I am becoming Victor Meldrew ...

Over and over again I find myself saying "I don't believe it".

I was amazed by the lack of self-awareness shown by Margaret Curran when she said

has indulged in the most blatant exercise of cynical politics that I have ever witnessed

and she wasn't talking about herself!

I choked on my coffee when Hain said something like

Anyone who knows me knows that I am honest

anyone who has to say that has a reputation problem, methinks.

I laughed a little when Ewan Aitken blogged:

Princes Street. This iconic Edinburgh Street, home not just of shopping but the Gardens, Hogmanay and much more needs a radical face lift but that will take vision, leadership and political will. It also needs real and deep consultation with all of Edinburgh. I and my colleagues have begun to formulate some ideas about what we think might be possible which we will expand on soon

this from the party responsible for the mess that Edinburgh is in today - reserves squandered, staff morale at rock bottom, and the city's assets devalued by decades of mismanagement. Now they're talking about consulting the people in Scotland's capital on a vague plan to restore one street which is about to be scarred by trams. Perhaps if Labour had listened to the voices that were being raised even without formal consultation while they in power in Edinburgh the city wouldn't be in such a mess.

The hob-nob, the chocolate digestive and the Jaffa Cake are all taken by Scotland's smallest wind-farm though. Wendy Alexander on The Politics Show today the transcript isn't up yet, so you'll have to trust me -

the poor, the weak, the dispossessed being left behind.

You would have thought that ten years of Labour government would have sorted that out, eh? Apparently not - and she thinks that's the fault of the new SNP government.

All political parties have had difficulties

she was referring to her 'funding difficulties' and alleging that all political parties have had difficulties this year. Simply not true. It's Labour, buried up to the eyebrows in manure of their own making, their contempt for the law and common decency allied to their lack of distinction between right and wrong indicates a political sociopathy not present in any other party. It's clear from the sheer number of revelations about Labour members that the corruption is systemic within that party.

the big issue is for me to be in Parliament

love the vanity, but it's not quite true, is it? Wendy Alexander is neither indispensable nor one of the great politicians of her generation. She could be replaced easily - I recommend Helen Eadie.

I am confident I will be exonerated of any wrongdoing

That's simply a bizarre statement from a woman who has already admitted to breaking the law. For the sake of Scotland and of Scottish politics, I hope that the wrongdoers are not exonerated.

The moment I was aware a mistake was made I handed it to the Electoral Commission

That's not true either, the Electoral Commission came asking when it was flagged up to them.

I was responsible of no wrongdoing

I forgive her poor command of the language - I'm very forgiving - but this is the "big boy did it and ran away" defence. For the sake of all that is good and righteous - having someone this poor leading the major opposition party in Parliament is embarrassing for Scotland. She has to go.

Just in case anyone is thinking that the paucity of ability on her part only applies to her getting caught breaking the law, she also released an opinion today that the Scottish Government is giving away too much power to councils

"I have no doubt that Labour councillors, indeed Labour councils, have spent their life looking after the homeless, women's aid, all of these poor, weak, vulnerable groups that we came into politics for," she said.
"But I frankly can't have the same confidence that a Conservative-controlled council, or perhaps even an SNP-controlled council or an independent council will, for example, meet our obligation to women suffering domestic violence."

Sneeringly condescending to be sure, a complete lack of grace and a petty tribalism. Far, far worse, though, is the blinkered view of Scotland that implies that the statist solution is always the best because people can't take care of themselves. With opinions like that holding us back for 50 years it's little wonder that Scotland has been struggling economically and socially.

Thank goodness for an SNP Government.

Accidental Criminals

Peter Hain MP has joined the ranks of Labour politicians who broke the law but "didn't mean it, guv", and I can see why - I often overlook the odd hundred grand in my bank account and I'm sure you do too.

That's how we can be sure that Wendy Alexander never did anything wrong - in spite of the latest revelations that she and her team knew she was breaking the law and invented a cover story to try to save her.

We await the ponderous opinion of the Electoral Commission. In the meantime, the police have said that they will not begin their investigation until the Electoral Commission has completed theirs.

A swift consideration of the facts with my unbiased and completely unjaundiced eye leads me to some fascinating conclusions:

1. Wendy Alexander and her team broke the law and have admitted as much.
2. They acted in concert throughout, so all are equally at fault.
3. It is claimed that the criminal acts were not intentional - making them accidental criminals.
4. They sought to cover up a crime and mislead investigators. That would be attempting to pervert the course of justice, wouldn't it?

Having discoursed with some fine legal minds over the past few days, I'm drawn to ask some other questions -

1. Can the constabulary decide to defer an investigation and wait upon another body's deliberations before they begin? It is the duty of a police officer to investigate crime and bring the criminals to justice "with all due speed". I appreciate that the police are in a difficult position, electoral law not being something which they have to deal with in the normal course of their duties, their understandable reluctance to enter the political sphere, and a desire to avoid cutting across another investigation. Having had the crime reported to them, though, do they have a right to wait before investigating?

2. Surely the Electoral Commission should have held off on its own investigation until the police investigation had been completed? It has no powers to prosecute and cannot conduct criminal investigations. By continuing to fool around with the evidence that could be needed by the police for a criminal investigation it may be hampering that investigation, evidence could be corrupted or destroyed, witnesses will be reheating old evidence by the time the police are asking questions, and the Electoral Commission has no power to seize or compel evidence in the way the police do (computers to check the truth about emails, for example).

3. What other walk of life has a buffer like the Electoral Commission that would protect them from a police investigation? There have been crimes committed and the police should be investigating. Does the involvement of the Commission, then, amount to obstructing the police in the course of their duties.

4. Given that the Electoral Commission have made a mess of election guidance in Scotland in the past, are they really the organisation to be investigating anything? Doubly so given the atrocious record of the Electoral Commission in court cases.

5. Is it fair to drag the investigation out in this way? Surely the accused have the right to their day in court "with all due speed"?

6. Those who were conspiring to pervert the course of justice - the Electoral Commission has no power to bring them to book, surely it should get out of the way and let the police do their job? Bizarrely, during a conversation about that I discovered that that was the crime that Maxine Carr was convicted of.

7. When can we put this all away and get on with politics?

Helen Eadie, Helen Eadie, we'll support you evermore!

It can't carry on, Windy Alexander swaying back and forward and singing "Trust in me", it's sure that her time is up and Labour needs a new leader.

I say it again - there is no better candidate than Helen Eadie, the best MSP in the Labour group. Not only is she a visionary who wants rid of the Forth Bridge and the woman who can imagine Marie Antionette right across that river,

I say to Mr Swinney that the reason why I do not trust the SNP and the Liberal party in Fife is that my people cannot have their cake. The Government is saying of my people "Let them eat cake", but some of them cannot afford cake after the increases that they have faced in social work charges. Some of them might not be able to eat anything. Some people in Fife have seen their social work charges go from £273 a year up to nearly £8,000 a year. The Government tells them to eat cake, but they are some of the most frail, vulnerable and dependent people in our community. Under an SNP Government, that is what happens to support for the needs of people in our communities.

but she is also the woman who can mend the Labour party - who else could win a Fife constituency in spite of coming from Stenhousemuir? I tell you she is a missionary come to deliver Labour from the disaster they are marching into.

Not only that, she's one of the few who hasn't been tainted by association with the Lib/Lab pact that made a mess of Scotland for eight years. She stands in a class of her own to such an extent that she never felt the need to accept Ministerial office when Labour was in Government - she never even accepted convenorship of a Parliamentary Committee. A woman of honour whose dignity didn't allow her to get down and dirty with Jack McConnell and his exceedingly large cabinet.

There's even a campaign song to the tune of the Arnold Rimmer song from Red Dwarf:

If you're in trouble she will save the day

She's brave and he's fearless come what may

Without her Labour would go astray

She's Helen, Helen, Helen Eadie

Without her Labour is far too greedy

She's handsome, trim, and not too needy

She will never look too beady

She's Helen, Helen, Helen Eadie

Helen Eadie for leader

I say again, Helen Eadie is the best Labour's got.

For evidence watch yesterday's Labour debate on the Spending Review - there are some fantastic speeches, but Helen Eadie's speech is in a class of its own.

Yesterday's proceedings are in the Film Archive which is linked here.

Fife's answer to JFK starts at about 01.48.15 (time's in the bottom right hand corner).

I tell you - she's different class!

I'm in need of a bad joke

How many Labour MSPs does it take to change a lightbulb?

Don't be stupid, Labour MSPs don't change anything!



Every one's a winner - here all week, try the fish ...

Clegging along in the blue ...

Nick Clegg MP - the new leader of the Lib Dems - thinks the Scottish Parliament should have more powers, not because it's right but because he thinks that that will stop the SNP advancing - I'm glad I'm in a party that bases its positions on the principles we believe in rather than on party political advantage.

Anyways, old Cleggie came to the wild north today and praised us wild Caledonians:

"Let's take the moves in Holyrood to protect private information from any ID card scheme and the way in which the Scottish Executive has used DNA databases in a much more selective way than they have south of the border. You have a kind of liberalism in Scotland which we should learn from in the rest of the country."

What rest of the country? I assume he means England and means liberal as in the political philosophy rather than his party which voted to have the DNA samples of innocent people retained by the police during the passage of the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice Act 2006?

Well, it can't be the Scottish Lib Dems he's praising for protecting civil liberties on DNA retention, so who can it be? You've guessed it - he's praising the SNP, Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill who said in June 2007 when he was launching a review of DNA retention that blanket retention was unacceptable in the relationship between the citizen and state.

Good to know that the English Lib Dems support the sensible policies of the SNP - if they now persuade their Scottish pals to accept SNP policy then we can make Scotland a much better place much more quickly.

Genetics

Bet that got your attention - but it's epigenetics I want to lecture you on at length today. "Epigenetics" I hear you ask "what the devil is that?"

Well, you know you thought your genes were kinda fixed? (Nothing to do with Levi Strauss or any other semiotician - although his Structural Analysis in Linguistics and in Anthropology was very interesting, now pay attention and sit up at the back there that boy).

The impression a lot of people have of genetics is a wee mish combined with a wee mash encompassing something about a mink called Mendel, fruit flies and peas, nature or nurture, there's a double helix in there somewhere, and somebody has mapped the human genome. They might have a touch of Dolly the sheep (mind your manners), a panic about GM food and other Frankenstein stories, and a vague idea that you'll go bald because your great auntie Matilda did.

What most people 'know' to be the case, though, is that your genetic make-up is fixed and what you have in your store is what will be passed on to future generations (assuming you procreate - if you have no progeny you're unlikely to pass on your genes and sterility is seldom inherited).

Scientific fact - genes are unalterable. Of course, like most scientific facts, it's not a fact and no scientist claimed it to be so. It only represented what was commonly believed to be the case amongst the scientific community based on the level of ignorance at the time. It was a best-fit theory (or hypothesis - I'm not entirely sure whether genetic stability is a big enough idea to be a theory, maybe we should just define it as an explanation or something of that nature). It was generally understood that your genotype determined your phenotype and that's the way it was.

Anyway - it's maybe wrong.

Epigenetics is the idea (perhaps a hypothesis, maybe even verging on being a theory) that what you do in your life can affect your genes and thereby affect future generations. You can change your grandchildren's predisposition to disease and perhaps even what they look like by changing the way you live today - or something like that. There are better explanations on the BBC science website and on the website of the Epigenome Network of Excellence. It's absolutely fascinating and could have huge implications for public health policies.

We already know that improvements in public health take years to bear fruit (makes it a real bind for politicians in the health portfolio - decisions you take now won't express their full beneficial effect until after the next election), but this takes it a stage further.

Let's, for the sake of argument, say that we are all agreed that the Scottish Government and previous Scottish Executive health policies all have beneficial effects (I'm not persuaded by the excellence of the health policies of the previous administration, of course, but let's give it a whirl anyway). If they are all beneficial policies and epigenetics is correct, give them a couple of years to kick in and two generations to be born, and you should be seeing the full effects of the health policies in people who are coming into the world in about 2040.

Flippin Norah - as my grandfather used to say (wasn't his fault, he was a Yorkshireman)!

So why have I wandered away into a reverie down one of the wee lanes I like wandering down while picking interesting flowers? Well, it occurs to me that there is a remarkable cross-over between what is discovered about the hard-wiring of human behaviour and how groups tend to act in society, and it occurred to me that there might be a parallel in the actions of political parties as they go through the generations. This could explain some things.

For example, the SNP has gone through quite a few phases of development - the romantics of the 1920s, the conshies of the war years, the protesters of the post-war years, the party-builders of the late 50s and the 1960s, the pragmatists v idealists debates of the 1970s - which is also when the strategists and educators came into their own and the idea of building a more solid economic case took a high priority, the organisers of the 1980s, the polishers of the 1990s, a period of modernisation and reform under John Swinney, and the resultant rounded party of government you see today with all of those elements embedded in its collective psyche.

So what of the Labour party? Well, I've been reading a terribly interesting book (as is my wont) by Hilary Wainwright titled Labour: a tale of two parties. It deals with the battles and struggles within the Labour party in the 1980s (and to some extent the 1970s).

There were some enormous battles fought constituency by constituency between those who held to some ideal that was close to the principles upon which the Labour party was founded and those who just wanted to be in power and weren't spliced to the principles of yore. There were also some side battles fought with obvious chancers who were just riding the wagon for their own enrichment.

That time of great discord in the Labour party brought all of the bitterness and rancour which internal battles always bring, and it encouraged Labour members to do exactly what always happens in war - whatever is needed to achieve your ends. It created a culture within Labour that meant that Labour members never questioned those who were in the same band as they were, never doubted the intent of their colleagues in that trench and never trusted anyone from another wing of their own party.

That tribalism and factionalism ran rampant and out of control right into the 1990s, spurting to the surface every so often and marked with marvellous scenes like Kinnock's battles with Militant. All sides lost in that internal warfare, but Kinnock and his modernisers appeared to have lost less badly than the rest. It didn't do Kinnock's career any good, but it did pave the way for a new generation of Labour with Blair, Brown and the 'free will lockdown' where 'discipline' became the mantra and power the goal, where principles could be abandoned wantonly and cherished clauses of the constitution of the Labour party could be evicted from their warm and caring homes by cruel and thoughtless power-seekers.

The generation that forgot about society and collective action and turned in on itself in fratricide and sororicide, the cohort whose belief in improving the lot of the people was foregone in favour of serving themselves, is the grandparent of the current Labour party (still in its birthing pains, of course).

That would explain, to some extent at least, the current bizarre attitudes of Labour politicians and their failure to address the issues at hand. Epigenetics applied to an organisation would help explain why the Labour party has now become a faction writ large; how it cannot accept that someone from another party might have an opinion that is worth listening to; how it believes that no-one within the clique can do any wrong; how it believes that politicians with, at best, average ability are in some way political geniuses; how it believes it should be allowed to do whatever it wants to increase its standing; and how it will continue to snarl at anyone who approaches.

It's quite sad really. Just as well Scotland has the SNP isn't it?