Summer's Over - Back to Uni

Well the summer's almost come to an end. University properly gets going again on Monday. We were relatively curtailed in our activities over the summer as my mum's been in hospital for quite a while, but it was good to spend some time back with the family. After some anxious waiting, my sister got her Highers results in and got a brilliant 5As. She should stand a good chance of getting to do her preferred course (Law) at University when she applies later this year. I'm really pleased for her as she worked hard and is really focused on what she wants to do. I spent two weeks working at my old school as a caller in their alumni fundraising campaign which was challenging but good fun.

I went along to the Pie and Bovril 5s in June, which, is a football tournament held by Scotland's biggest online football forum. It's always good fun and an excuse to have a few beers and a chin wag with the people behind the avatars. Whether it's a St Mirren fan in Cambridgeshire exile or a Linlithgow Rose maths geek, they're all a great laugh. This year the post-tournament venue was The Arc in Glasgow City centre which is a great venue and the weather was good enough for us to sit outside. One of the highlights of the evening was watching the initiation ritual to which the Welsh National Fencing Team were subjected, namely trying to eat a whole raw leek as quickly as possible without vomiting!

Dad and I spent the summer tentatively looking around for my first car. I've said before I really want a classic rather than just a new hatchback, and sharing my dad's enthusiasm for older cars, I was prepared to put in the time to restore an older car if required. The problem with it being based in Aberdeen is that there aren't that many cars within close distance to go and take a look at. I was especially keen to acquire an MG B or Midget, as my dad also owns an MGB GT which is a cracking wee car. We first took a look at a car we found on eBay that turned out to be a complete rust-bucket. The driver-side door wouldn't shut after we opened it and it would have required thousands of investment and substantial rebuilding to become roadworthy. A few weeks later we decided to take a look at another GT, which whilst very tired and in need of a fair bit of work was at least a solid enough shell. The guy looking to sell it runs a classic car business and had panels from other cars he was willing to include in any deal to help us with a rebuild project. We gave it serious thought but in the end we concluded that for the moment it wasn't something we could be sure of committing to, but it's definitely something we'll look at again. It was certainly a valuable learning experience and whilst I would want to consult my dad when buying my first car, I now feel as though I have a much better idea of what to look for as "tell-tale signs" of problems in a classic.

I caught up with old school-friends, most of whom I don't see so much of now they're in Edinburgh. I don't say it much, but they're all great people. I look forward to catching up with them all again at Christmas, if not before then. I'm sure I'll head across at some point over the next couple of months. Quick shout out to Chris Dyer who is on his languages year abroad studying in Malaga and Milan.

Since getting back to Glasgow I attended Nick Clegg's well documented meeting with Lib Dem activists in the city, replaced a broken cooker hood, been to a few Thistle games, and finished a summer marathon viewing of The West Wing. Whilst the summer has been light relief, it has latterly dragged on a little and I'm actually glad to be getting back to work at Uni. With this being my junior honours year, I'll be focusing on honours courses of my own choosing rather than solely taking core courses, which I hope will be more rewarding. I'm especially looking forward to my Law course about the Scots Law Human Rights context and my second semester Politics option on Egalitarianism and its Critics. Whilst it will be good to see people again, it will be a fair bit quieter this year, especially in semester two, as lots of people will be studying abroad. John's already in Toronto and seems to be enjoying himself with a frenetic workload and ample other stuff to keep him amused. He was impressed with Thistle in their 1-1 draw against Hamilton when I roped him along to Firhill in August so hopefully I can persuade him back when he returns! I'm looking to get more involved in the local Lib Dem and the Uni Debating scenes if time allows!

After a difficult start, Thistle are really picking up some form. Just yesterday we dispatched Ayr in a comfortable 4-0 victory. The First Division is really tight after 6 games, only 2 points separating 2nd top from 2nd bottom. We look really settled as a team now and McNamara could really make a big impact if we keep this up.

Who knows what the next year holds? Bring it on.

Nick Clegg's visit to Glasgow - Scottish Lib Dems as a newcomer

"Shame on you! You have mellowed.
Coalition's turning yellow!"
Er, aye right.

It got a lot more attention than it might have done. The media storm in a teacup over an incident involving some blue paint and a relapsed Lib Dem party member and a couple of politicians meant that this meeting of Liberal Democrats got noticed unlike the many others in recent days. Thankfully Nick Clegg and Willie Rennie took this infantile assault in relatively good spirit. I particularly liked Willie's response that he always wanted a blue streak in his hair but his mother wouldn't let him!

Having arrived in Woodside Hall about half an hour before the incident, I and many others were completely oblivious to what had happened until Clegg and Rennie arrived hastily if a couple of minutes late, to get the meeting under-way and explained their tardiness in good humour.

Having joined the Liberal Democrats in April or so, I've not really got myself involved that much in local campaigning or politics, and I didn't really know what to expect from this kind of meeting. I knew a couple of faces from other places, but the first thing I was struck by was the predominant sea of grey among the local party activists, with the occasional honourable exception. I don't know whether this is a sign of youth disaffection with the Lib Dems in particular or a general trend where parties are seen as less relevant to younger generations, but it was surprising nonetheless. The second thing that struck me was the despondent mood. This is a party that's lost the fire in its belly in Scotland. We run the risk of pointing the finger at each other for who's to blame for us getting tied up on the railway line while ignoring the oncoming train.

Nick set the ball rolling with a bit of narrative on how he felt we got to where we are just now, how he felt we got a lot of the big calls right in the first year or so of government, and with an attempt to paint a positive picture of our impact in government and why a comprehensive and full-term coalition was called for in the circumstances. It was perhaps a little sycophantic at the time, but in hindsight I can see it was a pre-emptive strike at what was about to thoroughly dominate the meeting. In the first block of questions, he's immediately asked, in not so many words, how to we prevent electoral oblivion next May in the Council Elections.

This was a common theme throughout. Clegg tried to appeal to memories of the past, when you could fit all the Liberal MPs in a London taxi. He built this narrative of the appeal of populism in times of strife, and how the politics of fear will always temporarily hammer our soft vote. He spoke at length about the need to portray the uniqueness of the liberal narrative instead of simply defining ourselves against the status quo conservative and state-reordering socialist traditions of right and left.

On a UK level, this made perfect sense. We've managed to protect the liberal traditions espoused in the European Convention on Human Rights, are implementing considerable slices of bread and butter constitutional reform, have made sure that changes to the NHS and the welfare system are done more thoughtfully and with end-users at the forefront and eventually these things will pay dividends. Maybe not to those who left us in the last 12 months, but certainly to the wider electorate when the economy settles. Even the tuition fees debacle should become less of an electoral hindrance when people see it in action. It's then that people will begin to realise that what we've been saying all along (that the new system is much fairer) is true. That the Tory right have been bleating on today about how the nasty Lib Dems are... wait for it... influencing policy in government (shock!) shows that it's not all a one-way street as some in the media portray. Clegg was strongest when he spoke of his anger at the way he's been vilified by the media, and if ever there were any doubts as to his profound belief in liberal values, the foremost being the sanctity of the individual and the protection of freedom, he definitely laid those to rest.

But what worries me is that Clegg really didn't seem to grasp the Scottish dimension in all of this. Across the UK we've maybe lost half the support we once had. But in Scotland we lost 2/3 of our seats in Parliament and almost 3/4 of our share in the popular vote in the Scottish Parliamentary Elections in May. We started losing deposits in a national election in places where we used to be fighting for constituency and list seats! And the common denominator in that is the SNP. They were like a footnote to his political strategy. That's not going to work in Scotland.

It's something much more fundamental up here. We've lost our liberal narrative. And this isn't something recent; it's something that's been happening over the last 3-4 years. The type of populism the SNP use to further their agenda is held together by the linchpin of their constitutional vision. Even if people don't buy into independence, they buy into the idea of the SNP fighting Scotland's corner. Our road to electoral recovery in Scotland isn't just about deficit reduction plans and civil liberties (important as they are). We need a linchipin: an end-game to fight for that shows the Scottish people we have their interests at heart.

One of the things Willie Rennie said was that he didn't believe the SNP won the election on the basis of their constitutional argument. In the strictest sense he's right. But in a Scotland where the political party policies on other matters are relative tweaks of one another for the most part the constitutional disagreements provide the framework onto which to paint a story, vision or narrative for the country's political direction. Whatever you may think of the substance or motive behind the SNP vision, it's mostly a positive one. Where has the radical edge of the liberal case for Home Rule, social reform and consensual political society gone?

We've thrown all our eggs into the Calman Commission, what one might call a "miserable little compromise" that leaves us politically indistinguishable on the constitutionals from Labour and the Tories and dull and gradualist to the sizeable portion of SNP support who disagree with independence. If the federal party cannot change tack in government then the Scottish party should anyway. It's time we made the positive case for full-fiscal autonomy. In our own way we need to show the Scottish people that Scotland can go it alone, but that it doesn't need to. Ask for control of illicit substances to be devolved to Scotland, so that we can find a less top-down approach to solving Glasgow's heroin problem. Ask for corporation tax and Crown Estate revenue to come under the control of the Scottish administration.

Articulate the localist narrative of our policies on policing, funding of public services and economic regeneration, but place it in a context of a consensual, open and free political society. Stress the need for us to break down political barriers and not just on this island. Embrace the global society and the global economy as a triumph for liberalism, free trade and the decline of tyranny. Lead the calls for a more region-sensitive immigration policy. Devolve and develop a regionally operated work permit scheme. Make it clear that even if immigration is a problem in England (it isn't) the doors of Scotland are firmly open for business.

These aren't even radical policy shifts. But they represent an emphasis that shows the Lib Dems have a vision for Scotland. We need to tie up the loose ends and mixed messages, stop worrying about what's happening at Westminster and articulate to what it is that we as a group of liberal individuals have to offer Scottish civil society. Love him or loathe him, we are not Nick Clegg. We are fighting a different battle on different territory in a different discourse. We need to stop grasping for excuses and people to blame because if we do it, everyone else will too. We need to become the consensus builders in Scotland but paradoxically that means breaking with a lot of voices whose vision doesn't extend beyond the status quo.

To come back fighting in Scotland, we have to embrace the good things in the SNP message (and there are a lot of good, liberal things in there) but articulate them through the prism of our transnational liberal narrative instead of focusing on just trashing the rest of it. We need to show people that devolution isn't just an idea for Scotland, but an idea for Glasgow, for Inverness, for Dumfries and Aberdeen. It's not about antiquated notions of identity politics, whether attachment to one national identity or another. It's about making representative democracy more direct: allowing local people to influence the things that matter most to them.

Our values are universal ones, but devolution is how we make them matter.

DNA - Do Not About-turn

Just over a month ago at PMQs, Ed Miliband tried to bounce David Cameron into a u-turn over plans to end the routine retention of DNA samples given by those who are arrested but not charged with rape and other related offences.

At the time it was heartening to see Cameron refuse to back down on that front. From the outset, I should make clear that I don't think the Government's policy as it stood a month ago goes far enough to protect basic freedoms: those charged but never convicted will still have DNA routinely kept on file and those arrested but not charged can, on application have samples retained. My own position is pretty much exactly as stated in the Lib Dem Manifesto:

"Remove innocent people from the police DNA database and stop storing DNA from innocent people and children in the future, too." Liberal Democrat Manifesto 2010 p94

I recognise that the Coalition's position on this was more nuanced, stating:

"We will adopt the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database." Coalition Agreement 2010 p11

And for the sake of completeness, the Conservative Manifesto said of DNA retention:

"The indefinite retention of innocent people’s DNA is unacceptable, yet DNA data provides a  useful tool for solving crimes. We will legislate to make sure that our DNA database is used  primarily to store information about those who are guilty of committing crimes rather than those  who are innocent. We will collect the DNA of all existing prisoners, those under state supervision who have been convicted of an offence, and anyone convicted of a serious recordable offence. We pushed the Government to end the permanent retention of innocent people’s DNA , and we  will change the guidance to give people on the database who have been wrongly accused of a  minor crime an automatic right to have their DNA withdrawn." Conservative Party Manifesto 2010 p80

For those who are unfamiliar with the Scottish system, anyone who is found innocent of any crime in relation to which they have given a DNA sample has it removed from the database (unless specifically challenged) after 3 years. The position in the rest of the UK is different; the limit is 6 years and was introduced under the Labour Government. Last year the Scottish Labour party's Holyrood delegation attempted to amend the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill to bring Scotland into line with the rest of the UK, but the SNP, Lib Dems and Tories(!) told them where to go.

My concerns today arise with news that whilst DNA samples of innocent persons will no longer be stored on the centralised national database, they will be retained by some local forensic labs. Whilst I can appreciate that there may be practical difficulties in ensuring the total destruction of innocent persons' DNA data, I have huge misgivings about this. It is inconceivable that particular samples cannot be linked to individuals even if they're being held locally rather than nationally, and that's simply unacceptable if those people have never been convicted of any serious offence.

If the government proceeds on that basis, it's a cop-out. My message to Clegg, Cameron, May and Clarke is this: ignore Ed Miliband; stand-up for freedoms and Do Not About-turn on your Coalition agreement with this miserable little compromise.

Don't let the state turn you
into a binary series

Nick Clegg speaks his mind

It's well known that there's no love lost between Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband, but a brief exchange between the two at PMQs seems to have slipped under the radar. Nick Clegg appears to rebuke comments about private sector involvement in the NHS in the most unparliamentary of language!

UPDATE: Sadly it appears from further examination that he says "You were the ones who gave the private sector a free pass". I'm sure my failure at lip-reading was what he was thinking though!