Unions flexing their reformed muscles … but will it work against an intransigent government?
WHAT a year it’s been, from the musical chairs in Downing Street, to the reshaping of the SNP’s Westminster contingent, the tragedy of more refugee deaths in the English Channel, and union strife at levels not seen since the Winter of Discontent in 1979, when Margaret Thatcher launched war on the unions – branding them ‘the enemy within’.
In the first in this series of festive posts I’ll start with the industrial unrest that’s plaguing the NHS and ambulance services (not in Scotland), airports, schools and what used to be ‘our’ trains, buses and postal services.
The scale of this unrest is reminiscent of the 1980s, when Thatcher crushed the once-mighty NUM and Rupert Murdoch (through his mouthpiece Andrew ‘Brillo Pad’ Neil) saw off the powerful print unions at Wapping after a lengthy and exceptionally bitter dispute..
So, how have we come to this?
Brexit had a major part to play making Britain a laughing stock around the world as the Tories realised that people in European nations, as well as countries outside the EEC bubble, didn’t like them, or Britain, at all.
The UK’s departure from the bloc meant nothing to those within it, who were free to get on with their prosperous lives without being barracked by ministers who thought they still ruled the Commonwealth.
In the months and years before Brexit, I wrote many times about its potential effects, along the way interviewing politicians, business people and lawyers whose warnings were dismissed as ‘scaremongering’.
One company in the south-west of Scotland with a substantial European order book told me several times that exporting to the bloc had become so difficult that it was easier to export to Canada, New Zealand or Australia. The loss of the European market had left them seriously concerned about their operation in Scotland and the people they employed. I will revisit them soon for an update, although I do fear that the news won’t be good.
The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) in Dublin revealed in a study earlier this year that Brexit has had cut the potential value of goods exports to Europe by 16 per cent, while EU exports here represented a 20 per cent loss in potential sales.
Their study used a hybrid model combining UK and EU data, and assumed that had Brexit not happened, UK import and export levels with Europe would have mirrored the EU’s relatively stronger internal trade performance last year.
Desperate to continue some kind of trade with the bloc, the UK has imposed few post-Brexit restraints on EU imports, meaning European goods have continued to flow into the country.
However, exports to the EU are subject to extensive customs and other checks that increase costs and delays, which manufacturers – already working on low profit margins – cannot afford.
We might ask ‘will it get any better?’ but that would seem unlikely as long as we have a government populated by the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg – accused in 2018 of copying the style of Beano character Walter Brown – who still appears to be inhabiting a parallel universe somewhere in the 1800s.
More follows later… Pip pip.
Could Rishi Sunak take a leaf out of Francis Urquhart’s book?
I CAN barely look at newspapers or news programmes these days – full of politicians, their pals and unelected peers sneering as they trouser vast sums of money while the rest of the country counts the pennies and wait for gigantic energy bills to thud through their letter boxes.
Westminster is a never-ending carousel of corruption, and it seems to be getting worse.
The ineffectual Rishi Sunak, bolstered by his chums, treats SNP politicians with barely concealed contempt.
These are the MPs that we in Scotland returned with several mandates which – unfortunately – they have ignored until it is now too late.
Nicola Sturgeon’s ill-thought-out attempt to look as if she was doing something positive about independence is in tatters, and all this nonsense about using a general election as a de facto indyref is a complete non-starter.
I don’t know where we go from here when our democratic processes are being dismantled by a government we did not elect, but it’s bound to get worse before it gets any better.
To get away from it all the other night, I binge-watched the first series in the House of Cards Trilogy, where the ruthless Tory chief whip Francis Urquhart, played by the late, great Ian Richardson, sets his ducks in a row as he prepares for a run at No 10 – all the while denying that he’s interested in becoming PM.
To a constant refrain of, “I’m simply a back-room boy,” FU schemes, plots, manipulates and manoeuvres everyone around him, including young journalist Mattie Storin (who was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for her role), until he is the only real
choice for the top job.
Former Tory MP Michael Dobbs, who now sits in the Lords, wrote the trilogy in 1989 during the last days of the Thatcher reign and the book spawned the TV dramatisation, as well as a US version made by Netflix.
Although it is fiction, much of the story is more than believable and illustrates the truth of the ties between power-broking media moguls and top politicians.
I’m now waiting for the opportunity to re-watch the rest of the trilogy, only too aware that the real House of Cards is probably slightly more feral than Dobbs’s writings.
Pip pip.
Westminster circus is demolishing what’s left of MPs’ reputations
IF my CV showed a job I’d only been in for 44 days before being forced out, I’d be ashamed to show it and I’m fairly certain potential employers would have trashed it way before the interview stage.
But what does Liz Truss get?
A yearly allowance of £115,000 for a job she couldn’t manage for even a decent part of her probation period.
And lo and behold Boris Johnson, the previous PM – the least trustworthy and most duplicitous and sleekit ever to have graced the corrupt ‘corridors of power’ is preparing a comeback to rival that of Lazarus.
Behind the scenes though, sensible Tories, realising that Jane and Joe Public would never stand for it, have tried to avoid the need for a massive damage limitation exercise by setting the bar for anyone entering the new leadership contest at 100 votes, in the hope that the divisive former PM will not be able to garner enough.
So, the House of Cards is beginning to collapse, but it has to fall completely and spectacularly.
Why should the new PM be decided by 350-odd Tory MPs? The last incumbent was at least chosen by 172,000 people – granted they were members of the Conservative Party – but what of the wider population?
Ask why the voting population of the UK should be denied a say and the ‘experts’ come back and say we live in a ‘parliamentary democracy’ – where representatives are elected to parliament to make the laws and decisions for the country – and that cannot be changed.
Why not, when the previous incumbent trashed the reputations of many politicians while he and his cabinet helped line their friends’ pockets?
After all, they work for us, not the other way round.
As Dr Andrew Corbett, from the Defence Studies Department at King’s College, London, wrote: “Since Prime Minister Boris Johnson was voted into power, his Government has threatened parliamentary sovereignty, the independence of the judiciary, the independence of the BBC, the individual right to trial by jury and has undermined public confidence in all institutions of governance to an extent never seen before.”
You can’t really argue with that can you?
Nobody in the Tory Party wants a general election, that is patently obvious given the slim chance of them being returned to government.
But they should remember that the people are sovereign and that politicians are only in Westminster for as long as the people vote to keep them there.
Quite simply the next PM (and governing party) should be decided in a general election – it’s that simple.
That’s enough for a Friday night – the No 10 picture was sent to me via LinkedIn by a colleague and it was too good not to use.
Pip pip.
We gotta get out of this place … if it’s the last thing we ever do
IT seems there’s not a day passes but the news gets worse, and our politicians are making it that way.
Successive Tory prime ministers are doing nothing to improve this Disunited Kingdom – Major was the Grey Man, Cameron was hopeless, May was hapless, Johnson was a Billy Bunter figure full of his own self-importance, a penchant for gaffes, a constant smirk on a face you’d never tire of slapping, and an inveterate liar.
And now of curse we have Liz Truss.
Sandwiched between them all are Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, but their tenure was almost as bad as that of the Tories (some might say worse).
But Johnson is also as crooked a politician as I’ve ever seen.
What he has left in his wake has made UK even more of a global laughing stock than it was. Whereas Johnson tried to be sleekit
about actions that were of benefit to his City pals, including those from his chancellor Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng are quite open about it.
The largesse delivered by Kwarteng is destined only to be of benefit to the wealthy and super-rich.
I find myself wondering if either of them knows what a food bank is, and that more and more working people are being forced to use them.
It’s unthinkable that they have scrapped the limit on bankers’ bonuses (bear in mind the financial crash of 2008) and no doubt we’ll be seeing them regularly quaffing bottles of Champagne as they celebrate their seven-figure pay days.
A friend of mine who has the good sense to be a resident of another European country, puts it thus: “Assume you have traded all your pounds for groats, Cadbury creme eggs, camels or even nigerian nairas.
“Kwasimodo Kwartermaster in charge of the economy is like letting an evil devilchild humpback ring the church bells at Christmas.
“Heard latest Tory economic strategy is they exhumed Harold Macmillan and found the notes in his back pocket: observe Keynesian economics (not Trussonomics), join the EEC, support a NHS, some nationalised industries and strong trade unions.
“Oh wait a f*%#ing minute, we just undid all that!”
Well said Mike.
Cost of living crisis a ‘looming catastrophe’ as beanz meanz parting with £1 a tin
It’s been a while, but I’ve been completely scunnered by the worsening state of the UK as a handful of the population decides on their replacement for what is beyond a doubt the worst prime minister in living memory.
However, I don’t intend to dwell on my contempt for the Tories. They will – eventually – get what they deserve.
I will say I was disappointed, disgusted even, with Ian Blackford the other day drooling in an interview about how he loves the ‘cut and thrust’ of Westminster – this coming from someone who has told me umpteen times how he and the other SNP MPs were desperate to get out of “that place”. In response I told him that the SNP MPs had become too settled in the Commons, which he fervently denied. Just thought I’d mention that.
Over the past few years I’ve written a fair bit about a New Scot I’ve had a fair amount of contact with – Mark Frankland, who runs the First Base Food Bank in Dumfries, as well as being a published author.
He told me earlier this week that the cost of living crisis and social emergency is set to worsen as supermarkets ration the amount of groceries food projects can buy or are given in donations, and he’s urging Holyrood to step up to the plate.
The coming winter is a “looming catastrophe”, unlike anything we have seen “since Hitler was strutting his stuff”, he says.
And in an open letter to the Scottish Government he urged them to meet the challenge in the same way as they did in March 2020, “when the pandemic threatened to tear apart the social fabric much like it is doing in China right now”.
Frankland says the Scottish Government made quick and decisive decisions then, like making funds available for front line charities to meet the needs of self-isolating communities, and made the cash available quickly with the minimum of red tape.
“And it worked … better than anyone could possibly have imagined,” he says. “All over Scotland, new community projects joined with existing projects like First Base and by hook or by crook, the vulnerable were looked after.
“We all proved it could be done and it was done. It was done in double quick time and it was done unbelievably well. And it was done by an army of volunteers.
“You guys provided the funding and the community did the rest.”
Frankland says that in his “60+ years” he has witnessed two huge “£1 a … moments” – when he was 18 during the 1979 winter of discontent when petrol increased to £1 a gallon.
“Eighteen years later, an older and still broke me got to know how it felt to pay £1 a litre for the first time. This summer I had my third ‘pound a …’ moment.
“I was online in Tesco Groceries ordering the weekly First Base delivery and there it was right there on the screen. As bold as brass. Heinz Baked Beans. Not 440g any more. Only 415g now. £1 a tin.
“Quite a moment. And it seemed clear neither Heinz nor Tesco were in any mood to water it down. I mean they could have bottled it and gone for 99p. But no. They clearly were intent on sending a message.”
Frankland says that by autumn, anyone relying on Universal Credit with the average cost of domestic power forecasts to reach £70 a week will be left with £3 to feed, clothe and clean themselves.
He says projects such as Fareshare, which helps supply food banks, will suffer as supermarkets ration what charities can buy and increase sales of reduced “yellow ticket” items, for which people have started queuing up every night.
But he says the network of volunteers that exploded into life early in the pandemic is still there.
“We all know how to deal with a huge crisis. We proved we could do it in 2020. We can do it again.
“As a legacy of the pandemic, every council in Scotland now has a relationship with the community groups who stepped up when everything was grinding to a halt … provided us with the funds we needed in the pandemic. You can do it again.”
In a plea to the Scottish Government, he adds: “And you guys? Well, you need to do exactly the same job you did in 2020. You need to make sure no emergency food project ever has to turn people away due to a lack of food.
“It didn’t happen when 2000 people a day were dying of Covid in the darkest days of 2020.
It doesn’t need to happen in the darkest days of the coming winter. You have two months to … be ready for the worst.
“And when the tsunami hits, you can be ready to press the button and the community will do the rest. Please don’t blow it.”
You can read more of Mark’s blog here: http://marksimonfrankland.blogspot.com/
Still working, but …
Have you noticed there are never enough hours in the day?
I’m sure I could draw up a long list of things I could have done with them, but then again I would probably have been distracted by something – my latest new guitar perhaps; the urge to drive for a couple of hundred miles for a night away and a long cool beer in a strange pub; or taking to the hills, maybe bagging another couple of Munros.
No worry – I’ll get round to all those things when I have time and a half-decent weather forecast.
As it was we did have a very pleasant holiday in the Canaries – Fuerteventura to be precise – just relaxing, walking around the island’s beaches and towns, eating nice food, chatting with some very pleasant people and sampling the odd beer or bottle of wine.
It was our first holiday in a long time – thanks to Covid – and it gave me the opportunity to look at Britain and consider what people thought about what is happening here.
Of course when you arrive on a UK flight you are automatically labelled a Brit, until you tell people you are actually a Scot. Then, as conversation develops with the odd remark about Brexit, they can’t understand why we are no longer in the EU when we voted to remain.
Then you name the culprit, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, our scheming, conniving, lying and mendacious prime minister
who has turned these isles into a world laughing stock. He is the only man who is more Trumpian than The Donald himself.
It’s not only Johnson of course, but the overprivileged and loathsome Eton and Oxford educated coterie that inhabit the corridors of power with him.
Tempting though it is, I’m not going to waste my words with a diatribe against such enemies of the state. Their time will come, sooner rather than later.
But shortly after returning from holiday I met and spent some time with a sibling I never knew I had – a sister who has made her life in Canada. Shock doesn’t begin to express my initial reaction, but we spent a very pleasant day discussing familial affairs – quite literally as it turned out.
For the past few of days I have thought of little else. But there is more – a cousin (?) – of mine who lives down under and who has been engaged in some very impressive research into our family history, which is quite stunning.
One day when I’ve made sense of it all, I might put fingers to keyboard, but I’m still trying to digest it all and I’m in need of a nightcap.
Until the next time – pip pip.
Never enough time
It’s been a while yes, but there’s been a lot going on. I’ve started a new job and just haven’t had enough time to update the blog. This is just a holding piece until I improve my time management skills.
A parting thought though, I am not surprised at the local election results or Boris Johnson clinging on desperately as he tries to salvage his political future.
Back soon!
Return of The House of Cards?
A BROKEN UK, a broken, blatantly corrupt and inept government lurching from one crisis to another as their leader clings on to power by his fingernails as his aides form a not-so-orderly queue to flee Downing Street.
You really couldn’t make it up – or could you?
It got me thinking about how the original Spitting Image caused something of a stir and much merriment when it lampooned the leading politicians of the day – and before that the success of Yes Minister and its successor Yes Prime Minister.
The original saw James Hacker, played by Paul Eddington, propelled through the corridors of power to the post of Cabinet Minister for the Department of Administration, where his overwhelming desire to reform it was frustrated by his civil servants Bernard Wooley (the late Derek Fowlds) and his boss Sir Humphrey Appleby (Sir Nigel Hawthorne).
Despite them, Hacker found himself thrust even further along those corridors to No 10 Downing Street in 1986 in Yes Prime Minister – which I thought was even better than the original.
It was a hilarious series which is still one of my favourites, and while very much a comedy it did shine a light into the secretive (and influential) workings of the civil service.
Fast-forward a few years and an altogether different drama, the magnificent House of Cards and its sequels, To Play the King and The Final Cut, from the Michael Dobbs novel. 
In this we were introduced to the Tories’ chief whip Francis Urquhart (note his initials FU), brilliantly played by the late Ian Richardson – a Machiavellian character whose darkly-delivered catchphrase “You might think that; I couldn’t possibly comment” even went on to be used in the House of Commons.
His asides, direct to the audience, were masterful and gave viewers an insight into the workings of his character’s ruthless mind.
The mini-series premiered against the backdrop of Margaret Thatcher’s final weeks, and it took little imagination to think that similar events were happening behind the scenes at Westminster as she was dumped as PM and John Major installed.
In the drama, Urquhart sets out to destroy everyone in his path to No 10’s top job after he is passed over for a Cabinet post when his candidate for PM wins the job.
There’s a lot more to it, but suffice to say it remains as pertinent today as it did more than 20 years ago.
These two mini-series were followed by The Thick of It, which premiered in 2005 and went on to run for four brilliant seasons, taking us through the everyday lives of incompetent politicians being guided by advisers, including Malcolm Tucker – played by the superb Peter Capaldi.
I have known political party media advisers who tried (unsuccessfully) to emulate Tucker, constantly butting into conversations where their presence wasn’t required, raising their voices, punctuating their sentences with swearwords and castigating everyone around them. It did them no good whatsoever.
Which brings me back to the broken UK and the desperate scrambling of Boris Johnson trying to save his own skin (because he cares about nobody else).
His latest Cabinet mini-shuffle sees Jacob Rees-Mogg – yes, the one who lives in another century – today ends his tenure as Leader of the Commons and is given a new post as minister for Brexit opportunities and responsibility for government efficiency in the Cabinet Office.
Former chief whip Mark Spencer becomes Lord President and replaces Rees-Mogg as Commons leader, while Chris Heaton-Harris leaves the Foreign Office to take up Spencer’s old job and former deputy chief whip Stuart Andrew becomes a housing minister – all of which is reminiscent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
I’m laughing at the pathetic sight of them (and other expected later) wandering around, befuddled – not knowing exactly where they’re going or what their actual jobs will be, other than to shore up what remaining support their PM has.
Anybody sense a new parliamentary comedy coming on?
A walk in Helix Park
The Kelpies
SO we’re nearing the end of January and I must say it’s been an interesting start to the year – for me in any case – but more of that another.
To escape the constant barrage of revelations from Westminster, I took the opportunity of a decent spell of weekend weather to head up to the Helix in Falkirk, a very pleasant walk along the canal and an opportunity to see the Kelpies close up (again).
They never fail to delight me – I know simple things, etc – but among the hundreds of people who had decided to do the same thing, there was a huge number who were accompanied by their dogs.
I was brought up around dogs and I’ve had them at various points through my life, so it gave me a great deal of enjoyment to wander through the park happily speaking to and petting any of the animals that approached me.
Unsurprisingly, many of the owners confessed their pets were Covid dogs, bought at various stages of lockdown when families were confined to their homes. I know several of my neighbours did likewise, but I wonder what will happen to all these dogs when (and if) people start physically returning to their offices and other places of work.
We have all heard the Dogs Trust phrase that “A dog is for life, not just for Christmas” but should it now be altered to “… for life, not just for Covid”?
I don’t mean that in a flippant sense, but I fear that when the pandemic eventually passes, we’ll see countless canines being dropped off at animal charities and dog homes as their owners return to the dreaded commute.