Two Labour VAT policies in two years. What'll it be next year?

There's always an excuse..... #lordsreform

Remember the Labservatives? That was the brilliant Liberal Democrat advertising campaign which satirised how Labour and the Conservatives collude to prevent meaningful reform.

We saw it with the AV referendum. Much as though I'd prefer we just hadn't gone there, the nasty and vitriolic no campaign, backed by rich, powerful vested interests, fuelled by a collusion of people like Tom Harris from Labour and Tory Nadine Dorries emphasised that politically and socially conservative forces would stop at nothing to hinder even the most modest of reforms. Ed Miliband's half hearted support for the Yes campaign and his reluctance to work with the Liberal Democrats did no favours for either him or his party.

And now we have it again over Lords Reform. Ed Miliband's Labour Party, which went to the country promising:

Further democratic reform to create a fully elected Second Chamber will then be achieved in stages. At the end of the next Parliament one third of the House of Lords will be elected; a further one third of members will be elected at the general election after that. Until the final stage, the representation of all groups should be maintained in equal proportions to now. We will consult widely on these proposals, and on an open-listproportional representation electoral system for the Second Chamber, before putting them to the people in a referendum.

Nick Clegg's House of Lords Reform Bill gives them pretty much what they want. Not all, but closer to what they want than the status quo by a long chalk. Why on earth they are intending on walking into the voting lobbies behind the likes of Nadine Dorries and Eleanor Laing and other right wing Tories is beyond me. For a party that's supposed to believe in democratic accountability, this is a major betrayal of the British people. Do they really think defeating the Programme Motion gives the Bill a better chance of scrutiny? Really? By giving the floor to the Tory right to pontificate for hours on how much they hate Nick Clegg   how giving power away brings them out in hives. Structure to the debate is always preferable to that sort of anarchy.

Every Tory MP stood on a platform of building a consensus on a democratically elected second Chamber. Nick Thornsby has had a good look at their recent history on this. In terms of consensus building, the Liberal Democrats have been prepared to compromise and so should they.

Now, let's face it,  there are elements of the House of Lords Reform Bill that make me foam at the mouth. Why on earth we are keeping in an albeit small number of places for Bishops is beyond me. Nobody should sit in a Parliament by rights because of their religious position. If they want to be in Parliament, they should stand for election like everybody else. I'd also rather see the Chamber 100% elected rather than 80% and I think there should be the option for people to re-stand. Having said all of that, I'd happily vote for the Bill as it stands. There is no way, in a modern democracy, that members of a parliament should be appointed by the political leaders of the day for life with no way of ever getting rid of them whatever they do. It is a major change to ensure that 4/5 are chosen by the people.

You can always find an excuse not to do what you know needs doing but you really don't want to. I know that more than most. There's always an excuse not to give up overeating unhealthy food (well, I'm going out for dinner 3 weeks on Saturday, no point in starting now) or go to the gym, even though I know perfectly well that, however much I don't want to, I'll be a lot healthier and happier even if I managed it half the time.

Labour needs to stop being so precious and decide whether it's for greater democracy or against it. It failed to deliver Lords reform in 13 years when it had a parliamentary majority so we know their heart isn't in it even though on paper they accept it's the right thing to do. If Ed Miliband follows Peter Bone and Nadine Dorries into the no lobby tonight, he'll be saying that his Labour party is no different to its predecessor.

The Guardian, not exactly the Liberal Democrats' best friends, has strongly urged Labour to get a grip and seize the opportunity to reform this arcane institution.

If Labour cannot bring themselves to agree such a motion, then they are not being true to their history as a party of reform. Neither dislike of the coalition nor frustration at its proposed timetable justifies going into the lobbies with Tory MPs whose only concern – as they made clear in a torrent of reactionary interventions and speeches yesterday – is to preserve the Lords as it exists today. To vote in a way which effectively abandons the bill to filibuster and delay would be a shameful decision for Labour, with its fine record, ancient and modern, on Lords reform. Keir Hardie and Robin Cook would turn in their graves.

So, what will Ed Miliband do?

Also in the Guardian, our Charles Kennedy says:

There are only two reasons to oppose this bill: to defend the establishment and the status quo, or to give a bloody nose to the coalition generally and Nick Clegg specifically. Progressive politicians can have no truck with the former, while the latter is cynical short-termism of the most counterproductive kind.

Labour politicians for generations have fought to bring democracy to the House of Lords. Most recently Jack Straw made a valiant effort to try to end the hereditary principle. He did so with the support of the Lib Dems. But the establishment kicked back and his reforms, while progress, were minor and piecemeal. And at the last general election, reforming the House of Lords was included in the Labour manifesto by its author, Ed Miliband.

I actually feel quite fearful and sad this morning at the way vested interests and conservative forces are trying to hold us back, to stamp all over the dreams and rights of others. In Scotland we have a Cardinal, the head of the Catholic Church, basically telling LGBT people that he's coming to get them.  We can't allow a Church to threaten the democratically elected Government of the day when poll after poll shows that a significant majority of people back equal marriage. It's not for me to set the Catholic Church's priorities for them, but surely any war chest of £100,000 would be better spent on helping the poor and vulnerable than funding a campaign of hatred against people who simply want to marry the person they love. It's not even as if the Catholic Church is going to be forced to conduct same sex marriages so why they should feel the need to prevent others from exercising a basic human right is beyond me.

Liberals have to stand up to this sort of pressure from vested interests, whether it comes from within the Westminster Bubble or from the churches or from large corporations. It will be very clear, looking back on all of this, that the Liberal Democrats were unwavering in their quest to give power away, to tackle the establishment, to argue for the freedom and tolerance that is so important for any society. If the arguments over Lords Reform and equal marriage prove anything, it's that the Liberal Democrats are badly needed. Labour and the Tories definitely can't be trusted to challenge the established order of things. We'll see how far the SNP will go on equal marriage and whether they will stand up and how, or if, they vote tonight on Lords reform. Their Angus McNeil made a lot of interventions yesterday but didn't actually tell us very much. There's a surprise.

I'm finding the whole atmosphere of politics really difficult at the moment. It's poisonous, polarising and not helpful for proper development of ideas and debate. Politicians generally need to do better. It's hardly surprising people just aren't engaged in the debate or think that politics or politicians can do anything to help them.

Lib Dem Dingwall calls for decisive action on Labour intimidation allegations

Glasgow City Council was one of the few places Labour retained a majority administration in the Scottish local elections of 2007. Those elections were the first run using the Single Transferable Vote system, introduced for local government during the second Labour/Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive coalition. If the truth be known, there was not much love for the move on the Labour benches, but they had very little choice after the 2003 Holyrood election where they lost 6 seats while the Liberal Democrats had maintained their position and therefore increased their strength within the Coalition.

Today the Labour group in Glasgow is in meltdown. The hostile undercurrents which had been festering since the deselection of a number of sitting Councillors last year, came to a head,  during the debate on the Administration's budget. Six Labour Councillors voted with the opposition at the end of a dramatic afternoon which saw the Budget passed with a majority of just two votes.

Now, there's the possibility that the rebel group will formally contest May's elections as "Glasgow Labour"

On top of all that, allegations of intimidation during the Budget Debate have been made. Cllr Anne Marie Millar, one of the former Labour Councillors, says that Labour's Cllr Gilbert Davidson threatened her disabled son's job at a Council owned organisation if she voted against the Budget. Cllr Davidson is no stranger to controversy. Although no charges were ever brought, he was briefly suspended from the Labour group 18 months ago in the wake of sexual harassment allegations.

It's also interesting that some of the rebel councillors come from Glasgow Pollok,  the constituency of new Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Alex Dingwall told Liberal Democrat Voice that he was calling for an urgent investigation into the allegations of intimidation:

"The allegation that a member of the Labour Council Group threatened the employment of Anne Marie's disabled son requires urgent investigation. It is completely unacceptable for such a threat to be made or for anyone to be placed under such duress. It was clear to everyone that Anne Marie was deeply distressed by this and as a Council committed to tackling bullying and harassment in the workplace Gordon Matheson must now lead by example and take decisive action on this matter."

It's not pretty to see an administration fall apart so publicly. It does, however, make the elections in Glasgow extremely interesting. What effect will a split Labour vote have on the SNP's ambitions to take over the City Council and the five Liberal Democrat Councillors who are defending their seats? The drama surrounding Scotland's largest local authority is set to continue.

Labour MP Docherty brands Limekilns Community Council as snobs and nimbys

Thomas Docherty has courted controversy since he was elected as Labour MP for Dunfermline and West Fife in 2010. He certainly has a novel approach to winning friends and influencing people.

First of all, he had a go at certain of his fellow MPs whose attire, he felt was too casual for the Commons.

Then he was a leading voice in the campaign to have a statue of Tony Blair at Westminster.

During my four years working for Willie Rennie when he was Dunfermline's MP, I can safely say that neither of these issues were ever raised with him by one single person in the constituency.

Now  he has insulted the Community Council of the beautiful coastal village of Limekilns, branding them snobs and NIMBYs for objecting to a potential development of almost 4000 houses near their village. In the Dunfermline Press, he furiously declared:

They are a bunch of snobs who oppose every single development in West Fife. It's quite clear they are anti-dockyard and NIMBYs. If they had their way there wouldn't be any jobs in West Fife.

The Community Council hit back at the MP, saying that:

 We are disappointed that, as someone who was appointed to represent local people through the democratic process, Mr Docherty has expressed such strong opinions without ever raising the matters with us. If pushing for inspiring, well thought-out communities for local people makes us snobs, then we will embrace that label as a badge of honour.

The Community Council had objected to the draft plan for housing because of the mistakes that had been made by the then Labour administration of Fife Council in the planning of a similar expansion to the east of Dunfermline. Labour had sold off the land for a third primary school in the area for more family housing which unsurprisingly resulted in huge difficulty for local residents with changes in school catchments and young children having to be bussed to the next town for two years while land for a new school was sourced and it was built.

Another concern was the road network in the area. The junction leading to Limekilns was investigated for inclusion in a programme called Britain's killer roads and another route to Dunfermline has seen a number of fatalities in recent years. It's hardly surprising, therefore, that the Community Council had concerns about the plans for a massive expansion on their doorstep.

An MP with any sort of understanding of the issues on his patch might have thought twice before launching such an extraordinary attack on a community organisation.

Clegg's e-mail signals start of fight back against Labour

Better watch out here - there's a sign of some joined up thinking from 'them indoors' in the Westminster Bubble.

Hot on the heels of Nick Clegg's mostly successful interview on Andrew Marr this morning an e-mail appears from him carrying on the themes. I'm glad to see the signs of a more aggressive tone with Labour. We have been putting up with too much of their hypocritical nonsense for too long.

A good sign - but we still need a decent, fast rebuttal system otherwise ales statements about us go unchallenged and become accepted fact by default.

Here it is for you to read:

Dear Caron,

Nearly two years ago, Liberal Democrats chose to do the right thing in the national interest at a time of crisis. We put tribalism aside and the good of the country first.

We didn’t come into politics to make cuts, but with the economy on the verge of collapse we knew we had to take the difficult decisions necessary to get the deficit under control and the country back on track.

And how did the Labour Party react?

They attacked us viciously. They refused to apologise or take responsibility for the mess they created. They opposed every cut and they indulged in cynical scaremongering.

In Sheffield, David Blunkett warned of ‘post-Soviet’ meltdown with people fending for themselves. It was the politics of fear and it was a disgrace.

But now, after nearly two years of opposing every cut, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls say they won’t reverse a single one. Yet they still say they oppose them.

Confused?

They have gone from being in the wrong place to being all over the place. From denial to disarray.

Many of our excellent councillors lost their seats last May because of the vicious attacks of their Labour opponents. We must not let them get away with it again.

Liberal Democrats approach this May’s elections with a track record of proud, progressive achievements in Government:

Lifting a million of the poorest workers out of tax and cutting taxes, not for the rich but for 23m basic rate taxpayers;
Making the well off pay their share by raising Capital Gains Tax, a new £10bn bank levy and keeping the 50p top rate of tax;
The most generous rise in the state pension for a generation;
A revolution in the way we support the children who need help the most when it matters the most, in the crucial early years and throughout their school lives;
More apprenticeships than Britain has ever had before;
And from this April, the Youth Contract, an ambitious £1bn programme to make sure every 18 to 24-year-old has the opportunity to earn or learn.
Clearing up Labour’s mess is not easy, but right. Let’s take the fight to them as May approaches.

You can see my interview on this morning's Andrew Marr show here.

Yours,



Nick Clegg MP

Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister

How very dare you, Joan McAlpine!

 I make absolutely no apology for saying that the Liberals, the Labour Party and the Tories are anti-Scottish in coming together to defy the will of the Scottish people and the democratic mandate that they gave us to hold a referendum at a time of our choosing, which, as the First Minister said, would be the latter half of the parliamentary session. The sight of those parties cosying up on the sofas of various Scottish television studios will really alarm the people of Scotland.

Joan McAlpine MSP  Official Report, 12 January 2012


I have to say I was livid when I first saw Joan McAlpine's comments that those who don't agree with all the details of the SNP's plans for the independence referendum were "anti-Scottish." To suggest that I want to act against the interests of the country I love, where I was born, which I yearned for so much it actually hurt during the 11 years I had to live away from it, simply because I don't agree with SNP plans for the independence referendum is outrageous.  


They say you should sleep on things before you say react. Well, I have, and I'm still livid, hurt and saddened at this poisonous attack on political opponents. I really can't stand this sort of thing, no matter who it comes from. 


I have defended the SNP on several occasions against jibes from Labour that they were not patriotic. It literally makes my flesh creep when this sort of stuff is used as a political weapon. Can we not just all accept that we all love and care for Scotland, whatever view we have?

Nobody doubts the SNP's mandate to hold a referendum on independence, but if wanting that poll to be fair, clear and legal, expecting both my Governments to work together to achieve that,  makes me anti Scottish, then, really, what is the world coming to?

What's more worrying is that senior figures in the SNP have tolerated this sort of language. Nicola Sturgeon defended her on Question Time last night and even the brightest of their new generation, Humza Yousaf, while saying that he wouldn't have used that language himself, didn't rebuke her anywhere near enough on Call Kaye this morning. That is more of a problem to me than the remarks themselves. Nicola referred on Question Time to those who talk Scotland down - that's pretty much become code for anyone who disagrees with SNP policy. So much for them listening and being inclusive.

If the SNP allow this sort of language to go unchecked, as my friend Allan pointed out on Facebook yesterday, it could be the biggest impediment to them being successful in their referendum. I don't quite agree with him on that because I think the evidence will prove the benefits of the Union but he has a point.

But, sadly, the story doesn't end here.

As the debate unfolds over the coming weeks, there will be a clear dividing line between patriots and nationalists.  

This came from new Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, in the same debate and has gone largely unnoticed in the media. To my mind, that's just as bad. I don't want to hear this kind of stuff from anybody.

How rubbish are we going to feel after 3 years if the debate has been full of bitterness and poison? I want to come out of this process uplifted by ideas expressed in a passionate and positive way. This kind of row suits the SNP, though,  - for yet another few news cycles they are not challenged on the mechanics of independence, its practical effect on our daily lives. Sadly, I have a horrible feeling the run up to the referendum will be permeated with such comments.

Joan McAlpine is turning herself into the Jan Moir of the SNP. She's exhibited the same sort of narrow minded intolerance that Moir does with her ill informed rants. If she can't sincerely apologise and withdraw her remarks, then she really should be sacked from her job as the First Minister's Parliamentary Liaison Officer. I won't be holding my breath for either of these things to happen, though.

Come the day after the referendum, we're all going to have to get on and live together, whatever the result. There will be a winning side and a losing side. The divisions will need to be healed.  That process will be much easier if we avoid corrosive language, conduct the debate with civility and mutual respect,  acknowledging each others views, right to hold them and genuine love for Scotland. It'll get passionate, angry and fiery at times, but there are limits to what's acceptable and we should all make efforts not to cross the line.

Hypocrisy in action...Labour's record on lobbying in pictures.

The Masterclass on hypocrisy, started by Labour in May 2010, continues.

Before you think I've found some artistic skill - but no, you would never believe that, this was made by Liberal Democrat member Paul Wild, based on information provided by Sanjay Samani.

Alasdair Allan needs lessons in prioritising his to do list.

So, Alasdair Allan, Scottish Schools minister has decided that our kids need lessons in Scottish Studies to make sure they learn about their culture and history.

To be fair, he may have a point. I know my education is some time ago, and things have definitely got better based on my daughter's experience, but we learned about the Picts and the Jacobites in history and very little in between.  We learnt a half decent Dashing White Sergeant and Gay Gordons in PE, but we didn't do much in the way of Scottish literature. I mean, I went to Wick High School and we didn't do one single Neil Gunn book. How crazy is that?

Having said that, it strikes me that the whole point of the Curriculum for Excellence is to give more autonomy for teachers and rather than have a Scottish Studies subject, teachers are free to use all sorts of different resources across the whole range of classes. Also, what would you take out of the timetable in order to fit Scottish Studies in?  Less PE?  Not when we need to get fitter. Less cookery? Not when we learn to eat healthier. The SNP has to answer these questions. Especially when PE can include Scottish dances and sports, cookery traditional Scottish cookery which, contrary to popular belief, goes beyond deep frying Mars Bars.  A wee bit of imagination and giving free rein to teachers and you could do all sorts.

Labour have accused the SNP of trying to "politicise" our kids. I presume that they think that teaching them Scottish culture automatically means that they'll be pro-independence. Frankly, I despair of that sort of talk. How dare he suggest that Scottish culture and history is the preserve of the SNP. It belongs to us all and that sort of talk is vacuous and dangerous.

However, my argument is that there are much more pressing things on Alasdair Allan's desk than inventing new subjects. Yesterday we had Education Scotland  tell us that too many schools were coasting, and that kids from deprived backgrounds could be as much as 18 months behind kids from affluent backgrounds when they start school. Dealing with that should be our most important priority. After all, if kids grow up not able to read properly, they're not going to be able to enjoy the best of our culture and history. The entire focus of the education department should be on closing down that gap and making sure every child can reach their full potential.

Sounds like Mr Allan needs some training in time management and working out what's important.

I've not got much love for Ed's Bargain Basement with the nasties in the dark corners #lab11

So, yesterday afternoon, Ed Miliband gave his first proper speech to the Labour Conference. The first, last year, was written hastily after his unexpected victory, but he's had a bit longer to think about this one. Why, then, was last year's better?

And all he could come up with was a so-called "new bargain". That seems to basically mean that those same large corporations and media organisations (Murdoch, anyone?) that Labour sucked up to for years are to re-designated evil and be made to stop ripping us off.  The former energy secretary mentioned energy companies and their rigged market. That same market he did nothing about in office. It takes some nerve to make a campaign issue out of your own failings, I'll give him that.

His speech was all over the place. He went rather clunkily from talking about the operation on his nose to praising Harriet Harman in a handful of words. The structure was all wrong - he'd start a paragraph as though he were addressing Conference but would switch back and forth between addressing Labour and the British people. It just didn't flow.

And somebody really does need to get Ed in a room and sort out his delivery. So many times, interludes for applause saw him make some really weird smirks. He tripped over words and he looked terrified up there.

I think the striking thing was that he was in front of a grey, lifeless backdrop which replaced the usual red, or purple as they adopted for a while. It reflected the lack of ideas and general vacuousness coming from Labour at the moment. I mean, this is their showcase, and so far the best they've come up with is a plan to reduce tuition fees which will make no difference to most people on ordinary incomes and a bizarre idea from the shadow Culture Secretary Ivan Lewis that could have led to the state regulation of journalists.

Now that Ed has the freedom to choose his Shadow Cabinet, we can but hope that Mr Lewis will be sent to the back benches. What gets me is that these speeches aren't delivered in isolation. Somebody will have had to have seen them in advance. If the draft set no alarm bells ringing, that shows that Labour's authoritarian streak runs deep. They just look stupid now, with Lewis having had to sheepishly almost immediately afterwards.

But back to Ed's speech, and thanks to the Torygraph for printing it in full. By far the nastiest bit was his assertion that:

Take social housing.

When we have a housing shortage, choices have to be made.

Do we treat the person who contributes to their community the same as the person who doesn’t?

My answer is no.

Our first duty should be to help the person who shows responsibility.

Should the answer not be to build more affordable housing?

You have to wonder what sort of character test people would have to pass in order to get a council house. Do we just let nice people have housing or do they have to do good works in their communities as well as being nice?

And what do you do to the family with one troubled child who's causing problems - make the entire family homeless? They have to live somewhere. How is this going to help anyone?

Hearing this sort of ill thought out populist bile coming from the mouth of a Labour leader still makes me feel sick. It's bad enough, but expected in a way, to hear it from a Tory. It's become a bit of a triumph of hope over experience to expect any better from Labour but somehow a corner of my heart still does.

So, if you are struggling with various problems in your life, addiction, illness, a child with behavioural issues, despite Florence and Machine's song playing in the background after the speech, you'll find that Ed and Labour don't have love for you.

Labour are finished until they lose their sense of entitlement to people's votes #lab11

Labour MP for Glasgow South Tom Harris took his book promotion tour  Scottish leadership campaign to Good Morning Scotland today.

He may well be talking the talk about how rubbish Labour have been recently, and how they need to change, but the use of a simple word shows that the old mindset is truly alive and well within him.

He talked about how voters had abandoned Labour. That to me is an interesting choice of word because it implies some wrongdoing on the part of the voter. It's almost as if Labour feels aggrieved that those voters deprived them of  the votes that they were entitled to.

When I first got interested in politics, it was clear to me that Labour literally took people for granted. It's the sort of attitude that comes along with a voting system that will give your party an inbuilt majority and is therefore the clearest argument possible for electoral reform.

Let's be clear - no party ever has the right to anyone's vote. Trust has to be earned and renewed by hard work and empathy and engagement. That is why Liberal Democrat elected representatives at all levels tend to work very hard for their communities.

The trouble with the Labour party is that arrogance is hardwired into their DNA. They expect to be in power and when they aren't, they get stroppy and petulant and irrational. They've spent the last 5 months with their heads up their own backsides trying to work out what went wrong - something that's obvious to even the most casual observer.

Taking people for granted is what they do instinctively. Until they un-learn that behaviour, get out of that hubristic mindset that the people owe them something, embrace pluralism and show willing to work with other parties, they are finished. The kicking they got in May has been a long, long time coming. The scales have fallen off the people's eyes and they have seen the party for the brutish, remote, disconnected machine it is.

They will not be so easily taken in by Labour again.

Labour have to realise that they are villain, not victim and they need to change from the inside out. Otherwise, their fortunes will never improve. The jury is out on whether they are capable of what is necessary.

Two Eds are really no better than one. #lab11

Ok, so there's a cheap gag at the expense of the Labour Leader and the shadow chancellor, just because they share the same name.

Of course, both of them have been talking a right load of old balls...

This isn't getting any better is it?

On Saturday, after an almost Trappist silence on the policy front from Labour, Ed Miliband announced that they would cap university tuition fees at £6000. This, as has been widely pointed out, will do nothing for those on lower incomes, and will only help those who enter the job market with a starting salary of around £38,000.

In fact, those who end up in lower paying jobs will be better off already under the coalition's arrangement than they were under the scheme Labour introduced.

And maybe we need to remind people that it was Labour who introduced fees after promising that they would not.

And now we have Ed Balls, who has spent the last year telling everyone who will listen that the Coalition is the spawn of the Devil and doing evil things. now says he won't reverse them.

Is there something about watching others clean up the mess you left that makes you cynical and cocky?

He knows perfectly well that if by some miracle Labour had won the last election, he as Chancellor would have had to make pretty much the same cuts - £7 for every £8 - to avoid us having a Greek style meltdown.

And Balls' big idea on the economy? A VAT cut. Because that worked so well when Labour did that in 2008. Let's be clear. People who are worried about whether they'll have a job in 12 months' time aren't going to think "Oh, VAT's gone down, let's have a new kitchen."

And retailers, especially wee corner shops,  wouldn't be too chuffed either, having had to alter their software twice in two years already.

Honestly.

If this is the best we can hope for out of the Labour party after a year in opposition, I really despair. They are coming across as nothing but a bunch of chancers. They made the bulk of the mess - and the foundations for that were laid way before 2008 when they spent too much in the good years. The mark of a good blogger is that you remember what they write - and that's why Nick Thornsby is such a worthy winner of Lib Dem Voice's Blog of the Year. A few weeks ago he gave us this wee diagram which showed that Labour, rather than cut borrowing during the good economic years, just kept on spending, putting nothing by for the rainy day to come. That rainy day turned out to be a bit of a flood of biblical proportions.

This is not untypical of how Labour behave when they get their hands on public money - spend first, ask questions later, leave your successors in such a mess than hopefully you'll be voted back in next time. Their almost criminal irresponsibility in leaving Edinburgh with next to nothing in its reserves when they left office in 2007 led to the incoming Lib Dem led administration having to make some pretty tough decisions. Despite that, though, they are now up for a public service delivery award and have cut homelessness and improved social care, including building new care homes.

It all goes to show what you can achieve in tough times when you have a people centred approach to what you are doing. But Labour have never been good at that. They see people as a homegenous blob to be told what they need and what they're entitled to. It's all about the collective and not about the individual to them.

Labour seem to be manipulating and spinning, and there's literally nothing coming from them with any genuine, emotional, heartfelt substance. All Ed and no heart - they still have a long way to go before they are, or if they become, fit for Government again.

The SNP blogosphere counts its chickens................ #sp11

There's been a lot of excitement in the SNP section of cyberspace - with a bit of cheerleading by the Greens as well - at a couple of polls published over the weekend which put them well ahead of everyone else in the Holyrood race. They are talking about the SNP beating Labour leader Iain Gray in East Lothian, of winning Orkney from us, and ousting the one really talented person on Labour's front bench, Jackie Baillie. But we know what comes after pride............

Not that they are going to listen to me, but I'd counsel caution, especially given what happened to the Liberal Democrats last year. I was firmly in the camp of "keep calm and carry on" when our poll ratings soared in the wake of Nick Clegg's fabulous performance in the first leader's debate last year. I never thought at any point that we'd get 30% of the vote, even though I thought and still think that we had the best leader and the best policies.  There's a long way to go before May 5th, which is the only poll, after all, that matters. Let me tell you why.

First of all, on the constituency seats these polls always assume a uniform swing and ignore the situation on the ground. You just can't do that as each seat is different.

Labour's campaign so far has been simply atrocious. They are losing the argument, thanks to Tavish Scott and the Liberal Democrats, on a single national police force, they have been all over the place on their flagship policy to imprison anyone convicted of carrying a knife, against the advice of those who understand these things. They have no idea how many extra prison place would be required. There were around 3900 convictions for this last year, but Labour think they'd only need 500, or 1000 places, depending on who you listen to. And Richard Baker admitted on Newsnight last week that he'd picked up the £500 million supposed costs to the NHS of knife crime from inaccurate press reports. Their plans to centralise social work budgets have been trashed by COSLA, vindicating Tavish Scott's position. In the words of Malcolm Tucker, Labour's campaign has been an omni-shambles from day one. Actually Tucker would use more words, but I'm writing this before the watershed...

Labour often fight useless campaigns though. Last year their main reason for voting for them was that they weren't the Tories. This year they are trying to portray themselves as some sort of SNP-lite without the independence bit, changing their minds on things like the Council Tax freeze and free prescriptions which they failed to support in Parliament. They are trying to pretend that the total financial mess the country was left in after their 13 years in Government is nothing to do with them and that they would have made cuts that nobody would have noticed.

One thing I've noticed in my almost 30 years of political activism is that when Labour are up against it, they get nasty and vicious. Expect over the next 10 days some heavy duty character assassinations from them. They'll also try to shift the ground on to issues like independence which most people in Scotland oppose. I wonder if they'll selectively quote Jeff from Better Nation's excited prediction that "Either way, with 8 pro-independence seats amongst the Greens and Margo, this poll on its own suggests that an independence referendum will happen in the next parliamentary term" leaving off the rest of the sentence which implies that he thinks Scotland will vote against going it alone.


I don't think that the Scottish people are quite that stupid. Nobody's going to believe that Salmond's going to declare UDI. The worst that can happen is that we'll waste some time and effort on a referendum that most people don't want. I've always said that I'm pretty relaxed about the prospect and if it happened, I'd spend my time making the No campaign positive, inspirational and ambitious.

The air war stuff is important, but it's not the only decider. If there's one thing that Labour is good at, it's getting their vote out in the places that matter on the day. And they are probably better at that than any other party. You can bet your life that they'll spend 5th May going round the doors in key areas for them telling people that they can get rid of the Coalition at Westminster if they vote Labour - which would, of course, be a complete and utter lie as this election is for the Scottish Parliament and won't influence the 5 year coalition agreement one bit. They'll go round telling people that they need to vote Labour to stop independence.

As for the Greens, when people get to realise that their proposals for Land Value Taxation are going to hit pensioners, students, people who rent their homes, single parents and people who live in city centres hard, I don't expect that their vote will go up by as much as they think. I don't remember them being particularly constructive or achieving anything during the time in Parliament when they had 6 MSPs either. I can't see the point of voting for them.

And, quietly, maybe a bit more quietly than I'd like, the Scottish Liberal Democrat position on a whole load of key issues in this election is being backed up. The Scottish Police Federation overwhelmingly voted against a single police force, and the CPPR verified our spending approach,  It goes to show that we have a credible set of ideas and proposals. What we need in the last 10 days is to get them out there with confidence and passion. There's two leader's debates coming up on 1st and 3rd May.  I don't think anything on this planet makes Tavish more passionate than the idea of a political power grab to the centre. He needs to talk about keeping services local, a lot. He needs to talk about how his upbringing at the heart of a strong community shaped his outlook and his belief that people should have a say in the services they have, not just take what they're given by a remote state.  He needs to talk about ambition, and hope and the positive future for Scotland we see.

This election is far from over. And counting chickens before they are hatched just leads to a lot of egg yolk running down your face.

Labour flexes authoritarian muscle with car smoking fine plan #sp11

Yesterday’s Sunday Times carries a story that Labour, if they got into power, would start a process which would see people fined £200 for smoking in a car while transporting kids under 16.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think there is any excuse for exposing kids to the deeply unpleasant cocktail of poisons and carcinogens that cigarette smoke contains. And, yes, I do judge people who smoke at all when children are around whether during pregnancy, in their own home, or whatever.  I am not anti-smoking as such.  I used to smoke 40 a day and thoroughly enjoyed every single one of them. However, a positive pregnancy test changed all of that and I literally never had another cigarette after seeing it. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I’d harmed my baby. If I, who loved my cigarettes so much, could give up, anyone can. There are some ex smokers who get all evangelical about it, denouncing smoking and everything to do with it.  I’m a bit like that where smoking around kids is concerned, but I don’t mind hanging around with smokers outside and if the truth be told, I quite enjoy the smell.

Labour’s plans show their instinctive authoritarianism – faced with a problem, they will always choose to legislate and ban rather than educate and not care about the implications for personal freedom along the way.  I think that the smoking ban introduced in 2006 by the Liberal Democrat/Labour coalition is one of the best pieces of legislation ever, because it strikes the right balance between freedom to smoke, and freedom to breathe air free from the poisons in cigarette smoke.   That covers public space, though. What about private space?  If we ban smoking in cars, surely there’s an argument to ban it in houses? And alcohol is harmful too – we know about the effects of growing up with parents who abuse alcohol. Do we ban drinking in a house where there are under 18s? What about obesity? Do we give the state the right to go through people’s food cupboards and fine per chocolate bar or crisp packet because obesity is such a problem and is going to cost us a fortune in the future?  If the issue is with the proven risks of cigarette smoke in a very confined space, you don’t get much more confined than a womb. Do we ban smoking in pregnancy? Even if we thought that was a good idea, which I don’t, how on earth do you enforce that?

There comes a point when the state has to recognise that it can’t do everything.  Smoking in cars when you’re taking your kid to school when the evidence exists that this causes harm is an inconsiderate, horrible thing to do that will probably affect their future health. 

There’s all sorts of things parents do, though, which store up future problems for their children. That’s why poet Philip Larkin famously said “They f*** you up, your mum and dad.”  Evidence suggests that the regime orientated parenting methods such as leaving babies to cry and trying to regulate their instinctive behaviour can cause much more harm than good for future mental wellbeing.  We have a situation where 1 in 4 adults will have mental health problems at some point in their lives. Do we ban these methods in the hope of improving mental health?  I can imagine the outcry if a Government tried. 

What I think would me more helpful, though, is an attempt by Governments and politicians to put the needs of children front and centre, to try to change the culture to make us a much more child friendly place.  We don’t actually seem to like kids very much here – we ghettoise them, try to confine them to soft play areas so that adults can get on with their own socialising. Then we complain when they hang around with each other as teenagers.  Maybe we should be thinking about how we can best integrate them into our lives and accept and enjoy them in every environment. Then it might not be so easy to dismiss the effects on them of lighting up in a small metal box.

There are some boundaries it’s just not appropriate for the state to cross and, as usual, Labour with these plans are, as usual, on the wrong side of that boundary as far as I am concerned.

Labour's knife crime policy looking stupider by the hour #sp11

I've often said that the worst thing that could happen in this election was for Richard Baker, whose preferred policy making procedure appears to be by jerking his knee in response to tabloid headlines, to end up as Cabinet Secretary for Justice, implementing draconian yet ineffective measures. 

The thought of Labour's policy on knife crime, of sending anyone caught with a knife to prison for six months is ill thought through.  Let's make no bones about it, folk shouldn't be wandering around carrying knives, but the way to deal with it isn't to send people to prison when the almost certainty is that they'll come out and do the same thing all over again. 

There might be a case for drastic action if knife crime was going up - but it's fallen by more than a third due to initiatives like No Knives, Better Lives. There are still too many stabbings and deaths, and that has to be stopped. However, I'd rather see money being put into making sure these kids never get into the situation in the first place, on positive measures, rather than locking up thousands of young people every year.

Labour themselves don't seem to have much of a clue about how many extra prisoners their plans would create. There were 3194 convictions in 2009-10 for carrying a knife. Yet Iain Gray said on The Politics Show on Sunday that they'd only need 500 extra prison places. How does that compute?  Do they really think that they are so persuasive that 84% of knife wielding thugs are just going to stop like that? Of course, Andy Kerr said around the same time that the figure was 1000, so they haven't a clue themselves.  In any event, our prisons are packed to capacity anyway. Where exactly are we going to put all these people?

If we have proven, evidence based methods of reducing knife crime, are we not better using them than another Labour attempt at a quick fix? Remember these are the people who came up with ID cards which were vastly expensive and wouldn't have prevented any of the terrorist atrocities claimed.

And what do people in the know think about Labour's policy. Well, the assistant secretary of the Prison Officers' Association thinks it could compromise safety for both officers and prisoners and that it's just "not credible."

And then the Police Federation don't seem terribly impressed. General Secretary Calum Steele said:

"As a manifesto proposal it is understandable why the pledge is considered as attractive. Although unconvinced by the reality, only politicians will know if it's truly affordable and deliverable in practice."

It seemed strange to see Iain Gray so clearly on the ropes on one of his flagship policies the other day. If he can't even research the implications properly of his own stuff, how can he be expected to competently take decisions on a daily basis that affect us all?


This is all about Labour being seen to be tough on crime and nothing to do with actual, practical reality.

Labour's cynical opportunism on prescription charges

Yesterday the Scottish Parliament voted to scrap the charge for NHS prescriptions once and for all.

This move was supported by the SNP Government and Labour, and opposed by the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives.

I have written often enough that I think that a small prescription charge for those who can afford it is not really a big deal so I'm glad that the Lib Dems stuck to their long held position on this. Health spokesman Ross Finnie said:

"NHS Boards are making difficult choices on cutting nursing staff and hospital beds as they struggle to cope with the funding squeeze. But the Scottish Government is still determined to extend reduced or free prescriptions to all. 

"In the present economic circumstances, Liberal Democrats have made it clear that it is inappropriate to proceed with the final stage of abolishing prescription charges."

I can forgive the SNP for doing it - it's been their long held policy and something they've been working towards for the last 4 years, and supported before. Fair play to them, even if I disagree with them.

What I don't get is the Labour Party's position. They didn't support abolition of prescription charges in 2006 when Colin Fox tried to introduce that measure. Last year Mr MacNumpty reported in his Sunday Whip column that Labour had abstained on the issue. I'm sure there have been many other votes in between, too. The BBC reports, however, that Labour supported the SNP's abolition plan.

Why would they change the habits of a lifetime? It's not as if there's an election round the corner or anything..... Oh wait.........

Whatever their motivations, it looks as though the Labour Party has been prepared to back something it doesn't believe in, costing money that we can ill afford. They don't seem to have learned anything about financial responsibility since Liam Byrne left his chilling note that "there was no money left" last May.  Labour have shown in office at every level, from Council to UK that they can't be trusted to keep the public finances on an even keel. Cllr Jenny Dawe, leader of the City of Edinburgh Council, wrote for Liberal Democrat Voice last year about the mess they found when they took over from Labour in 2007. We know that at Westminster part of the reason we have such a massive deficit is because Labour failed to mend the roof when the sun was shining. Do we really want them doing the same at Holyrood?

Barnsley By- Election called for 3rd March

As another ex Labour MP, Eric Illsley awaits a spell at Her Majesty's Pleasure, he has finally resigned his Commons seat, triggering a by-election which will take place on March 3rd. He's had almost an extra month's wages - he could have resigned when he pleaded guilty on 11th January, but failed to do so. After he's already pocketed £14000 he wasn't entitled to, it is a major impertinence that he's taken an extra £3000 in salary.

How on earth Labour allowed him to stand in the General Election is beyond me. It's a bit rubbish of the Party, who made a thing of going through their MPs' claims, not to have sussed out what was going on.

The by-election is just 3 weeks away. The Liberal Democrats are having an action day this Saturday, from 10.30 am onwards, at Darton Parish Rooms, Church Street, Darton, Barnsley, S75 5HQ. 

Labour blogger compares coalition to Pol Pot

Consider the following statement:

This is the most destructive administration since Pol Pot. It isn’t killing professionals and the middle classes, but it is so damaging their lives and the chances of their children that it’s the British equivalent to wholesale slaughter.

What's remarkable is that this is not the nocturnal internet rantings of an unbalanced mind, but it appears in a bona fide article on the Labour uncut website, written by a former political editor at the Mirror Group.

To compare the Coalition to a brutal regime, one of the worst ever, which murdered professionals, banned religion and technology and tortured and executed people for knowing a foreign language or wearing spectacles is clearly outrageous. That sort of obviously inflammatory and inaccurate language demeans the writer mostly, though, Unfortunately, Labour scaremongering often needlessly frightens the people they say are trying to protect.

I wrote yesterday about how Labour in Fife worried people who were never ever going to be charged for home care services. Recently we've seen Labour people tell young people that if they're poor they won't be able to stay on at school or go to university. That is such complete nonsense and may well become a self fulfilling prophecy if we're not careful. There are plenty other examples, as I have written before.

I was struck by this exchange on Twitter last night between Liberal Youth's Chris Wiggin and Party President Tim Farron.

Chris said:

Some of the scaremongering coming from the left is quite frankly sickening

Tim replied, with his customary subtlety:

 they aren't the left, they are mostly newlabour careerist drones who have spent the last decade loved up with Bush and Murdoch

The reason I found out about the Pol Pot article was by reading Mr Doctor Chocoholic's post over at Liberal Democrat Voice about yet more Labour inspired misrepresentation and scaremongering. The Doctor cites an article by Dennis MacShane, former Labour minister who was Labour MP for Rotherham from 1994 until 3 short months ago when he had the whip withdrawn when the Police took an interest in his expenses. He basically said that the Government was removing consultation on new constituency boundaries, which is wrong.

I think that it would be a sensible precaution to take anything said by the Labour party, or anyone associated with it, with a large pinch of salt. The problem is that some of their nonsense is almost becoming accepted truth. As Liberal Democrats, we have to be much wiser and sharper about rebutting their inaccurate statements as and when we find them.

Things I would rather do than accept Ed Miliband's invitation to join Labour

It's that time of the month again, when Ed Miliband issues yet another invitation for disaffected Liberal Democrats to join Labour. He claims that thousands of Liberal Democrats have joined Labour since the coalition was formed, without giving a shred of evidence to back that up. Even in Scotland our membership has risen by over 16% since the coalition was formed so we're in good shape as a party. Ed really is full of the old charm - insinuating that those of us who don't take him up on his offer are not "courageous". It's not persuasive by any stretch of the imagination.

Let me just emphasise to Ed, in case he hasn't quite got it, some of the things I would rather do than join Labour:

• spend a day looking after the snakes at Edinburgh Zoo (can't abide things that slither on the ground on their bellies);
• clean out the rabbit hutch in the middle of a hailstorm;
• take up speed skating (you know how phobic I am about snow and ice);
• snog George Osborne (you know how phobic I am about Tories);
• take a trip on the Pepsi Max Big One or any other Rollercoaster (not good with heights either);

I'm sure you get my drift by now. Ed, not even if the Labour Party was the last Party there at the end of the night, we'd both consumed more lager than was good for us, and we both had a paper bag on our heads, would I ever even consider joining your illiberal, authoritarian, union controlled organisation in which I as an ordinary member would have no influence over anything. And here's just a few of the reasons why, in no particular order:

• Iraq, illegal war, enough said;
• Implicating this country in complicity with torture;
• Making it more difficult for the poorest to afford housing with unfair changes to housing benefit;
• Letting down the poorest by increasing the gap between rich and poor;
• Failing to fix the roof when the sun was shining - meaning we all suffer as a result of their economic incompetence;
• Failing to regulate the banks, either before or after the crash;
• Wasting a fortune on illiberal ID cards;
• Failing to protect working families with low incomes;
• Their dissembling over the cuts in spending they would have made if they had won the election;
• The appalling mess they made of the Tax Credit system, and their treatment of thousands of poor families, forced to repay thousands they couldn't afford;
• Imposing control orders on people without telling them even what they were being accused of;
• Centralising public services to the detriment of people using them;
• Taking kids' DNA without parents' permission;
• Storing the DNA of innocent people;
• Running an inhumane and often brutal immigration system.

The thing is they haven't changed. Just last week, we had Labour MP Kerry McCarthy say she'd happily stand by and let every man in her constituency give a DNA sample in the hope of catching a murderer. This mob are quite happy to play fast and loose with the basic tenets of our justice system, such as being innocent until proven guilty. Many of them, including my own MP, oppose a voting system which would require MPs to work harder and to properly engage with their constituents.

There are actions taken by the Coalition Government that I don't and will never support, on housing benefit, DLA, for example, and some of the NHS reforms sound pretty scary, making me very glad indeed I live in Scotland, on the ridiculous immigration cap and many other things. However, no matter how upset I get, I'm sticking with the party where my heart lies. There's no way I could possibly join  the Labour party which views people as a collective, amorphous blob who'll take what they're given by a Government who knows best. 

Lady Mark and Andrew Reeves have already robustly and politely declined Mr Miliband's invitation and I join their chorus of refusal. 

Liberal Democrats smash expectations in Oldham East and Saddleworth

If you'd listened to the media in recent weeks, you'd have thought that the Liberal Democrats were in for a real routing in Oldham, barely reaching double figures. Conventional wisdom said that meltdown was inevitable, and our defeat would be followed by a challenge to Nick Clegg and ultimately the coalition would fall.

Well, what a load of nonsense those predictions turned out to be. The result last night had us with a slightly higher proportion of the vote than we had in May, but unfortunately that wasn't enough to see Elwyn Watkins elected MP.

The result in full was:

• Labour: 14,718 (42.1%)
• Lib Dems: 11,160 (31.9%)
• Conservatives: 4,481 (12.8%)
• UKIP: 2,029 (5.8%)
• BNP: 1,560 (4.5%)
• Green Party: 530 (1.5%)
• Monster Raving Loony Party: 145 (0.4%)
• English Democrats: 144 (0.4%)
• Pirate Party: 96 (0.2%)
• Bus Pass Elvis Party: 67 (0.1%)

Labour haven't got much to shout about - they held their own seat at a time when they're opposing a Government which is having to do some fairly harsh things, after all the tuition fees stuff and the VAT increase. Even then, their new MP was elected on less than half the vote, and less than the combined total of the Coalition parties. They will be very worried indeed at the extent of the tactical voting against them which took place where they were in a position of strength.

The Tories were always likely to get squeezed. It doesn't always happen to the third party - for example, the story of the night 5 years ago in Livingston was that our 3rd place vote pretty much held up for candidate Charles Dundas - but on this occasion, they were. I suspect they'll consider the result pretty much as expected.

The Liberal Democrat result confounded the pundits who had sagely warned of our demise. It seems that the picture is a lot less bleak than political journalists paint it. Who would have predicted that our share of the vote would have increased, albeit by a tiny amount, from May? I do feel really heartbroken for Elwyn and his energetic team who couldn't have put any more effort into it and I really wanted him to win, but they can be very proud of what they achieved against a narrative which said we were stuffed.  I do wonder, though, whether we were a bit too cautious in calling the election so quickly. If the result had been really bad, it could have been blamed on a brief campaign in the harshest of Winters. All the signs were that we were the ones with the momentum. I think in another week or two, we might have pulled it off. We'll never know - and you can't blame the powers that be for being risk averse - but in future, let's see them reach high rather than try to limit damage. The time for timidity is over.

The Oldham result tells us is that we can afford to be more ambitious, and more upbeat. All the reports I hear on the ground suggest that our vote is holding up well. There's probably nobody whose knocked on more doors in Scotland than Alex Cole-Hamilton, Liberal Democrat candidate in Edinburgh Central. He's been bold and upbeat right since his selection in July and it's paying dividends as his team recruits loads of enthusiastic activists.  He and his team have been out there in the most freezing of temperatures, no matter how much snow and ice has been around. They are finding that their intensive effort is paying dividends already. Hopefully in May, he'll be in Holyrood as MSP.

One final thing - I wish the BNP had come last. I'd much rather have seen the Bus Pass Elvis Party beat them. At least they hate filled racists lost their deposits in an election where there was a danger their vote could have increased. It just goes to show that a hard fought campaign, which properly engages with people, can push them down.

What would the Telegraph have heard at Labour MPs' surgeries last year?

It amuses me to hear Ed Miliband being so dismissive about the nature of the coalition, saying it's a sham. I actually think that what we've heard over the past few days proves that it isn't. Liberal Democrat MPs and ministers are not making life easy for themselves, but they know that they can do more good in the Government than out of it, and that life would be much worse if they weren't there.

I got to thinking, though, what if the Telegraph (or some other paper) had decided to throw ethics to the wind this time last year, and gone around some Labour MPs' surgeries. I mean, we all know what a happy little band of campers they were, don't we? Imagine if they'd gone to Geoff Hoon's or Patricia Hewitt's surgeries and asked a few well worded questions about Gordon Brown? I mean, those two spent Christmas plotting about how to overthrow him and made spectacular arses of themselves (and, in Hoon's case, not for the last time this year) trying to pull off a coup in the first week of January.

Would James Purnell, or Alan Johnson or David Miliband all have praised their leader fulsomely, or damned him by their lack of enthusiasm?  I'm absolutely certain those amoral journalists would have found some interesting snippets to report.

Actually, I wonder what they're all saying about Ed Miliband now. I mean, Ed's team still seems in shock that he won and everyone else is being suspiciously silent. I am fairly certain that even now metaphorical daggers are being lined up right between his shoulder blades.

Like I said, just a thought.