Mike Russell to announce details of the plan to end local authority control of education #sp4

Whoa there Alex Salmond, getting pretty annoyed that there might have to be TWO referenda(?) before breaking up Britain. Why so angry? We all know its hard enough to manufacture the conditions to get one half of the one half of Scots who will turn out to vote for it ONCE let alone TWICE!

Self determination means the people get to decide their future, not the negotiating committee of the SNP. If we vote on one referendum to allow them to begin negotiations, why would any reasonable person then deny the same people the right to ratify that decision?

If we look into the future of an independent Scotland where 51% voted for it in one referendum, and then we get a bit of a bad deal at the end (i.e. everyone has to choose between a Scottish passport and a UK passport) then there is going to be a significant proportion of the population that will question the entire legitimacy of the Scottish state.

Do the SNP care about running an ‘independent’ country, or forming a legitimate nation state that is backed by the populace?

Scotland is hard enough to live in sometimes with the socio-religious tensions, can you imagine adding into that mix nationalist-unionist tensions that could tear the country apart?

Two referenda is the minimum that we need. Absolute minimum. Because in a new independent state, we need to get used to having referendums. Egypt recently had one on a new constitution, will we get to vote on that? On Euro entry? On Nato membership? On if we keep the monarchy?

Because for nationalists its the process they love. The only thing they concentrate on or talk about is how we get to ‘independence.’ And they love to think they are the noble protectors of the Scottish people. That is why they want us to invest in them total authority to negotiate for our nations eternal future, but don’t trust us enough to ask if we are ok with what they decide.

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Barely a month since the SNP won an outright majority, the Scotsman (via Hugh Henry) has a bee in their bonnet about Salmond being an elected dictator. Us silly Scottish people have voluntarily chosen to give up our democracy and embrace totalitarianism! Thanks Hugh Henry for pointing that out. I guess in his opinion whatever Salmond does to us is our own damned fault for electing him! 

Forget of course for a second the piss poor opposition parties, of which a Mr Hugh Henry belongs to the biggest one. If we are now in an elected dictatorship then it is for two reasons.

1) Hugh Henry and his ilk in the Labour Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrat Party failed to offer an alternative vision for Scotland (neither did the Greens or any of the socialists but thats neither here nor there).

2) Our political infrastructure is a failure. We here a lot about those fabled designers of the Scottish Parliament, who spent many long nights building a system to ensure that no party could ever get a majority. But in doing so they stuck slavishly to the Westminster model, one of the worst legacies of the British empire.

The Westminster model was well thought out…in the 17th century. Then you had a proper division of power - the ‘elected’ legislature of the commons, the aristocratic and quasi judicial house of Lords and the executive power invested in the Monarch. But as we have slowly democratised over the centuries, the Westminster model has become horribly outdated.

Today the legislature and the executive are one and the same thing. An executive cannot exist without a legislative majority, which has the effect of squeezing out any meaningful legislative check on the power of the executive. Added to that a judiciary that is neutered before the ‘privilege of parliament’ and cant or wont strike down laws that violate our rights or our constitution (what constitution of course), and we are left with a bit of a sorry state of a political infrastructure.

Look to where the Westminster model is still going strong, Canada and Australia. In Canada, they are now suffering the same fate as we poor souls in Scotland, they elected themselves a dictatorship in the form of Conservative Stephen Harper.

Like in Scotland, a piss poor opposition in the shape of the Liberal party was knocked back into third place after a surge in support for the left of centre New Democratic Party. Incredibly, they also effectively put the issue of Quebec separatism to bed by winning all but two of the 45+ seats in Quebec from the Bloc Quebecois. 

But not quite enough to stop Harper getting his overall majority, the first in Canada in quite a few years. Again, much like Scotland, they don’t have a functioning second chamber, so Harper, like Salmond, can do as he wishes.

However over in Australia, they have adapted the Westminster model quite a bit to get something that ain’t half bad. Federalism, and a written constitution (although no bill of rights) and a functioning second chamber elected by PR. So even when Liberal (of the right wing variety) John Howard had a majority in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, the fact that there is a proper federal system added that much needed check and balance.

So throughout much of the 11 or so years of John Howard/Liberal hegemony, almost all of the states had Labour governments. So no matter how hard Howard tried to push a right wing agenda, the Labour governments in the states could push back. The exact same thing is happening now with a fight between the Liberal state government of Western Australia and the Labour run federal Government over mining taxes, which has resulted recently in Western Australia withholding tax revenue from the federal Government whilst the fight is still on-going.

Whilst Julia Gillard holds together her coalition of independents, which give her a seat more than the opposition, the balance of power in the Australian senate is held by the Green party. And there is a federal election every three years.

So back to Scotland, and our own elected dictatorship of Alex Salmond. Where does the blame lie? Well, as is customary, those fabled founding fathers who designed the Scottish Parliament. They managed to boil down the Westminster system to its most binary form. Hugh Henry is having a moan that there is no checks and balances, although that one was aimed at Tricia Marwick who beat him out for Presiding Officer. Well, no one built any checks and balances into the system in the first place! We have our local councils, but that isn’t federalism. The difference is that in a federal system, sub levels of government are properly constituted and cannot be chopped or changed at will. They are proper counterweights to the central government.

Our local authorities can’t even close down a rural school, let alone standing up to a majority government.

Alec, Kenny, pay attention there and stop whispering to each other in the back of the class! If you don’t pay attention in geography you will end up making a full of yourself on television in 40 years time!

Notice that A is pointing to the city of Strasbourg. The European Court of Human Rights, to be exact. Now where is Strasbourg? Yes Alec, it is in a foreign country, well done! The city actually sits just beside the border between France and Germany. So if you visit Strasbourg, you have the chance to go to two foreign countries in one day!

Now concentrate, this is a test question. Look at this route I have drawn out of how to get from Edinburgh to Strasbourg. Who can tell me how many foreign countries I will have to visit to get to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg?

Now look at the map carefully children… Alec, Kenny, if you have finished gossiping back there, can I have an answer? Four!? No not four. It is three foreign countries. On this route after driving through Britain, I then take the ferry and drive through Belgium, Luxembourg and France!

No Kenny, England is not a foreign country. How many times do we have to go through this. The International Community recognises Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland as one country - Britain. France is a foreign country, not England.

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Mike Russell made it quite clear yesterday that the much trumpeted, holy grail of the relationship between central and local government in Scotland, the revered Concordat, is about as relevant now as that other one. Y’know, the Worms one about 16th century protestants or something.

No rural schools shall now close. None at all. Nope, none. Forget it

So says Mr Mike Russell, the great elector of education. In one 15 second tv spot an entirley new age in central and local government relations was heralded. One where local authority control of education is on its last legs. 

Local authorities are in charge of education, not because kids in the shire learn about ‘ferming’ and kids in Clydebank learn about ship building, but because the local authority is usually best placed to make decisions about provision of school places. If a few different rurual schools can be amalgamated to provide a better quality of teaching or more resources for the children, the local authority can make that decision. If it is more cost effective to send a dwindling number of children to another school a bit further away than to keep an entire school estate open, then it can make that decision.

And the local community can respond to that decision. Through community consultation, visiting their councillors, going to local meetings and ultimatley electing the local councillors who make the decisions on school buildings. 

Not any more. If any of the councils were to even think about closing a dying rural school down, they will have Mike Russell to deal with, or the sharp end of an SNP majority. Forget trying to find out where the funding comes from for that in the concordat.

Is this the vision for education policy in a nationalist Scotland? The end of local authority run education. For all intents and purposes we just witnessed it. If you blinked however, you may have missed it.

Welcome to the very first full blown battle at the start of this long campaign for the second War of Independence! Also known as a nationalists’ wet dream.

Picking a fight over the role of the Supreme Court in Scots Law is a pretty straightforward call for Scotland’s legal establishment to get behind nationalism.

The UK Supreme Court is probably the most important constitutional development in the UK since devolution. Taking the murky world of legal appeals out of the mists and shadows of the privy council and plush red couches of the law lords, and into something with a bit more transparancy and actual logic. You can even watch the Supreme Court on the Sky News website! Try finding a live stream of the European court…and a stream in English!

It is crucially important for Strasbourg to have the last word. It is pretty obvious that Parliament will not always act in the best interests of even the most unpopular people in our society. And without a High Court, or Supreme Court for that matter with the power or will to stand up and strike down a law; we need that check and balance of the European court.

But it is a court of last resort. Other countries in Europe have bigger issues that we do that need arbitrating by Strasbourg, for starters how about the Republique Francaise rounding up and deporting Roma??

So what would happen if the only right of appeal after the Court of Session was a direct line to Strasbourg? How would competing as one of dozens of nations with some pretty serious human rights issues to face improve Scots Law?

Yes we have our own legal system. But it isnt sacrosanct, or perfect, far from it. Scots Law has for all intents and purposes been frozen in time for 300 years, and is only slowly yawning and stretching back into the modern world. Example one; Cadder.

Not surprising that the nationalists are putting on the robes as defenders of our Scots Law against the ‘encroaching thirst of English judges.’ But the Court of Session has not made a name for itself as a pioneer of human rights jurisprudence. That so many in the Scottish legal and political establishment can say with a straight face that it is perfectly fine for a suspect to be questioned for hours on end by the police without even a hint of a solicitor present just proves how far Scots Law has to go before it becomes functional for the modern age.

Thankfully then we still have that check and balance of the UK Supreme Court. Not perfect, but in a match up with Strasbourg it comes out pretty well. Supreme Court: 2 Scottish judges, streamed on the web and English speaking. Strasbourg: 0 Scottish judges, behind closed doors and more languages than a Megabus.

When my human rights get infringed (and in all likelihood they will be), I want as many courts on my side as possible.

Well, someone has to do it! 

Stay tuned… but most of all, stay engaged…