The Nasty Party. Not who you thought it was.

I really hadn’t noticed that the legal system we have in Scotland had changed.  But apparently it has.  

Why else would the first minister launch an outspoken attack of allegations of Tory election fraud during the 2015 campaign, suggesting they could have bought the contest and claiming Theresa May had called a snap election before criminal prosecutions could be brought.   She knew full well that those whe was attacking could not answer back. 

And there was me thinking that the basis of our law in Scotland was presumed innocence until being found guilty.   

Not for Nicola it seems.  Her speech today at the TUC conference in Aviemore was pretty explicit.   

She said: “Whatever else happens in this election we should not allow the Tory party to escape the accountability for any misdemeanours that may have led to them buying the last general election.”   

Yes, she added the word “may” to keep her out of the liable courts.   

But it really was pretty desperate and nasty stuff. 

Scotlands First Minister.

She has a problem.  She is simply incapable of saying anything positive about anything that comes out from Westminster.   

And I think people are really getting a bit fed up with her posturing.   

She will of course want the election fought on how bad Westminster is to us Scots.  And I can see why she will play this diversionary tactic to its full given the state of Scottish Education and the NHS in Scotland.  And what of the impending recession that more than likely will be hitting Scotland in the next quarter while the rest of the UK is actually doing pretty ok thank you.  But it will still be Westminsters fault somehow.

North Korea does a good job of persuading its people they are actually the richest in the world, and they believe it never having had the chance to see the real world outside.  But Nicola’s problem is we in Scotland do see the outside world.  And it’s doing a lot better than Scotland under her watch.

It's a General Election.

Well, surprise surprise.  Out of the blue.   

But did the Prime Minister actually have any other option when Labour said that it would not vote for any agreement on the EU unless it contained all the demands it was making.  Such a position from the main party of Opposition in the UK Parliament hardly gives the PM room for negotiation.  Labour effectively want to tell our EU friends what the final outcome will be.   

We should of course stop referring to this agreement as one we are engaging in to leave the EU.  We’re leaving the EU.  That’s what we voted for.  It is an agreement on what relationship we will have with the EU once we are out. 

Tim Farron, Lib Dem leader, still hasn’t quite got his head round the fact that the people voted to leave the EU.  And as we all knew before we voted, leaving the EU means we are leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and we are leaving the Single Market.   He can't get his head round that either.

But leaving the EU does not mean we won’t trade with EU on good terms.  Far from it.  We will happily still buy German, Spanish and French built cars.  People in the EU will still buy our engineering and financial products.   

And the only people who will get in the way of that will be politicians.  Like Sir Keir Starmer.  Like Tim Farron.   They are the blockage to a good deal.

I have to say one of the biggest laughs on what was actually a very serious day was the comments from Scotland’s first minister. Ms Sturgeon said the move was an "extraordinary u-turn" by Mrs May.   

Well, if anyone is good at u turns it is Nicola.  A once in a generation referendum on Scottish independence?  Aye right, Nicola.

Hi-jacking an event. Where's your manners?

Under the banner headline “Awkward questions are how the press hold you accountable, Mr Corbyn. Let us do our job” Kate McCann Senior Political Correspondent at The Telegraph suggested that by not answering a question yesterday about Syria he was somehow refusing to answer the question.  It does sound bad.   

Actually, what happened was the media, starting with the BBC, tried to hi-jack a meeting hosted by the Federation of Small Businesses.  The subject of the meeting was late payment.   

Yes, it might sound a bit boring but late payment, largely by bigger organisations, destroys 50,000 small firms a year as a result of unfair and lengthy delays paying what they owe.   (Just imagine for a moment if your employer at the end of the month said, sorry, not paying you for another 60 days.  You wouldn’t be happy I would guess.). Others often have to take out loans to cover the gap.   

Basically small businesses are being asked to act as a bank to lend money to big business.  So with 136 businesses a day going bust because of these practices leaving owners penniless and employees unemployed, what does the BBC ask?  About Syria.   

Nothing to do with what was being discussed.  

It was as if the BBC journalist was not at all interested in what the FSB and Corbyn had to say about late payment.  There are plenty of other opportunities to get answers from Corbyn on Syria.  But no, in the frenzy that is the 24 hour news agenda, the journalist thought it was ok to hi-jack a conference set up to discuss what is really damaging our country, our economy and the jobs of thousands of people for their own self-serving aims.  The BBC, the Telegraph, to name but two media out-lets, really need to employ a better quality of journalist.  With a set of manners.

The police are the public and the public are the police.

Campbell McBryer is a retired counter terrorism officer who served with Sussex police for 23 years.  He went to London today to pay respects at the funeral of PC Keith Palmer.

He said to the BBC: "I'm very proud, but it's very sad. I just sat and cried when I heard the news.  It's just ordinary men and women doing extraordinary things.  (The police) is one big family."

Special sergeant Matthew Warden, from Nottinghamshire, said he had made the journey "because we are all one big family".

Poignant sentiments, particularly as the Officer is laid to rest today.  But fundamentally flawed thinking exists behind them.  PC Palmer was not part of a police family.  There is no such thing according to Sir Robert Peel the founder of the modern police force in England in 1829.  

Known as the father of modern policing, slightly inaccurately as an Act of Parliament in 1800 enabled Glasgow to establish the City of Glasgow Police, (often described as the first professional police force in Britain), Peel did develop the nine Peelian Principles which define the ethical requirements police officers must follow to be effective.  They are taught these when the join the force.  Peel declared: “The police are the public and the public are the police”.    

This is a profound statement in which he stipulated that it was the duty of a police officer to maintain, at all times, a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police.   

All the police are, according to Peel, are “the only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence”.  

PC Palmer was part of the family that is our society, our communities.  He didn’t belong to the police.  He belonged to us all.  Because he was one of us.  

That many police officers of today appear not to recognise this, as was demonstrated sadly today with police officers lining the streets, not the public, they were kept back, undermines confidence we may have in them and showed all too starkly that they do believe they are a family.  A separate group in society.

The Gilded Cage.

There was a certain symbolism about where the UK’s permanent representative to the European Union Tim Barrow handed over The Letter to President Donald Tusk yesterday.  It was in the European Unions brand new futuristic new 321-million-euro headquarters, a building that “symbolised 'joy' according to the PR from the EU.   

A glass lantern-shaped structure inside a cube made of recycled window frames sourced from across the 28-nation bloc (doesn’t that word remind you of the USSR?), the Europa building has been dubbed the "Space Egg" because of its other-wordly appearance.   

At its heart is a huge room decked out in psychedelic rainbow carpets and ceiling tiles (sitting in it for too long you would wonder if you were “on something”) where European Union leaders will hold their summit meetings on the multiple crises that beset the bloc.  

If it had been in existence when David Cameron tried unsuccessfully to do a little bit of renegotiation before he put the Stay or Leave question to the people of the UK, you could maybe see there was a reason for the EU leaders weird behaviour to not to even give the crumbs off the table to our then Prime Minister.   

Perhaps that was his punishment for describing the Space Egg in 2011 as a "gilded cage" for leaders at a time when austerity was causing pain across a debt-hit continent.   

Perhaps if President Tusk and his colleagues had spent more time on listening to and dealing with the issues that afflict the voters across the EU they would not have been so dismissive of David Cameron and his attempts at getting just a few crumbs from the table.  

Perhaps we would not be leaving if some crumbs had fallen into our PMs lap.   

But of course, and the irony would not have been lost on David Cameron as he resigned as PM and MP and as he watched The Letter being handed over yesterday, at least he was elected by a constituency, real voters, back in Witney in Oxfordshire.   

President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, just like the other Presidents in the EU, President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker and President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, has no democratic mandate with a single voter.

Whose side are they on?

I do get dismayed when I hear of politicians, and it is largely politicians who have never worked in the productive economy, talk about the catastrophe that will befall businesses once we leave the EU.

Really?  Most businesses I know are ambitious.  They don’t sit and wait for governments.  They get out there and create new opportunities.  Just watch this clip of Tom Turner, boss of V12 Footwear.

Like all good business leaders, Tom Turner and his V12 business, is out there looking for business opportunities outside Europe.  

It is the likes of Tom who create the wealth in our nation.

So listening to Keir Starmer, who must be one of the most intelligent people on the Labour benches, spouting such ridiculous nonsense of his Six Tests at the weekend, does leave you holding your head in your hands.   

Whose side are they on you may well ask?

"It's a failure, it's a tragedy."

Well, I never thought I would agree with EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.  The UK leaving the EU:  “it’s a failure, it’s a tragedy”.

But the question is why it is a tragedy?  

Well, I guess that depends on where you are starting from.  It’s a tragedy if your hope was even greater integration in the EU with nation states giving more powers to the EU Commission.  Now that won’t happen, certainly not with the UK there.   

Then there is the other view, it’s a tragedy because such greater integration was always going to lead to tensions that could break up the consensus of the political classes.  And the EU leaders couldn’t see that elephant in the room.  So their project, as they keep calling it, is damaged.

From my doorstep view it has ended in failure and is a tragedy because those driving the EU bus didn’t watch out for the road signs.  And the result was the start of a crash that will go on till the EU as it has been constructed in this grand project is brought back to its pre Maastricht days.  That was a “union” most could all agree was a good one.

Who is going to pay?

The First Minister has alluded to running an alternative referendum if the UK Parliament doesn't acquiesce to her wishes of a proper legally binding one. 

According to Scottish government figures, the vote in September 2014 cost £15.85m, or £4.38 per voter.  Where is Nicola going to find that sort of money? 

She surely wouldn't ask the taxpayer to fund a vote that had no legal standing and was actually nothing more than an opinion poll for a political party.

Sobering bedtime reading for Nicola.

Today accountancy firm French Duncan revealed the results of a survey into attitudes of business leaders in Scotland to the potential for a 2^nd Scottish referendum.  And it will make sobering reading over the Horlicks tonight, if that is Ms Sturgeons night time drink of choice.

This survey reflects the views of a sample of 800 of the SME community, a community that employs most of the population of Scotland who don’t work in the taxpayer funded sector and pays for the taxpayer funded services.   

While French Duncan point out it’s not a scientific survey, it still is pretty clear snapshot of what business leaders think.

There is an alternative, First Minister.

Today in the Scottish Parliament Ms Sturgeon acknowledged to MSPs that many people do not relish the prospect of another referendum.  But I really don’t think she understands on what basis people don’t relish another referendum.  

She clearly comes from a household where everyone voted one way.  I don’t.  My family was split 2 for and 2 against YES.  Debate was robust at times.  But we survived.  And we agreed that whatever the outcome, that would be that.  Sadly not all families survived the acrimony.

Now she suggests that the only alternative available today is another referendum, insisting that the only alternative was “simply to drift through the next two years, crossing our fingers, hoping for the best while fearing the worst.”

Actually First Minister that is not the only alternative.  Another alternative is to roll up your sleeves and make leaving the EU work.  Not to do so is tantamount to seeking to wreck the UK that Scotland only 2 short years ago voted to remain a part of.

The defeatist talk of cliff edge shows that she is more interested in rhetoric than opportunity. 

Parliament has spoken. So will the Lib Dems rejoice?

The Liberal Democrats.  The party that agreed with the Supreme Court ruling that Parliament must pass such a Bill to make it legitimate.

Well, last night the parliament did just that.   Last night Paddy and his friends failed to get the parliament to back their view.  

Their response?  Celebrate the greatness of parliament that it can come to such a view?  After all, that’s what they supported in the Supreme Court battle.  They surely could celebrate that parliament had spoken?

Nope.  They whine like a cry-baby when they discover that parliament can vote against them.

Perhaps the Liberal Democrats will now go and try and understand why people of the UK voted to leave the EU.

Last night in a final fling of the dice the Liberal Democrats tried to put the interests of EU citizens living in the UK before the interests of the UK citizens living in the EU.

No wonder UK voted to leave the EU.

What did the Chancellor actually say?

If I was to say to you, “This is simply amazing” you would think I am giving praise.  But if I said to you, “This is simply amazing.  It’s so inaccurate you can scarcely believe it”, you would have a totally different appreciation of the point I was making.

I use this little grammatical juggling to illustrate what happened after the Budget this week.  

If I ask you “what is the government doing to the self-employed?”, if you have had even a half ear open this week, you will know that they are going to penalise them in some way.  Leave them worse off. 

Only, that is actually the exact opposite of what the Chancellor is going to do.

The second part of the Chancellors proposal was, and I paraphrase, “the self-employed now get the full state pension and will get further benefit entitlements later on…not only that but their NICs will still not be at the same level as employed people’s and they are in fact having some contributions reduced”.

But what did the BBC report?  Not even half the full story.  All they reported was that the Chancellor was increasing NIC’s for the self-employed.  Indeed, the BBC’s top economic editor, Nihal, speculated that the Chancellor was in some way vilifying the self-employed, calling them cheats who were dodging paying their full whack.  Er, what?  Where did he get that from?  Certainty not from the Chancellor.

But the BBC further compounded their error by allowing Labour’s John McDonnell to claim that the self-employed have got absolutely nothing back.  Which is simply not true.   So why did the BBC not challenge him and not let him get away with it.

Good question.  And it has only two answers.  One, sloppy journalism.  Or two, bias.  You make up your own mind.

I know the BBC has slowly been going downhill but at least they should get the facts right and not spin a news story that simply is false.

Conjuring trick.

Now, here is a thought to conjure with.  

Let’s for a moment assume that the First Minister gets her way and has, against her previous statement that the last referendum was a once in a generation one, a second referendum. 

Let’s for a moment suppose the vote was 52% Leave with 48% Remain.

But let’s also suppose some areas, for example, the in the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, voted to remain part of the UK by a margin of 64% to 36%, as they did in the last referendum.  

Now, using Nicola Sturgeons logic she could not drag them out of the UK against their will. So when the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, or indeed an individual, go to court to protect their legal right to remain part of the UK will Ms Sturgeon accept their case?  Everywhere south of a line from Dunglass in the east to Cairnryan in the west, staying in the UK.

Let’s put it this way.  I didn't vote for the person who became my local MP.  I didn’t vote for an SNP candidate at the Scottish parliamentary elections, but the SNP are the governing party.  I didn’t vote to remain in the UK when we had the once in a generation Scottish independence referendum.

But, and it’s a kind of important but, I have accepted the result in all of these because that’s democracy.

The SNP will never accept that democracy means that sometimes you don’t get what you want.  Even if there is a 2^nd Scottish referendum and they loose they will simply look for a reason for a 3^rd one.  

Held to ransom.

If the Amendment before the Lords to allow unconditionally EU nationals to remain in this country is passed, will those in favour of it be equally understanding if the EU says after negotiations start after the invoking of Article 50 that UK citizens living in EU countries will not enjoy the same rights in the countries they have chosen to settle in?

Will they be quite happy if the EU, after Article 50 was triggered, said that it would not agree to equal treatment without a series of concessions on other areas?  

Would they be happy if the UK refused to agree to UK citizens being used as a bartering tool in any such concessions?  

That is what the Amendment will open our citizens up to. Being held to ransom.

Fake news is everywhere.

So, the Conservatives are attacking the foundations of Devolution the Scottish First Minster is claiming.  Devolution now faces a “grave threat”.  

There is a big problem here using terms like “grave threat”.  Tony Blair used a form of words “clear and mortal danger” and look what that turned out to be.

What Nicola really means is, if you don’t give us everything we want, you are not negotiating in good faith.  Which putting it mildly, is rather disingenuous.

To use a current expression, the first Minster is making up fake news.  She’s stoking the fire of disillusionment when, as a highly remunerated politician (package on offer is £144,687 – outstripping the prime minister’s overall pay of £142,500) she should be leading with optimism.  All she does is constantly blame someone else.  

Take the news agenda away from her governments failings is her PR goal.  She cannot accept that the people of Scotland two years ago voted to stay a part of the UK, and that the UK voted to leave the EU.   End of story.  

Her job now is to make that happen with the best results possible for the UK that will mean it’s the best results for the Scotland.  After all, the rest of the UK is our biggest trading partner.  Scotland still conducts the vast majority of its trade within the UK.  In 2014, Scotland's exports totalled £76 billion, of which £48.5 billion (64%) was with constituent nations of the United Kingdom, £15.2 billion (20%) with other parts of the world and only £11.6 billion (15%) with the rest of the EU.  So this fixation with the EU is somewhat misplaced, important as it is. 

One little reminder, with all this talk of Scotland being at the mercy of the bad Tory government, just remember, it's this bad Tory government that devolved tax varying power and many other things to Holyrood.  But when the burden of responsibility comes up on Nicola and her government, what do they do?  Retreat in to their turrets and continue to blame these bad Tories.  

Rather pathetic really. 

Who said it?

"Whether you agree with me or disagree with me; like me or loathe me, don’t bind my hands when I am negotiating on behalf of the British nation."

Theresa May?  Sounds like it.

But no, its John Major.  Yes, those were the words of John Major when he was Prime Minister in 1997. The context was he said that ruling out abolition of the pound and of joining the Euro would send him "naked into that conference chamber with nothing to negotiate, with nothing to wring the best deal out of our partners."

Fair changed his tune now has our John. Every paragraph of the speech he made at Chatham House was intended to weaken the UK’s negotiating position. It was all about talking Britain down.

Did he do damage?  Yes, sadly to himself and his own legacy.

There will be a deal.

It was more than a little odd to hear an intelligent chap like George Osborne warn against leaving EU without trade deal.  So far I have not heard anyone say we should leave the EU without a trade deal.   

Why do people have this stupid idea that leaving the EU means we won't be able to buy and sell goods with the EU countries? 

Of course we will.  

Rather than trying to add to the constant drip drip of people who lost, he should be more positive as he knows full well that, no matter what happens, we will have a trade deal with the EU when we leave.  The only choice is, will it be one under WTO rules or one under a new agreement.  But an agreement there will be.

So those who keep on saying we don’t want to end trading with the EU, fear not, you won’t.  Only those of malicious intent would say otherwise.

An agreement will be in place.

Care sector need not be in crisis.

The number of non-British EU nationals working in the UK’s social care system has shot up by more than 40% in three years, according to official figures.

Some argue that Leaving the EU will lead to a catastrophic staffing crisis across the sector.

The data released in answer to a parliamentary question by the Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake shows the total increased from 65,000 in December 2013 to 92,000 by September last year, the most recent date for which figures are available.   The proportion of the social care workforce from other European countries varies by region, from 2% in the north-east to 12% in London, showing how a system already suffering recruitment problems is hugely reliant on EU workers in large parts of the country. In all, European workers make up 7% of a social care workforce of 1.34 million.  And they’re all low paid, mostly on the minimum wage.

Let’s step back for a moment.  We have unemployment in the UK.  Why are people in the UK not doing these jobs?  Why can we not train those who are unemployed to fill these 93,800 vacancies? 

Too low paid I hear you say.  Well, I would agree with you.  But money has to come from somewhere.  And it should not come from increased taxation.  All that does is reduce the amount of money people can spend on goods and services.  Cut that and you create unemployment in the very productive sector we need to stimulate.  Indeed, the very sector that pays for Doctors, Nurses, Care workers, Policemen, Firefighters, roads and hospitals.

I say we totally change how we do taxation.  Have very simple tax banding.  And end this crazy situation where we have people and businesses interacting with the tax system on multiple levels. 

Like a person who is in employment on a low wage gets benefits from the tax payer at the same time a business has to pay many different levels of tax.  Put it simply we should tax the business less and raise the minimum wage by an equivalent amount.  Then you don’t have a bureaucracy collecting and paying out tax. 

It is fiscally neutral for both the employee and the employer.  But you will have saved millions on bureaucracy.   Yes, I know it will take a bit of working out to do. But we need to be radical as we are living in an unsustainable bubble.

Back to care workers.  Let’s train our own from our own unemployed.  Let’s pay them properly.  And let’s stop saying all will be gloom and doom when we leave the EU.  It won’t.

The Constitution wins.

The one thing the USA prides itself on is the separation of powers.  And it seems to work well. And has done since the Constitution was drafted.   Put simply, no one is above the law.  Not even a president as Nixon and Clinton found out.

So, perhaps Mr Trump hasn’t been reading the same Constitution as Judge James Robart, a man appointed by another Republican President, George W Bush, and confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

In what was rather foolish and intemperate language given the separation of powers, Mr Trump called the ruling "ridiculous" and Mr Robart a "so-called judge".

Indeed, if, as it appears to be, it is a direct challenge to judicial independence by President Trump, I think the new president is going to be in for a surprise when things come to the Supreme Court, no matter how many of them he appoints.  They won’t back him; they will back the Constitution, every time.