It is rude to call a politician a liar apparently. So I will take refuge instead in the oft-used phrase "economical with the truth".
Alex Salmond is "eck'onomical with the truth" on a regular basis.
If he doesn't know the answer to a question at the weekly First Minister's Questions session in the Scottish Parliament, he pulls something out of the air and bellows his made-up answer with such arrogant certainty, few argue with him.
A notable exception is my good friend Kez Dugdale whose Salmond Fisking section on her blog regularly exposes Mr Salmond's disdain for facts.
He was at it again today, when Jack McConnell asked him why the SNP minority government had pulled the plug on the national volunteering scheme ProjectScotland.
Because, boomed the rotund Mr Salmond, a volunteer placement costs £8,500 a year, the direct inference being the scheme is not value for money and deserved to be stripped of government support.
But he was being "eck'onomical with the truth".
A volunteer placement with Project Scotland costs £4,160 a year. Half the cost goes towards the young person's weekly allowance of £55 a week and his or her travel, the other half pays for training and makes a contribution to the running costs of Project Scotland.
Even if the First Minister had run his stubby fingers over a calculator, or got one of his very special advisers to do it for him, and divided the government's total investment since 2005 of around £16.5 million by the number of volunteers - 2,900 - the cost per head is still only £5,689.
Not £8,500.
Why should it matter if the First Minister sometimes gets it wrong?
It matters, because as the recent expenses scandal at Westminster shows, once our elected representatives start being eck'onomical with the truth, whether it is about their mortgage interest payments, or the life chances of young Scots, then democracy starts to crumble.
So Mr Salmond, next time you don't know the answer to a question at FMQs, or feel tempted to make something up, either because you didn't spend enough time preparing for the session or want to make a cheap political point...remember this.
Every time you are eck'onomical with the truth in the parliament chamber you are spitting in the face of democracy and being disrespectful to every Scot who looks to the Scottish Parliament to manage the country's affairs with integrity.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
It makes me emotional too
I have just watched Tony Benn, with tears in his eyes, tell a News 24 presenter that he is feeling very emotional about the expenses scandal that is rocking Westminster.
Let me be straight. I don't like Tony Benn, never have. I find his patrician mix of naivety, privilege and loony left politics annoying and irrelevant.
But when he says that Labour MPs should know in their heart when something is wrong, then I have to agree with him.
I don't care a toss if posh Tory MPs claim for their moats to be cleaned, their tennis courts maintained or, in the case of David Cameron, for the interest payments on his six-figure mortgage.
I expect Tories to milk the system.
Nor am I surprised that Alex Salmond claimed hundreds of pounds for food - presumably without receipts - during the summer recess. What did he spend the money on? Pies? Diet coke? Horses?
The First Minister of Scotland also claims a full Westminster salary, rather than a full Holyrood one, not because he spends most of his working life in London - he doesn't - but presumably because the Westminster salary is about £7000 a year more.
A cynical, greedy approach to the use of public money? I leave you to judge.
However I do care, more than I wish I did, about what Labour MPs do.
What were they thinking about when they claimed for bath plugs, flat screen TVs and silk cushions?
What were they thinking about when they claimed for their weekly shopping at Tesco, or pocketed tens of thousands of pounds when they sold the house we paid for?
What were they thinking about when they filled in a form saying their real home was in London, and not their family home a few hundreds miles away. The home where their children lived.
I know what they weren't thinking about.
There were clearly not thinking about the values of the Labour Party, or the people they swore to serve as MPs.
And they clearly weren't thinking about the hundreds of thousands of people who have suddenly found themselves below the poverty line because of the recession.
So for all those Labour MPs who have brought shame on themselves and shame on the party they serve, this is what you should have been thinking about as you filled in your claim form.
There are currently 2.1 million people unemployed in the UK.
That figure will continue to rise.
Unemployment benefit is £60.50 a week.
£60.50 a week to cover food, utility bills, clothes, transport, leisure activities, emergencies.
Think about it.
Now hang your head in shame.
Let me be straight. I don't like Tony Benn, never have. I find his patrician mix of naivety, privilege and loony left politics annoying and irrelevant.
But when he says that Labour MPs should know in their heart when something is wrong, then I have to agree with him.
I don't care a toss if posh Tory MPs claim for their moats to be cleaned, their tennis courts maintained or, in the case of David Cameron, for the interest payments on his six-figure mortgage.
I expect Tories to milk the system.
Nor am I surprised that Alex Salmond claimed hundreds of pounds for food - presumably without receipts - during the summer recess. What did he spend the money on? Pies? Diet coke? Horses?
The First Minister of Scotland also claims a full Westminster salary, rather than a full Holyrood one, not because he spends most of his working life in London - he doesn't - but presumably because the Westminster salary is about £7000 a year more.
A cynical, greedy approach to the use of public money? I leave you to judge.
However I do care, more than I wish I did, about what Labour MPs do.
What were they thinking about when they claimed for bath plugs, flat screen TVs and silk cushions?
What were they thinking about when they claimed for their weekly shopping at Tesco, or pocketed tens of thousands of pounds when they sold the house we paid for?
What were they thinking about when they filled in a form saying their real home was in London, and not their family home a few hundreds miles away. The home where their children lived.
I know what they weren't thinking about.
There were clearly not thinking about the values of the Labour Party, or the people they swore to serve as MPs.
And they clearly weren't thinking about the hundreds of thousands of people who have suddenly found themselves below the poverty line because of the recession.
So for all those Labour MPs who have brought shame on themselves and shame on the party they serve, this is what you should have been thinking about as you filled in your claim form.
There are currently 2.1 million people unemployed in the UK.
That figure will continue to rise.
Unemployment benefit is £60.50 a week.
£60.50 a week to cover food, utility bills, clothes, transport, leisure activities, emergencies.
Think about it.
Now hang your head in shame.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Change your life
When I met my husband, he had two shelves full of feminist political theory. I had a battered copy of the Women's Room by Marilyn French.
She has just died, aged 79. If you haven't read her classic novel, beg, borrow or steal a copy. It will, as the blurb said at the time, "change your life".
If you have, do what I am about to do and read it again.
She has just died, aged 79. If you haven't read her classic novel, beg, borrow or steal a copy. It will, as the blurb said at the time, "change your life".
If you have, do what I am about to do and read it again.
Monday, May 4, 2009
No smoking success
Wednesday is the tenth anniversary of devolution. The biggest achievement of the first decade? The ban on smoking in public places of course.
Lives have been saved, even more lives WILL be saved and I can take my four-year-old grandson to my local pub for a plate of fish and chips without worrying he will choke on second hand smoke while tucking into his haddock.
There are some who argue that it would have happened without devolution, but imagine just for a moment if a UK government had tried to enforce a ban in Scotland...
For more on ten years of devolution read Jack McConnell's article in The Daily Record
Lives have been saved, even more lives WILL be saved and I can take my four-year-old grandson to my local pub for a plate of fish and chips without worrying he will choke on second hand smoke while tucking into his haddock.
There are some who argue that it would have happened without devolution, but imagine just for a moment if a UK government had tried to enforce a ban in Scotland...
For more on ten years of devolution read Jack McConnell's article in The Daily Record
Thanks Margaret
So it was thirty years ago today when Margaret Thatcher came to power. Little did we know then that that underneath that brittle blonde perm and lower middle class uniform of navy blue polyester lurked the midwife of today's economic maelstrom.
My good friend David Torrance writes in today's Times of Thatcher's "bold vision", much of which he asserts was "good" for Scotland.
Mmm...I have a very high opinion of David's talent as a political writer, but I am afraid we will have to disagree on Margaret's munificence to us Celts, indeed to anyone who did not share her narrow, illiberal, post-war, greed is good view of society. Damn, I forgot, there is no such thing...
The basic tenet of Thatcherism was that the market was good, government bad.
Loudmouths in red braces were lionised, coal miners thrown on the scrap heap.
Large swathes of the UK were sacrificed on the altar of monetarism and young men were slaughtered in the Falklands - a war that was considerably more pointless than Iraq.
Her legacy is not council house sales but the near collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS. Thanks Margaret.
My good friend David Torrance writes in today's Times of Thatcher's "bold vision", much of which he asserts was "good" for Scotland.
Mmm...I have a very high opinion of David's talent as a political writer, but I am afraid we will have to disagree on Margaret's munificence to us Celts, indeed to anyone who did not share her narrow, illiberal, post-war, greed is good view of society. Damn, I forgot, there is no such thing...
The basic tenet of Thatcherism was that the market was good, government bad.
Loudmouths in red braces were lionised, coal miners thrown on the scrap heap.
Large swathes of the UK were sacrificed on the altar of monetarism and young men were slaughtered in the Falklands - a war that was considerably more pointless than Iraq.
Her legacy is not council house sales but the near collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS. Thanks Margaret.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Not a man. Cantona.
What can I say.
Ken Loach.
Eric Cantona.
Everyone needs a hero.
http://www.lookingforericmovie.co.uk/
Ken Loach.
Eric Cantona.
Everyone needs a hero.
http://www.lookingforericmovie.co.uk/
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Spinning out of control
This article by me was published in the Scotsman today, but it is classed as "premium content" on their site, so you have to pay to read it. It is free here!
The hapless Damien McBride is not unique in his machismo approach to government communications.
On the thirtieth anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s first election victory it is worth pausing for a moment to remember her irascible press officer Bernard Ingham. He delighted in briefing against senior cabinet ministers with a Yorkshire bluntness that makes McBride seem almost likeable.
Another of Gordon Brown’s press officers – Charlie Whelan – once famously briefed the media about the government’s policy on the euro from a pub, drink in hand.
During my spell as chief press officer for Scotland’s longest serving First Minister, Jack McConnell, I occasionally bumped up against bristling young boys from London who thought that the best way to get the government’s message across was to shout loudly, while boasting of their prowess at ball games and their ability to drink copious amounts of lager.
Not for them, or it seems Mr McBride, the more effective but far less exciting, and decidedly more gentle pursuits of building trusted relationships with journalists, developing stakeholder engagement and using digital communications to speak directly to the electorate.
Old fashioned spin doctors – whether civil servants as Ingham was, or special advisers as McBride became – live, and die by the whispered briefing, bullying texts and midnight phone calls.
Their idea of a good day at work is if they have screamed abuse down the phone at a hapless hack – or better still his editor – for having the temerity to write something with which they disagree.
The most depressing aspect of the whole sorry saga is not that McBride existed, but that the Prime Minister appeared to believe – until last weekend - that this old-fashioned approach to communications still works. He was wrong.
As people ditch hard copies of their newspaper in favour of the online version, and Facebook becomes more popular than the pub, then the traditional role of the political press officer must change too.
One only has to look at the success of President Obama’s campaign to see how it can be done. His communications team used an irresistible mix of the old and the new - from town hall meetings to social networking - to build a national movement.
When one of his team stepped out of line, in an interview to this newspaper incidentally, and described Obama’s opponent as a “monster” he did not hesitate to sack her.
And he did not use his blog to smear Cindy McCain, instead he set out his policies for economic recovery and social renewal.
Obama knew that if he was to win the confidence of at least 50 per cent of American voters, he had to show that he had the personality and crucially, the policies and ideas, to change their lives for the better.
It is an approach that he continues to employ in the White House. His government engages with the American public in a mature, responsible manner, explaining the reasons behind decisions and in the words of President Obama being “ honest about the pitfalls that may still lie ahead”.
As unemployment soars and old certainties wither, the British public deserve the same respect from its political leaders.
With no more than a year to go before to the next election if Labour wants to succeed again, it must set out its policies for national renewal, policies that are shaped by the values the party was build on – fairness, tolerance and respect.
Attack opposition parties by all means – but not their family members. People want to know whether George Osborne is fit to run the economy, not what he did at university.
The one thing that the Prime Minister did get right was the need for the Labour Party to use the web effectively to get its message – and policies – across.
Where he went wrong was to hand over responsibility for this crucial campaigning tool to an old-fashioned spin doctor and his sidekick Derek Draper, a disgraced former lobbyist, who has admitted he knows very little about digital communications.
He clearly knows even less about winning the confidence of voters.
We all enjoy a good gossip – I admit relishing the scurrilous rumours about Tory ministers that swirled around political hot-house in the run-up to the 1997 election.
But no-one in the Labour Party thought for one moment that imagined, or even real, scandals would win that campaign. It had to be fought – and won - on solid policies and values.
Blogs and Twitter may have replaced letters to the editor and campaign leaflets, but the same principles apply.
People vote for politicians they believe can run the country with professionalism and integrity – end of story.
The hapless Damien McBride is not unique in his machismo approach to government communications.
On the thirtieth anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s first election victory it is worth pausing for a moment to remember her irascible press officer Bernard Ingham. He delighted in briefing against senior cabinet ministers with a Yorkshire bluntness that makes McBride seem almost likeable.
Another of Gordon Brown’s press officers – Charlie Whelan – once famously briefed the media about the government’s policy on the euro from a pub, drink in hand.
During my spell as chief press officer for Scotland’s longest serving First Minister, Jack McConnell, I occasionally bumped up against bristling young boys from London who thought that the best way to get the government’s message across was to shout loudly, while boasting of their prowess at ball games and their ability to drink copious amounts of lager.
Not for them, or it seems Mr McBride, the more effective but far less exciting, and decidedly more gentle pursuits of building trusted relationships with journalists, developing stakeholder engagement and using digital communications to speak directly to the electorate.
Old fashioned spin doctors – whether civil servants as Ingham was, or special advisers as McBride became – live, and die by the whispered briefing, bullying texts and midnight phone calls.
Their idea of a good day at work is if they have screamed abuse down the phone at a hapless hack – or better still his editor – for having the temerity to write something with which they disagree.
The most depressing aspect of the whole sorry saga is not that McBride existed, but that the Prime Minister appeared to believe – until last weekend - that this old-fashioned approach to communications still works. He was wrong.
As people ditch hard copies of their newspaper in favour of the online version, and Facebook becomes more popular than the pub, then the traditional role of the political press officer must change too.
One only has to look at the success of President Obama’s campaign to see how it can be done. His communications team used an irresistible mix of the old and the new - from town hall meetings to social networking - to build a national movement.
When one of his team stepped out of line, in an interview to this newspaper incidentally, and described Obama’s opponent as a “monster” he did not hesitate to sack her.
And he did not use his blog to smear Cindy McCain, instead he set out his policies for economic recovery and social renewal.
Obama knew that if he was to win the confidence of at least 50 per cent of American voters, he had to show that he had the personality and crucially, the policies and ideas, to change their lives for the better.
It is an approach that he continues to employ in the White House. His government engages with the American public in a mature, responsible manner, explaining the reasons behind decisions and in the words of President Obama being “ honest about the pitfalls that may still lie ahead”.
As unemployment soars and old certainties wither, the British public deserve the same respect from its political leaders.
With no more than a year to go before to the next election if Labour wants to succeed again, it must set out its policies for national renewal, policies that are shaped by the values the party was build on – fairness, tolerance and respect.
Attack opposition parties by all means – but not their family members. People want to know whether George Osborne is fit to run the economy, not what he did at university.
The one thing that the Prime Minister did get right was the need for the Labour Party to use the web effectively to get its message – and policies – across.
Where he went wrong was to hand over responsibility for this crucial campaigning tool to an old-fashioned spin doctor and his sidekick Derek Draper, a disgraced former lobbyist, who has admitted he knows very little about digital communications.
He clearly knows even less about winning the confidence of voters.
We all enjoy a good gossip – I admit relishing the scurrilous rumours about Tory ministers that swirled around political hot-house in the run-up to the 1997 election.
But no-one in the Labour Party thought for one moment that imagined, or even real, scandals would win that campaign. It had to be fought – and won - on solid policies and values.
Blogs and Twitter may have replaced letters to the editor and campaign leaflets, but the same principles apply.
People vote for politicians they believe can run the country with professionalism and integrity – end of story.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
