSP and the SNP. My advice to the few MSPs of principle left in the Scottish Parliament is to cross the floor now.

Iraq has become the defining political issue of our time, and the question that will be asked of politicians (and all of us) is – where were you when there was still time to stop it?

Peter Curran

Iraq

Thursday 5 February 2015

May the 8th 2015 – when the hard bargaining starts?

All the forecasts indicate a hung Parliament as a probability rather than a possibility. I offer my understanding of the mechanic and dynamics of this to those who perhaps have never examined the matter in any detail.

If you are already well-informed on such matters, pass on – what follows is not for you, you clued-up thing, you …

CURRENT STATE OF PARTIES
Conservatives           303
Labour                       257
Liberal Democrat       56
Democratic Unionist   8
Scottish National          6
Sinn Fein                       5
Independent                 3
Plaid Cymru                  3
Social Dem & Lab.        3
UKIP                               2
Alliance                           1
Green                              1
Respect                           1
Speaker                           1

Total no. of seats  650

HARD ARITHMETIC OF FORMING A GOVERNMENT

After a general election, the leader of one of the parties has to demonstrate that he or she can command a majority of the votes in the House of Commons on major issues - e.g. the Budget, major legislation, decisions to commit the Armed Forces – in other words, impose the democratic will of the Government on dissenting voices in the House and govern the United Kingdom. This is a obviously a practical necessity and of course constitutional requirement, as the leader has to convince the Queen as Head of State.

If one political party has this capacity, its leader de facto becomes Prime Minister, subject to the Queen’s ratification, but if no single party has the requisite number of seats – even though one may have more seats than any other single party – then either

a deal has to be struck with another party or parties, or

the party with the majority of seats has to risk governing as a minority government, or

a hung Parliament effectively  exists and another general election has to be called.

This situation existed in the hectic days following the last general election in 2010, and a fascinating spectacle it was.

There have been many projections of just how the seats will play out after May 7th, and there will be many more, as poll after poll offers its forecasts, but for the purpose of illustration of the arithmetic, I’ll use a slightly dated, but useful projection of the BBC’s – the first Newsnight Index - for no better reason than that I already have a graphic for it – and it may well be as accurate as any other that comes up!

Newsnight Index projection GE2015

With 650 seats in the House, a simple majority requires the aspirant governing party or parties to be able to command 326 seats (half of 650 + 1)– but since Sinn Fein doesn’t take up its five seats, that becomes 323 (half of 645 +1).  Sinn Fein could of course put a green cat among the Brit pigeons at any time by deciding to turn up!

If we look at the Newsnight Index projection (it’s not the current one), Labour, on this projection, would be the party with most seats, but not enough to hit the magic 323. Ed Miliband could then choose to “do an Alex Salmond 2007” and elect to govern as a minority government – a high-wire act, with huge risks, which Alex was well-equipped to perform – requiring him to do ad hoc deals on every major vote with other parties or interest groups within and/or across parties. If he hadn’t the balls for this – or the Queen didn’t like it – he would then have three other options -

call for another general election, or

try to strike a confidence & supply deal with another party or parties – a kind of minority government with a pre-arranged support understanding, or

form a coalition government with one party or with more than one party - a Rainbow coalition

(Aficionados of the various Borgen series on BBC Four will understand all of this effortlessly, plus have an insight into the role of sex in government!)

Who will Ed’s likely partners in government be – if he chooses to have partners – and how would it play out on the above, or similar projections of a May  7th outcome?

To get to the magic 323, he needs 37 votes. For comfort – and to reassure Lizzie – he ideally needs more. The SNP can give him 33, Plaid two and Greens one. He definitely(?) won’t find his extra one from the Tories or UKIP, and thus is left to trawl among the LibDems, the Northern Ireland parties and the Others!

Perhaps George Galloway will see his way clear to support Ed, but probably at a price that would be unacceptable!

However it plays out, it seems inevitable, if present polling trends are accurate, that the SNP will be the key player.

But consider this possibility – the LibDem 26 plus 11 othersbut drawn from where?

I haven’t had so much fun since the 1945 General Election, where I campaigned for Labour and Attlee as a ten year-old. Now, that was fun …

N.B. The Speaker does not vote, except in deadheat votes, when the convention is that the speaker casts the tie-breaking vote in favor of the governing party.

Monday 2 February 2015

As we wait for the Chilcot Report …

Waiting for Chilcot is a bit like waiting for Godot. Idly checking back in my past ruminations on the war, I came across these comment of mine in the Guardian, circa 2008.

Guardian, comments 18 December 2008

I have been totally opposed to the Iraq war, from the lies, special pleading and moral cowardice that led up to it and throughout the horror, mendacity and ineptitude of its dreadful progress. But I am shocked at the unrealistic and superficial attitude of many of the comments on the role of the British armed forces, from armchair critics who have never been near a battlefield, have never placed themselves in harms way, and have never laid their life on the line for their country. To compare our soldiers, directly or by implication, to Nazis, is obscene and inaccurate.

The responsibility for the crimes against humanity in Iraq lies with the politicians who initiated it, to the members of Parliament who voted for it, and to the electors of Britain who continued to return them to power after the war started, and who continue to support them in government - and to the religious factions and tribal demagogues who manipulate the tortured people of Iraq, and naive - and always young - idealists from other nations, perverting their religious beliefs and the teachings of Islam to suit their evil and self-serving ends.

There have been atrocities - a minority of serving soldiers have behaved badly, and their superiors have failed by omission or commission to prevent this. But such aberrations occur in every war, and where possible, it has been exposed and punished.

But the prosecution of the war by British forces has been conducted in as principled a way as the exigencies of any war permit. An individual serving soldier may, at great personal risk, refuse to carry out an order in a specific instance that violates accepted codes of morality and international law, but to expect serving soldiers at any level to refuse to carry out their orders because of complex political argument at levels far above them is to expect the impossible. It is simplistic and brutally uncaring.

And what of the generals? Once our generals start to pursue their own agenda and their own political beliefs by confronting their political masters, we are headed for a junta. I hold no brief for Sir Jock Stirrup, and I think he should have thought, and thought again before committing his vapourings to print, but I do not believe he should have disobeyed his order.

I am a Scottish nationalist, and I fervently wish to be free of the Union that sacrifices the brave young men and women of Scotland to serve the vaunting ambition and vanity of despicable Scots like Blair and Brown, and permits them to send young men and women to their deaths, but I have never doubted the bravery and professionalism of the armed forces. In a very real sense, it is a greater sacrifice to do your job and die for your country in pursuit of a cause you do not believe in, because the majority of the people of your country have willed that act.

Place the blame where it squarely lies - with the politicians and the people who put them there. Leave our armed forces to mourn their dead and maimed comrades, and their families to cry out against those who sent them to their fate. 

Blair, Brown, Bush and Cheney attempt to justify their actions, but the verdict of history will damn them. The ancient Greeks recognised their type, and foresaw their fate.

The gods fail not to mark those who have killed many
The black Furies, stalking the man fortunate beyond all right
Wrench back again the set of his life and drop him to darkness.
There, among the ciphers, there is no more comfort in power
And the vaunt of high glory is bitterness.

AESCHYLUS - Agammenon

It is Britain's, and the Labour Party's abiding shame that two Labour Prime Ministers initiated, supported, and still defend the enormity of the Iraq conflict.

Saturday 31 January 2015

Iraq, The Chilcot Report – and Scottish Labour’s attempts to airbrush them out of GE2015 campaign

James Kelly demonstrates all the abysmal levels of debating skills, and rhetoric, plus lack of focus and absence of logical rigour for which Scottish Labour are justly notorious.

He doesn't want to be debating The Chilcot Report at all. Neither does his leader, Blairite Jim Murphy, nor his strategist, John McTernan, nor his party, Scottish Labour. The Peace Envoy wouldn't like it ...

 

Labour would dearly love to airbrush the Iraq War, The Chilcot Report, Blair and the Blair/Brown Government out of the general election debate, as Mary Fee's closing remarks show - but they can't - they have inconvenient evidence of them incarnate in Jim Murphy and his chief  strategist, John McTernan on their doorstep - and in the 'big beast' summoned to bale out Murphy's failing leadership, Gordon Brown - the banker of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, fully supportive of, and fully complicit in both.

Friday 30 January 2015

SNP/Green/Plaid bloc has to buttress Miliband against the Blairites after May 7th

SNP/Green/Plaid bloc has to buttress Miliband against the Blairites after May 7th NHS, Labour and privatisation -Labour, deeply divided into two camps on NHS - and many other key issues.

We already know what camp Murphy is in - the one inhabited by all his Blairite pals.
Scots have to choose between Labour and Tories/LibDems after May 7th, and we have to trust Labour, or least that Miliband wing of Labour that is halfway rational about the NHS, the economy, welfare and Trident. An SNP/Green/Plaid bloc has to buttress Miliband against the Blairites in his own party, and they include Jim Murphy.

Conditional trust only - for a price - in a confidence and supply arrangement, with a series of key conditions set by Nicola and Cabinet in Scotland through her team in Westminster. That's the new game ...

Wednesday 28 January 2015

Fracking nonsense

I’m totally opposed to fracking, and since INEOS are at the heart of fracking intentions in Scotland, I’m opposed to this part of their business plan. But ambitious though it is, it’s not quite as ambitious as The National newspaper outlined it in Monday’s edition.

On page 8, a well-written and highly relevant piece by Kathleen Nutt and Stefan Schmid titled ‘Calls for Holyrood to halt all fracking plans’ appeared. with a concise report on the issues, the political state of play and the Infrastructure Bill.

It had one number in it, one crucial number – and that number was egregiously wrong.

It jumped out and hit me between the eyes, as it should have done the editor, and indeed anyone with even the slightest geographical sense of the dimensions of the country of Scotland. But apparently it didn’t …

I addressed it in a light manner on Twitter, fully expecting that someone would have already recognised the error. But no, and although both journalists promptly and courteously replied to my query, one acknowledging the error and promising a correction in Tuesday’s National, none has appeared to date.

(I’ve contacted The National by email – so far, no reply, no correction.)

Here’s the Twitter mini-saga -

TWITTER Jan 26th 2015
Peter Curran @moridura  #fracking What is the radius of INEOS's fracking licences? The National quotes 147m radius. That's 67,887 sq.mls. Scotland is 30,414 sq.mls

Peter Curran @moridura  ·#fracking Scotland's width is 192 miles, length is 254 miles. According to National, INEOS's fracking licences cover a diameter of 294m (radius 147m)

Peter Curran @moridura  ·#frack Today's 'National' p8 - "Ineos .. currently holds the fracking licence for a 147-mile radius around its Grangemouth plant" Does it?

Peter Curran @moridura  #fracking I take it, from the absence of comment, that 'The National' stands behind its 147 mile INEOS fracking radius (of Grangemouth)?
of 294m (radius 147m)

Twitter exchange with co-authors of The National piece, Kathleen Nutt and Stefan Schmid

Peter Curran @moridura @kacnutt Care to comment on my tweet queries on National article (if you were co-author) and Ineos's 147m radius fracking radius re Scotland

Kathleen Nutt ‏@kacnutt @moridura Re article my contribution was on parly votes.

Peter Curran ‏@moridura @kacnutt Thanks, Kathleen - good relevant article - my only query is 147m radius stat.

Peter Curran @moridura  @kacnutt Geographically as well as environmentally, if the 147m radius is not a typo ...

Peter Curran ‏@moridura @StefanSchmid03 Care to comment about my tweet queries on your p8 National fracking radius of 147m for Ineos, Stefan? All I want is facts.

Stefan Schmid ‏@StefanSchmid03 @moridura Cheers for bringing that up. Was just a really sloppy mistake, it is a 127 mile area. Should be in corrections tomorrow.

@StefanSchmid03 Thanks, Stefan. God knows, we all make mistakes. (Are there no editors to pick them up?) Fracking's a serious game

@StefanSchmid03 It's when you're most buried in detailed researched that you're at risk from single key stats (I know!). Last looks vital!

Stefan Schmid ‏@StefanSchmid03   @moridura I’ll be taking the blame for that one, spent a lot of time researching the topic over the past months so shouldn't get that wrong.

Tuesday 27 January 2015

Survation polling - GE2015

I thought this might prove useful to those tracking the 2015 General election -

Survation Ltd

With 100 days to go until the general election, Survation on behalf of the Daily Mirror interviewed 1,014 Great British adults online about a range of political issues. (Fieldwork was conducted on Sunday 25 January.)

Headline voting intention (with change in brackets since 24 December 2014):

CON 31% (+2); LAB 30% (-2); UKIP 23% (+3); LD 7% (-4); SNP 5% (+2); GRE 3% (+1); OTHER 1% (0)

For the Daily Mirror's analysis, see here. For full questions put to respondents, weighted data tables and methodology see here.

This poll is the first in a new monthly series. We will be tracking a range of political views in the run up to the UK general election on 7 May. For any enquiries, please contact

0203 142 7642 or researchteam@survation.com.

Keep up to date with all of Survation’s research and analysis on our blog.

Follow us on Twitter@survation

Find out more about the services Survation provide by following this link.

For press enquiries, please call 0203 142 7642 or email enquiry@survation.com

Survation is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

http://www.britishpollingcouncil.org

Survation Ltd  Registered in England & Wales Number 07143509

Thursday 22 January 2015

Who really won the Referendum? UK Unionists now deeply, EVELy confused …

 

It was all entirely predictable - and predicted by me, as well as many more distinguished commentators - the granting of more powers simply plays into our self-determination agenda, and feeds an appetite that will only be satified with full independence.

UK is between a rock and a hard place -

Granting more powers just increases the demand for more, and infuriates the English electorate.

Denying them guarantees an irresistible Scottish demand for the second referendum.

Ye cannae win, Westminster - we have history, the zeitgeist and right on our side. (Nov 2011 blog)

 

Murphy at his vacuous worse - and that's saying something!


NEIL: "I hope you'll be better at answering my questions when I interview you on Sunday."

MURPHY: "I'm looking forward to it, Andrew .."

NEIL: "I was - until that interview. But nevertheless ..."


Get back fast to McTernan and your new comms team, Jimbo - radical surgery is required on your media persona. And you can rely on them to make it even worse ...

Tuesday 20 January 2015

The Trident Renewal Debate – 20th Jan 2015

#Trident The moral and intellectual, not to mention the strategic and economic bankruptcy of the pro-nuclear case is staggeringly evident.

 #Trident Trident Debate 20 Jan 2015: Dame Joan Ruddock - Part 2  "Nuclear weapons have no utility..."

#Trident Trident Debate 20 Jan 2015: Dame Joan Ruddock - Part 1 “A unilateralist is a multilateralist who means it!"

#Trident #WMD God help us - look who's in the Deputy Speaker's chair - Eleanor Laing MP! -

#Trident #WMD Trident debate, 20 Jan 2015: Angus Robertson - Part Two

#Trident My least favourite Scottish MP, Rory Stewart (Jim Murphy close second) is on his feet

#Trident I take my hat off to Labour MPs attending who spoke for the motion. As for the Scottish ones who didn't attend - my utter contempt

#Trident Some of the arguments for retaining WMD sound like those that might be advanced by not very bright, morally deficient adolescents.

#Trident #indy #WMD Trident debate 20 Jan 2015: Angus Robertson - Part One. Angus Robertson on superb form ..

JOAN RUDDOCK: Nuclear weapons have no utility.They cannot be used to advance any cause or to secure any territory without devastating effects”

#Trident There's a grinning ghost missing from Labour benches - Jim Murphy, arch-Blairite, Henry Jackson nuclear hawk. Will he vote tonight?

#Trident I continue to marvel at what prats some English Tories are, e.g. Julian Fellows.

#indy George Osborne effectively confirmed today that he wants to see English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) applied to parts of the Budget

#Trident The argument for having nuclear weapons is identical to the NRA's case for every American family to keep an arsenal in their homes

#Trident Thanks God Labour has a tiny number of principled MPs left. Dame Joan Ruddock is one. Currently on her principled feet ...

#Trident Michael Fallon, in between defending WMD as a job creation scheme, attacks Labour's alleged equivalence on at sea nuclear deterrent

#Trident If ever we needed evidence that Labour and Tories are unfit to govern a civilised society, Trident debate offers it in abundance.

#indy Which is the more contemptible - Labour's loss of values and principles, or its attempt to hide the loss from the electorate by lies?

#indy Labour MPs absence from Trident debate says that they support WMD but are afraid to be seen to be doing so, afraid to debate. Feart.

#indy Survation poll this morning shows a majority of those who expressed a view are opposed to the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons.

Monday 12 January 2015

Tweets on Murphyism–a new New Labour sect

Peter Curran @moridura 

Murphy seems close to adopting a heretical YES creed. But NO voters wink and tap their noses: he's brought in the Witchfinder General!

Murphy says Scottish Labour is open to indy supporters. How exactly does he plan to deliver it? By referendum? By recanting? By Irn-Bru?

The Scotsman does its best to explain Murphyism with a straight face

Jim Murphy inspires me - to throw-up, then laugh. He reaches the depths of expediency other politicians cannot reach - not even Nigel!

Even non-believers in Henry Jackson may join Murphy's New Labour. Anti-NATO? We have a place for you too! George Robertson is a donor!

Murphyism - the new health food for disenchanted Labour YES supporters. It's bland, non-nutritious, cooked up by our new chef McTernan

Enough of politics - an indy crossword clue! Politician with no beliefs and forked tongue. No entries required - no prizes offered.

New Murphy Labour - open to all! We'll adjust to anybody's beliefs because our new party has only one - believe in Jim Murphy's career

Jim Murphy - why not invite unilateral WMD disarmers to join your new creed? And flat-earthers, creationists, perpetual motion fans?

To say that Murphyism is a confused, contradictory, opportunistic creed is not to do it full justice. Anyone who swallows this is nuts

SCOTSMAN on Murphyism: "referendum has resulted in the party being overwhelmingly characterised as unionist" Fancy that! 100 towns? Irn-Bru?

Murphy says Scottish Labour is open to indy supporters. How exactly does he plan to deliver it? By referendum? By recanting? By Irn-Bru?

Sunday 11 January 2015

Ed Miliband is not a deal-making kind of guy–but he’ll do one post-GE2015!

Better mute the "pooling and sharing" bit with Scotland as you get closer to May 7th, Ed - the English electorate won't like it!

Get elected as a minority government, then do your deal with the SNP, Plaid and Greens - dump Trident, give the Scots what they were promised - devomax - then work with your new partners to undo the untold damage done by Blair, Brown and the Coalition to the people of these islands.

Newsnight Index projection GE2015

P.S. We'll be back sometime in the very near future for our independence after the next referendum that Scotland holds - without asking anyone's permission.

Wednesday 7 January 2015

Murphy’s Big Idea – a flawed concept

It should be evident to all but the most blinkered right-wing Murphy media fan that Jimbo is not a deep thinker.

Despite presenting a media persona that affects profundity in its body language, Murphy is devoid of content – he’s a superficial, headline-grabbing soundbyte politician. You will search in vain for his deep thoughts in writing or in YouTube archives – Murphy’s tools are the ingratiating motherhood statement - oozing vague social concerns and that nauseating brand of Scottish Labour faux internationalism - alternating with a hectoring, blustering approach honed in long university student politics (at the taxpayers expense) and in the smoke-filled rooms of West of Scotland Labour politics, red in tooth and claw.

His core problem in trying to reverse his party’s fortunes before GE2015 is that of Scottish Labour epitomised in one man – the belief that values, policies and principles are coins that can be flipped over after the toss without the electorate noticing.

Time is running out fast for Jim – he was dumped by Miliband from his cabinet and from the shadow defence post that gave him his credibility in the Henry Jackson Society. His two mentors and role models – Tony Blair and David Miliband – are no longer around to support his right-wing HJS agenda of WMD and aggressive transatlantic US/UK hawkish foreign policy. He backed the wrong horse, the wrong Miliband in the Labour leadership election.

For a conviction politician, such setbacks would be a problem, but not for Jim Murphy, who is George Galloway in spirit, but without Galloway’s undoubted intellect and rhetorical gifts. Like Galloway, facing a declining career on the margins of Westminster politics, he looked north during the referendum campaign, and reached for his Irn-Bru crate.

Here was his big chance to grab media headlines and ingratiate himself, not only with Labour, Miliband, Brown and Darling et al, but with the right-wing unionist British Establishment and its shadowy international allies who held the key to the career path he probably aspired to – the Mandelsonian, Blairite, Robertsonish, David Milibandish high road to an international stage and the glittering prizes that awaited him.

It seemed to work, despite the eggings. The media began to call him a big beast, his face was everywhere. The plan seemed to be working. The NO vote prevailed. He seemed oblivious to the fact that the people of Glasgow were not too happy with him – indeed he wore their contempt as a badge of honour – and not even the fact that Glasgow voted YES, that Glasgow was YES City dented his complacency.

But it became evident even to a man as self-absorbed as Murphy that, post-referendum, a sea change had occurred in Scottish politics and the Scottish electorate, and things were not going according to plan. Scottish Labour – his party, was in a parlous state, as poll after poll chronicled their decline, while the SNP was doubling, then trebling, then quadrupling its membership.

As his allies melted away – Brown and Darling slinking off the stage  - and as his Scottishness became a poisoned pill in London Labour’s electoral strategy – and as the British Establishment and their media shills displayed utter confusion and bafflement over why the Scots hadn’t just rolled over and peed up their bellies in craven submission after the indyref, his Westminster career looked even more uncertain and his Scottish heartland was moving en masse to the SNP and the other independence parties.

Could he rely on the former solidly Tory East Renfrewshire electorate to still stand behind his right-wing agenda – pro-Israel, pro-NATO, pro-HJS values, pro-WMD – or would they be affected by the great tectonic movement sweeping Scottish politics?

London Labour wanted none of him, an uncertain future faced him after May 2015. His Westminster defence contacts were diluted and fading fast, and the revolving doors out of the Commons and into armaments industry, commerce, non-exec directorships and consulting contract, open to many in his position, didn’t seem to be spinning invitingly in his direction. But Johann Lamont really focused his mind, in the manner of her resignation.

Time to flip the coin – time to re-invent, re-focus – time to get the tartan carpetbag out of the closet. He threw his hat in the ring for the Scottish Labour Leadership, won convincingly and the new Murphy emerged from the Tardis, swathed in tartan habiliments, now claiming to be of the Left, and militantly anti-London Labour.

But there was the inconvenient baggage of his Blairite past and the dumbells of Scottish Labour’s core referendum arguments to fall over at every turn – Iraq, support for Trident, faux internationalism, unionism and the pooling and sharing mantra.

The motherhood statements and the shining, but suitably vague social vision were wearing thin as the general election campaign loomed. Something headline-grabbing that resembled a policy had to be found, and what better one, in the grip of winter and both Scottish and rUK NHSs under severe resource challenges, than a bidding challenge on nurses to fire at the SNP.

The SNP were in government, forced to balance budgets squeaking under the strain of cuts caused by Labour, LibDem and Tory incompetence, but Jimbo didn’t have to deal with the real life! All he needed, as ever, was a gimmick …

THE THOUSAND NURSES AND THE MANSION TAX

Murphy’s thought processes, as outlined by him and by enthusiastic and admiring journalists and commentators (almost all from the right of the political spectrum) with as little understanding of post-indyref politics as himself, ran as follows -

1. The SNP is past the post-indyref honeymoon period, needs to defend its record, and show why problems exists in areas under its devolved control, especially the NHS.

2. To play down his right-wing unionist London-Labour past, and to kill the Lamont branch office label, he has to demonstrate independence of Westminster Labour, and make a big gesture of defiance.

3. Nurses, and the pressure on nursing staff, are one of the key problems in both NHSs, and nurses always elicit public sympathy and support.

4. Since real policy formation, rigorous thought and economic rationality are not in Jimbo’s skillset, a simple outbidding ploy was needed. 1000 is a nice round figure (e.g. 1000 extra policemen a la SNP 2007-2011) and 1000 extra nurses is even nicer.

So – Murphy as FM would match any SNP staffing commitment by promising 1000 nurses on top of it.  But how to fund it? Easy – the mansion tax, popular on the left, unpopular on the right. Bash the rich, fund more nurses. In the Jim Murphy Ladybird Book of Politics, this was a nice wee simple story to feed a gullible Scottish electorate, especially the fabled 200,000 older Labour voters who were going to swing the election his way.

But this would offend London Labour and Westminster, since it would be essentially the London mansion owners who would fund it. Simples! Let them be offended – this would demonstrate that born-again socialist, Scottish Murphy is not afraid to put Scotland first and take the branch office sign down.

What’s wrong with this? Just about everything …

THE WORMS IN THE MURPHY APPLE

1. The Scottish electorate are no longer the gullible, reflex Labour-voting automatons that Labour relied on for generations – honed on the grindstone of the referendum campaign, they are now politically aware, social media adept, engaged, articulate and sceptical – and organised.

2. The pooling and sharing rationale, worked to death by Murphy et al during the indyref campaign, was never credible to YES supporters, and never mattered to rUK voters – except the ill-informed – because in practice, it didn’t work that way.

But in the post-indyref climate of rUK electorate resentment against Scottish vibrancy after defeat, SNP resurgence and the Smith Commission, a major sense of resentment and inequality was building over what was perceived as bribes to Scots losers.

And now pooling and sharing was expected to favour already bribed Scots and the Scottish NHS over the rUK electorate and the rUK NHS with English - nay, London! - house owners taxes!

This was guaranteed to upset just about everybody, except the right-wing media claque for Murphy. The Tories wouldn’t like it, Londoners of all shades of political allegiance wouldn’t like it, and for Miliband’s Labour Party in electioneering mode, it would be folly to endorse it.

But crucially, the Scottish electorate that Murphy hopes to con with his pledge know that he can’t deliver it without the support of Westminster, which won’t be forthcoming – and that it’s therefore an empty gesture.

And empty gestures are the essence of Jim Murphy …

Sunday 28 December 2014

The People’s choice –an ideal that fails against reality of Party?

JOHN ADAMS:

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This,  in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.

GEORGE WASHINGTON:

the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

POLITICAL PARTIES

The Founding Fathers of America were uneasy about them. Democracies the world over are stuck with them, for better or worse. Political theorists argue endlessly about them. PPE graduates talk glibly about them. What in hell are they?

Wikipedia offers general definitions -

WIKIPEDIA

A political party is an organization of people which seeks to achieve goals common to its members through the acquisition and exercise of political power.

A political party platform or platform is a list of the values and actions which are supported by a political party or individual candidate, in order to appeal to the general public, for the ultimate purpose of garnering the general public's support and votes about complicated topics or issues.

So there we have it. Simples? No - there’s an inconvenient reality for political parties, democracy.

In turn, political parties are an inconvenient reality for democracies.

How to get to the heart of the complex questions surrounding democracy and the role of political parties? A few simple ideas – all relating to Westminster elections.

1. Our UK democracy allows the citizen to vote for a candidate for the Westminster Parliament. Any citizen qualified by law (not by party!) may stand for Parliament.

2. A candidate may elect to stand under a political party label – if that party agrees – or stand as an independent. If the candidate stands under a party label, the party is identified on the ballot paper.

3. Political parties must have processes to identify potential candidates, nominate them for assessment, assess them, and decide if they are to be adopted as a prospective Parliamentary candidate.

Let’s pause here and look at the implication of the above three facts -

Democracy depends on named individual citizens being elected to represent defined constituencies. The voter gets therefore to choose between the candidates presented on the ballot paper – but not to choose which candidates are on the ballot paper in the first place.

Whether a candidate appears on the ballot paper is determined by one of two scenarios -

his or her decision to stand as an independent candidate in a parliamentary constituency.

A political party’s decision to allow them to stand – after evaluation and assessment - as the sole candidate for that party in that constituency.

In the first scenario, a citizen offers himself/herself for election by secret ballot to his/her fellow citizens.

In the second scenario, the voter is offered a candidate chosen by a political party.

The voter is both cases may evaluate the candidate against his/her own criteria by the means available – the candidate’s individual background, qualifications, experience, values, principles and objectives as offered by the candidate and by personal research.

In the second case – the candidate has also been approved by the political party’s selection process.

One might characterises this as being offered a meal cooked by the person offering it, or by a meal offered by a well-know restaurant chain – a unique meal or a branded meal. In the first case, knowledge of the individual is vital. In the second case, the reputation of the brand is crucial.

This brings us sharply up against the role of party in politics.

Imagine a Westminster Parliament convening for the first time comprised of nothing but independents – candidates who offered themselves to the electorate without the involvement of any party machine. 650 individuals, expected to collectively govern a United(?) Kingdom comprising four bits – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - but elected by a much smaller group (their constituents).

A crucial decision has to be made immediately – say a decision to go to war, or refrain.

They could debate at once – if they could agree the terms of reference and when to start the debate.  Such a debate would make PMQs look like a Sunday school picnic.

They could then move to a vote – providing they could agree when the debate had ended. A truly democratic decision would be then be made, if the enemy had not yet launched their attack.

Let’s say they approved the war.

A whole set of new decisions would have to be voted on after lengthy debate. By that time, the United Kingdom would have either been overrun by the enemy or obliterated – or taken over by a military coup by impatient generals.

An extreme scenario – but a real possibility. The point is that, even in the absence of immediate crises,  such a Parliament would speedily have itself organised into factions of similar mind and rapidly thereafter into political parties.

Party is inevitable in democratic politics if anything is to be done – unless, as Frances Fukuyama points out, a fully functioning and powerful bureaucratic and military state under a rule of law was already in place before democracy ever emerged, and the elected representatives were either content to let it run things pro-tem – or were afraid to challenge it.

So, practically, nothing gets done without party, and a party - or parties - able to command a majority on key issues in a vote, i.e. to form a government.

What has all this got to do with recent events in and around Holyrood?

THE SNP and CANDIDATE SELECTION PROCEDURES

By the 2007 election, the SNP was a tightly-disciplined machine with a modest membership, significantly the creation of Alex Salmond and his key supporters and advisers.

But – a personal view – its candidate selection process for Westminster elections and in local council elections often produced abysmal results, notably in Glasgow. Some selections (no, I won’t be specific!) were only explicable by either rewarding of loyal time-servers, or seriously deficient selection processes – or perhaps even a lack of suitable candidates.

But despite these failings, the party machine in Scotland delivered - in Holyrood - two terms of government (second on a landslide 2011 victory), negotiated a legal referendum, and took Scotland to the brink of independence. These were formidable achievements by any standard.

The post-indyref events are even more astonishing – the fivefold membership growth, successive positive polls, the resurgence of the YES spirit, a vibrant, popular and respected new First Minister and the humbling of the opposition parties.

It was immediately evident that the spectacular growth in SNP membership post-indyref would offer huge opportunities to the Party, but also pose challenges. Nicola recognised this instantly, and responded rapidly by opening up the way for new members to offer themselves as candidates for the immediate challenge – GE2015 – and for Holyrood in 2016.

There can also be little doubt that this sent a chill down the spine of two categories of party members: long-serving,  worthy activists who had paid their dues to the party and aspired to candidate selection and the party favourites – talented activists, not necessarily long-standing members, who were being assiduously groomed for imminent stardom, many of whom had made their bones during the long referendum campaign.

It is probably fair to say of the second category that their backers were more than a little uneasy about the prospect of their protégés being challenged by the nouvelle vague.

THE TWO HURDLES

The process for vetting and selecting candidates (set out in full in the Appendix below) provides for -

A national register of approved potential parliamentary and local government candidates to be created and maintained by the SNP National Executive Committee

The individual SNP branch may only nominate, and its members select their parliamentary and local government candidates from this approved list.

So, before a candidate gets anywhere near the ballot paper and the electorate, he or she must leap two hurdles – a selection committee appointed by the National Executive, and then a vote of the constituency  branch members.

It is this first stage – and the appeal following it – that Craig Murray failed, and it is the conduct of the process and the alleged media briefings that he complains of, not the SNP’s right to vet him by such a process. His permanent blackballing as a candidate deserves closer examination.

Falkirk has been through all this relatively recently, with Jim Murphy and the Unite Union playing starring roles as competing villains  in the melodrama, with briefings and counter-briefings, against the flaming backdrop of the Grangemouth dispute.

Where do I stand on all of this?

For the record, if I had to choose between Craig Murray and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (I don’t know who the other candidates are) I would choose choose Tasmina.

Do I see an alternative to such a party candidate vetting and selection process – two relatively undemocratic processes before the polling station and ultimate constituency voter choice?

No, I don’t, even though I don’t like the way it sometime operates.

Do I think the SNP is any better or any worse than any other party, any more or less democratic in such processes?

No, I don’t – I simply want them to observe the highest standards with such imperfect aspects of democracy.

Do I think Craig Murray has always acted wisely in his comments and blogs, both before and after the vetting process?

No, I don’t. I respect his moral courage, as a British career diplomat, in challenging the injustices of the system, and respect his stated principles, but I feel he has been injudicious in some statements.

But I don’t know who is to blame for the potentially damaging media coverage this debacle threatens, or who released the cat from the bag in the first place. I think the SNP needs to be more transparent - as a matter of urgency - on candidate vetting and selection, and more careful in their press contacts on such matters.

God knows, the electorate of Falkirk deserves better than this.

 

APPENDIX ONE – extract from SNP - Rules and Standing Orders

Rules on Vetting and Selection of Potential Parliamentary and Local  Government Candidates

1. Introduction
1.1 The Scottish National Party will encourage a diverse range of members, with a broad mix of skills, understanding and experience, to apply for consideration as potential parliamentary and local government candidates. The vetting or assessment of members for consideration as potential parliamentary and local government candidates will be carried out by the Candidate Assessment Panel appointed by the National Executive Committee (hereafter referred to as “the Panel”).

A national register of approved potential parliamentary and local government candidates will be created and maintained by the National Executive Committee, from which branches will be able to nominate and members select their parliamentary and local government candidates. At all times through this process, the principles and practice of ensuring equality of opportunity for all will be promoted.

2. Mainstreaming Equality of Opportunity

2.1 The National Executive Committee shall establish and maintain a strategy to deliver equality of opportunity throughout the party, including in the selection of candidates for local government and parliamentary elections. The equality strategy will focus primarily on increasing the representation of women, ethnic minority and disabled members throughout the party, and will aim to ensure the SNP fields a more balanced list of candidates in future. Support will be offered to branches and other local organisations to ensure equality of opportunity at grassroots level. The equality strategy will aim to recruit and retain more members from underrepresented groups; to encourage active participation by these members at all levels in the party; to increase the number of candidates drawn from underrepresented groups; and to monitor progress on achieving these aims. As part of the equality strategy, the National Executive Committee shall agree a plan for each election, which may include the use of specific mechanisms, such as hard targets or other measures to deliver a balanced list of candidates. Any specific mechanism will require the approval of National Council before being introduced. Vetting of Potential Candidates

3. Candidate Assessment Panel Candidate Assessment Panel

3.1 The remit, conduct and procedures of the Candidate Assessment Panel will be established and amended from time to time by the National Executive Committee.

3.2 The Panel will be responsible for organising Assessment Centres for vetting of potential candidates.

4. Assessment Criteria

4.1 The National Executive Committee will set down the assessment criteria for potential parliamentary and local government candidates. The Panel will undertake assessment of potential parliamentary and local government candidates in accordance with the National Executive Committee’s guidance. The Panel will make recommendations to the National Executive. The recommendation can only be to approve or not to approve a member as a potential parliamentary or local government candidate.

4.2 The National Executive Committee’s assessment criteria shall, on the advice of the Panel, ensure that there is no discrimination on the grounds of age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, disability and/or religious belief.

4.3 The Panel, following a decision to approve or not approve a member as a potential parliamentary or local government candidate, will produce a feedback report summarising individual performance, including justification for the decision and proposals for personal development, if required.

5. Code of Conduct

5.1 Each member who applies to be considered as a potential parliamentary or local government candidate is required to sign a code of conduct, which will govern their behaviour as an approved potential local government candidate.

5.2 Each member who applies to be considered as a potential parliamentary or local government candidate is required to sign the relevant SNP Group Standing Orders.

6. Approval of potential candidates

6.1 The National Executive Committee will accept the recommendations of the Panel unless two-thirds of all possible members of the National Executive Committee decide otherwise. The National Executive Committee can only approve or not approve the recommendation of the Panel.

6.2 Any member who has been approved by the National Executive Committee as a potential parliamentary candidate will automatically be considered as an approved potential local government candidate. The member is required to satisfy the Local Government Liaison Committee (or body with responsibility for council elections) that they are eligible for nomination as a council candidate in that local government area as the law currently stands.

7. Appeal

7.1 A member who has not been approved as a potential parliamentary or local government candidate may appeal to the National Executive Committee’s Election Appeals Committee in accordance with procedures approved by the National Executive Committee. The decision of the Election Appeals Committee is final.

8. Register Register of Approved Potential Candidates

8.1 The National Executive Committee shall establish and maintain a single Register of Approved Potential Parliamentary and Local Government Candidates, listing in said register whether members have been approved as potential candidates for local government, parliament or both. This register will be made available on the members section of the SNP website.

8.2 The Panel will review the register on an annual basis in accordance with procedures and guidance approved by the National Executive Committee.

9. Removal from the Register of Approved Potential Candidates

9.1 The National Executive Committee may remove a member approved as a potential parliamentary candidate from the Register of Approved Potential Parliamentary and Local Government Candidates on the recommendation of the Panel, on the grounds that the member has either:

i) breached the Code of Conduct of an Approved Potential Parliamentary or Local Government Candidate, and/or

ii) breached the Disciplinary Rules of the Party. 9.2 and their removal is the recommendation of either:

i) a Liaison Committee, with responsibility for a parliamentary election, resolution passed at a duly constituted Special meeting, or

ii) a Constituency Association (or Constituency Branch) resolution passed at a duly constituted Special meeting, and/or

iii) in the case of 9.1 ii), the National Secretary, following a report of the Disciplinary Committee.

9.3 The National Executive Committee may remove a member approved as a potential local government candidate from the Register of Approved Parliamentary and Local Government Candidates on the grounds on the recommendation of the Panel, on the grounds that the member has either:

i) breached the code of conduct of an approved potential local government candidate, and/or

ii) breached the disciplinary rules of the Party.

9.4 and their removal is the recommendation of either:

i) a branch resolution passed at a duly constituted Special meeting, or

ii) a Local Government Liaison Committee (or body with responsibility for council elections) resolution passed at a duly constituted Special meeting, and/or

iii) in the case of 9.3 ii), the National Secretary, following a report of the Disciplinary Committee.

9.5 There is no appeal against the decision of the National Executive Committee on removal of a member from the Register of Approved Potential Parliamentary or Local Government Candidates. A member may be eligible to re-apply for consideration as a potential parliamentary or local government candidate on the guidance of the Panel. Selection of Parliamentary Candidates

10. Number of Candidates per Constituency

10.1 The Organisation Convener will make a recommendation to the National Executive Committee on the number of parliamentary candidates that will be nominated by the Party in each constituency at a parliamentary election.

11. Responsibility for Selection of Parliamentary Candidates

11.1 Constituency Associations (or a Constituency Branch) will have responsibility for overseeing the selection of Scottish Parliamentary candidates subject to National Executive Committee approval of the selection and subject also to the role of Party Headquarters in overseeing postal ballots and related matters, and to the provision which the constitution makes for the National Secretary and Business Convener to select candidates in specified circumstances.

11.2 Liaison Committees for elections to the United Kingdom Parliament (or Constituency Associations which have been given responsibility for Westminster elections by the National Executive Committee) will have responsibility for overseeing the selection of United Kingdom Parliamentary candidates subject to National Executive Committee approval of the selection.

11.3 The National Executive Committee will have responsibility for the selection procedures for the European Parliamentary elections.

12. Timetable for Selection of Parliamentary Candidates

12.1 Each Constituency Association or Liaison Committee with responsibility for parliamentary elections will agree a timetable for the nomination of parliamentary candidate(s) for the constituency which they are responsible for, in accordance with any procedures approved by the National Executive Committee.

13. Nomination of Parliamentary Candidates

13.1 The procedure for nominations shall be as determined by the National Executive Committee.

 14. Selection of Parliamentary Candidates

14.1 Only members who reside and are on the Electoral Register in the electoral constituency can vote in the selection of a parliamentary candidate(s) in accordance with the procedures approved by the National Executive Committee.

14.2 Only members who have maintained their membership for thirteen months prior to a cut off date agreed by the National Executive Committee are entitled to vote in the selection for a parliamentary candidate.

14.3 All selections of parliamentary candidates will be carried out on the basis of one-member-one-vote using the principles of single transferable voting. Members will be made aware of the Scottish National Party’s commitment to equality of opportunity and the need to ensure a broad mix of parliamentarians are elected to represent the diverse communities of Scotland.

14.4 The National Secretary and Business Convener, in using their powers to select a parliamentary candidate in the circumstances specified in the Constitution, shall do so after consultation with the Constituency Association, Constituency Branch or Liaison Committee concerned or, in the case of selections of European Parliamentary candidates, with members of the National Executive Committee.

14.5 A ballot of all members in a constituency will not be required in the event that a candidate is unopposed for selection in a constituency. The NEC will make rules to cover selection procedure in these instances.

14.6 The National Executive Committee will have responsibility for the selection and ranking procedures for parliamentary regional lists.

14.6 The National Executive Committee shall bring forward additions and/or amendment(s) to these Rules in order to specify processes for ensuring a balanced list of candidates, particularly in regard to gender, for each parliamentary election.

15. Deselection of Parliamentary Candidates

15.1 A candidate for the Scottish or United Kingdom Parliament, whether in a constituency or on a party list, may be deselected by the National Executive Committee on a vote of two thirds of those present, if acting on the request of the Constituency Association or Liaison Committee concerned. The National Secretary may delegate the function of assessing such a request to a panel of National Executive Committee members, who will then report their findings to the National Executive Committee for decision.

15.2 A candidate for the European Parliament may be deselected by the National Executive Committee, by a two-thirds majority of those voting, if acting on the request of the National Secretary and Business Convener.

15.3 If a parliamentary candidate on a party list dies, resigns or is deselected as a list candidate, or becomes ineligible to be an SNP candidate, then any other candidates below him or her on the list each move up one place in the rankings.