‘Significant’ UK Scientific Breakthrough

Reuters - Details are still sketchy, but, in an astonishing scientific breakthrough, it appears that British scientists have finally discovered the gene that actually prevents Scots from governing themselves.




If confirmed, the project, completed in the final days of the last UK Labour administration, will amount to nothing less than the Holy Grail for those Scots who argue that an independent Scotland would be a violation of the laws of nature. As such it will also be a godsend for those in the UK Labour Party and the Scottish and British media – especially the BBC, the Scotsman, Glasgow Herald and Daily Record – who until now have been forced to argue this without evidence.

Called traitors by their own countrymen, these Scottish ‘unionists’ – an assorted rabble of politicians, hack journalists and second rate economists, all with a vested interest in keeping their jobs in the UK political machine – were last night jubilant that they could finally explain why Scots were able to act as British prime ministers, British Empire governors, founding fathers for the United States, New Zealand and Canada, heads of banks and corporations around the world today, and yet be strangely incapable of running their own affairs.

A visibly shaken Alex Salmond, First Minister of Scotland and champion of Scottish independence, was devastated at the news.

“It’s a total bombshell. Think of all the years we’ve wasted campaigning for something that was always beyond reach. Of course, we’ll be disbanding the Scottish National Party within a few days. I feel like we’ve let every North British person down. There was just no way we could have known.”

When asked if he had any specific comment on the findings, Salmond was reflective.

“Och, well,” he sighed. “At least this solves the puzzle of what Labour’s Scotland Office was actually doing with its £7.2 million budget. We thought it was trying to prove the existence of alien life, but now we know.”

An ecstatic ex-Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy last night explained the true significance of the discovery, on a hotline from the wilderness:

“It’s what we’ve been saying all along. We’ve finally proved beyond doubt that Scots need exposure to English culture to learn governance, which is England’s gift to the world. Thank God Gordon Brown and I got our English culture from our wives. Without that contact, our genetic makeup would have put us at a serious disadvantage. We’d both be wife-beating alcoholics by now.”

When asked about Scots’ solid record of leadership over the centuries, Mr. Murphy was defiant:

“Yes,” he yelled hoarsely, struggling to be heard over the tundra gale, “but England gave those countries their culture. So indirectly, it’s the English context that Scots needed to succeed, not our genes, which in fact hold us back. It’s only our acquired English culture that allows us to succeed.”

And the fact that Scotland was an independent nation for over eight centuries before the Union, and as such one of the oldest nations on earth? At this point Mr. Murphy seemed to grow irate.

“Look pal, don't give me that medieval pish. We were never a real country. And any real leaders we had all left to settle the Empire. It’s only the genetic dross that’s left.”

When asked if he included himself in this category, Mr. Murphy abruptly terminated the interview.

Breaking Down the Scottish Labour Mythology

During the recent election, the local Labour candidate came to my parents’ door and introduced himself. My father later told me what happened, sounding quietly honoured that someone like an MP would come to his little corner of the world and knock on his front door.

This was how he described the conversation:

‘Can I count on your vote in the Election?’
‘Oh, aye. We’re Labour folk fae way back.’
‘Really?’
‘Aye. Mining stock. Baith sides ’o the faimily.’
‘Really? Whar fae?”
‘Motherwell and Kilmarnock.’
‘That’s marvelous. It’s aye nice tae meet people wha ken whar they’re fae. Ken whit ah mean? People wha can mind the auld days.’
‘Oh, aye. Different times noo, though.’
‘Aye. And there’ll be big changes again if they Tories get back in.’
‘Aye, you’re no’ wrang.’
‘Will ye be needing a lift tae the polling station?’
‘Ach, no. Wur getting oan, but we can still get aboot. A freen's geein us a lift.’
‘That’s the spirit! Still soldiering oan, eh? It’s been a real pleasure tae meet ye. Cheerio, now.’

The hypocrisy of this exchange gave me bile. My father retired a couple of years ago and was disgusted to find that the pension he had contributed to all his life was almost worthless. I tried at the time to explain that it was Gordon Brown’s scrapping of tax relief on pension fund dividends that had destroyed his pension, but to no avail. That was one argument.

He often tells me about confrontations with local junkie neds, whose cheek he claims to find amusing, in an I-can-still-take-it, razor gang chic kind of way. He told me the story of the junkie asking for flavoured methadone from a terrified young chemist assistant and was bemused when I didn’t find it hysterical.

When pushed, he thinks we need a war to bring back some respect for authority. This is where I try to explain that we’re already in a war, that the lads who are dying in Afghanistan are just normal kids, and that these wasters would not be the type to join up anyway. And besides, what difference would a war make? After all, he hadn’t been a soldier himself – that was not where he had got his values from. That was another argument we had.

My mother was sick last year. She got the best of treatment in a hospital about two hours away. He visited her every day for a month, leaving the car for free in the car park, sometimes for hours at a time. I explained this was an SNP idea. ‘Aye but they stole the idea off Labour. And the free tolls on the Forth was just populist nonsense. Just a bunch of bloody Tartan Tories.’ Straight from the Daily Record songsheet.

He spent a small fortune on fuel on these trips, and grumbled at the time about the price of petrol. He was getting to the stage where he couldn’t even afford to run his car. The idea that we should be one of the richest countries in the world with cheap petrol is a fantasy he refuses to even contemplate. ‘If Norway is so bloody great, why don’t you bugger off and live there,’ he says.

The inconvenient truth for the SNP is that supporting Labour in the West of Scotland is part of Scottish workers’ identity – whether or not they still work. This is what the SNP are up against. The mainstream Scottish media have nurtured this identity for years. They feed Glasgow and the South West a steady stream of Old Firm rivalry, Scotland’s salt of the earth industrial toughness, and myths about her former glorious role in Empire, alongside the same celebrity tat that’s served up around the world. Not to mention any chance they get to make the Scottish Government look either incompetent or useless. And the central westies lap it up.

The tragedy is that Scottish working men and women are utterly unaware of the complete disconnect between the Labour Party of old and the slick PR operation of today. My father used to tell me when I was younger that I should get down on my knees and thank Harold Wilson for giving me my free university education, and, while I was at it, Clement Atlee for the NHS. To a certain extent, I agree. But these things were achieved decades ago. New Labour and old Labour are not the same thing.

To my father, the idea that the Labour Party has become a self-serving power structure that might actually have a stake in men like him staying poor is incomprehensible. He could never even begin to understand that Labour and the Tories need each other at Westminster, that they are both deeply conservative parties committed to the status quo, and that they must appear to be enemies to create problems for the other to fix up every fifteen years or so. Thirty years of Labour would be just as destructive as thirty years of the Tories. It is an oscillatory system of elected absolute power, periodically delivering up heroes and villains to satisfy everyone, and giving each side a bite of the cherry. Like an old German clock, rolling out different puppets every hour, both waving the British flag.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how to change my father’s mind about Scottish independence.

Perhaps all politics are local after all, and the answer lies in delivering high profile health, social and transport programs that are clearly seen to be SNP policies. If so, continuing the battle to control the councils must remain core SNP policy. Fortunately, this is a war of attrition the SNP is winning.

The SNP must also learn to counter the non-stop scare-mongering in the Scottish unionist press, of the type ‘SNP denies plan to hand out free heroine to children.’ This is serious stuff. If Joseph Goebels proved anything it was that in absence of any dissenting voice, any intelligent, literate society starved of real news can be made to believe almost anything. The owners of the Daily Record know this. Scottish Government and SNP press releases on their pretty web sites are simply not getting through. This is a media war that Labour is winning.

Something has to give.

My father lost his licence this year because of his health, and can no longer drive himself to the fishing. Luckily, he’s well liked and one of the younger lads will often drive him up to his favourite loch when he feels the need to drop a line in the water. He might not get the place to himself anymore, but he’s still catching fish, and it puts a smile on his face.

I once asked him how the Scottish Government could help him.

'Change the law about Sunday salmon fishing,' he replied. 'The working man has aye been denied fishing for salmon on Sundays, so the toffs dinnae hae their rivers over-fished by the workers.'

Perhaps he is right. This might win a few over. It sounds like a good idea, even though, dare I say, a tad populist. But how would this help lift the people in Glasgow out of poverty? And, just as importantly, how many would be persuaded by this measure to stop voting to stay in poverty? Not too many, I would think.

My mother doesn’t answer the door when politicians call. And like me, she’s learnt not to debate politics with my father. She knows he doesn’t like her voting differently to him and that he considers it a wasted vote if she does. She did it one year and told him, and he was furious.

Today, as far as my father is aware, she votes Labour too, and there are no arguments on polling day. But my mother and I always have the last laugh.

Mum votes SNP.

UPDATE

Unions Review Links With 'New Labour'

Union poll shows majority in favour of independence

Keeping Scotland a Colony

By any measure, and despite the 2007 victory of a nationalist government in Scotland’s pocket-money-parliament, Scotland continues to be a colony of England.

A former post presents the compelling historical evidence for this claim.



What follows is a detailed description of how this colonial system works, divided into (1) the problem itself, and (2) the means of control the British state uses to keep Scotland in this unique constitutional configuration we call the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The Problem

1. Scottish troops continuing to die in Britain’s wars.

2. The continuing recruitment to the British army of Scottish economic conscripts from some of the most socially deprived areas of Scotland, direct from high streets, schools and colleges.

3. The complete lack of control the Scottish Government has on immigration to Scotland, regardless of whether it wishes to increase or decrease it.

4. The continuing pillage of Scotland’s oil reserves to prop up the morally and financially bankrupt British State, with not a penny returned to Scotland.

5. The prolonging of Glasgow’s social deprivation to maintain a benefit- and Labour-dependent voting core in Scotland. Middle class voters don’t vote Labour. This has been Labour’s policy since it first assumed UK power in its minority administration of 1922, when it also quietly dropped its long held demand for Scottish Home Rule.

6. The complete lack of Scottish Government control of thresholds for income tax, corporation tax, VAT, stamp duty and capital gains tax levied within Scotland, all contributing to support the British state. All tax thresholds and levels are set by the UK Govt to suit the economic conditions in the south of England. Should the Scottish Government implement the Calman Commission proposal and vary only the income tax rate in isolation – leaving aside all other taxes – it would have devastating economic consequences.

7. The continued and growing presence of Britain nuclear submarine bases in Scottish lochs, close to major population centres, with no accountability to the Scottish Parliament or people.

8. The continued presence of Royal Air Force bases in Scotland with no accountability to the Scottish Parliament or people.

9. The continuing imposition of UK customs duties (tariffs) on all goods imported into Scotland. This prevents the Scottish Government from establishing and fostering any domestic industry, the standard practice of all industrial nations when establishing their native manufacturing bases - including the UK and US - despite all the free trade rhetoric since achieving economic supremacy. In Scotland's case, the goal will be to create 21st century industries to replace the healthy industrial base that Margaret Thatcher was so successful at destroying.

10. The continuing UK imposition of low alcohol prices on the Scottish population - despite attempts by the Scottish Government to combat this practice and its appalling social consequences - to keep Scots who are out of work dull-witted enough to keep voting Labour - the party that promises to keep their unemployment and disability benefits flowing.



How Colonial Control is Maintained

1. Routine rendering Top Secret of any UK Cabinet documents or committee precedings that might inform Scots of their situation. Routine blocking of any freedom of information requests that may expose the entrenched hostility of key British government ministers to Scotland.

2. The continued status of the UK Supreme Court as the highest court of appeal for Scots civil law.

3. The UK’s Anti-Scottish Propaganda Office, commonly known as the Scotland Office, whose £7.2 million budget is used to convince Scots that any economic successes are due to the UK Govt, and to discredit both the Scottish Govt and Parliament. The Scottish Office Minister has consistently refused to account for his time or how he spends his massive budget.

4. British TV broadcasters – including the commercial channels but especially the BBC - starving Scotland of investment, leading to a minimization of Scottish content on Scottish television. This could easily be corrected by legislation to define their broadcasting mandates, but will never happen.

5. Continuing Unionist control of Scotland’s print media. In spite of their patriotic names, not a single print media outlet in Scotland reports the work of the nationalist Scottish Government impartially, let alone favourably. The not-so-subtle purpose of the strong anti-Scottish Govt and anti-Parliament message is to make ordinary Scots conclude that their own parliament is a failure, and that the UK Parliament is somehow superior, despite overwhelming recent evidence that it is corrupt from top to bottom.

6. Conspicuous placement of British military facilities and contracts in Scotland to create the idea that Scottish jobs depend on the continued goodwill and patronage of the British military establishment.

7. Rich and poor Scots alike all paying £142.50 a year (currently about €160 or US$215) for a British TV licence, going exclusively to the London-centric BBC, which habitually refers to Scots as ‘they’ and ‘them’, and returns less than a third of these funds to Scottish programming. This is effectively a UK poll tax on Scots to pay for their acculturation as Britons, with little return on investment to Scotland.

8. The reduction of Scottish funding by the British government in response to economic downturn in England, regardless of how well the Scottish economy is doing. Use of the Scottish media to blame Scottish Govt policy when it passes on these budget cuts to Scotland.

9. The theft of Scotland's charity funds to pay for London's Olympics infrastructure.

10. Continued control of the Scottish electoral system, issuing whitewash reports of any electoral fraud cases in Scotland that have favourable results for Unionist parties.

11. Periodically wheeling out celebrities and minor sports personalities to state their opposition to independence in an effort to sway Scottish public opinion. British media coercion of Scottish sports stars to proclaim their Scottish-but-British identity.

12. Unionist political parties in the Scottish Parliament regularly combining to vote down key Scottish legislation, despite their supposed ‘ideological differences’ and their parties' subsequent acknowledgement of the legislation's merit. Knowing however the popularity of the nationalist Scottish Govt, they ensure they pass the annual Scottish budget to avoid forcing an election and losing further seats.

13. The smirking mockery of Scottish culture by the London-based British media at every opportunity, the denial that Scots is a language rather than a dialect (A), and repeated criticism of Gaelic as a language not worth saving, let alone supporting.

14. Encouragement of religious bigotry by the Unionist establishment in Scotland to keep Scotland divided. Opposition to Scottish nationhood by the Orange Order. Nearly 200 Orange walks in Scotland every year, with violence never far away. Sports fans are fed an almost continual diet of Old Firm rivalry all year round. Many Scottish players and managers consider serving Celtic and Rangers more important than their country.

The purpose of these methods is to constantly reinforce the idea in the minds of ordinary Scots that Scotland is a dependent region rather than a self-sufficient country, and that we cannot govern ourselves because we are either too small, too poor or too stupid to do so. (B)

This in spite of Scots having at various times governed much of the British Empire, acting as founding fathers and early national leaders for nations all over the globe, having been UK Prime Minister on a number of occasions, and today managing major multinational corporations and NGOs around the world.



Please feel free to comment if you think I have missed anything.



(A) Alex suggested this one.
(B) This one came from Doug.

See below for the full text of their comments.



UPDATE
Independent Scotland should have Supreme Court, says report

Many thanks for all the LINKS TO THIS POST.

Here are the ones I know about:

BBC Blether With Brian
Subrosa Super's Seven
The Blood is Strong
Joan McAlpine's blog Go Lassie Go
Siol nan Gaidheal
Aangirfan
Lallands Peat Worrier
Bella Caledonia

Plus whoever posted it on Facebook and StumbledUpon. I have no idea where.

Apologies to anyone I've missed.

Is Scottish Unionism Treachery?

Treachery has been a reviled and despised quality as long as history and literature have been recorded. In his Inferno, Dante went so far as to reserve the ninth and lowest circle of Hell for traitors.



The question is: is the language of treason entirely appropriate in a supposedly healthy debate on Scottish independence, considering that the Scots in the Labour Party are not technically betraying their own country by opposing Scottish nationalism?

Nationalists may argue that it is their own people and the nation of Scotland they are betraying, but to the paid-up Labour Unionist, his or her country is the United Kingdom.

What about ‘Vichy’ and ‘Quisling’? Are these charges too strong, considering Scotland is not yet an independent country, and not at war? In the online forums of the press, we often hear these words leveled against Labour politicians – those who would aid and abet London’s continuing colonial control of Scotland for their own personal gain. Personally, I consider Scotland’s SUKCUP press fair game.

But do these words alienate undecided voters, rather than persuade? How much does this level of invective hinder rather than help the cause of Scottish independence?

To help answer these questions, I thought it would be useful to summarize the different forms of traitorous accusation, putting them in their original historical context, to determine if indeed they are appropriate to Scotland today, or simply over the top.



1. Judas


Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus to the Romans soldiers for thirty pieces of silver by identifying him with a kiss. He died alone, probably by hanging himself.

Not particularly relevant to Scotland, since Unionists are quite open in their allegiances. They do not see themselves as traitors to a country which they deny even exists.

Fair enough, I say.

In the same vein, Judas betrayed a friend, whereas Unionists are utterly loyal to their London masters. They may be servile colonial lickspittles in the eyes of nationalists, but they are not betraying any friendships by their actions.



2. Benedict Arnold

American Colonial War of Independence (I refuse to call it a revolution). Arnold was a successful general in Washington’s army who switched sides. Still regarded in American history as the embodiment of treachery. Even though he lived out the rest of his life in Britain, he was never entirely trusted by anyone. He had, after all, fought on the other side first. A reformed rebel is still a rebel.

And the reason he switched sides? Wait for it…he had been passed over for promotion and ordered to repay expenses.



3. Fifth Columnists

Spanish civil war. Not strictly traitors (although they were opposing the elected government in a civil war) but rather an enemy within. In 1936, as four columns of Franco’s fascists approached Madrid, Fascist radio claimed that a ‘fifth column’ of supporters inside the city would help them take it. The campaign failed, and the Spanish government forces held off Franco for three more long years.

The term gained currency during WW2 in relation to the Germans living in Britain. Fearing a ‘fifth column’ within, Churchill gave his famous ‘collar the lot’ command and they were rounded up and held on the Isle of Man until the end of the war. The term is often used in Israeli press today to describe Israeli Arabs, whose loyalties lie with the Arabs in the occupied territories.



4. Quislings

Norway’s greatest ever traitior, Vidkun Quisling, led the Norwegian Nazi Party, and was set up by Germany as Norway’s puppet leader during their occupation. His fate? To be found guilty of high treason and shot as a traitor after the war.

His greatest grammatical achievement was to be both nouned and verbed. One can be a Quisling, or one can quisle. This is a verb that should be revived.

Incidentally, ‘Quisling’ sounds a lot like usling in Norwegian – a slippery, deceitful, slimy person.



5. A Vichy Regime

Also from the Second World War. Still a sore point in French history, and one that excites much scholarly debate. After surrendering in 1940, France agreed to become a client state of Nazi Germany and the central and southern region was left to run its own affairs, unoccupied by German troops, run from the small spa town of Vichy. De Gaulle tried to rally the Resistance from London, but the indisputable fact is that many French collaborated with the Nazis.

I got an interesting take on this from one of my French amis: if France had fought tooth and nail for every centimeter of la patrie, all those pretty French villages that we love to visit on our driving holidays would have been destroyed. He believes that surrender was the best policy at the time to save France’s architecture and culture, given the overwhelming odds stacked against it.

Cheese eating surrender monkeys, or the pragmatic rationalizers of the military reality at the time?


Are these terms appropriate?
From a nationalist perspective, the fifth column idea of an enemy within seems most relevant to the role Unionists play in maintaining Scotland’s position within the Union, but since the relations between Scotland and the rest of the UK are peaceful, it is still too strong.

Indeed, none of these terms would therefore seem suitable for the debate on Scotland’s independence, considering (1) Unionists happen to believe in a different identity, and do not see themselves as traitors, and (2) there is no secessionist war between Scotland and the UK.

That is why I believe that the most appropriate historical equivalent for our Scottish Unionists friends – be they Scots in the Scottish Office, members of the UK government, or Unionists employed by the Scottish TV and print media to talk down Scotland – is that of a besieged colonial elite in its last days of colonial rule.



The Colonial Elite
No colonial power in history ever ruled without the help of a local elite in the subjugation of its own people. The key to understanding their essential bridging function is that the colonial power cannot do it without them, and that once the colonial relationship is over, they are without exception despised by all sides – by both their own people and by the ex-governing power. They are usually remembered by the ex-colonial power as failed flunkies, and by the newly independent country as former collaborators in their own people’s subjugation.

For these reasons, this is the group that always fights hardest for the colonial arrangement and their colonial privileges to continue: they know full well that once independent comes, the game is up. They will become pariahs, despised by all, with no part to play in either the new domestic political scene or in future diplomatic relations between the ex-imperial power and its newly independent former colony. In summary: useless, washed up, redundant.

If there is a violent transition to independence (as there was for the United States, Ireland, Algeria and Kenya) they tend to die either at the hands of their countrymen, or like Benedict Arnold in exile as old men in the imperial homeland, trusted by no one, hated by their countrymen from a distance, passing away in obscurity and exile as bitter, friendless, alcoholics, ‘unwept, unhonoured and unsung’.

If on the other hand the transition is peaceful (as it was for Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and as it will be for Scotland) former Unionists can quickly become absorbed into the political structure of the newly independent country and play their part. The challenge in forming new states is in incorporating all the former factions into the newly independent political spectrum. They are usually intelligent men and women who have much to offer a fledgling nation.

Whether or not they choose to depends a lot on the level of rhetoric used against them in the run up to independence.

It also depends on whether the newly independent nation can ever bring itself to trust them, based on how vehemently they opposed independence as Unionists in the colonial regime.

The Scotland-UK Coalition of Unionist Propagandists (SUKCUP)

The campaign by the Scotland-UK Coalition of Unionist Propagandists (SUKCUP) to discredit the Scottish Government for its compassionate release of Mohmed Al-Megrahi continues apace.

First we had The Herald telling us that the whisky industry would collapse as a result.

Then we had Glen Campbell's BBC Scotland coverage of the release exposed as partisan and rabidly anti-SNP.

Imagine the surprise.

Continuing the pattern, last week The Scotsman ran with this piece on Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill. Apparently, his criticism of Labour hypocrisy on the matter was somehow deemed to be taunting the families of the Lockerbie dead. The Sun would be proud.

Then just yesterday, and plumbing new depths in so-called Scottish journalism, The Scotsman reported that ‘Megrahi outlives six other criminals released on compassionate grounds.’

Think about what this last one means.

Somewhere in The Scotsman offices there is a journalist with a computer spreadsheet listing all the prisoners released on compassionate grounds from Scottish prisons, alongside the number of days since they were released. Each time one of them dies, Al-Megrahi moves up the list and this journalist punches the air and shouts ‘Yes!’, exchanging ecstatic thumbs-up with his boss in the corner.

The SUKCUP minions are now praying he lives as long as possible, if only to prove the Scottish government was incompetent in its decision to release him. Preferably not long enough to clear his name, but maybe just till the referendum, when his on-going ability to breathe will no doubt be useful as an argument against independence.

This continuing campaign on Al-Megrahi got me wondering. Given all these dire predictions about what would happen to us as a result of the release, just how has the decision affected Scotland?

First, and contrary to widespread expectations, it would appear not to have led to US carpet-bombing of Scotland with B52s after all.

Nor, apart from the FoxNews whack-job minority, has it led to much animosity towards Scotland in the US. In fact Susan Boyle seems to be doing just fine.

Nor indeed has it led to a US boycott of Scottish goods. Luckily, no one knows the oil is ours. (Just think how much we would have lost if it were. Whew.) Similarly, our salmon is still in huge demand, and Scotch whisky sales have not plummeted. Considering that the majority of export whisky sales are to non-US markets – with France our biggest customer and China our fastest growing market – this should come as no surprise.

Not that business should have anything to do with such matters. Those worried about the whisky industry should be more concerned about London-based multinationals closing their Scottish whisky plants. The whole Diageo saga - and many others like it - might have been averted had Scotland been independent and able to offer concrete tax benefits for corporations to remain in Scotland. But I digress.

The point is this: not one of the their predictions has come to pass, and yet it continues.

So what is going on?

If it wasn’t clear before it should be now: the distress the SUKCUP flunkies felt most about Al-Megrahi’s release was not that the Scottish Government made a bad call and released a convicted bomber, nor that it didn’t do as the White House demanded and let him rot, not even that it forced UK Labour’s Scottish branch into mental contortions as it condemned what its London masters secretly desired in order to close Tony Blair's dodgy deal in the desert.

As we knew all along, the true source of their discomfort was the fact that the decision was left to Scotland at all.

Once you understand this thinking it all makes sense. You realise that had the decision gone the other way, we would now be getting regular updates on the health of a dying man in Greenock Prison, the Scottish Government would have been portrayed as callous Presbyterians lacking in compassion, but simultaneously labelled as weak for having caved into US pressure to keep him locked up.

That’s the problem with the Scottish Unionist media: they’ve forgotten how to think for themselves. Servitude and obsequious grovelling to London, combined with knee-jerk opposition to everything the Scottish Government does solves every problem.

What these gits don’t get is that fewer and fewer people are listening. If the answer to everything is simply ‘it's the nationalist government of Scotland wot did it,’ people anticipate what you’re going to say before you open your mouth, compensate in advance and work it out for themselves.

It's not working any more.



Coming soon: the Federal UK Coalition of Unionist Patriots.

Operation 'Scorched Earth': Progress Report

Another fresh leak from my source in Westminster: this was received in the form of a typed memo, printed off on a blank white sheet of paper with no letterhead. The italics refer to handwritten notes made on the page.






Status of Operation 'Scorched Earth'
July 31, 2009
PRESENT: GB, AD, JM.

Only Lurch and Ali-D could make it. Fat George is too busy making bloody FOI requests!

Original Action Plan from July, 2007:

1. Starve Scotland of funds, making it look as if the Scottish Govt {^Executive} is picking fights and always asking for more.
STATUS: Ali-D says he is tightening the screws. It might backfire and lead to independence, but ok so far – and what the hell have we got to lose, anyway? Role of subservient Scottish press proving crucial.

NOTE: Talk to secretary about not using the phrase 'Scottish Govt'.

2. Work with other Unionist parties to block all Nat legislation in their pathetic minority government.
STATUS: Not working! Bastard Tories, Greens and LibDems won’t play ball, and seem to be making deals with the Nats to pander to their electorates.

3. Maintain UK policy of keeping the West of Scotland poor, maintaining Labour loyalty from section of population on benefit.
DANGER. Strategy seems to be failing – no longer possible with Nats in power. Seem to be getting their message through that Glasgow could be better off without us. Nats’ populist health and transport policies a blatant attempt at giving Scotland better services than England!
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to continue to reveal the cynical nationalist agenda that lies behind the Nats’ economic strategy. If all else fails, see next point.

4. Keep a tight hold of by-elections in Scotland, using ‘enabling’ machinery to win every by-election, regardless of the result.
STATUS: Screwed up in Glasgow East, but Lurch says Glenrothes proves we’ve got it under control.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch says Nats may be onto our methods, but putting Glasgow North East back to November should give us time to do whatever it takes to ‘take care’ of things.

5. Use influence to persuade UK Electoral Commission to turn a blind eye to postal vote anomalies in Scottish by-elections.
DONE.

6. Ignore all demands for transferring control of Scottish elections to the Scottish Govt. {^Executive}
STATUS: WORKING.

7. Keep the Scottish press churning out our press releases verbatim, with a Labour & Unionist slants on all other news. Impossible in England, but relatively easy in Scotland with fewer outlets and almost no Tory press.
STATUS: NEEDS ATTENTION. Lurch says the blatant Unionist slant in the Scottish press is becoming too obvious. Editors of the Scotsman, Herald and Daily Record are apparently complaining that their unswerving Unionist bias on every subject under the sun is becoming ‘tediously obvious’, alienating traditional readership and causing their circulations to ‘freefall’.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to have a word with the editors to explore further ways to secretly subsidise them via advertising.

8. Fund Scottish Unionist bloggers to counter Nat lies about Scotland’s self-sufficiency or any successes of the Scottish Govt {^Executive}.
STATUS: NEEDS ATTENTION. Unionist bloggers complaining they aren’t getting any advertising revenue, which is dependent on their sites getting a high number of hits, which are almost non-existent.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to increase subsidies via ‘consultancy fees,’ and find ways to increase hits without more actual readers.

9. Build infrastructure to allow the UK to take the oil direct to England in case the Nats pull off independence.

DONE.

Should teach Scotland not to betray Labour, and prove once and for all that Scotland isn’t a viable state – exactly what we said all along!

10. Grab Scotland’s lottery money so that their Commonwealth Games in 2014 look like mince compared to England’s {^Britain’s} Olympic Games in 2012.
DONE.
NOTE: tell my secretary again the difference between England & Britain. I'm sick of explaining it to the dozy tart!

11. Put pressure on Scottish Sportsmen and women to declare their Britishness. Use press, TV and honours to bring them to heel.
STATUS: WORKING: Pretty Boy Hoy and Murray under control. No longer upsetting the English with their Scottish identity.
FURTHER ACTION: Some sports apparently already separated. Doesn’t seem to be any rule about which ones we compete in as British. Talk to MCG about possibility of England cricket team competing as 'Britain'.

12. Explore ways to get polling companies to issue doctored polls on lack of Scottish desire for independence.
STATUS: BBC seems to have remembered which side their bread is buttered and now pulling their weight. Last poll looked good. Shitting themselves that the Tories will get in and cut them back to just BBC1 and Radio 4! Would serve the back-stabbing bastards right!

13. Scottish press to persuade Scots they don’t want independence, and that a referendum is a waste of time in such difficult/ bountiful economic times (delete as appropriate). Demoralise ordinary Scots into accepting the status quo.
DANGER: Lurch warns that a general engagement in politics in Scotland is growing, and that the message that the referendum is a waste of time is starting to fall on deaf ears.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to talk to Fat George about continuing to sow FUD on separation/ isolation/ building barriers /dependency via Scottish press to counter the Nat’s cynical message of re-entering the world community of nations/ removing barriers to dealing with the world directly/ ending oil subsidies to England / Scotland's wealth in natural resources.

14. Spin news to make Scots believe their economy is dependent on British military contracts.
STATUS: NOT SURE IF WORKING. Scottish press playing the game but the Nats are on to us. Lurch recently tried to make it look like he saved a big contract, but Nats successful in showing that Lurch did bugger all. Lurch says Nats got the message through that the Tories could still cancel it.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to stay on message. Those with defence jobs might still vote Labour from fear of losing them.

Additional Item

15. Respond to Calman Commission findings.
STATUS: Lurch reassures me his fancy footwork to distance us from calamity Calman is working.
FURTHER ACTION: Delay response to findings until it is forgotten. Leave the Tories to deal with it, which means it'll never happen.

Special Note: All meeting actions henceforth to be approved by PM.
Still waiting for the Pink Baron to grant me an audience. Said he was too busy with all his committee work for ‘stupid Scotch stuff.’ Have left him four messages. Secretaries Brett and Hans say he’s tied up in an important debriefing.

Misc Personal Stuff

1. Talk to EU about possible presidential role after election/referendum defeat.

2. Get CV up to date.

Nine Ways to Stop Scotland Breaking Free

As Scotland’s minister for the Constitution, Mike Russell’s job is to deliver a successful independence referendum in late 2010. This will not be easy. In the second part of this series, we look at what he will be up against, and what tactics PM-to-be David Cameron might use to hold together what’s left of the remnant of Empire we call the UK of GB & NI.


Over the next two years, the fate of Scotland will be decided in the following three polls:


A. The next British General Election on or before June 3rd, 2010.

B. The planned referendum on Scottish independence, planned for late 2010, and

C. The next Scottish parliamentary elections on May 5th 2011 - if indeed there is still a devolved Scottish parliament by that date: if the above referendum goes ahead and is successful, there won’t be any more elections for a devolved Scottish parliament. The electoral cycle for a newly independent free and democratic Scotland will have begun.


Getting a referendum bill through the Scottish Parliament will be no easy matter. It will be met by the full arsenal of British Unionist resistance: the combined opposition of the British Unionist parties in Edinburgh (Labour, Tory and LibDem), the relentless pro-Union bias of the foreign-owned Scottish media, the death throws of the out-going Labour administration in London, the continued surreptitious spoiling tactics of Britain’s faceless minions in Whitehall, and the full might of the next Tory government at Westminster with its massive English majority.

But now that Labour is facing annihilation at the next British election, surely the task facing Scottish nationalists becomes simpler? Won’t there be a Scottish backlash against the Tories, once they take power at Westminster?

You would think so, but we can’t write off Labour yet. Their plan is to hang on long enough to fire off their last deadly Parthian shot: proportional representation in UK elections. With the prospect of at least a dozen years in power, the Tories will oppose it, but Gordon Brown (or his unelected Labour successor) will push it through as the only thing standing between his party and utter oblivion.

How will this affect Scotland? The referendum is the key, but with an impotent Tory administration in Westminster (as a result of a new PR system), there might not be the backlash against the Union that the SNP is counting on in the coming referendum.

The signs are indeed ominous, and Scottish nationalists might be getting a strong sense of déjà vu. Haven’t we been here before? For those too young to remember, current events bear more than a passing resemblance to 1979, with the SNP calling for the dissolution of the British parliament, Scotland being dragged down by the UK’s increasingly precarious finances, the IMF breathing down the British Government's neck, the Labour Party on the ropes, the Tories waiting in the wings of Westminster, and a referendum on Scottish nationalism in the pipeline.

When the '79 referendum was finally held, Scotland voted YES in a contrived question that would have granted an almost meaningless form of devolution, only to be told the answer was NO on a trumped-up technicality.

It was Europe that eventually forced London to concede real devolution to Scotland via another referendum in 1997 after – despite Tony Blair’s claims of spontaneous generosity – a secret group of Scottish nationalists had pointed out to Council of Europe diplomats that Brussels was in no position to dictate forms of democracy to Eastern Europe when those self-same forms were being denied within Scotland. London was promptly told to get its house in order. Quickly.

It was the supreme irony of Margaret Thatcher’s legacy. Having lobbied for full EU membership for the emerging democratic states of Eastern Europe (to counter attempts by the French-German axis to create a ‘United States of Europe’) her actions led to Scottish nationalists then using her success to seek the same levels of democracy, levels she had been so instrumental in preventing in Scotland.

So what can we expect this time around? Another loaded question in a fixed-up referendum? Twenty more wasted years? What tactics will the combined might of the British establishment use this time to hang on to Scotland for the few remaining years it needs to extract the last of her oil?

To answer this question, and to anticipate the desperate Unionist rearguard action about to be unleashed on Scotland, I’ve decided to put myself in David Cameron’s shoes - assuming he wins the next election. What follows is a step-by-step battle plan, ready to roll for the newly elected Prime Minister of this morally and financially bankrupt British state:

1. Announce English votes for English laws. This should head off English demands for devolution and act as a good band-aid for the inherent unfairness of England not having her own parliament.

2. Make ‘Respect for Scotland’ the Tory mantra north of the border. Buy off the Scottish elites and nationalist-leaning Scottish entrepreneurs with knighthoods and peerages. Move some of the nuclear subs from Scotland to ports in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Re-form the Scottish regiments. Divide et impere.

3. Strict Scottish media management. Control the flow of all non-internet information. Pull the plug on award-winning Newsnight Scotland. Encourage pseudo-intellectual Scottish writers to attack the idea of Alex Salmond’s ‘arc of prosperity’ while ignoring the stunning success story of Norway (1), the closest match to Scotland, and the complete meltdown that is UK Inc. Continue to support blanket pro-Union media coverage via the BBC and the Scottish press. Spoon-feed ‘lobby journalists’ with inside stories, ostracising any journalist – English or Scots – with nationalist leanings. Increase funding to BBC Scotland for pro-Union news and current affairs programming. This could never happen in England, but with Scotland’s well-established, anti-SNP, rabidly pro-Union press and media, it would be business as usual, with a new piper calling the tune.

4. Derail economic arguments for full Scottish independence. Avoid granting full fiscal autonomy, allowing instead the Calman Commission recommendations on Scottish government borrowing. Then go further and announce a fair share of all taxes raised on oil revenues will now be paid directly to Scotland, proportional to its current ratio of the UK population: 8.5%. (2) The nationalist Scottish Government will appear greedy as it condemns the niggardliness of the windfall while spending it on hospitals, roads and schools. The Scottish people will probably settle for this as an acceptable result, allowing the British Government keep the rest for IMF repayments, more London infrastructure, the Olympics and the replacement of Trident.

5. Form an unholy alliance with Labour in Scotland to get access to its up-and-running electoral fraud machine. They too will be playing an end game for their survival as a party, just as you will be for the British state. They will hope to stage a comeback from their old Scottish heartland, and will be willing to try almost anything. Imaginary Scottish Labour supporters voting for the Union in a referendum are better than real ones.

6. Once all this is in place, announce a British-run referendum on Scottish independence to take place before the Scottish Government one, with the pretext that you want to make sure it is run fairly, being such an important issue.

7. Make the referendum question loaded, something along the lines of: ‘Should Scotland break all ties and separate from the rest of Great Britain, or remain within the United Kingdom?’ YES – break all ties; NO – remain in the United Kingdom. The psychology of this is that most referendums tend to vote ‘No’, regardless of the issue, when it is contrived as a vote for the status quo. (3)

8. Hold the referendum on a work day or, even better, a holiday weekend so that the aged and unemployed – those currently dependent on British government handouts – will be over-represented, and more independent professional people will be too busy to vote, or away on holiday. (4)

9. Once the NO vote occurs – as it surely will if all these steps are taken – declare the matter of Scottish independence closed for a generation, at least until well past peak oil, when an asset-stripped Scotland can finally be cut loose.


In this way, despite the unprecedented levels of autonomy granted to Scotland, you, David Cameron, will still be able to claim that you are Prime Minister of a UK that includes the land and seas of Scotland. The UK will then retain its relative importance within Europe, its geopolitical importance in the world, and its seats on the UN Security Council, G8, and NATO, allowing you to continue with the myth that Britain is still a world power.(5)

This will also give your government continued access to 91.5% of Scotland’s oil revenues, essential if bankrupt Britain is to have any chance at all of paying off the unprecedented levels of debt accrued on the watch of your predecessor, the unelected Scottish Unionist Prime Minister, James Gordon Brown.





UPDATE
Brown signals end to ‘first past the post’ voting at Westminster



References

(1) “On the government's estimates, the [2009 Norwegian Government] surplus will more than halve as a share of GDP from 18.9% to 7.4%. That would still be a remarkably good outcome in comparison with the budgetary problems being faced in other European countries, although it is also dependent to some extent on the revised macroeconomic assumptions underlying the forecast.”
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13709932

(2) The current proportion of the UK population living in Scotland is 8.5%, taking Scotland’s latest population as 5,144,200, and the UK as 60,943,912.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/uk.html
http://www.scotland.org/about/fact-file/population/

(3) This has been the case in Australia, where the option for change has always been tied to the YES choice in any referendum. In this way only 8 out of 44 referendums have been carried since Federation in 1901.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_in_Australia

(4) Labour tried this in Glasgow East in 2008 and still lost. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7522153.stm

(5) Jack Straw revealed the true value of Scotland to the UK during BBC Question Time, September 28 2006: “A broken-up United Kingdom would not be in the interests of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, but especially not England. Our voting power in the European Union would diminish. We'd slip down in the world league GDP tables. Our case for staying in the G8 would diminish and there could easily be an assault on our permanent seat in the UN Security Council.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/5388078.stm

English vs. Scottish Press Freedom

The recent exposure of MP’s expense perks is destined to go down as one of the greatest moments in English media history. I suspect the Telegraph felt that they had to win back the middle ground of relevance after the blogger Guido reminded them what their job is supposed to be.

I particularly loved Frank Skinner’s comments as he mused aloud on why on earth MPs need second jobs:





Yet again, it takes a comedian to talk truth to power (see my post on Jon Stewart).

Then I had a look at the expenses claimed by region and noticed a common factor – nearly all of the MPs had claimed for an assistant.

It would appear that the primary purpose of the political assistant is to free up the MPs’ time to earn more money outside Parliament. It’s certainly not to make them more accessible to their electorate.

The thing that impressed me most was the Telegraph’s new-found willingness to attack the system, of which it is very much a part. Then I remembered something I stumbled across when I was putting together another post recently:

Media freedom is well established in the UK and media coverage of the [2005 General Election] campaign was extensive. There are many print and electronic media outlets that freely and actively cover election campaigns, and the electorate is generally offered a range of views and information. (1)

Anyone who has bought a newspaper in Scotland in the past few years will probably think that a piece of political black humour. The Scottish Parliament might seem squeaky clean compared to the British one, but as far as press freedom goes, the English are putting Scotland to shame.

The behaviour of the Scottish press throughout this British expenses scandal has been deplorable. (See Moridura’s post) Day after day they find something negative to say about the Scottish Government alongside the British story, rather than simply report the truth – that their beloved Union of Great Britain is falling apart at the seams.

What does it take for a team of patriotic Scots millionaires to join forces to create a half-decent Scottish newspaper? Do I have to name names? Yes, it could have a Scottish perspective on what is going on in the world, but what on earth is wrong with that? Every other country in the world has. And I'm not talking about being pro-SNP.

If the group's first act were to take over the Herald and the Scotsman, it would inherit their established distribution networks, and would have access to an army of ex-journalists, freed from the shackles of British Unionist management, no longer prevented from saying what they really want to say. With the Herald and Scotsman eliminated, it would quickly establish itself as Scotland's national newspaper.

Once it has built a readership, it could switch to a tabloid format to win over the Daily Record readers with sport, and could cover national (i.e. Scottish), European and international news, entertainment and movie stars, and have a section on what Scots are doing around the world. I’d bet that even bloggers would be willing to contribute the odd opinion piece for free, or some original research - now that Guido has made us respectable. The important thing is that it would contain real news and original research. Anything is better than the zombie Labour spin we are getting now.

There are strong moral reasons for doing this too, and, as my father used to say, “Ye cannae tak it wi ye.”

Gentlemen, it's time to play your part. You know who you are.

Your country needs you. And it will be remembered.







References

1. This is an excerpt from the EU OSCE/ODIHR observer report on the 2005 General Election, p13
http://www.osce.org/odihr-elections/15922.html

Time to lay off Unionist celebrities?

While picking up the pieces of my telephone from the floor the other day, I got to thinking about the process of convincing people who disagree with you to switch their allegiance to your political cause. So often when arguing politics with someone I seem to end up either changing the subject, using sarcastic humour about the listener’s intelligence, or smashing the telephone against the wall in frustration at the mind-numbing bilge they have been reading in the tabloid press. Anyhoo, enough about my father.

The truth is that Scottish nationalism finds itself less popular among the grey and blue-haired denizens of our fine country. For whatever reason, older Scots are less likely to be nationalists, whether it’s from fear of losing their pensions (oh, the irony), fear of change, in-grained voting habits, dislike of Alex Salmond’s smirk, or simply because they have internalized the ‘news’ they have read in Scotland’s fine and stalwart, free and independent press as fact.

So how to make people like my father change their minds?

The problem with Labour voters in Scotland is that discussing the issues with them quite simply does not work. Most, like my father, fixed their political opinions on most things years ago.

Then I got to thinking about the power celebrities wield. But the problem with many famous Scots in entertainment and media is that they depend on favourable press in England, and as Al Gore quoted in An Inconvenient Truth, (and I paraphrase) “no amount of persuasion will convince a man of something if his wages depend on him not understanding it.” *

So I thought about the famous Scots my auld faither and I both admire, the ones who are Unionists: Billy Connolly, Andrew O’Hagan, Niall Ferguson. O’Hagan is one man in particular who, with his love of Burns and his socialist West Coast upbringing, has a very similar background to both my father and me. Quite honestly, I’ve never heard anyone read Rabbie better. He would be an articulate advocate for Scottish nationalism.

Then I read recently that Unionist and former Scottish nationalist Muriel Gray had come out as a floating voter. She explained how she had come to realise that whatever the problems the UK has today, Labour is not the answer. She’s not a reborn nationalist yet, but give her time.

Then I remembered some of the abuse she’s received from cybernats over the years. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s not nursing a little resentment. I would. I’d be thinking that I’m disillusioned with Labour, but it’ll be cold day in hell before I vote for those nationalist bastards. I hope she realises that the morons who slag her off do not speak for all Scottish nationalists. Nor do I.

So I suppose this is a message to other Scottish nationalists out there who occasionally like to throw a punch at Unionist celebrities:

Nationalism is sometimes compared to other ideologies, but there is one important difference: ideologies like communism, fascism, capitalism, socialism, etc., can spread far and wide, infiltrating other political systems like a virus, spreading through many countries. Each country’s nationalism (however you define it) is limited by its homeland and its diaspora: Norwegians are unlikely to recruit Swedes around the world to the cause of Norwegian nationalism, and vice versa.

Your only option is to make those of your countrymen who disagree with you agree with you.

I’ve always seen it like being on a jury: if you’re the lone voice of reason, calling the other eleven jury members ill-informed morons will not win them over to your way of thinking. No one has ever been convinced of anything by being called names.

That’s why I’d like to call a halt on nationalists’ abuse of Unionist celebrities.

Maybe getting people like Andrew O’Hagan or Billy Connolly to see the left-of-centre, democratic socialist good sense that lies at the heart of Scottish nationalism is what we need to get people like my dad over the line. OK, for the sake of these celebrities’ UK careers, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to come out in favour of Scottish nationalism outright, but following Muriel Gray’s line in expressing doubts about Labour's competency is a good place to start.

If any can be persuaded, it might be enough to sway men like my father, which will at least save me buying a new phone every month.

* Quoting Upton Sinclair

Why I am Blogging

Growing up in southwest Scotland in the early 1980s, fear dominated my coming of political awareness as I stared out at the sea mountain that is Ailsa Craig.

There is a conversation with my father that sticks in my mind - you know, the typical father-son chat about George Orwell and his Stalinist vision of our future in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and whether we would soon be under permanent government surveillance.

“Ach, they've got bigger fish tae fry than you, son,” he would say.

That insidious feeling that I’m always being watched has stayed with me ever since. I now recognise it for what it was: a manufactured anxiety by the media. After all, Big Brother headlines sold newspapers. But the proliferation of cameras in all our major world cities since has done nothing to reassured me.

Around the same time I remember another cosy fireside chat about the Cold War, specifically on the likelihood of nuclear annihilation, especially considering the American nuclear subs parked up the road in Holy Loch, near Glasgow: prime targets in any nuclear exchange. It was a very real scenario. I clearly recall a Daily Record centre-spread that showed the probable thermonuclear blast zone and fallout area. Again, my father’s answer was the same dismissive optimism:

“You'll no ken ocht aboot it onyway. Whit's the point o' worrying?” "That's awricht fer you tae say," I shot back. "Ah huvnae lived yet."

For reasons that still escape me, this struck him as something profound. To me it was self-evident, bordering on the bleeding obvious. What I didn't appreciate at the time was that this was my fathers's way of dealing with reality: his entire adult life had been spent in the shadow of the Cold War. It was now my generation's turn to come to terms with what it all meant.

In our new uni-polar world of economic summits and multilateral cooperation, it is easy to forget what it was like at that time. Personally, I went through a period of deep despair about my life which affected the life decisions I made, even whether it was worth making any plans at all. The fear of climate change does not even come close. I now realise it had an insidious effect on how I engaged with the world around me. Why bother to make the world a better place when it could all end in a mushroom cloud on the horizon, black rain, an endless nuclear winter, stillborn babies, mutant children and starvation? Eventually, I resigned myself to the same fatalistic attitude as my father. Why worry? You'll no ken ocht aboot it onyway.

A New Age - but what was it?

That's why the 1990s were so remarkable for me. The perpetual fear of nuclear hell was OVER. Jesus Jones' song Right Here, Right Now captured the euphoria that our entire civilization was no longer on death row. It's still one of my favourite songs. OK, the "watching the world wake up from history" bit was drawing a long bow but, still, a pretty good effort at capturing the Zeitgeist.

Then, as footage of Desert Storm, Bosnia, Rwanda & Somalia rolled before my eyes, it soon became clear that Mr. Jones had been guilty of premature extrapolation. The Cold War may indeed have been over, but as calendar followed calendar, three things became increasingly self-evident in the 1990s: first, history was not over. Second, small wars would now be much more visible. Third, they would involve civilians - not as incidental "collateral damage", but as often as the singular purpose of the war. A lot of civilians.

After a little research, a further shocking realisation dawned - that American intervention around the world was nothing new (please excuse my terrible naivety). With my eyes clear of Cold War mist, I was appalled to discover that America had been waging wars and staging coups for quite some time, often against elected democracies: Iran 1953, Guatemala '54, Chile '73 and El Salvador & Nicaragua in the 1980s, to name but a few.(1, 2)

It was a moment of profound revelation to me. I had picked up a love of history and America from my father. I still loved American culture, but what I had learned changed everything. I had that uneasy feeling that most of what I thought I knew about the world was completely wrong.

Working It Out

Having been an engineer, I realised I had to go back to first principles. So I took some time out to study history and set out to discover what the hell was going on. After a few years, I reached the point where I thought I understood it, where I felt I had achieved sufficient perspective to appreciate the grand scale of immense forces, all vying for supremacy: land hunger, population growth, nations, class, religion, ideology, gender, revolutions, capital, market forces, with great men and women occasionally leaving their mark. It all made a kind of sense. No one person or group was in charge, or at least not for long.

Or so I thought.

Then came the global financial crisis.

A New Perspective

I'd been reading what I could find about the credit crunch but even with my engineering, business and history knowledge I still could not grasp what was going on. With the world's financial system brought to its knees, wild global stock market and commodity fluctuations, international investment and retail banks erased from the landscape, the survivors refusing to lend to each other, money had ceased to have any meaning as hundreds of billions of dollars were thrown at banks to keep them afloat. Suddenly, all three of America's car companies looked like they might go to the wall, Britain was using anti-terrorism laws against Icelandic banks, there was a partial collapse of sterling(3), interest rates dropped to almost zero, millions were made unemployed, a global depression was supposedly on the way(4), and analysts were predicting that the US dollar would soon be replaced as the world's reserve currency.

Capitalism was on the canvas with the referee counting to ten, but was it 1929 again, or something new?

Notes

1. For an excellent study on how Churchill invited in the US to overthrow the democratically elected government of Persia in 1953 after the president announced that he wished to take control of Persia's oil revenues, see Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah's Men: an American coup and the roots of Middle East terror, John Wiley and Son, 2003

2. Kinzer covers the long history of US foreign interventions in Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, Henry Holt and Co, 2007. John Pilger has a more recent treatment of the subject in a South American context in his excellent documentary The War on Democracy

3. At the time of writing (Feb 2009), sterling has dropped 21% in value against the Euro between Oct 7 and Dec 30, 2008, before making a partial recovery.

4. Gary Duncan, Rise in US jobless raises spectre of Great Depression, TimesOnline, January 10 2009.

A Final Word

This has been my opening post, with the tone I'd like to maintain in my future posts. I shall make no claims without evidence.

Future postings shall (I hope) be briefer - if only because of time. It takes to gather quality footnotes. I only wanted to set the mood, as it were.