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Archive: Greens

Scottish Vote Compass

14 April 2011 22:16

Categories: Current affairs, Politics, Scotland

It has become de rigueur for every election to have at least one online quiz that tells you how you should vote. The 2011 Scottish Parliament electon has Scottish Vote Compass.

I have not exactly found myself becoming hooked on the Scottish Parliament election campaign. To be honest, I care much more about the alternative vote referendum. Nevertheless, I thought I would give it a go and see what it said.

On this chart, I am represented by the star icon towards the bottom-right.

My position on the Scottish Vote Compass

It is perhaps no real surprise to learn that the Liberal Democrats are my closest match. The Greens are second apparently, although it doesn’t really look like it from the graph to me.

While I was at it, I decided to once again take the daddy of all political quizzes, the original Political Compass.

This time my score was:
Economic Left/Right: 0.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.51

So I have moved a bit to the left, and have become slightly less libertarian, since the last time I took it in 2009 — a reversal of the trend.

2 comments

Glasgow North East candidates campaigning online

11 November 2009 09:28

Categories: Blogging, Current affairs, Internet, Media, Newspapers, Politics, Scotland, Technology

Something I have noticed about the Glasgow North East by-election is amount of innovative online coverage there has been from the media. All Media Scotland has reported on interesting methods of covering the election which have been adopted by three Scottish newspapers.

The Scotsman has invited the candidates from five of the main parties to contribute to its politics blog The Steamie in the run-up to the election. Full credit to The Scotsman for coming up with the idea. They are clearly trying something interesting with The Steamie, having recently invited some of Scotland’s top bloggers to regularly contribute to it.

It is interesting to see how the various candidates are using this platform. Will Patterson is analysing the candidates’ blog posts to see what message they are trying to get across.

I am infact surprised that the candidates feel that regularly contributing lengthy posts to a blog is a useful way to spend the final week of the campaign. Are there that many votes to be won among the readers of The Steamie?

The Daily Record has held its own type of digital hustings in the shape of a podcast. The Record’s political editor, Magnus Gardham, sat five of the candidates round a table to answer questions sent in by the newspaper’s readers.

Interestingly, the Daily Record chose Tommy Sheridan as its fifth candidate, while The Scotsman chose the Greens’ David Doherty. Perhaps the choice reflects the demographics of the newspapers’ readerships, with the Record thinking that its readers will be more interested in what Tommy Sheridan has to say.

Who is right about who the most credible fifth candidate is? It is not easy to tell, particularly when some believe that the BNP may even come third.

Not to be outdone, The Herald has done its own podcast for the by-election, chaired by its political editor Brian Currie. They have opted to feature just the candidates of the four main parties.

Clearly, the candidates feel that engaging with the electorate online in this way is worthwhile. It’s interesting that the media outlets are so interested in pursuing relatively innovative ways to cover the by-election. There seems to be a lot of experimentation among Scottish media outlets as they work out how to survive the current choppy waters. The increasingly common use of blogging and podcasting by Scottish newspapers is certainly to be welcomed.

But it’s interesting that all of this innovative digital activity should surround a by-election taking place in east Glasgow. In a way, you could hardly pick a worse city in which to pursue this sort of strategy. Glasgow is firmly on the wrong side of the digital divide. A study by Ofcom conducted last year found that only 32% of homes in Glasgow had broadband, and that Glaswegians are significantly less likely to own a PC than the average Brit.

No doubt someone is paying attention to these virtual hustings. But it is more likely to be middle-class political geeks than the actual voters of north-east Glasgow.

2 comments

Anyone but the Tories?

17 October 2009 23:17

Categories: Current affairs, Edinburgh, General, Media, Newspapers, Politics, Scotland, Television, The Pod Delusion, University

This is the accompanying article / transcript to my contribution to this week’s edition of The Pod Delusion, a humorous lefty / skeptical podcast. You can listen to the full podcast below.

This year’s party conference season has now finished, and attention turns to the General Election that will held some time between now and June. What that really means is that everyone’s thoughts are turning towards the prospect of the Conservatives being in power.

Many people now seem to be treating a Conservative election win as more-or-less a foregone conclusion. This is despite the fact that they still have slightly underwhelming opinion poll ratings. The Conservatives are not exactly getting an enthusiastic reception. It’s just that the other parties are disliked even more.

Something that the Tories have going for them at the moment is the announcement a couple of weeks ago that The Sun will be endorsing them at the next General Election. Truth be told, I was surprised on the one hand that they hadn’t already announced it. On the other hand, I was surprised at how early they had announced it. After all, it gives them plenty of time to change their minds between now and the election.

The Sun tends to back a winner, even though it is probably more of a case of being a weather vane rather than any sinister string-pulling from Rupert Murdoch. A few people I have spoken to think that it’s out of order for The Sun to be advising its readers how to vote. Maybe so, but the freedom of the press is vital to our democracy and they should be allowed to put it in their paper if they wish.

Some people note that people who buy The Sun are probably not buying it for sober and authoritative political analysis. That is true. But I actually think the Conservatives are a perfect match for The Sun. David Cameron and George Osborne would look great on Page 3. They are, after all, a massive pair of tits.

Putting aside whether a tabloid endorsement is something for an aspiring government to be proud about, what should we make of a potential Conservative government? Some on the left contend that no matter how bad Labour are, the Conservatives will always be worse. I do not quite agree with that.

If you ask me, the one thing scarier than a potential Conservative victory is a potential Labour victory. After all, given the turmoil of the past few years, just imagine what Labour would think if they could get away with it all. They would probably literally think that they could get away with actual murder. The thing is that they probably would get away with a lot — more than the Conservatives would anyway.

It has become common for people to say that Labour and the Conservatives have become similar to each other as far as policy goes. I don’t really agree with that. They are quite similar, but with Labour you get bonus ID cards and biometric anal probes. All-in-all, I doubt that a Conservative government would automatically be worse than another Labour one.

The most disconcerting thing about the Tories is not that they seem particularly nasty, but that they seem pretty vacuous at the moment. It may be a cliché to say that most people don’t know what David Cameron stands for. But you do get the sense that their manifesto will resemble some backs of envelopes and cigarette packets stuck together with Sellotape.

During all the talk recently about televised leaders’ debates, David Cameron seems to be the more eager between him and Gordon Brown to appear. But you wonder quite what he will find to say. With the lack of policies, I can half imagine him responding every time he is asked a question by saying, “that’s what she said!” It will probably make about as much sense.

For a lot of people, the Tories are the enemy because they are posh. Cameron and Osborne are the notable posh figures in Westminster, though Boris Johnson also comes in for a fair bit of stick on this front.

Some Conservative politicians are indeed quite ludicrously posh. For some people, this prevents them from representing the voters of Britain adequately because they lack empathy with the man on the street. But for me, a politician’s background is irrelevant. What matters is their capability for the job.

I have to confess to having a bit of a soft spot for Boris Johnson. I need to watch what I say here. I have been told off before for having an opinion on Boris Johnson because I am not a Londoner, so in fairness it is none of my damn business.

But I did once have the opportunity to vote for Boris Johnson. That was when he attempted to become Rector of Edinburgh University when I was a student a few years ago. He was the early favourite, but an intensely negative campaign from the student politics establishment played heavily on his posh image. This ensured that Boris Johnson not only failed to win the election, but he actually came third out of four candidates.

I should point out that Boris was not my first choice in the election. My preferred option was the former Scotsman editor Magnus Linklater, who finished second.

So who did we get as Rector instead? A man called Mark Ballard. I know what you’re probably thinking: who on earth is Mark Ballard? At the time, he was a Green Member of the Scottish Parliament. However, the general population was not quite so enamoured of him as the student population was and he has since lost his seat in the Scottish Parliament.

I have actually met Mr Ballard a couple of times and I can certainly say that he is a very pleasant chap. But ultimately he is a bit of a nobody, certainly in comparison to somebody like Boris Johnson. I mean, at Edinburgh University we could have had London’s Mayor as our university’s figurehead. As it was, we got someone who was rather worthy, but rather anonymous and a bit dull.

I don’t suppose there is necessarily anything wrong with that. But the mantra of “anyone but the Tories” surely isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

3 comments

In praise of human politicians

12 September 2009 22:25

Categories: *, Current affairs, Media, Newspapers, Politics, Scotland, Sport

I see that The Scotsman has again been trying to wring another story out of a politician’s use of Twitter. This time it is Jo Swinson exposing her ignorance about football.

As she was overwhelmed by members of the Tartan Army at a railway station, Ms Swinson got out her BlackBerry, logged on to her Twitter site and wrote: “Have I missed something? What’s the football festivity? Can’t move at Queen Street station for folk in Scotland tops.”

Seven minutes later, Graham Barrie posted: “The Tartan Army v the Dutch Army tonight at Hampden Jo. You really need to get out more :) ”

Jeff and Mr Eugenides both have good takes on this. I have to agree with them. For some, football is a matter of life and death. The Scotsman‘s David Maddox calls the match “do-or-die”. But in truth, it isn’t much more than a slightly tedious playground game.

The Scotland–Netherlands tie wasn’t exactly in my diary, though it is true that I was quite aware of it thanks to my football-loving friends. My own take on the match, as published on Twitter, would probably have got me into more trouble. I wasn’t merely ignorant; I was aware, but sarcastic and dismissive:

Advice to football fans: Scotland won’t win the World Cup, so I wouldn’t concern yourself with it.

I find it difficult to get excited about football at the best of times. My enthusiasm for Scotland internationals is marginally above zilch. In my defence, I was rather put off by the fact that last month I was taken by a friend to the pub to watch what I was told would be a football match but turned out to be a disaster film. Strange.

Really, you could argue that the people who don’t think about football are making the right decision. All that worrying over whether Scotland gets knocked out in this round or that does seem to be a waste of energy. And I can well imagine Jo Swinson has plenty of other things to occupy her time with.

This comes just a few months after Patrick Harvie was at the centre of another Twitter row manufactured by David Maddox. His crime was to discreetly tweet at the dinner table, something which I think many people do.

I don’t get this obsession with politicians having to be identikit robots who all have to be up-to-date on the price of milk, whatever music is in the charts and some tedious sporting exploit. I have written about this phenomenon before, and my views haven’t changed.

The fact is that there are 646 MPs and 129 MSPs. If you took 775 random people, you can be guaranteed to find people who couldn’t give two hoots about football and couldn’t tell you how much a loaf of bread costs. You would certainly find plenty of people who didn’t feel the need to contrive odd opinions about the Arctic Monkeys. Yet we expect all this from our politicians. Why?

On the one hand people criticise politicians for being almost like robots if they are perceived to toe the party line, talk in soundbites or reel off reams of irrelevant statistics. But then if they reveal a bit of their personality by representing part of the variety of society by not fitting a media-constructed template of what a “normal person” is expected to be, they are blasted for being “out of touch”.

I can more easily admire Jo Swinson for her personal choice not to worry about football than any politician who feels the need to pretend they are interested when they are so clearly not. Indeed, Jeff’s comparison with Gordon Brown’s uneasy comments about Paul Gascoigne’s goal against Scotland in Euro 96 reveals that this is one of those issues where you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.

While you would expect parliamentarians to have a knowledge of certain things in order to do their job, there’s nothing wrong with them being human when it comes to their personal interests. In cases like this, it is those in the media who seem more out of touch.

2 comments

Where is our referendum on face-slapping?

9 September 2009 13:41

Categories: *, Current affairs, Politics, Scotland

Last week the SNP set out its legislative plan. The headline grabber was the long-promised independence referendum bill. Today I saw Caron’s post asking, “why bother with a referendum?” She has a good point. It is widely recognised that the result of any referendum would almost certainly reject the SNP’s favoured proposals.

“Ah, but!”, say proponents of a referendum. Opinion polls consistently suggest that around three quarters of people would like there to be a referendum on independence. This is supposedly a good enough reason to actually hold a referendum.

It strikes me as a bit daft though. Imagine the scene. You’re sitting on a park bench eating your lunch. A chap with a clipboard approaches you. He’s from a polling organisation. “The Monster Raving Loony Party,” he begins, “plans on giving everyone a slap on the face.” Your eyebrows raise. The prospect of the Monster Raving Loony Party being in a position to give everyone a slap in the face feels a bit distant. But the pollster continues: “Would you like a referendum on face-slapping to be held before this policy is pursued?” Yes, of course, you reply.

Of course people say they’d like there to be a referendum. If you asked people if they wanted a referendum on legislation about chewing gum wrappers, they would most likely say yes. In fact, I wonder what is going through the minds of the quarter of people who say they would not like a referendum. They probably can’t be bothered with the campaigning. Perhaps they dread the prospect of politicians hogging the box, or maybe they think their vote isn’t worth anything.

Nevertheless, in general, ask people if they would like a right, they will take it with both hands. The right to vote on Scotland’s constitutional future is appealing. But it is just one appealing thing out of an infinite number of appealing things that may be offered by a government. We have unlimited wants, but the government has limited means.

That is the essence of the argument put forward by those who would rather there wasn’t a referendum on independence. Opponents such as Alistair Darling say there are more important issues facing the voters, not least the economy. It would be wise to tackle them first before concerning ourselves with “distractions” like the independence debate.

I don’t quite agree with that perspective either. It is perfectly valid (though, in my view, incorrect) to say that economic and other woes may be fixed by Scotland becoming independent. In fact, I think it is quite dangerous to dismiss any analysis of the constitutional position as a “distraction”.

I am in favour of constitutional reform. I do not agree with the sort of extreme reforms that the SNP would like to make. But certainly I would favour some degree of fiscal autonomy. I would like the UK to adopt a federal structure. And I think there is a pressing need for reform of the voting system.

I do not support such reforms because I think it would be a bit of distracting fun. There is nothing particularly satisfying to me about the calculations the single transferable vote system would entail (though it might be another matter for some political geeks). No, the real reason I favour constitutional reform is because I believe it will fundamentally improve the governance of the country. To dismiss constitutional debates as “distracting” is a bit of an insult. The constitutional structure is fundamental.

The reason to oppose a referendum on independence is not because people don’t want a referendum. And it is certainly not because it is a distraction. The reason is simply that there is no appetite for independence.

Some people have a peculiar obsession with referenda. But it’s worth remembering that they are actually quite a recent addition to British democracy, and have only been used a handful of times. The UK’s first referendum was held in 1973. Since then, a further eight have been held. Only one of them was held across the UK. Only another two have been Scotland-wide.

The idea behind holding a referendum is to make bloody well sure that the major constitutional change which is proposed is actually favoured by the people of the country. So rather than having a mere parliamentary majority, you make sure there is a majority favour among the people too. If you like, a referendum seeks a second mandate to go ahead with the change.

You see where I’m going with this? There hasn’t even been a first mandate yet. Although the SNP forms the Scottish Government, it is a minority administration. A majority of MSPs oppose independence.

You cannot even convincingly argue that the 2007 election result demonstrated momentum towards MSPs that favour independence. Although the SNP made large gains, this was mostly at the expense of other parties that favour independence. The Greens had their representation cut by two thirds. The SSP were totally wiped off the map. These two parties saw their share of the vote cut more than any other parties. Meanwhile, the three main opposition parties saw stagnant levels of support — they dropped, but not by that much.

That is why I oppose the idea of holding a referendum on independence. There simply isn’t anything going for it. There is no groundswell of support for independence among the voters. And there certainly isn’t enough appetite for it within the Scottish Parliament.

Those in favour of a referendum cling on to the fact that most people would like there to be a referendum. But that in itself is pretty meaningless because, as I have said, people will always prefer to have a referendum on anything, even if it’s on getting a slap on the face.

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