Have you noticed that there is a lot of introspection about devolution just now? I suppose it underlines the fact that devolution is a process rather than a settlement that everyone is still looking at how to tweak it. Maybe it is just the newness of it. The Scottish Parliament is very young as these things go, just ten years old. As such, there is inevitably a sense that we haven’t quite got it right yet.

Mind you, you can never get it “right”, in the sense that everyone will be happy. Westminster is as well-established as they come, and yet people are constantly suggesting reforms from every angle imaginable. That has, of course, gained even more momentum in the past year or so, particularly with expenses scandals and the like.

So it is only natural that people should be wagging their jaws about devolution all the time. But the chat has seemed particularly intense of late. The SNP are having a National Conversation, while the other major parties have thrown their lot in with the recently published Calman report.

I guess you can put a lot of this down to the fact that the SNP are in government. That was an epoch; completely new territory that demanded introspection. What are the reasons for the SNP being in power? Unless it is an anti-Labour vote (which, to be fair, is highly likely), it may be because people are unhappy with the constitutional situation as it stands. An SNP government is perceived to be a major step towards independence, even if a number of major hurdles remain.

The tenth anniversary of the Scottish Parliament is also a good excuse to look back on how devolution has panned out so far and to work out how to refine the system for the future. All of this has been a useful hook on which to hang Patrick Hannan’s latest book, A Useful Fiction, of which I recently received a copy to review.

But that is largely a marketing device. The tenth anniversary of devolution is barely, if at all, mentioned. Meanwhile, thoughts on the Calman Commission feel as though they have been slightly shoehorned in, rushing to mention it lest the book feel out of date by the time people get round to reading it.

But the book could not have been written six months ago. Indeed, the sheer amount of important events that actually happened in the past year or so (chief among them the credit crunch and the collapse of RBS and HBOS) become quite clear as you read the book. For that reason, it probably will feel out of date by the time many people get round to reading it. But that is the peril of writing a book about current events, especially a process as unpredictable as devolution.

Mind you, not all of the book is about current political events. That is simultaneously the book’s main strength and its main weakness. On the one hand, it ensures that the book isn’t completely preoccupied with political points that are very salient in 2009 but will be fish wrapper come 2010. On the other hand, any politics geeks who read the blurb and expect to be able to immerse themselves in interesting constitutional arguments will be disappointed.

While the second half of the book focuses very much on the politics of devolution, it takes a while for the book to reach that point. Much of the front end of the book is preoccupied with more general points about national identity. I spent a lot of my time thinking, “well there’s plenty about cricket, rugby, the meaning of flags and other cultural issues; but not much of the politics I was looking for”.

That is not to say the early part of the book is useless; far from it. These reflections on Britishness and the nature of national identity are fundamental to the subject, not to say interesting to read about. But I did feel as though the book was taking its time to deal with the questions I was seeking answers for.

But when the book does move on to ask these questions, answers are few and far between. In his review of the book, Will Patterson said that A Useful Fiction is a book for moderates, which is a good way of putting it.

It is not exactly to say that Patrick Hannan constantly flits cowardly around the middle ground. I did raise my eyebrows from time to time in the course of reading this book. But after making an interesting suggestion, he often fails to commit it. The reader feels almost like the victim of a practical joker who looks like he is passing you something only to snatch it away as you reach out for it.

This left me finishing the book feeling as though I had read an interesting book, but one that lacked any central themes or arguments. It makes me wonder what Patrick Hannan sat down to write the book for, other than to set out an interesting collection of thoughts on Britain’s constitutional situation.

Nonetheless, I would say it is well worth reading A Useful Fiction because it is an interesting collection of thoughts. It certainly provided me with some fresh perspectives and Mr Hannan is an engaging enough writer.

But if you think you’ll want to read it, I would hurry up before it gets overtaken by events.

As I said, this kind of follows on from my last post. But I know a lot of you just skip past the Formula 1 posts, so I will briefly summarise the relevant bit here:

ITV’s Formula 1 coverage sucks, partly because it is fixated with hyping up mediocre drivers because they are British.

As it happens, there is a debate about sport and nationality in Scotland at the moment. It appears as though Alex Salmond has called for Scotland to enter a separate team in the Olympics. Apparently the media have acted surprised, although I’m not. It seems to be quite a common view held by a lot of nationalists, so indeed it would be surprising if Mr Salmond wasn’t in favour of it.

It seems to bit a bit of an overblown media story (ho! This blog is becoming a bit one-note). But it has nevertheless sparked a bit of a debate, so here is my view on it.

Often I don’t care where a sports person is from. My interest might be coloured by media coverage. That just means that I end up being more interested in whatever I hear about on the radio. But that’s just because I hear it on the radio. This can go either way, because obviously if I’m pissed off with the media coverage I will suddenly have a burning hatred of whoever is flavour of the month.

Take Andrew Murray for instance. At first I was interested because he was young and Scottish and sounded like he had a lot of talent. Then whenever I heard him being interviewed he turned out to be a sour, sullen, ungrateful little whiner. So now, while I would marginally rather see him winning than losing, I am more ambivalent than anything else.

Similarly, whether or not I feel like rooting for England in cricket or football mostly depends on how bearable I find the media coverage. During the football World Cup, it is easy to get sick of England. At other times I wouldn’t mind seeing them win.

Obviously in football I would root for Scotland first and foremost. An obvious choice because I was born here in Scotland. But here is where the whole thing falls to bits, because I am actually not very interested in football so it doesn’t really affect me either way. I like to see Scotland winning, but you certainly wouldn’t catch me sitting through ninety minutes of it at a time.

In fact, the only sport that I am really interested in is… well, take a guess. That one, and snooker (if I can be bothered). And cricket is okay too. I couldn’t tell you why I was interested in any of these sports. As Richard Thomson says, there is nothing rational about this sort of thing. It’s just the way you turn out.

But I do have quite firm beliefs about nationality and sport. Like I said, I usually support Scotland if they are playing. But that wouldn’t stop me from supporting any British team. And neither does it preclude me from rooting for England. And here is why: nationality doesn’t matter a jot. Not to me as a spectator, and not to a sports person either.

A couple of years ago I saw part of a documentary about Ben Johnson. A relative of his was asked a question about whether or not Ben Johnson let down his country by taking performance enhancing drugs. The response was very firm: “Don’t be so stupid! He wasn’t running for his country. He was running for himself.”

While I don’t doubt that there might be the odd athlete who gets a real kick out of performing for their country, at the end of the day you have to be realistic about athletes’ real motives. If we are talking about professional athletes, we are also talking about careers. They want to win for the good of themselves and their own career, not for the good of their country (whatever that means).

Most sports people might say that they are very, very proud to be representing their coverage. But I think this is probably mostly, once again, for selfish individualistic aims. Saying such things helps get the media off your back and gets the general public supporting you.

Crowds at home matches are less hostile, giving you the confidence to perform. Merchandise sales skyrocket. You can make tons of money appearing in adverts. And once you get old you might even become a TV sports pundit. All by playing the game correctly, by playing up to the image of a “plucky Brit” or a “gritty Scot” or whatever.

I am under no illusions as to what a sports person’s motives are. They want to win, and they would want to win no matter where they happened to be born. So I don’t buy into the nationalistic hype that surrounds sport stars.

That is also why I am somewhat sceptical of the idea that entering a separate Scottish team would, overnight, turn Scotland into a sports-mad nation, driven on to win because of national pride.

Richard Thomson says:

…the idea that our athletes would win fewer medals than they would as part of a UK team is utterly risible, epitomising all that’s worst about the ‘awww, we’re rubbish!’, ‘expect the worst and you’ll never be disappointed’, loser mentality that stifles so much talent and potential in Scotland.

But it is just a matter of numbers. With a smaller pool of talent to choose from, Scotland’s sports teams would wilt. At least as part of TeamGB, any talented Scots there are can be part of a bigger, more talented team that has a better chance of winning a medal.

As Jeff at SNP Tactical Voting says,

…would a Scottish relay sprint team, or rowing team, or badminton team even qualify to the Olympics proper without the undoubted benefits of competing with our English/Welsh/Northern Irish brothers and sisters. One could argue that the benefits of extra places is cancelled out by not being able to qualify for half of the disciplines.

Some people find this difficult to believe, but I watch Formula 1 as a neutral. I don’t have any particular favourite drivers or teams (although I used to quite like Jordan). I have some drivers and teams that I prefer to others, but this certainly doesn’t run along nationalistic grounds.

For instance, I cannot stand that smug (even though he has nothing to be smug about) Jenson Button. “Plucky Brit” he may be, but this is just code for “talentless fuckwit”. As I said in my post below, he is utterly incapable of winning a race unless everyone in front of him breaks down.

Even worse, he seems to be quite a dodgy individual, as he has twice signed contracts with teams which he has subsequently tried to wriggle out of. So he is a slippery character as well as an average racer.

What about that fine Scot, David Coulthard, you ask? I actually quite like him — but not because he is a Scot. I admire him for the fact that his career is still going strong after so many years. I also think he is quite a likeable personality, quite engaging and funny when being interviewed.

But I lost a lot of respect for him following the 2001 Monaco Grand Prix, where he was unable to overtake Enrique Bernoldi, an inferior driver in an inferior car. In a way, this is understandable because the Monaco circuit is very difficult to overtake on due to its narrow and twisty nature. What did it for me was when after the race he complained, saying that Bernoldi should have just let him past. Err, no. It’s motor racing — the point is that you have to overtake him if you’re good enough.

If I was held at gunpoint and asked to choose my favourite F1 team, I would say McLaren. And there has been an interesting row about the “nationality” of that team in recent months. German newspaper Bild tried to claim that McLaren is a German team because it is partly owned by DaimlerChrysler under the guise of Mercedes-Benz. As such, a fuss was caused when McLaren won a race and the German national anthem wasn’t played.

But McLaren is “officially” a British team, and the British national anthem is played when a McLaren driver wins a race. It has been like this for many, many years. And why not? After all, it is based in Britain, Chairman Ron Dennis is British and I would guess the majority of employees are British.

But the story doesn’t end there. You see, Bruce McLaren, the founder of the McLaren team, was a Kiwi! So if anything, surely New Zealand’s national anthem should be played when McLaren win a race!

Many teams face this dilemma of having multiple nationalities, particularly when their parent company is based in a different country to where the factory is based. Is Renault British or French (the team is based in Britain, the parent company is from France and the car is built in both!)? Is Honda British or Japanese. Is Toyota German or Japanese. Is Spyker British or Dutch? Is Red Bull British or Austrian? Is Toro Rosso Italian or Austrian? Is BMW Swiss or German?

The point is that it doesn’t matter what national anthem gets played. McLaren is McLaren is McLaren, whether it is British, German, Kiwi or Cloudcuckoovian. And I guess if they were to officially change their nationality, it would not have a single bearing on the race result.

And the controversy over McLaren’s nationality? Nothing to do with national pride or any tosh like that. It was in fact stirred up by BMW for their own self-interested ends.

At the end of the day, you might have guessed, I don’t really care whether or not Scots perform as part of Scotland or as part of TeamGB in the Olympics. Really, who cares? After all, the medals table (more a reflection of population size than anything else) has only ever been useful for Cold War propagandists.

“Xenophobic” is certainly the wrong word. Xenophobia is the hatred of foreigners, and I am certain that SNP members as a whole do not hate all foreigners.

A more accurate word might be, well, nationalist. Hardly a slur, to some. But as I said a couple of weeks ago, I do find slightly distasteful an ideology that thinks the most important thing is where policies are made rather than which policies are made.

The comments might have resulted in the SNP rolling with faux-outrage. But I think we all know the certain kind of thing Jamie Stone was talking about, and it has a certain ring of truth to it.

Most SNP supporters probably call themselves nationalists (correct me if I’m wrong), but the way some of them react when somebody calls them the Scottish Nationalist Party is quite telling in a way. They know that the N-word sounds bad.

The E-word is even worse, and the SNP now goes to great lengths to make it look as though it quite likes (or is at least ambivalent towards) England. Not that I believe this is merely cynical political gameplay. I am sure that the majority of SNP members and the SNP party itself are not Anglophobic.

The problem for the SNP is the independence movement as a whole. Ask the average independence-supporting Joe on the street why he wants Scotland to be independent, and you are more likely to get an incoherent anti-English rant than any talk about the finer points of the economy.

So now rather than thinly veiled attacks on England or Britian, the official, SNP-led pro-independence voice is all about how successful small countries are. Although this doesn’t square with the SNP’s recognition that Scotland needs more immigrants. That is how you improve the economy, not divorcing Scotland from England.

Despite the SNP’s official line, there are little glimpses of what the SNP is really about from time to time. There are the claims from some SNP members that an independent Scottish Parliament would be inherently better than Westminster. It is never explained why though. Or why the Scottish economy would suddenly blossom once you erect a barrier at the border. Surely if Scotland was such a great nation it wouldn’t need to be independent to have a wonderful economy.

Take also the recent issue of the theatre in Berwick-upon-Tweed that was accused of being racist by SNP MSP Christine Grahame. What a cheek! Here is the SNP bullying a private theatre that is in a location that it would rather was in a different country! So much for independence then. It reeked more of scoring a point against England than anything else.

Christine Grahame was at it again when she made her offensive remarks bemoaning media coverage of cricket, “which is only of marginal interest in Scotland.” It played on the popular myth that cricket is a sport for English toffs and Scots are completely uninterested in it.

The problem is that it is actually a bare-faced lie because cricket is a more popular participation sport in Scotland than it is even in England and has a longer history in Scotland than even football.

And before you all start, I am very well aware that Christine Grahame was born in England. But this makes the point all that more important. Because I think the very fact that she feels the need to take these pot-shots at England and its culture is very revealing indeed.

A lot of people will claim she has a valid point about London-dominance in the media. It is a common complaint. But the points about media coverage are all rather silly if you ask me.

If Scottish independence even changed the face of the media, it would only mean that the news would be Glasgow-dominated (with a bit of Edinburgh if you’re lucky) rather than London-dominated. Big whoop if you’re in Glasgow. Not much cop if you are one of the majority of Scots who happen not to live in the big two though. We have enough Glasbolisation as it is.

New Labour is all about embracing the free market, getting rid of Clause IV and generally being nice and middle class. And every so often a Terry Kelly comes along to remind you what goes on when you scrape beneath the surface. By the same token, the SNP’s cuddly image can let you forget about some unsavoury elements of the grassroots independence movement.

In my post a couple of weeks ago I said I was considering voting for the SNP. As things stand at the moment, I won’t be. The debates over the past couple of weeks have reminded me why I dislike nationalism so much. I respect the Liberal Democrats that little bit more as well.

Guess which sport I saw kids playing in the Meadows this morning?

Not another post about Sky (I really can’t be bothered, although it will be a shame for cricket to be away from terrestrial television), but it’s about the BBC’s regional / national / whatever news policy.

I’ve spotted two posts on this today. The comments at Freedom and Whisky are filled with people wanting a BBC England. I always found that request a bit puzzling, as I have mentioned before on this blog. See, for instance, this post (you need to scroll a bit until I start talking about BBC England).

I just don’t see what advantage a BBC England would have over the existing BBC. The reason there isn’t a BBC England is because in England they have regions. A lot of people complain about the whole concept of regions, but I don’t know what the problem is. Frankly, I’d love for Scotland to have BBC regions because that would save us from being subjected to tokenistic non-stories about sheep in the Outer Hebrides. Then they could provide something resembling a local news service. If they were to get rid of the BBC regions to be replaced with a BBC England, the viewers in Cornwall would have to endure stories about the local news in Newcastle and vice-versa. How would that help anyone?

I happen to believe that the BBC has the balance wrong though. With devolution, the 6 O’Clock News increasingly has too many Englandandwales-specific stories. I think a ‘Scottish Six’ (but keeping the 10 as a Britain-wide broadcast) as I have described in this post would do just nicely.

Of course, there are those who would like to separate the BBC into pieces completely, and this is where the SNP come in. Alex C at Land Of The Nearly Free has a little moan about how he as a Scot in uninterested in cricket which is why we should never see this stuff on the television. Well cricket is actually very popular in Scotland — see the post below.

If some SNP supporters were in charge of the airwaves we’d probably be subjected to 24 hour caber tossing and documentaries about fishermen. Or yet more Chewin’ the Fat spin-offs. I know I’d rather have the cricket thank you very much.

Hector Maclean commenting at Land Of The Nearly Free notes the killer reason why chopping up the BBC would be terrible.

…when it comes to world news I am not confident that a Scottish broadcaster could match the resources that a UK wide one has, and consequently it would not come up to the standards I as a viewer have grown accustomed to. I would therefore not wish to lose my access to UK wide broadcasts.

Indeed, you only have to look at Scottish TV who have trouble enough covering their own ITV region, never mind world news.

I thought that ITV’s regions were a lot more offensive anyway. Take the Border region for instance. Can anybody explain that? I can’t stand regional (or national, if you must) television anyway. Apart from providing a local news service (which is fair enough, especially when we’ve got devolution), all that BBC Scotland has brought us, as far as I can tell, is River City, and the most overrated ‘comedy’ show known to man, Chewin’ the Fat. As for Scottish TV… well, the sooner it’s swalled up by ITV plc, the better.