Fair Or Foul: A new type of post here on Viewpoint.

We’re making some changes to our blog, and introducing different styles of posts here at Viewpoint.  One of these, is the one I’m going to introduce to you right here, it’s called Fair Or Foul, and it goes like this.

I will post about some of the stories that have caught my attention, either the story, a statement from a company, or a quote from a person, or something similar, and I will rate them on the following scale.

FAIR – The story, quote or statement is fair or seems to be fair.

FOUL – The story, quote or statement is not fair, but it’s not a serious foul, there’s nothing egregious about it.

FOUL, Yellow Card – The story, quote or statement is not fair, and is serious enough to earn a Yellow Card warning for unfairness.

FOUL, Red Card – The story, quote or statement is so unfair, egregiously so, that it would warrant a ‘sending off’.

After each rating, I will explain what about the story, quote or statement has persuaded me to give them that rating.

So, having explained all that, let me give you a few examples so you get how the ‘game’ is played.

BBC News: Young people out of work for more than six months face losing access to jobseeker's allowance (JSA) if the Conservatives win the next election.  Fair or Foul?

FOUL, Red Card.

No two ways about it, this is a red card offence.  The Conservatives have been trying to force people to work for their dole money for years now, and every time they come out with this idea, it gets so much grief, and rightfully so, that they have to hide it away again until they can find another way to dress it up and try to make it look respectable.

There’s nothing respectable about underpaying for people doing work, especially "community projects", which is Tory code, for menial jobs that they wouldn’t be prepared to do themselves.  Good leaders, lead by example, not by forcing people to work for their benefits, and effectively working to criminalise unemployment.  This all stems from having the basic attitude of “those who can’t find work are basically workshy and don’t want to work”.  That isn’t necessarily the case at all, but because of programmes like Benefits Street, where you encountered people who went around with the attitude of “Oh, the world owes me a living.”, you’ve ended up with the public having a very distorted view of what it means to be unemployed.  And the Tories are trying to take advantage of that, to criminalise the unemployed.  That will not win you votes, especially from those who ARE unemployed, or who have recently been unemployed, whether they have found a job, or gone the self employed route.

The Tories should just drop this whole idea of criminalising the unemployed, and instead try to find ways to enable easier startup of small businesses, and cut the massive amounts of red tape out of small business startup and self-employment.  It will be more beneficial, than criminalising people because they haven’t got a job.

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Emma Watson: “It is time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals. We should stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by who we are.”  Fair or Foul?

FAIR

Emma Watson on Saturday launched a campaign called HeForShe at the United Nations in New York, which aims to promote gender equality to men, and change the perspective of feminism from being seen as one about hating men, to one about gender equality.

I can honestly say that I have always thought that feminism was about equality, not about man-hating, which is something completely different, despite what misogynists like Rush Limbaugh think and say on the air.  Gender equality is something we should all get behind.  I have made my commitment, I urge all men to do the same, go to the website, and take a stand for gender equality.

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Micheal Murphy TD: “What exactly is he apologising for?  Is the Taoiseach now admitting that he instructed Minister Heather Humphreys to appoint Mr McNulty in support of his Seanad candidacy?… …This goes to the heart of the scandal and requires a full statement in Dáil Éireann from the Taoiseach outlining the entire sequence of events from the beginning to the end of this shabby affair."  Fair or Foul?

FOUL

This is just another example of politics as usual that you can find almost anywhere around the world.  In this case, the contretemps is over the appointment of prospective Fine Gael senator to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.  The thought is that the appointment was done to help his Senatorial candidacy.  The accusation is basically cronyism.  But we have seen this accusation thrown about so many times, in many different countries, and really, what would a statement in Dail Eireann really do, other than just give Michael Murphy a chance to try to humiliate the Taoiseach, and score more political points, which are ultimately, meaningless? 

I’ve said this many times, but politics should be about problem solving, not point scoring.  It should be about coming together in the centre, not pulling people to the extremities.  Instead of becoming two tribes, we should be coming together as human beings.  I’m often reminded of the Frankie Goes To Hollywood song, Two Tribes, from 1984, the video of which featured impersonators of US President Ronald Reagan, and Soviet premier Konstantin Chernenko brawling and wrestling each other in front of a rabid crowd.  But one lyric from that song keep coming back to me in these situations.

“When two tribes go to war, a point is all that you can score.”

And political points, are worthless and meaningless.

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The Local: The Spanish government has said Catalonia would not be allowed to hold an independence referendum, shortly after the region's leader set a November 9 date for the vote.  Fair or Foul?

FOUL, Yellow Card.

Apparently, the Spanish Government has forgotten what kind of country it is governing.  It is a country made up of 19 autonomous regions, two of those are cities.  Each autonomous region has their own parliament, can make their own laws, and each is a democracy of its own. 

Catalonia is one of a few autonomous regions that has significantly more powers than most other regions, amongst those powers, is for the regional president to dissolve parliament and call elections, and if Catalonia is blocked from holding a referendum on independence, it could well be that Catalonia turns it into an election issue, and make independence the centrepiece of an election campaign, and for the Spanish national government, that would be a much bigger headache, than a mere referendum.

The Spanish government, look like they’re afraid that they are going to lose, and that might be true, but instead of looking like scaredy-cats, and running to the Spanish Constitutional Court to get the vote ruled unconstitutional, which is what they’ll try and do, they should actually let the vote happen, and let things take their course, and if something goes wrong, be ready to welcome them back into the Spanish fold with open arms.  This is starting to look like an enforced empire, rather than a collective of people that want to work together.  And by extension, it is also making the European Union look like an attempt at empire building, rather than the Community that it was when the UK joined in 1973.   

In saying that “…no-one is above the national will of all Spaniards…”, you look like enforcers of something that maybe, the people of Catalonia don’t want anymore, and maybe, other regions of Spain, might not like it either, and might not want to be a part of it.  If you cannot respect the will of the Catalonian people, why should other regions want to be part of Spain either?  You do yourself no favours by starting to appear dictatorial, rather than democratic.

Hence, the yellow card, as a warning that trying to dictate what can and can’t be done, by a democratic, devolved region of your own country, is likely to lead to the breakup, not just of Spain, but potentially of other countries too, and possibly by extension, the breakup of the European Union, as people decide they don’t want to be a part of any elected government, that decides it can become dictatorial when it likes.

Scotland Votes 2014: Result and Aftermath

Well, by 5am this morning, we knew that Scotland had voted no to independence, and there was a huge sigh of relief from the No camp, and a huge groan of disappointment from the Yes camp. 

The final result after all 32 council areas had declared was…

On a personal note, I had been of mixed emotions throughout this referendum campaign.  Part of me was sad at the thought of breaking up the UK, especially as it was starting to feel more like a bitter divorce than an amicable separation, but part of me was excited at the prospect of Scotland becoming an independent country and all the associated things that would change with it, such as the changes to the media in Scotland.  Upon seeing that the result was going to be no, I was still of mixed emotions.  Relief was there, but there was a lot more disappointment.  I would have loved to see how Scotland would have developed as an independent nation.

But putting my disappointment aside, we now have a situation where we know there is a large movement for change, 45% of those who voted prove that, and that kind of support for change can’t be denied or ignored.  So maybe we’ll start to see a move towards a more federal UK.  Maybe we’ll see Yorkshire, Cornwall, Wessex and other areas become autonomous regions within the UK as a whole. 

But one thing we won’t see will be Alex Salmond as Scottish First Minister for much longer.  He decided that today’s result was the end for him, as the First Minister of a devolved Scotland, and as leader of the SNP, the Scottish Nationalist Party.  He will stand down in November, when a new leader of the SNP is elected, and therefore, a new Scottish First Minister.  Nicola Sturgeon, current Deputy First Minister, is the obvious favourite.

One thing this referendum has undoubtedly done, is to release the devolution genie from the bottle for parts of England, as well as reinvigiorate it for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.  It will not be business as usual, ever again.  The idea of a parliament for England has been put forward, and some have linked the idea to House of Lords reform.  Now, to be honest, any one of these issues on their own is enough to stall a government or cause ructions in the Palace of Westminster.  But to try to put all this together, before the next election, sounds like a bridge too far.  It sounds like a rushed job, rather than what is needed, which is time to go through the options and decide what works best. 

Overall, yes, this is the beginning of big change within the UK, but will it be the right change that is needed, or a rushed change that could do more damage than good?  Only time will tell.

Scotland Votes 2014: First Result…

Well, we have our first result in.  Clackmannanshire voted No, by 19,036 to 16,350 for Yes.  Now, most political analysts for this referendum had expected Clackmannanshire to vote Yes, after all, it had voted SNP in the European Elections earlier this year, and had a large percentage of lower class voters, the DE demographics, who were expected to vote Yes.  However, this seems to have not been the case at all.  It may well be No’s night, but it could also mean that whatever metrics we might have expected to have applied, may in fact be totally wrong, and we’ll get a different result.  We’ll see what happens with the other results.

Scotland Votes 2014: Early Indications…

Well the polls in Scotland closed at 2200 UK time, and so far, none of the 32 councils have declared, but we are expecting the smaller counties with fewer votes to declare first.

We haven’t had an exit poll, but You Gov did an “on the day” poll, telephoning people who had voted, rather than catching them after they leave the polling station, and that poll suggests 54% have voted No, and 46% have voted Yes.  The head honcho of You Gov, Peter Kellner, gives his poll a 99% certainty, though to be honest, nothing like this has ever been done before, and certainly the usual rules of polling are less reliable here than in elections, so to give this much more credence right now than to call it an interesting survey.  We will see overnight, if that survey has any more credence than that.

Otherwise, there really is little to report.  First results are expected sometime between Midnight and 2am, with the last council declaring around 6am.  Even as a long time observer of global politics, this is one of those situations and issues where I don’t have even an inkling on how this will go.  From the historical perspective, more countries have voted for independence since 1945 than against it, but history is not a guide to the future. 

Hopefully once we get the first results, we’ll start to get an idea just how the vote is going.  But we are still waiting for those first results.

Bullet Points: Thursday 18th September 2014

Whilst the referendum is taking place in Scotland, there are other things that are happening, so a few quick bullet points on the stories outside Scotland.

• Somerset County Council is dipping into its reserves to cover a predicted £7mlln overspend, at least that’s what BBC News is reporting.  Local councils have been forced to cut spending on local services by central governments that have been slowly eroding local government.  If local councils were allowed to raise the money they need to run the local services they need to run, we wouldn’t have these stupid stories about councils “overspending”.
• News Corp have called Google a “platform for piracy”.  I know there are differences in attitudes between different companies, but to call another corporation a platform for piracy, seems over the top, even for the old salty sea dog himself, Captain Murdoch, shiver me timbers!
• Police in Rio De Janiero have arrested 22 of their own officers, for involvement in a bribery and extortion racket.  This is shocking behaviour by a force that people are supposed to trust to enforce law and order, not partake in criminal activity.
• TD’s and Senators in Ireland have returned to face two big issues.  One is the budget that gets announced on 14th October 2014, the other is a wide ranging banking inquiry that is examining Irish banks in the run up to the bank guarantee.  The budget though is the bigger issue after a larger than expected 3% growth rate in the Irish economy.  Could we be seeing a return of the “Celtic Tiger”?  If so, the Irish government must be careful not to have that tiger run away with them, as it did before.
• Lastly, Spain’s Prime Minister has spoken to Spain’s parliament and issued a warning ahead of Catalonia’s upcoming referendum on independence on 9th November.  He said the EU was made to bring states together, not tear them apart.  That implies that a United States of Europe was the intended outcome, and I think any such thoughts about a United States of Europe are in the realms of daydreams and fantasy.

Making Sense on Scottish Independence: The questions over what happens next…

I have noticed that a lot of people on social media have a lot of misconception about the whole Scottish Independence issue, especially in the area of what happens afterwards if the vote is in favour of independence.

Let’s start making some sense.  Nothing is going to happen immediately after the result is known.  Independence is a process that will only begin, once the result is known.  During that process, there will be a general election, which will mean that Scottish MPs will continue to sit in the House of Commons until Independence actually happens.  Oh and by the way, there is also a Scottish Parliamentary Election due in 2015, as well as elections to the Assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland. 

There are lots of issues to actually sort out, such as currency, cross border trade, EU membership, UN membership, separation of the public services that are still controlled from Westminster and many others.  One of my favourite things to watch is what will actually happen to the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 in Scotland if they actually vote for independence.  Independence is a process and a negotiation that will take a couple of years to actually sort out.  And there could be two changes of government, one of each side of the negotiation, during the process. 

So we’re looking at a process that will take at least two years to actually sort out, and implement.  So independence for Scotland wouldn’t actually happen until late 2016 at the earliest, and probably not until 2017 if we’re being realistic.

But even if the vote result is not for independence, there will be some very interesting moves of powers from Westminster to Scotland, that much we know is going to happen, but what those exact powers will be, will only be known if the vote goes against independence.

Make no mistake, the story does not end with the result coming out next month.  In fact, we’ll just be getting to the good stuff, either way.