simonvarwell.co.uk

It’s a sad symptom of our age that we are cynical about our politicians.  Regardless of the fact that there are genuinely “good eggs” across most parties, such rarities are ignored amongst the wave of hostility we have towards our political class.  They are all, we think, self-serving liars, detached from the needs of ordinary people.

It’s surprising, then, that some of the post popular political fiction involves characters who are notable for their excellence.  Perhaps, though, it’s to be expected – why shouldn’t we use fiction to dream of what could be?  A prime example would be Jed Bartlett, the President of the USA in the fictional series The West Wing.  To be honest, I never got into that show.  For some reason, despite having been incredibly politically aware and interested in the past, I was never really grabbed by political fiction.  I’m not sure why – perhaps because reality was often stranger.

Anyway, maybe the epitome of the chasm between political reality and political fiction was the reported signs saying something like “Bartlett is my President” held by the crowds as George W Bush was sworn in as an all too real president.  At least I think I recall that correctly, though I can’t find any reference to it online.

Anyone swept along by one of the quiet successes of television in this country would recognise a couple of other fictional examples of model politicians: Troels Hartmann and Thomas Buch.  I am of course talking about the Danish murder mystery series The Killing (Forbrydelsen, in Danish).

The Killing I and II were both excellent, gripping, edge of the seat dramas featuring the very driven and focussed detective Sarah Lund. In each, her steely resolution, lack of warmth towards colleagues and of course her Faroese jumpers have made her and The Killing as a whole quite a star.  Though in both series, the murders’ consequences reached into the political spheres, with parallel plots featuring a politician who found himself wrapped up in the gruesome proceedings.

In the first, Troels Hartmann was a young, dynamic and likeable local politician desperately trying to brush off what turn out to be unfounded connections with the murder of a young girl while at the same time fighting a mayoral election camaign.  In the second series, we meet Thomas Buch, a young and inexperienced MP who is appointed justice minister and uncovers potential cover-ups of murders that his superiors are desperate to sweep under the carpet.  The political dimensions to the storylines are so central that they are not so much sub-plots to the murder investigations as co-plots.

In both cases, the politicians were portrayed as truth-driven, determined and honest, a thoroughly refreshing antedote to the cynicism we have about politicians here.  Admittedly in the second series the consequence of Buch’s terrier-like pursuit of the truth is that his talent is recognised and he is finally tempted into the very inner circle he’s been trying to implicate.  But it’s a significantly more positive portrayal of a politician than you get in most British dramas.  It’s hard to imagine a British political thriller with such likeable central characters being as popular as The Killing has been.

And, thankfully, there is more of this to come. The makers of The Killing have now come up with an entirely political drama, which like The Killing has also been snapped up by BBC4. Called Borgen, it contains all of the moody drama – and some of the actors – of The Killing, but minus the body count. A deep, unpredictable and gripping drama, Borgen is basically The Killing, without… er, the killing.

We’re two episodes in now, and I’m really enjoying it.  The central character is a leader of a relatively minor Danish political party who fights her way to becoming the country’s first female Prime Minister.  A number of storylines seem to be emerging, including the lies, secrets and plotting in the world of both media and government, but the new female PM is presented as a humane, fresh and personable character, again something it’s hard to see most British political dramas doing.

There’s been some backstabbing, a death, and quite a bit of wheeling and dealing, plus some gorgeous shots of Copenhagen which seems to have more than a little Edinburgh about it in its historic and political areas.  But the main message is that – so far, at least – it’s possible to be both a good person and a successful politician.

That’s something worth noting in this cynical age.

So, Salmond’s “brung it on“, to coin a phrase: the independence referendum for Scotland will take place in “autumn 2014″.  Whether or not PM David Cameron’s interference has played a role in chivvying the First Minister along, it’s good that we now know when it will take place.

Debate will now ensue about the perceived benefits or otherwise for Scotland.  I daresay I will say more than a little on the topic in this blog in the two and a half years between now and autumn 2014.  And what a long referendum campaign it’s going to be!

However, less focus will be put on the implications beyond Scotland of it becoming indepdendent.  Of course, it’s nobody else’s decision to take but Scotland (that’s self-determination for you), but apropos of nothing, I was thinking the other day about this dimension.

For starters, and bear in mind I am no more than an amateur commentator, I can think of five things that will happen outside Scotland if it’s a “yes” vote in 2014.

1. Constitutional reform in the remnant United Kingdom

If Scotland becomes independent, there will need to be some changes in the United Kingdom.  At the very least, it would call for a tidying up exercise, because the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will, now minus part of Great Britain, need to think about changing its name.  How should that name reflect the country, and what will be the relationship between England, Wales and Northern Ireland?  The changes may or may not be radical, but even if there is little substantial change, there will have to be some tinkering around the edges to ensure that the name, governance and legal foundation of the UK reflects its new purpose.

2. Worldwide debate about reforming the United Nations Security Council

One major outcome of World War 2 was that the United Nations was founded according to the views of the five major victors, the USA, UK, France, Soviet Union and China.  One feature was that those five have permanent, veto-wielding seats on the Security Council, with the rest of the world left to pin their hopes on one day taking the other rotating, temporary places.  Just as Russia inherited the Soviet Union’s permanent seat and veto, so it is likely that the remnant United Kingdom will keep its place.

But even without Scottish independence, there have long been grumbles from new political and economic giants who are excluded unfairly – they include Brazil, Japan, Germany, India, and suggested reforms to the Security Council usually name these countries as possible additions to the permanent membership.  More radical ideas – which of course will be vetoed by the self-interested five – suggest major overhaul.  With the UK reducing in size and population, questions will be asked even more vigorously as to how an already anachronistic privilege can be maintained.

3. Debate within the remnant United Kingdom about nuclear weapons

To an extent, the nuclear debate might intensify as an adjunct to the UN Security Council issue: both nuclear weapons and the permanent seat at the UN are self-appointed prizes for the 1945 victors.  Some might argue that if one status symbol is lost then doubt is cast over the other.  There’s a more practical issue, though: the submarine-based nuclear deterrent is based in Scottish waters, and an independent Scottish government is almost certainly going to ask for its removal.  The remnant UK will then need to make provisions for it to be hosted somewhere on its reduced coastline.

But where?  It’s a brave local MP or council leader who’d gladly step forward in the bidding process, because any likely destination will be the centre of intense discontent and protest.  It’s hard to imagine public petitions being formed by enthusiastic populations keen to win for their port town the prize of being first in line for annihilation at the hands of the enemy if nuclear war ever broke out.  Whether you like nuclear weapons or not, it’s hard to disagree that the debate over where they move to will be a big one.

4. The retreat then resurgence of the English radical tradition

One often-made observation about Scottish independence is that it would give the Conservatives in the remnant UK a stronger hand.  Minus its thirty or so Scottish MPs, including some of its leading lights, Labour will be instantly weakened in parliament. This is an argument against independence that you often hear from England.  And yes, there will be dispair in the English left about an in-built, perhaps long-term majority for the centre-right.  But realising that it has to stand on its own two feet, rather than relying on the Scottish Labour contingent, could be a great liberation for the English left.  It will come back stronger, for sure.

And if you think about it, there is a great English radical tradition, possibly one of the deepest, longest and most effective in the world: from the Suffragettes and Chartists to the Manchester Patriotic Union and Greenham Common women, via the Cromwellians, the early trade unionists and the liberals and later Labour politicians who created the welfare state.  England’s left will certainly take a hit in the early years of the newly-reformed United Kingdom, but a period of reflection about its beliefs, purpose and methods will see it become more confident, self-reliant and focussed on English priorities.  Whether as part of a more left-leaning Labour Party or a new wave of activism, England’s left will become all the more noticeable in future.

5. Increased UK influence in the European Union

Yes, you read that right.  The image of a dynamic, cooperative and engaging Scotland as a member of the EU alongside a curmudgeonly, insular and reactionary remnant UK is only half-right.  Sure, Scotland will be welcomed as a constructive EU member in its own right, but the UK too will have to reassess its engagement in the light of this popular new kid on the block.  Showing how a small British nation can be a positive team player in the EU will show its southern neighbour how it can be done.  And on the doubtless regular occasions where Scotland and the UK agree on issues, their combined weight will pack a bigger punch than the UK as it currently stands.  By working together where their interests overlap, Scotland and the UK both stand to gain much.

Those are my five suggestions of what might happen in the rest of the world once Scotland becomes independent.  Do you have any other ideas – either positive or negative implications – to add?  I am sure I could think of more, but five is a good round number for starters.

And as I said at the beginning of the post, it’s the implications for Scotland that will be the big determinant on how we vote in 2014.

For the first time in a long time, I found myself watching the Queen’s Speech this year; that annual broadcast of thoughts from Her Majesticness to her subjects.

I expected some dull platitudes about Christmas, family, the Commonwealth, hope for the future, and the togetherness of the “nation” in the face of various unspecified challenges.  While she certainly delivered on that underwhelming front, I was also moderately surprised by the substantial mention of Christianity, Jesus and the story of his coming from the Bible.  She said that as people we need saving from ourselves, referring to this “great Christian festival”.  She also spoke of the love of God, described Jesus as “a saviour, with the power to forgive”, quoted the Bible, and spoke words of personal prayer.

It was quite astonishing.  Of course, I agreed with her sentiments and thoughts, and it was a well-written and quite powerful presentation of the Gospel story at Christmas time, with a fairly uncompromising portrayal of Jesus as the hope for the world.  In three or four minutes, it was as good a sermon as you could hope to hear.

Why do I feel uncomfortable about it, though?

The thing is, agreeing entirely with the substance of a message doesn’t mean I agree with the basis on which it was made.  We live in a constitutional monarchy where our head of state is also automatically head of the Church of England.  This establishes Christianity as an official religion, its intertwining with government evident in many other ways, not least CofE bishops sitting by right in our parliament.

The Queen’s status, therefore, as an inherently religious head of state undermines the validity of her statement.  Her words are not broadcast to the UK and her other realms by popular demand or because, purely on the quality of her words, the speech goes viral and captures the public imagination.  They’re broadcast because she’s the monarch.

And how damaging it is to the Gospel message that it is pronounced from on high by a privileged monarch who is constitutionally obliged to believe it.  Yes, there’s no chance of our monarch ever being Muslim, Jewish, Sikh or Hindu; or, heaven forfend, an atheist or agnostic.  Neither is there any chance that our monarch might feel more comfortable in another branch of Christianity, such as Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism.  And within Protestantism there’s no choice either: he or she must be Anglican, and specifically Church of England.

There’s nothing wrong with a head of state speaking personally about their faith, and I don’t doubt that the Queen is a committed Christian.  Many heads of state speak of their faith, not least in the USA, but at least then they can be held to account for their views and are often constitutionally prevented from allowing their religious convictions to prejudice the machinery and decisions of government.  In the UK, such safeguards do not exist: our monarch is there by birthright and cannot renounce the Church of England without also renouncing the throne (or at the very least, triggering a massive constitutional crisis).

I blogged about this before in relation to the royal wedding last year, but it is disgusting that the Church of England is happy with this bloated, artificial, constitutionally-upheld sense of importance, and Biblically repugnant that it can only speak the good news of Jesus while being propped up by the trappings of establishment.  And their complicity in the potentially very cynical confirmation of Kate Middleton into the Church of England is the kind of opportunistic, Machiavellian politics you expect from a corrupt archbishop in the Middle Ages.

When the message of Jesus is at its best, it speaks for itself.  When it is at its worst, it is a tool of human self-interest.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the best thing that could happen for Christianity in this country is disestablishment, as it would remove the cloud and clutter of constitutional privilege and force its believers to rely on nothing more than the power of the Holy Spirit.  Read the book of Acts to find out what such a light-footed, resourceful, dynamic, attractive and above all Christ-centred community would look like.

Not, of course, that other churches who don’t have this privileged position don’t still try to tell people how to live their lives anyway.  I was aware of two instances here in the Highlands over the festive period that infuriated me.  One was the decision taken by the Stornoway Amenity Trust to end their Hogmanay street party in Stornoway at 11pm.  An hour before New Year.  This was because the following day, starting at midnight that night, was the sabbath, a day treated with Taliban-like sanctity by some (and significantly less than you’d think) people of the island.  Many Stornowegians were livid, and rightly so.

The other example was a protest made by the Free Church (Continuing) in Skye about a Hogmanay party in a hotel next door to their church.  Again, they were concerned about the fact that the sabbath would be broken by the party continuing after midnight, despite the fact that it would not in any way encroach upon the following morning’s Sunday services.  The protest, in the form of a letter to the West Highland Free Press, basically presupposed that the church had the right to tell a licensed premises what it could do, when the hotel was acting purely within the law.

Who is the church to tell people how to live their lives, if those lives do not affect the church?  The church has no authority except that which it gives unto itself.  If individuals wish to adhere to that authority, that is a personal choice for them.  But there are others who choose not to (or who do not even acknowledge that there is a choice that needs to be made), and they should not have their lives encroached upon by those who would seek to tell them to live their lives another way.

For sure, in a pluralistic society we need to fully respect the freedom of worship and conscience.  But attempting to stop civic celebrations from taking place is an abomination to democracy – unless of course those civic activities prevent the private or collective practice of a religion, which in these two cases it absolutely did not.

Christianity will be all the stronger in this country when its followers recognise that religious authority is a matter for its adherents and is not something that can be dictated to any individual, let alone an entire country’s constitution and system of government.

We need a head of state that is not an institutionalised tool of a religion.  And we need churches that regard themselves as preachers and actors of the Gospel and ambassadors for Jesus, not self-appointed authorities and moral guardians over civic society.  Once we have those, our country (and our churches) will be so much better.

You may have read a wee while back about the Scottish Government’s consultation on rail services in Scotland beyond 2014.

When launched, it made a few headlines because of eye-catching questions like whether alcohol should be banned from trains or whether the sleeper service and daytime cross-border journeys between the north of Scotland and England should continue. Instantly, campaigns began to “save” the sleeper services to the three northern destinations of Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William – those services to Glasgow and Edinburgh remaining safe because, so the suggestion went, as with most daytime services you could easily change trains in the central belt. Which, of course, is an argument for passengers changing at every station on their journey because it’s seemingly so easy, and trains only ever shunting backwards and forwards between two adjacent stops.

To be fair, it was only a consultation – and that’s the idea of consultations, to generate debate and get people’s views.  But the recent announcement from George Osborne that he wants to put money towards preserving the sleepers (a clever piece of politics to catch out the Scottish Government, to which we can doubtless attribute the input of his right-hand man, the LibDem MP for Inverness, Danny Alexander) clearly shows up the SNP’s poor handling of the issue. And the fact that I admit the Tories have made the SNP look silly on an issue demonstrates my strength of feeling.

But despite only being a consultation, the document gave out poor messages by asking the questions the wrong way round – frequently it ponders whether things are still justifiable, when really the questions should be about what can be done to improve and expand the rail network in Scotland. And as a regular rail traveller in Scotland, boy is there much that can be done.

To give just one example, it asks whether the sleeper from Fort William should run from Oban instead. Instead? Where’s the ambition? Why not both?

But rather than go through the consultation document with an angry toothcomb, here instead are four broad areas that I reckon they should have asked questions about.

1. Reopening old lines

A quick glance at the effects of the Beeching Report shows that a huge number of lines in Scotland were scrapped. Many communities that were dependent on these lines never really recovered economically. Of course, Beeching was not the only time lines were cut, and many lines closed before and, I think, after. By reopening many of these lines, great cultural and economic benefit will be derived.

The Scottish Government gets this to a degree, as can be seen in the long-running efforts to get the Borders line reopened, but why not other ones too? What were the Moray Coast Railway (which forms the spectacular viaducts at Cullen), the Deeside Line and the Invergarry and Fort Augustus line are all spectacularly beautiful and would probably be as famous and as marketable in tourist terms if reopened as our other beautiful and well-known lines like those to Fort William or Kyle of Lochalsh.  Meanwhile, other closed lines such as the Edinburgh suburban line or some of those lost in Glasgow could revolutionise transport in our two biggest cities.

2. Making better use of existing lines

I’ve blogged before about how Inverness could be better served by its lines, while it is astonishing that the cities of Aberdeen and Dundee only have one station each when both, particularly Aberdeen, are crying out for suburban halts to alleviate serious traffic congestion.

By adding stations, upgrading lines and improving services, the existing rail network can work much better, increasing its patronage and economic benefit.

3. Building new lines

There are plenty parts of the country where lines need building, and in most of the cases I can think of it is about connecting to other transport forms. The airport rail links are well-known: the SNP have ditched (or, to be slightly kinder, been forced to ditch by either parliamentary arithmetic or economic conditions) rail links to Glasgow and Edinburgh airports, but Inverness, Dundee and Aberdeen airports (and for that matter Wick airport) are all a hair’s breadth away from railway lines and just small adjustments could connect them to the rail network. This will increase their use, encourage tourism, and benefit the local and national economies.

But let’s not forget other vital interchanges, such as those between ferries and rail.  The southwest of Scotland has many, such as Gourock or Stranraer, but the north does not. Ullapool, for instance, is the ferry port for Stornoway and is only 30 miles from the Kyle line. Imagine getting off the ferry from Stornoway and being able to hop on a train to Inverness, Aberdeen, Glasgow or Edinburgh without having to change from a bus. Or take Scrabster – the main port for sailings to Orkney, just a couple of miles or so outside rail-served Thurso.

I could go on, but I’ll not labour the point: integrated transport, where all the different forms connect seamlessly, is what makes a good economy and provides convenience for both locals and tourists. Other countries do it easily. We, for some reason, fail depressingly. The consultation should address this.

4. Starting HSR from the north

We’ve heard a great deal in the high-speed rail debate about how it is important to extend the UK’s tiny network (currently just London to the channel tunnel) northwards. The UK government plans a line north to Birmingham which, it is proposed, will fork there and go on to Manchester and Leeds. Talk – but no more than that – is of the lines continuing to Glasgow and Edinburgh, but for me that’s the barest minimum acceptable for connecting the big cities of this island.

The high-speed network needs to go further than that and the Scottish Government should be consulting on whether it should start building high-speed rail from the north, and if so from what locations. They say Edinburgh would be just two and a half hours from London by high-speed rail, and so on that logic Aberdeen, Scotland’s third city and Europe’s oil capital, might be about an hour and a half to Edinburgh.  Imagine, therefore, a four hour rail journey from Aberdeen to that great transport hub of London, or – with through trains that stop in London – overnight trips from Scotland to mainland European locations like Brussels, Paris or Amsterdam. This is the sort of vision that the Scottish Government should be inspiring us with.

So there you go – four areas of questioning that the rail consultation should have been exploring, four key areas of potential development for our rail network, and none hopefully particularly difficult to envisage or see the benefits in. That nobody – least of all our government – seems to be talking about them particularly loudly is depressing when connectivity within our country and with the rest of Europe is ever more important.

Of course, there’s the issue of money.  All of the above would be several billions of pounds the Scottish Government simply does not have.  Other spending priorities exist.  But I’m not proposing that all of these are committed to – just perhaps some of then.  A consultation doesn’t need to present fixed ideas (that’s the whole idea, isn’t it?) but to put ideas out for debate and consideration so that priorities can be shaped.

For all the SNP’s admirable talk – and action – of raising Scotland’s aspirations, of imagining the best for our country, they never quite seem to extend this vision to the railways.

But then again, no party does.

The independence referendum is scheduled, according to the Scottish Government, for the second half of the current parliamentary term. This will mean it will probably be in 2014 or 2015. It sounds like a long way away, but we can expect its influence to beat regularly throughout politics between now and then, and I daresay it will get an increasingly frequent mention on this blog. You’ve been warned!

Questions are already being asked about how the two campaigns will be run, and what level of cooperation there will be among the unionist parties, especially the mortal foes (yet ideological bedfellows) Labour and Conservative. One answer has potentially emerged to this in the form of Our Dynamic Nation, a cross-party coalition of individuals hoping to set out a clear case for maintaining the union. On first glance, it’s an admirable effort – the website is crisp, clear, easy to read and the tone is unusually positive.

However, scratch the surface just a little and its case for the union is weakly stated – a reflection, it must be said, of the case more generally. For a start, the title “One Dynamic Nation” makes the mistake of referring to the United Kingdom as a “nation”, when it is in fact nothing of the sort – the fact it is composed of England, Wales, Scotland (all nations) and Northern Ireland (arguably either a nation or a part of one) demonstrates that it is not.

But let’s not linger on terminology – instead, and excuse the slightly long post, here’s a brief deconstruction of the arguments the group make on their Benefits of the Union page.

History

• The Union has been one of the greatest political success stories of modern European history. It has helped to provide us with a degree of political stability in the United Kingdom that is virtually unparalleled anywhere else in Europe over the past 300 years.
• Thanks to the Union the English language is possibly the greatest export that Britain has ever produced.
• In the 18th century, the Union helped create the sense of possibility that inspired the Scottish Enlightenment. In the 19th century, the Union brought unparalleled prosperity to both our countries in what was Europe’s first common market between Scotland and England. In the 20th century, we confronted side by side totalitarian regimes that were the scourge of mainland Europe.

Why is history a factor? Even if a case could be made that the union benefitted Scotland in history – and admittedly there is evidence it’s done better out of the union economically than, say, Ireland prior to its independence – how is that relevant to today? At best the argument of history portrays the union as a relic that has served its purpose, but at worst it misses the point that we do not know how successful Scotland might have been had it never been a part of the union.

The first point, for instance, say that the UK gave us stability. Well, I doubt the UK was especially stable during the Jacobite uprisings, for instance, or the various wars and civil disturbances it has experienced over the past three centuries. But even then, stability in itself is not a good thing – the Soviet Union was entirely stable for many years. Communist China arguably is today. Does that in itself legitimise the model of government? Of course not. And who is to say that an independent Scotland might not have been stable for the past three centuries?

The site also argues, in the second point, that the English language is Britain’s (note, not the UK – they don’t even know what the country they are defending is called) greatest export. Well who is to say that the English language could not have been a success without the union? It was arguably on the ascendency anyway prior to 1707 and England’s early colonial exploits. And why is it automatically assumed that the English language is a morally good thing? It’s the tool of international trade and business, but that’s at the cost of countless indigenous languages and cultures throughout Africa, Asia, North America, Australia and – let’s not forget – the British Isles. And much of English’s success is down to the USA’s economic strength anyway.

Economy

• The Union allows Scotland to be part of a larger, more powerful economy and within the Union, Scotland enjoys the four freedoms – movement of goods, services, people and capital.

No it doesn’t – the European Union does. Or if it does, then the EU allows us to be a part of an even larger and more powerful economy. And the UK economy, geared towards and sensitive to the economy of southeast England is often accused of not serving the needs of the north of England let alone Scotland.

• By remaining part of the Union, Britain has the fourth largest economy in the world. Edinburgh’s role as a major financial centre is built on the expertise of its workforce and underpinned by its position in the UK.

Excusing the misuse of “Britain”, this point ignores that according to the OECD some years back, Scotland would be the eighth richest country in the world by GDP, rather than the UK’s 14th.

• Being in the Union allows us to pool resources and risk. The fact that Scotland receives more from the UK Treasury than she contributes does allow the disproportionate remoteness of some regions and the disproportionate economic disadvantages of others to be catered for.

What really annoys me are arguments for the union that are based on loose principle that actually undermine the idea of independent countries at all. If the union does allow us to pool resources and risk then the logical extension of this is that we should merge the UK with other countries. And the claim that Scotland receives more from the UK Treasury than “she” contributes is not only incorrect, but even if it was true it would demonstrate that the union has failed to improve the Scottish economy and is thus not worth maintaining. And spare a thought, under this myth, for England, having to tolerate a subsidy junkie – why on this basis would the union be in England’s interests?

• Most of the Scottish budget comes from a block grant from the UK Parliament, paid for out of taxes collected from across the UK.

This point is absurd, not because it is not true but because it is a simple statement of the current funding methodology. Why should the way things work now be a reason in themselves for them not to work a different way? In any case, there is an increasing consensus amongst even unionist parties that Scotland should be moving towards some form of fiscal autonomy whereby it raises more revenue itself and pays something to the UK treasury.

• Being part of the Union and the current funding setup means that public services are less exposed to sudden fluctuations in revenue with a tax base as wide as the UK’s

Again, this is an argument for full EU economic integration, or, stretching the point just a little, some form of world government. In the global sense, the UK’s tax base is tiny and surely at risk as an isolated independent country.

• Social security payments are available and are paid on the same basis to people across the country, according to their needs. This principle of fairness should not be undermined.

We have different welfare systems from people in Norway, Ireland, Belgium and France. This grossly undermines the principle of fairness, no?

• Being part of the UK allows the costs of say bank rescue plans to be more easily absorbed and spread out across a far larger tax base and therefore makes the costs less acute on the individual.

See above. Honestly, you’d think from reading this that the One Dynamic Nation people must abhor the terrible risks the poor little UK faces every day in its tragic isolation.

Political

• Being part of the UK, Scotland is able to wield meaningful influence for good around the world. Scotland is in the privileged position of being amongst the five permanent members of the Security Council, is in the G8 group of the most prosperous nations, is one of the three big nations at the centre of the EU and leads the Commonwealth. Scotland’s interests are therefore represented in the most influential and important international organisations in the world by virtue of the Union.

This is mildly laughable: Scotland is not on the UN Security Council, in the G8 or a member of the EU or Commonwealth – the UK is. Not only is Scotland absent from all of these organisation’s membership lists (with the exception of our appearances as a separate Commonwealth Games participant), the actions of the UK Government within these forums is often against the interests or opinions of Scotland: take the Iraq war as an obvious example of the costs of being beholden to UK foreign policy.

• It goes without saying that Scotland is physically safer with the pooled resources of the UK military and counter-terrorist services at our disposal.

It most certainly does not go without saying. As one example, if we ever experienced a nuclear war, then Faslane, on the shore of the Clyde, would, as the home to the UK’s Trident nuclear submarines, be among the very first sites to be taken out. Moreover, being a part of the UK’s hypocritical and imperialist foreign policy has increased our exposure to the risk of terrorism. And even if I’m wrong, the point being made is logically indistinguishable from the argument that the EU should have a combined military and counter-terrorist infrastructure.

• Over the centuries, Scots have made an outstanding contribution to the UK’s military successes. Scotland punches above its weight in Britain’s Armed Forces and Britain punches above its weight in the world because of the expertise and bravery of those Armed Forces.

Precisely why a Scottish armed forces would punch above its weight if independent. Many small countries play valuable and unaggressive roles militarily throughout the world, and there’s nothing to stop Scotland’s forces being major contributors to peacekeeping, rather than warmongering.

Social Benefits

• The Union allows individual Scots to continue to play a major part in the social fabric of the UK.

Scots play a major part in the social fabric of many countries throughout the world, like the USA or Australia. Do we need to be the same country as them for this to happen? No. Scots will continue to play a major role in the rest of the UK upon independence, and English, Welsh and Northern Irish folk will do likewise in an independent Scotland.

• Many of us will have family in other parts of the UK.

I have family in Spain. Your point, caller?

• Sports stars like the Scottish Olympic Gold Medallist cyclist Chris Hoy trained in England and competed at international level for Britain.

Chris Hoy could technically train in Ireland, Mongolia or Australia if he wanted. If he really wanted to train in or even compete for the remnant UK he’d still have the right to.

• A common bond we have is the Royal Family.

It’s a bond we also share with Jamaica, New Zealand, Bermuda, Canada and a dozen or so other realms throughout the world. Last I checked, we didn’t all need to be a part of the same country for this to happen.

• Within the Union there are aspects of Scotland’s national life which are different from the rest of the UK. The distinctive Scottish legal system and the Scottish education system are good examples.

Ah, so it’s viable for Scotland to have distinct ways of doing things from the rest of the UK. That’s nice. I wonder if we could extend this principle to broadcasting, social security policy, foreign affairs and economic planning for instance? Just a thought.

Honestly, is this the best the unionist camp can come up with? I’m not saying that intellectually there is no case to be made for the Union. But if the “no” camp can only make arguments which actually undermine the whole concept of independent countries, including the UK, they’re unlikely to persuade many of the undecideds who are going to be so crucial in deciding Scotland’s future.

If there are any arguments in favour of maintaining the United Kingdom that are not, by logical extension, arguments for big countries or world government, then I’d love to hear them. Post your comments below.

It’s hardly your typical cheerful and easy holiday read, but while in France I finished off The Long Bridge, a memoir of a Polish woman’s experiences in Soviet gulags.

I probably wouldn’t have known about it were it not for the fact that it was published by my publisher, Sandstone Press, nor have bought it had I not happened to be in Edinburgh and have a free evening when it was launched a few months ago.  Though I have enjoyed (if that is the right word) other books in that genre, including by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Arthur Koestler and – not strictly the same but nonetheless related – another Sandstone title, Shadow Behind The Sun.

Such books are inevitably dark and horror-filled, but the small lights of hope we find in the key characters burn strongly and hopefully, making all the more powerful comments about the strength of human nature and the importance of hanging on to what good there is in the world.

The Long Bridge is written by the late Urszula Muskus and brought to life by the efforts of her grandson Peter who lives in the Highlands, and is her account of her life in prison and labour camps in the 1940s an 1950s under Stalin.  Like most people in that extensive, hellish network of Siberian prisons, Muskus was no true criminal nor deserving her decade or so’s sentence – merely she was one of the many middle class professionals (or family members thereof) imprisoned for entirely spurious reasons by the paranoid Soviet leader Stalin from throughout the Soviet Union itself and its emerging central European empire.

The book starts with an evocative description of life in an ordinary Polish (though today Ukranian) village, over-run at the outbreak of World War 2 firstly by the Nazis and then by the Soviets, followed by the latter’s arrest of Muskus’s husband and the author’s own subsequent incarceration.

We then follow her from camp to camp, spending often years in one place, and Muskus is very selfless in her descriptions – she describes her multinational fellow inmates in great detail, not least their suffering, life stories (she appears to be someone others open up to easily) and hopes.  The work in the camps is invariably gruelling, the treatment by guards brutal, and the food awful, but the author’s stoic approach throughout demonstrates a real strength of character.  She was clearly a strong, determined, intelligent woman, with a mother’s compassion and a voice very similar to that of Remzije Sherifi, author of Shadow Behind The Sun mentioned above.

While a certain degree of restraint and selflessness is entirely admirable, and is probably part of what helped her survive, it does lead to the occasional moment where you feel the book dulls the horrors of the story, and because she is so dispassionate about her own afflictions we only truly connect to the evil of the gulags when she describes others’ endurances.  But the strength of character of Muskus shines through the book, not least in the introduction, explanatory footnotes and postscript provided by her grandson.  The conclusion is suitably moving, with a marvellous reflection on human nature that belies the horrors she has experienced.

It’s a beautifully written book about an entirely unbeautiful period of history – which is, scarily, still within the lifetimes of people alive today.  Stalin’s gulags were one of the last century’s great evils, and this book is a good way of hearing from those that experienced them.

The EU will be jealous of me, because unlike them I am shortly to remove that annoying grey bit from the middle of my “where I’ve been” map.

Just as Lesotho makes South Africa look like it’s forgotten something, the European Union purists must have been annoyed for some years now by that irritating and persistently neutral bit that can’t be coloured in despite the union’s recent spread eastwards: yes, the land of yodelling, clocks and versatile pocket knives that is Switzerland.

By the time you read this we will be en route to France on holiday, and are staying in the east of the country within day trip distance of the Swiss city of Geneva.

It’s a country that’s easy to scorn for its resistance to EU membership, and anyone who has returned home to the UK from a trip abroad will know what I mean.

When you approach customs, there are generally channels for two groups of passport holders – those from the European Union, and then those from other countries.  Those benefitting from the freedom of movement the EU allows can, broadly speaking, treat the union’s four and a bit million square kilometres of territory as their home, a cursory check of the passport being enough to welcome you to a country which, if it is not your own, is still somewhere you’re welcome to live and work in, on the whole without restriction.  Meanwhile those outside the European Union are directed to another channel, presumably so their passports and visas can be checked and stamped to ensure they are entitled to visit the country.

But of course, if you look again at the directional signs above the channels, it’s not as simple as “EU” and “other”.  The EU channel also extends the “fast track” to the European Economic Area (which include all EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) and to Switzerland.

I can understand the inclusion of the EEA – an agreement exists between it and the EU that allows those three named EEA members to access the EU’s internal market in exchange for adhering to relevant legislation.  But Switzerland opts out of the EEA, for reasons I honestly cannot be bothered to research.  Why, then, they have free passage through the same passport stream as EU and EEA citizens, I have no idea.

Of course, there are strong arguments both for and against membership of the European Union, and the Swiss are perfectly entitled to choose not to be members.  But by joining EU channels at immigration points, it’s clear that they are getting all of the benefits of EU membership without the burden or responsibility of membership.

Why should I be expected to share a passport queue with a bunch of folk who pay nothing to EU coffers, for whom Herman van Rompuy does not speak, and who face none of the joys of the Common Agricultural Policy and none of the ire of UKIP?  This is a major injustice I am sure you’ll agree, and when I return to the UK I shall be sure to tell the uniformed customs person to whom I show my passport that I resent sharing space with the freeloading Swiss.

Revenge is planned, though.  Apart from entry to a few interesting-sounding museums in Geneva, I plan on spending as little money there as possible.  Mind you, that frugality is not just to spite the Swiss for opting out of the EU while claiming its benefits: it’s also because their prices – already among the highest in Europe – are apparently rocketing as their currency strengthens against the euro.

So, the challenge is on to get as much out of Geneva as possible while spending as little as possible.  It’ll be my first time in Switzerland but third time in France.  I’ll report back on both countries – and the rusty state of my French – in due course.

Au revoir!

I like to say that my political retirement must be one of the earliest on record: I quit the Scottish National Party when I was twenty-one, and after being active nationally for some years in the party I am quite sure there is a “Sliding Doors“-esque parallel universe version of me who is still heavily involved and, who knows, is perhaps even a career politician.

I don’t envy my imagined alternative self for a microsecond. I’ll not bore you with the reasons why I gave up active politics (though when I left the SNP I did not stop supporting them or voting for them), but it left me in a position where I could enjoy commenting on politics without any line to tow, or indeed also enjoy being utterly apathetic if I felt like it.

One consequence of this has been that I now read considerably less political stuff than I used to, and probably wouldn’t have read the 2010 biography of SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond had I not received it as a present last Christmas. I had every intention to read Salmond: Against the Odds before May’s 2011 election, but various things got in the way and as such I ended up reading it after that astonishing SNP landslide which I am sure would have changed the tone of the biography had it been released now. Though of course, that’s the problem with biographies of people who are still alive and displaying few signs of changing that designation – there’s no perfect time to write them because the story is still constantly being written.

I should declare a brief connection before I continue – I know the book’s author, journalist David Torrance, from university days and recall on one occasion being interviewed by him for the student newspaper, Gaudie, while I was president of the university’s SNP society. David’s article quoted an unnamed source as describing me as a “psychopath”, which proves firstly that he was set on a path for high-powered in-depth journalism and secondly that I made the right choice when I got out of politics.

Alex Salmond, for the uninitiated, has been SNP leader for two stints, the first beginning in 1990, and became Scotland’s First Minister in 2007 when the party won a wafer-thin victory in the Scottish Parliament elections, a lead unexpectedly extended in last year’s elections to create the parliament’s first-ever overall majority. The major consequence of this is that there will almost certainly be an independence referendum, probably in 2014 or 2015, and these two major votes past and future will prove a fascinating new chapter to the book if ever David Torrance chooses to update it.

At times, Against the Odds reads like a general history of the SNP or a summary of Scottish politics through the later 20th century, rather than a pure biography, but then again this is firstly reflective of the frequent perception that Alex Salmond is the SNP or that the party is a one-man band. Because more than being First Minister, Salmond has been one of Scottish politics’ biggest figures for years, and his incredible skill, political astuteness and phenomenal debating ability that has swept aside many opponents all suggest that had he been a member of a UK party, he’d doubtless have been a major frontbench figure and, most likely, a Prime Minister if he had been of the Labour or Conservative member. And secondly, Salmond is an infamously private person, rarely discussing his private life and – unusually for a major politician – fiercely keeping his wife from the limelight.

As such, though it is surprising it has taken so long for a biography of such an important figure to appear, the book is all the more remarkable that it is able to tell us anything of Salmond at all given the subject’s tendency to privacy. It reveals stories from Salmond’s early years and family history, while quoting friends and colleagues – often anonymously – from throughout his studies and career. If I have a criticism of the book, though, it is the frequent quotations of one figure from the party’s history, Salmond’s long-standing rival and critic Jim Sillars, who – as far as I recall from my active SNP days, was little more than an irrelevance to the party at that time so must be even more so today. But it demonstrates a depth of research and a balance of perspectives that does leave as few stones unturned as possible in the portrayal of Salmond’s life.

The question at the heart of the book is what makes the man who became First Minister tick, and in a life seemingly devoid of ill intent, scandal or personal failings, the answer seems to be a genuine passion for Scotland and an enthusiasm for revealing its untapped potential. The author, to my knowledge no SNP supporter himself, has therefore produced a book that will probably reinforce the views of Salmond’s fans, reassure any neutrals, but provide no new ammunition to his enemies.

Scotland is at an important point politically, with a party and parliament dominated by one man who will (rightly or wrongly) be firmly centre stage in the forthcoming independence referendum. It’s right that we know something of that man’s history, and so Against the Odds is an important book, and engagingly written.

It’s not making me miss active party politics one bit, though.

“It’s like apples,” he said.  ”You only need one or two bad ones to turn the rest bad.  And that’s how it is with Muslims – maybe only 10% are fundamentalists, but they can turn the others.”

It was a difficult conversation, for diplomatic rather than linguistic reasons.  He spoke excellent English, but the situation Niall and I found ourselves in meant it was somewhat difficult to disagree, even politely.

It was 2001, and we were roughly midway through our big post-university travels from Frankfurt to Cairo.  Working our way down the Balkan coast we’d found ourselves in the Montenegrin town of Budva, a slightly charmless sprawl of concrete, not aided in its character by the time of year.  It was October, I think, and the tourist season seemed long over.

We probably shouldn’t have been surprised, therefore, to find the campsite on the edge of Budva was closed.  There were, however, three men at work building new metal gates for the driveway.  We conveyed our situation to them using our rudimentary grasp of what we were now being careful to call Serbian (after three or so weeks of referring to essentially the same language as Croatian or Bosnian in those respective countries to the north).  The metalworkers said the boss was away and the campsite was closed for the off-season, but we’d be welcome to camp a couple of nights anyway.

It wasn’t a luxurious stay.  If the owner, who we never saw or met, wanted things shipshape for the next tourist season, he would need to do more than just build new metal gates.  The grass, for a start, would need a good mow.  It was knee-high in places, a lush home for thick clouds of insects.  Getting in and out of the tent became something of a skill, as we learned to unzip it, dive in and close it up tightly again as quickly as we could before any bloodthirsty wildlife could swarm in.

And then there were the toilets.  To be fair, they weren’t quite the worst toilets we’d encountered on the trip (a grimy stop on the overnight bus from Tirana to Pristina won that accolade, I think).  But one of the toilets was broken such that when you flushed , it would flood the cubicle, the water rushing out along the floor almost as fast as you could run to the door.  It could have been worse, of course: better to have the compulsion to dash out of the loo at top speed than into it.

But the metalworkers made for good company.  I forget their names now.  Only one of them, the younger of the three in perhaps his late twenties or early thirties, spoke English, excellently as I say, but all three were kind, friendly and chatty. They cooked for us one evening, frying some chicken in a fire on the ground using a converted blade from a plough.  Or at least that was what I assumed the sort of kayaking action was meant to convey when I asked one of the non-English speakers who was on cooking duty what the improvised frying pan was.  We asked what we could contribute, and I was dispatched to the nearest shop, freshly equipped with the Serbian word for “potatoes” (never since used and thus forgotten, I confess).

Over food, and through the medium of the only bilingual member of the team, we talked.  The metalworkers explained that they lived in Vojvodina, a northern province of Serbia with a substantial ethnic Hungarian population.  Work was hard to come by, however, and they spent a lot of time away from home, hence their current job here in Montenegro building a gate.  Vojvodina wasn’t properly home, though.  If I recall correctly they said they were from Krajina, a part of north-eastern Croatia that bordered Serbia and was mostly ethnically Serb. The name rang a bell from the news as one of the bloodiest battlegrounds in Croatia’s war of independence.  Many Serbs had left, forcibly or otherwise.

So perhaps hostility to Muslims was unexpected for men from an ethnic group that had fought both them and Croats in the various wars that ripped Yugoslavia apart.  Especially if they had moved away as a result of the conflict.  They’d asked where we were going on the rest of our trip, and we explained that our next destinations would be Albania and Kosova.  Somewhat surprised, they cautioned us that it would be dangerous, and the people were not to be trusted.  I said I’d been to both countries before in 1999 on an aid convoy, and I’d found the people nothing short of hugely kind and hospitable.  Still, they insisted, the countries were under the influence of Islam, a religion that led to violence and terrorism.

This was just a month or so after the September 11 attacks in the USA, and the dust of global politics was still to settle into what we now call the “war on terror”.  I recall just a few days after the attacks, we spoke briefly to an old man in a bus station in either Croatia or Bosnia, I forget which.  He introduced himself in his broken English as Mohammed, before for some reason feeling compelled to add with a jokey smile, “no terrorist!”.  Already, assumptions were being both made and assumed to be made.

The vast majority of Muslims are entirely peaceful and opposed to fundamentalism, I reasoned with the metalworkers as we ate our chicken and potatoes.  Probably right, replied the one who spoke English, but you only need one or two fundamentalists to change the others.  He made his analogy about apples, and I can’t remember how the conversation progressed thereafter.  Peacefully, certainly.

It would have been impolite, given the circumstances, to argue.  And in any case, after having heard so much from Albanians, particularly in Kosova, about the terrible things that happened to them in the 1999 war there, it was perhaps only reasonable for me to hear a view from the other side.

I wonder what the metalworkers are up to these days, and particularly what they would make of the recent news that Ratko Mladić has been arrested.  He was a military leader of the Bosnian Serbs during Bosnia’s chapter of Yugoslavia’s collapse, a comrade of Radovan Karadžić who he now joins as a detainee at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Scars take time to heal, as do prejudices, no matter how kind and friendly you are capable of being to two strangers from Scotland.  So perhaps the metalworkers would, like some Serbs, still regard Mladić as a national hero.  Or after all these years, like many other Serbs, they’d believe it’s time to move on from the crimes of the past to a more peaceful and cooperative Europe.  Who knows.

So, in what I imagine and hope will be my last political epistle for a while, it seems the people have spoken.

Least important things first, they’ve spoken to say they don’t want AV.  Which sadly will be taken as meaning there will be no electoral reform on the horizon at Westminster for at least a generation, despite the fact there’s some substantial movement for proper proportional representation, which of course wasn’t on offer.

One consequence of this is further humiliation for the Liberal Democrats, who have taken quite a kicking tonight in English local council elections.  Its a shame for them in a way that they got hammered and the Conservatives (the major coalition partner) didn’t.  But at least the Conservatives have been delivering precisely what they promised in government (ie cuts and nastiness), and the LibDems (despite some good and weakly publicised achievements) have been best known for going back on key manifesto commitments.  It’s a harsh lesson in government – if you’re going to do painful things, at least promise that beforehand.

That further political reform in Westminster is now off the agenda now raises the serious alternative of getting the heck out of Westminster, which leads to the exciting developments in the Scottish Parliament elections, and the main headline of the night/day – the SNP not only returning as the largest party and increasing their majority, but achieving an overall majority, something the electoral system was designed to prevent and which no party has done since devolution began.

What an astonishing day it’s been, watching safe Labour seat after safe Labour seat fall to the SNP, in numbers that probably surprised even the most optimistic SNP strategists.  With five years of a clear majority, the returning SNP administration can now get on with making an even greater impression on this country than they did in the previous parliament.  And given they’ve strayed deep into safe Labour territory electorally, chances are they may be vulnerable to some hefty tactical unwind in 2016 – and let’s face it, arguably the only way for the SNP now is back down again, even if only slightly.  So they have to make the next few years count in terms of their policy battles.

Perhaps we’ll see them bring in ideas that were defeated last time around, such as the local income tax, minimum alcohol pricing, and so on, plus renewed pressure to increase powers for the Scottish Parliament itself.

And then of course there’s independence.  This will be if not the biggest talking point in the coming years then at least the biggest faultline in Scottish politics.  There will be a referendum, that much is clear, and I heard one pundit suggest 2014 is likely because the eyes of the world will be on a number of big events in Scotland (eg the Commonwealth Games), it’ll be the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn, and it’ll be a year before the very real prospect of a returning Conservative government in the 2015 General Election.  Conditions may be as optimum as they could ever be, though frankly it’ll take more than those factors to win the referendum: the SNP will have to do a lot of hard work persuading people that independence will be a good thing.  As with AV, if the answer’s “no” there might not be a chance again for a generation.

I am sure I’ll return to this issue in the future, as it is something I care hugely passionately about.  But for now, time to sit back and watch the early days of this historic new Scottish government.

What an exciting and proud time to be in Scotland.