Brave thwarts the Unionists...

More flummery from that verecund Montague Burton on yatube...

What lies within?

Ok my political anorak chums, here's a question to get the synapses charged on a driech monday morning. 

Name the Castle Douglas born politician who produced the White Paper on Freedom of Information, which led to the Freedom of Information Act 2000?

The very same Act which Dominic Grieve the Attorney General, has thwarted by vetoing a request for the disclosure of minutes from the Cabinet Committee on Devolution to Scotland, Wales and the English Region.

It's a tricky one isn't it? To be honest I'd never heard of this chap, despite the fact that he was a regular front bench spokesperson for Labour during the 18 years of Tory government. At various times he held portfolios in Agriculture Food & Fisheries, Defence, Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs and was even Shadow defence Secretary 1992-97, a period which included wars in Rwanda, Croatia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Georgia et al.

Now I'm normally a clued up chap on these sort of global manifestations of unpleasantness, but I racked my brains and I have absolutely no recollection of Labour's then shadow defence secretary pouring forth with an opinion during this period. His name is David Clark, and since 2001 he's been known as Baron Clark of Windermere. Ring any bells? Nope me neither.

His wiki page is a fascinating insight into a life in Labour. I don't know who wrote it, but I suspect old scores are being settled in a quiet little corner of the internet. I was unaware, for example, that David Clark MP was forced to apologise to the commons after meeting with Bosnian war criminal Radovan Karadžić in 1993 and not declaring it in the Register of Members Interests.

I was also unaware that when Labour were returned to power, Blair felt obliged, due to his long but mostly anonymous service, to give him a ministerial prize as a sort of New Labour gold watch, he was given the post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. This is at best a one day a week job, where the bulk of the work is done by an actual deputy, thus freeing up the MP to loaf around pretending to be a politician. The incumbent Chancellor is one Nick Clegg MP.

I did not know that David Clark, also stood for election to Speaker of the House of Commons and was defeated by the only Speaker ever to resign his post in an expenses ridden scandal, one Michael Martin, now Baron Martin of salubrious Springburn.

By far the most interesting thing I did not know about David Clark, is that his South Shields seat was one of the safest Labour seats in the UK. It was much coveted by those bright young things in the New Labour Party, particularly the then head of the Number 10 Policy Unit, one David Miliband, who had absolutely no connection to the constituency, other than the attraction that they weigh the Labour vote there rather than count it. Clark's constituency branch caught wind of this and fought his reselection in 2001, for fear of Clark rolling over on his belly for a seat in the House of Lords, thus allowing the National Executive Committee to parachute in their own candidate, who would have little interest in the actual constituency.

Clark, fought these unsubstantiated claims, declared his willingness to fight for his constituents for a full term, garnered the support from local trade union barons, won the day and immediately rolled over to allow the NEC to err parachute in David Miliband and for himself to undergo that transformational role and ascend from trade unionist to a comfy green seat in the House of Lords.

What a fascinating life and great insight to the merits of public life. Keep your head down, don't rock the boat and one day you'll be clad in ermine. Obviously to claim a bit of gravitas for posterity, Clark claimed he was shunted from his role writing the White Paper on Freedom of Information, because he shunned the London cocktail circuit for the heady delights of South Shields.

His legacy, however, remains what eventually became the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

From this Act we now know some of these salacious details that were never intended for public consumption:

» The Thatcher Government concocted a plan to search for the Loch Ness monster using a team of dolphins

» Foreign diplomats – who have diplomatic immunity – were accused of rapes, sexual assaults, child abuse and murders while working in Britain

» Ted Heath was once offered concert work by Idi Amin of Uganda. The eccentric dictator made his offer in a 1977 telegram

» Weapons used by paratroopers on Bloody Sunday have ended up in the hands of the army in Sierra Leone, paramilitary police in Beirut and even in an Arkansas gun shop

» A clandestine British torture programme existed in postwar Germany, “reminiscent of the concentration camps”

» Britain helped Israel to obtain its nuclear bomb 40 years ago, by selling it 20 tonnes of heavy water

» Then Prime Minister Blair took trips costing more than £1.2m over four years from 2002 on RAF jets allocated to the Royal Family and government VIPs, including those for holidays abroad

» Britain has extradited four times as many people to the US as have been sent in return since the introduction of fast-track extradition

» More than 1,000 girls aged 14 and under had abortions in a single year

» 1980s school dinners could be the cause of three young Welsh people’s deaths from the human form of mad cow disease

» The Elgin Marbles were damaged by two schoolboys fighting in the British Museum in 1961. One of the boys fell and knocked off part of a centaur's leg

All items at once variously surreal; amusing, terrifying, to be expected and quite concerning. Yet, Dominic Grieve has decided that the contents of the cabinet meeting on devolution are so serious that they are not to be open to the public.

What outrageous slurs about Scotland, Scottish politicians and Scotland’s destiny could these minutes contain? 

The odd thing in this whole mess, other than the fact that it's been little reported in the Scottish media, apart from of all people, the Hootsman, is that the original FOI was done by one of those UKIP chappies. Here's his correspondence and rather unique response to the refusal to release the minutes.

Where are the pro-Independence thinkers and doers who have the legal ability and tenacity to set about FOI cases with the same relish that the ignoble Baron Foulkes used to when he was being subsidised by the Scottish Parliament? Is there not one SNP intern, staffer or assistant willing to roll their sleeves up and get stuck into this veil of secrecy? 

This veto has only been used twice in the past, once on questions regarding the Iraq War, the other on questions of Devolution. Iraq, you can understand from the perspective of 'national security', but to refuse publication on matters pertaining to Devolution, not once, but twice...that's something worth prising open. 

Scotland Said Yes!

Amazing what you can find on these here interwebs. The above, as you can see are pamphlets produced by the Labour Party in Scotland from 1976 to the eve of the 1979 Devolution Referendum. 

The flyers veer from a strong NO to Devolution, a graphic decapitation regarding Independence (or to use their pejorative term - Separation) to the 5 pence bargain telling us the whole Labour movement supported Devolution bill for a Scottish Assembly. Odd really given the role of Messrs Wilson, Cook and Cunningham and their role in thwarting the rights of limited Scottish self determination. 

As we all know, 32.9% of the Scottish electorate turned out and voted. The YES vote edging it 51.6% to the NO camps 48.4% Thanks to the MP for Finsbury's amendment requiring 40% of the electorate turn out, a feat I've never heard of anywhere else in the history of the universal  franchise. If I'm wrong please illuminate in the comments below...

So 36 years on, the most stringent anti-devolutionist's are now vehemently opposed to Independence. The language they use hasn't changed much. Independence supporters are still separatists who supposedly hate everyone born on the wrong side of the River Sark...

This is how the anti-devolutionist's  played it in 1979. 

Obviously their arguments haven't changed much, although the fear of the scarily titled 'Assembleymen' is delightfully reminiscent of a time when the ladies were expected to sport purple bracelets with pride and have their man's tea ready at whatever time he strolled in from the pub at...

Surprisingly the TGWU ( remember them proper Unions) were all for Devolution. Interesting map of proposed devolved matters. We were to be given full control of shop opening hours! No mention of industry, energy or Antarctica...

Unfortunately the treachery of the Labour party conspired to stop Devolution and delay the right to self determination by another 18 years, yes that's right treachery, a horrible word to use about someone, a collective or even a political party, but yes treachery, is all I can think of describe the career of the likes of Baron Foulkes. Imagine it describing political opponents as traitors, horrible eh? A few short months after the referendum and these Labour politicians attached themselves firmly to the public teat and haven't let go since...

Here's some err vintage footage culled from the interweb to illuminate MLords Foulkes and Forsyth''s take on Scotland and how her aspirations can be thwarted...Naturally any association between myself and former visitor to this blog, Montague Burton is err purely coincidental.

Scotland in pole position...

The list of some of the more, shall we say, minor powers, exclusively reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998 have long tickled my ulnar nerve... aka funny bone.

Amongst those ever so tangibly close powers, we have the following:

• Control of film classification 

• Weights and measures 

• Regulation of the professions

• Betting, gaming and lotteries 

• Health and safety

• Public lending right

• Judicial salaries

• Equal opportunities

• Control of weapons of mass destruction

• The ordnance survey 

• Time 

and finally the most bemusing of all reserved powers - Outer Space...

It is odd this belief in Westminster that we cannot be trusted with Outer Space. Are we universally incapable of drawing up a risk assessment with regard to Alien invasion? Would we forbid Richard Branson from blasting off into the bright blue yonder? A look at the other reserved powers suggests there's a fear that we'd go mad and reduce judges salaries to Job seekers Allowance and expenses? Would we classify 'Debbie Does Dollar' as PG? Would we start charging for lending library books? Aargh, the sheer complexity of it all.

Given our particular uselessness I was hard pushed to stifle a snort of derision this week, upon discovering the news that the Westminster had forgotten to include control of the continent of Antarctica among the big list entitled 'Whatever-You-Do-Don't-Let-Jock-Touch-This'. Aka The Scotland Act 1998

It simply beggars belief that the British government which until a mere 90 years ago held sway over almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area, simply forgot about everything below 60 degrees South, you know, the 660,000 square miles of cold icy bit at the bottom of the planet, South Pole, intrepid chaps going for short walks in the snow etcetera.

Naturally, the parliament of whores, are up in arms about this outrageous oversight. Venerable Lords are shrieking like petulant children blaming incompetent ministers of the previous Labour administration, yeah, that never gets old. They're demanding that this piece of geopolitically important tundra be returned to the control of Blighty so that it may be plundered and pillaged of whatever natural resources lie beneath its increasingly slushy surfaces. I'd advise the Scottish Government to ca canny over this particular frozen dilemma. I mean, what an ace card to hold...'you want us to take how much of your debt into an Independent Scotland?'

Just this morning, that delightful internet repository for all things dribbling and  Tory, Conservative Home addressed the issue. The author, JP Floru an interesting young chap from Belgium, a former Taxpayers Alliance bod and now Westminster Councillor and Head of Programmes at the Adam Smith Institute set out his views on the lost continent. This handsome young migrant who cites Reagan, Thatcher and err Boris Johnson as his inspirations, blithely ignores the dubious question of who owns what within the UK set up and sails an icebreaker through the Antarctic Treaty System. The Treaty (ATS) regulates all International relations with regard to Antarctica. Tintin junior sets forth a rallying call to defend the right of Blighty to kick Johnny Foreigners what happen to live closer to Antarctica, particularly Chile and the English bete noir, Argentina, out of the frozen tundra. Odd really given that the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat are housed in err Buenos Aires. 

Monsieur Floru appears to have little in the way of qualms about easing back on the boring old scientific experiments of the biologists, geologists, oceanographers, physicists, astronomers, glaciologists, and meteorologists who while their hours away playing tig with penguins and cracking seal jokes, but fair salivates at the prospect of getting at some of those "vast mineral deposits under its icy carpet and its continental shelf". In a passage that reeks of 19th century venture capitalism on viagara he roars:

"While I do not dispute that some parts should be kept for environmental reasons, keeping a continent which is 55 times the size of the UK is excessive. I can see no justification to restrict so vast a territory to the sole enjoyment of a handful of privileged scientists and about 50,000 tourists annually. Neither do I see how the whole of mankind is served by closing the door to Antarctic exploitation."

Hmmm mmm, them's some mighty good minerals under that there icy carpet just a waiting for exploitation.

Fortunately Article 7 of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic treaty (1991) prohibits, "Any activity relating to mineral resources, other than scientific research."  Sadly Article 7 runs out in 2041, by which time rapacious mineral hungry whores will have probably spread enough largesse around to open up the legs of some of the more coy politicians around the world, and much like the virgin territories of Alaska, they'll soon be poking their diamond tipped hard-ons into the ground in search for more carbon based product. 
The latest thinking from the scientists who have been running about with test tubes wearing fur lined lab coats in Antarctica is that the hole in the Ozone layer, directly above them is due to close over in 2065. How stupid would humanity be, to have supposedly solved a problem by cutting back on the wholesale spewing out of chlorofluorocarbons, only to expose ourselves to more risk by opening 'the door to Antarctic exploitation'?

 

All of which brings me neatly back to those silly billies at Westminster and their remiss lapse in concentration in devolving control of all UK Antarctica rights to Auld Scotia. A progressive, caring, greener, fairer, more sharing Scotland, whether Independent or not, could quite simply declare that the section that we supposedly own/control is to have no mineral extraction on it for a thousand years or whenever Scotland wins the world cup, whichever comes first. That might firm the resolve of those poor overstressed Unionist politicians hungrily gobbling at the teat of big carbon energy companies...

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw

Despite Distorting Scotland ignoring/relegating the £100 million investment by Samsung Heavy Industries in Scotland, to the fluffy window filler somewhere between a really important story about a safety hat wearing Polar bear and views of a former banker having his ceremonial sword shoulder tapping withdrawn. I'm a thinking this is excellent news for the future of an Independent Scotland. Naturally our superiors at the beeb thought a story decrying Scotland's world leading climate targets was more important...

However, those clever coves at Kyushu University in Japan have come up with a design that is simplistic, genius and potentially up to three times more effective than conventional wind turbines. It's uniquely suited to Scotland and something I hope Samsung are exploring in their new European offshore wind project.

 

As the article below points out building the turbines in the hexagonal base style leaves them suitable for aqua culture. Imagine a few of these anchored off the west coast providing clean energy and tasty salmon...

Scotland at the heart of the world.

Loving it, one of mine is in there...

Scotland the world over. 1507 entries, 715 photos, 32 countries, 2 months between St Andrews Night 2011 and Burns Night 2012