The language of politics

Report on the BBC website highlighting that MPs have criticised the overuse of jargon in governmental documents, particularly for forms. Indeed, they point out that this over complication may lead to people missing out on benefits that they are entitled to, which is an appalling situation.

I think that this discussion about jargon needs to go further and examine the language which is used in political debate. In my work life I have focused on democratic engagement in recent years and have been struck by the fact that there is a very common perception amongst the public that political activity requires a very specific technical language in order to participate.

It is a reflection of the idea that politics has become 'professionalised', one of the key factors I think which puts people off participating. It is seen as a job and one for which you require strange and arcane language, knowledge which requires university education to be deciphered. One of the strengths of the British political system has been that technically at least it is possible for anyone to become an elected representative, a situation which is definitely not the case in other democracies. For example, someone like John Prescott would never have become Vice President in the US, but was able to rise to the office of Deputy Prime Minister in the UK. However, we are losing the chance to engage wider elements of society as the field becomes more closed, accessible if you are a party worker and/or politics graduate but difficult otherwise.

There is a growing trend for politicians to follow a set path - politics degree, work for a party or politician, elected. The more 'out-there' ones maybe go spend some time at a think tank to break from the mould. However, where are the charity activists, the grassroots campaigners, the, well, normal folk? True politics is not exactly the most appealing arena at the best times, and of course I am overgeneralising, however in order to have a vibrant and representative democracy we require all elements to be involved in it. Representation is not the only means for participation, however it does demonstrate a very visible involvement for different communities.

Working in Shettleston in Glasgow, a predominantly white working class area, I was told that politics wasn't for folk there, it was for rich, old men who attended top universities. Working subsequently with ethnic minority communities, the comment is the same other than for the addition of the word 'white' as an additional barrier.

Billy Connolly joked that anyone who wanted to be a politician should by default be barred from standing for election, but there is an element of truth to his quip. There is nothing wrong with having elected representatives who have followed the path I outlined above; the problem lies when that becomes the norm for representative's history.

One of the ways to try and change this system is to try and improve the language that is used, to restore political discourse to the realities of life rather than the removed and rarefied secret code which is often used. I'm not calling for a dumbing down of discourse, but rather that politicians stop and think about how they present their discussions, about whether they are relevant to the people they represent. Because not only would accessible discussions encourage a greater range of people to put themselves forward for election, it would provide a better environment for the wider populace to participate and challenge the political system, renewing and reinvigorating our democracy.

Putting the Evolution into Devolution

The Queen's Speech outlined proposals by the UK Government to introduce a number of measures for devolving further powers to the Scottish Parliament and Government, largely in line with the recommendations of the Calman Commission. Whilst a commitment to strengthening devolution is to be welcomed, there are several problems with the measures which will hamper their effectiveness.

Firstly, these particular measures are reliant upon the Labour Party being returned to Government at Westminster which, whilst not impossible, is certainly an uphill task. The Conservatives have indicated that they would bring a Scotland Bill forward if they were in power, but obviously this could possess a different complexion. The questions raised by the SNP and Lib Dems about the need for a delay do therefore have a resonance - if Labour is commited to the changes why not implement them now?

Secondly, the changes themselves are tied into the Calman Commission's findings which, as I have blogged before, were not necessarily the most earth-shattering in human history. The devolution of further taxation control, principally in regards to Scotland's role in tax raising, is not likely to see much in the way of change - I would imagine that we will see either the Scottish portion remaining identical to the rest of the UK or, if the SNP are feeling mischevous, the Scottish section lowered in the hope that funding will still be available through the Barnett calculations. This would raise resentment across the rest of the UK against Scotland without necessarily actually having a beneficial impact on the country.

Other measures such as the control of drink-driving limits and airgun legislation are welcome but again are hardly major steps. It is not that the devolution settlement necessarily needs massive re-evaluation - personally I am of the opinion that we are still very early in the Parliament's life to be making these decisions - but if we are taking the opportunity after a decade then we should be using it to the full, to avoid the need to repeat the process every few years.

If anything the biggest changes Scotland needs are probably in regards to Westminster's role in the country. The Scottish Government and Parliament have responsibility for the issues which impact upon day-to-day life far more than Westminster does. In particular Scottish MPs are now seen as being less relevant to people in Scotland, impacting more on decisions south of the border than north.

The UK Government needs to examine the Scottish MPs' role to ensure that they can demonstrate their role in shaping and influencing Governmental decisions which do impact upon Scotland, such as UK foreign policy, national taxation and immigration. They need to be seen as complimentary equals to MSPs - the day of them trying to be considered a step above is certainly long gone.

So probably a case of watch this space overall. With decisions left until after the next election, everything will be up in the air as we wait to see who will form the Government. But as the Scottish Government prepare to release their White Paper on Independence we can guarantee that the debate still has a course to run.

The challenge of the public sector

Very interesting report published by Sir John Arbuthnott investigating how money could be best spent across the Clyde Valley area. Currently the eight councils spend about £6.5 billion each year and are facing, like every other council in Scotland, severe pressures upon their budgetary commitments. He has suggested that there are many areas where it would be possible to combine services which are currently duplicated, saving money and providing best value for public expenditure.

Needless to say there has been quite a response already to his suggestions. Although he has not suggested that the eight councils should be combined politically, the dread spectre of 'Strathclyde' has been raised above the parapets, frightening all with talk of the mega-body to end all mega-bodies. There is also the inevitable worries about the impact combination would have upon jobs - afterall if jobs are currently being duplicated then any changes is likely to see redundencies.

The threat of job loss, particularly in the current economic climate, is a worrying one and everything must be done to make the process as smooth as possible. However, the reality is that we do currently have a bloated public sector in Scotland which sees public money wasted, reducing public confidence in local authorities and the work that they do.

The left of course have traditionally been the defenders of the public sector, and this is a crucial role that they must continue to fill as the possibility of a Conservative Government, largely inimical to the sector, looms on the horizon. However, defence of the public sector cannot just be a blind kneejerk reaction of refusal to countenance any change. All sectors must adapt and evolve, and the fact that there is so much money pumped into departments replicating work fails the electorate.

Combining services would allow costs for equipment and maintenence, particularly in areas which require large outlays in materials such as road repair. Furthermore joint work would help to standardise facilities across the area, which is especially relevant considering the fluid and constant interaction for work and leisure between Glasgow and its surrounding environs.

If the councils remained politically independent they would retain the ability to make the key decisions about the delivery of services in their area as they currently do - what would change would be a demonstration to the public that they are seeking to maximise the impact of every pound spent. In addition they would see benefits to their budgets due to the savings achieved, allowing them to save key local services from cuts, an outcome which is inevitable if things continue as they are.

There is much still to be explored about the proposals and it will be interesting to see the responses that come from the councils concerned. There will be some opposition to the measures, particularly in light of potential job cuts, so it is important that Trade Unions are involved in the process to allow discussion and debate. However, change is needed to keep local authorities working, and in bringing together the work that they do they will be able to save money and best serve the public.

Well done Willie Bain MP

Well Willie Bain has been elected as MP, which is a fantastic result, especially the size of his victory. Reassured as well that the BNP were pushed back to 4th, albeit it only just. Still, a worrying situation and the parties must not be complacent.

Planning to be back to blogging now, so will put up my thoughts about the results when I'm less tired.

Glasgow NE result

Waiting for the final result but looking like it's been a successful night for Labour in my own constituency of Glasgow NE, with indications that the seat has been held convincingly.

However, the sad reality is that the main story of the night is likely to be the fact of the BNP coming third, if predictions are accurate. Whilst the turn-out is appallingly low and therefore the result shouldn't be extrapolated too far, it is the case that this result would be a historic change to the Scottish political scene.

Areas such as Glasgow NE possess many of the social and economic barriers and challenges which provide potentially fertile breeding grounds for the BNP. Up until now, however, the party has been held back by the historical reality that it had never had support in Scotland, being seen as an 'English' party. Retaining their deposit for the first time in their history in Scotland would have been a breakthrough in itself; taking third above the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats marks their arrival as a realistic and legitimate member of the Scottish environment.

One of the most depressing aspects of it all is that the argument is still trundled out that Scotland doesn't have a problem with racism, that somehow it is an English problem. This is completely false and doesn't just ignore the problem, it accentuates it.

It is crucial now that the mainstream parties take on the BNP and crush them utterly before they can create a irremovable presence. The oxygen of Question Time has fuelled their growth, but all of the mainstream parties also have to bear the responsibility for failing to stop the BNP in the past decade and in failing the electorate by not responding to their needs and fears. With this result, should the horror turn out to be true, the BNP have a massive opportunity to try and create the same possibilities for themselves that they have in certain areas of England. The parties have to engage with the public, to stop taking them for granted and to actually debate immigration, acknowledging peoples' concerns but also outlining the benefits it brings to the country. Moreover, we need to challenge the myths which surround the issue and which allow the BNP to play easy games.

I am proud that William Bain has been elected as MP for Glasgow NE (I will look stupid if that turns out wrong now!) and I know that he will be an excellent public servant for the constituency. But I am also embarrassed that we in this area will now be an entry in the history books for some of the worst reasons. We need to make sure that this becomes a one-off protest, rather than the start of a new politics in Scotland.

Labour's place in a devolved Scotland

As the (admittedly self-proclaimed) architects of devolution, one of the crucial repercussions of the decade since the Scottish Parliament was reconvened has been the difficulties which the Labour Party has faced in trying to find its place within the new political tapestry.

Ironically, part of the problem has arisen from the situation that out of the main Scottish political parties Labour is the only one which doesn't actually have a devolved political structure. Iain Gray is the leader of the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament - beyond that his jurisdiction is limited, with technically no role as leader of ordinary party activists like myself. Instead, the party remains run from London, albeit with a strong core of Scottish MPs at its heart.

This has left Labour wide open to its designation as "London Labour" by the SNP, arguably the single most effective attack that the Nats have put together in the past decade. Regardless of Labour's role in devolution, regardless of the strong Scottish history to Labour, regardless of Labour's work in the Scottish Parliament, Labour is billed as being a party of outsiders, of non-Scots whose priorities lie elsewhere.

The SNP have stuck to this line of reasoning so successfully that it has become a recurrent motif in political discourse in Scotland. Sadly however the SNP cannot claim all the credit for this situation - Labour must shoulder a large part of the blame through its own actions which have added very strong credence to the attack.

There has been a very visible hostility to the Scottish Parliament from many Labour MPs in Scotland, with outright warfare often seeming to bubble beneath the surface. Successive Scottish Labour leaders have been undermined and restricted by interference from down south, leaving Salmond and his party free to crow about the Englishness of the party - and let's not pretend that this isn't the allusion which the SNP are seeking to entrench in public opinion. The 2007 Holyrood campaign ended up with three different camps interfering in the running of the campaign, each appearing to mutually loathe the others. The internal politics of the party spilled over into the vital work of trying to return a Labour administration to the Scottish Parliament, and helped to contribute to the subsequent defeat. And ever since the party has appeared adrift in the Scottish political environment, shorn of its role as the presumed political leaders of the country and not sure how to function in opposition to a canny minority government. Coupled with an evermore unpopular and aimless government in Westminster and it is no wonder that Labour's opponents in Scotland have been walking around with broad smiles on their faces.

Labour needs to stop and determine what Scottish Labour means. I am not advocating divorce from the UK wide Labour Party, however I think it is becoming ever clearer that to be successful in the devolved environment Scottish Labour must be able to demonstrate and create a clear and engaging Scottish identity. Polling since the SNP came to power repeatedly demonstrates that Scots do not seem to want independence; however they very clearly do want a Scottish Government which will fight on their behalf and use the powers (of which they wish to see more) entrusted to them to put forward a distinct Scottish agenda.

The reality is that this agenda would best fit with the Scottish Labour Party, however the party is failing to respond to the public's demands. Scotland is a diverse country and the somewhat simplistic view that it is a solely left wing nation ignores the realities of the different communities and environments existing across the nation. However, the context of Scotland does ensure that there is scope for a progressive agenda which is not achievable at Westminster under the current voting system.

The SNP have tried to bill themselves as the leaders of this progressive agenda, however the reality is that this does not sit easily with their actual political agenda. Fundamentally the current SNP administration (and admittedly it could be very different if one of the other Nationalist factions in the party came to power) is a broadly centre-right party supportive of business and less motivated by the realities of combating inequalities than by the PR positives of talking about it. They are making some attempts to address some of Scotland's shocking problems, however as with much of their rhetoric the reality is rather sparse. And needless to say, the other Holyrood parties are not filling the gap - the Tories are Tories no matter what Osbourne tells the world; the Greens are currently too small to be much more than Jiminy Cricket type figures; and the Lib Dems are, well, quite frankly pointless in the current environment, scared to work with the SNP despite the obvious shared areas of interest and uncomfortable to work with the other parties.

This would appear to leave open a perfect space for Scottish Labour to take the political agenda by the scruff of its neck and rebuild its damaged fortunes, however it is thus far failing to do so. This is because there is a lack of direction and a lack of inspiration motivating the party in Scotland - rather a fatalistic approach appears to have sunk in at points with an approach of waiting and hoping that the SNP/Salmond screw up at some point. This is not good enough.

A properly devolved Scottish Labour Party would not need to entail constant fighting or bickering with Labour on the UK level - such a situation would be counter-productive and would alienate both members and the wider public. However, Labour introduced devolution because there was a recognition that Scotland is a different context and environment to the UK as a whole and therefore requires specific responses to its particular needs and priorities. By failing to follow this awareness through into the actual functioning of the party structure, Labour ignores its own findings and creates a burden for itself which is largely self-inflicted.

It is vitally important that Labour fights to ensure that Scottishness does not become a copyrighted property of the SNP - this would be damaging to both the party and the country as a whole. The Lib Dems and Tories are less worried about that situation - the Lib Dems being more firmly European/internationalist in billing whilst the Tories remain happy to fixate on their status as Unionists, albeit with a more Scottish tinge in recent years. However Labour has the potential to demonstrate that Scottishness is a broad spectrum of realities, rather than just the slightly Brigadoon-esque approach wrapped in sporting pride (although admittedly that is rather tarnished after last night's woeful performance) which the SNP have successfully peddled over recent years.

This potential is failing to be met because fundamentally the Labour Party as a whole is lost just now, stuck in a period of navel gazing and infighting which appears to be the natural status of all political parties, particularly those in power for a significant period of time. The party does not know what it wants to be, and therefore is lost and to a certain extent uninterested in working out how a devolved party should work.

The problem with this is that, to the general public, it appears like arrogance and complacency, an ignorance to the reality that Labour cannot rely upon any heartlands or safe seats. The SNP's growth is not inexorable and they will struggle as their own internal contradictions strive to become dominant, particularly in a situation where the government and/or the independence agenda runs into trouble; however the reality is that they are working very successfully to eat into the traditional heartland constituencies and supporters of the Labour Party, whilst at the same time possessing a much broader national support than the Labour Party does. The very contradictions which have caused in the past, and will do so again, so much trouble for the SNP are also the strength that allows it to be supported in rural communities and urban communities, in areas of affluence and destitution. There is always somewhere else for the SNP to regroup - Labour lacks this strength in regards to the distribution of its support, even if there is a strength in terms of the actual depth of the support itself.

Labour needs to motivate and captivate the Scottish public, draw them into a vision of Scotland's future which can challenge and defeat the tartan and lace vision which the SNP promulgate so successfully. The polling indicates that Scots want to be part of the Union, but are looking for strong voices to stand up for the fact that we do have different priorities in Scotland. The SNP provide one side of this desire, but there is a gap just now which should be filled by the Scottish Labour Party. The party needs to devolve the structures, to firmly establish the Leader of the Scottish Labour Party as leader of all members, elected or otherwise, in Scotland. They need to give this role the freedom to react to the Scottish agenda alongside working closely with the wider UK party. It needs to develop the inspiration that Scotland is looking - for the first two terms of the Parliament the Lab/Lib coalition 'managed' Scotland quite well, but the public are looking for so much more. They want successful management coupled with a belief, a conviction, that Scotland can and will be better. The SNP argue this very point, coming to the conclusion that this can only be achieved through independence - Labour has a responsibility to set out the alternative but equally compelling vision of improvement, achieved through the strength of union but within a Scottish context.

Within the Scottish Labour Party it is sometimes easy to become fixated upon the hatred, indeed utter vitriolic loathing which elements of the SNP have for the party. This hatred is hard to read, particularly as so much of it is spawned within the free-for-all of the internet where common decency is a long lost myth; however to fixate upon it misses the fact that the people of Scotland do not hate the Labour Party, rather they are bored and apathetic towards it. In many ways this is worse.

Scotland has been billed as a Labour country for decades, even when this ignored the realities of what was happening on the ground. There is no doubt that the election of May 2007 was traumatic for the party and it is still struggling to find its feet - after all, two years is no time at all in the grand scheme of things. However, the struggle appears to many people to be stagnating into inertia and this is where the danger lies for Labour. A vision, a motivation, heck a sign of coming out fighting - these can start to counter an SNP government which at the end of the day only has one more MSP than Labour. After all, we are technically only a resignation away from a change in administration. However, inertia and stagnation can turn an electoral defeat into long-term isolation from power and a disconnection from the Scottish public. There is constant talk of the fightback, however we are yet to see evidence of it arriving - in the meantime the SNP attack London Labour as a way to avoid discussion of their own paltry efforts in government.

So an end to London Labour and a new start to the Scottish Labour Party, a centre-left party rooted in the experiences and dreams of Scotland and endlessly driven to improve the lives of our fellow citizens. A party of ideas, a party of limitless dreams which are not mired in politics of identity but which liberate the citizens of this country to be all that they can be. Scottishness is not a simplistic concept, not matter how hard the SNP try to boil it down to a single common denominator, and the Scottish Labour Party should be at the heart of this debate. To sit on the sidelines is to concede the debate and to lose the country - the Scottish Labour Party has a responsibility to the people of Scotland which requires it to fight and to win.

Blogging Hiatus

Apologies for my absence but I am afraid it will have to continue for a while - I am very busy finishing a report I am writing on barriers to participation for EM people in Scotland, and then taking a week off, so will be a couple of weeks before I return I think.

I am of course choosing a busy time to hide, what with Obama's polling showing that maybe he isn't the Messiah afterall, but just a very naughty boy; the hysterical coverage of swine flu sadly demonstrating once again that the cause of appropriate and effective public health in the UK has been wounded, perhaps fatally, by the inane media who care more for apocalyptic headlines selling papers than any sense of public responsibility - but hey, that's showbiz; the impending nightmare of the Norwich result - the question is who will it be a nightmare for? Interestingly Cameron has more to lose with the result. Oh, and the no-show of the Glasgow North East (i.e. my own constituency) by-election, with the added fun of Richard Baker's ludicrous comments thrown in.

So yeah, nothing going on, perfect time for a break! =)

See y'all soon.