Vladimir McTavish - The Election Blog 2011

Ever since last May, Lib Dem voters have been looking back wistfully and nostalgically to the good old days when theirs was a wasted vote, rather than a vote for a Tory government.   Well, if opinion polls are to be believed, it looks like those golden days could be with them once again, as their support has gone into meltdown, as they suffer the fallout from their association with a government whose economic policies make Maragaret Thatcher appear enlightened.

And while Tavish Scott may well have ordered his taxi for May 5^th, either to take himself off to retirement or to take his entire contingent of MSP’s to Holyrood, fallout of an even more toxic nature reached Scotland this week.

Radiation levels in Glasgow, measured at the Southern General Hospital by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) have risen dramatically over the past week.  This, we are told, is fallout from the explosion of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, which is 5, 800 miles away.  It is categorically NOT from the Sellafield nuclear re-processing plant 130 miles away, or from Torness nuclear power station a mere sixty miles to the east.  Strange.

However, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) have sought to re-assure us all by stating that these radiation levels are no greater than that  to be found in one X-ray or twenty-five bananas.  

This is indeed quite frightening.  I’m pretty sure that if I was to eat twenty-five bananas, I’d feel pretty bloody sick.   Furthermore, I’d be intrigued to see an X-ray of my stomach after I had eaten twenty-five bananas.

In any case, two important questions remain unanswered.  Firstly, if these readings were taken at the Southern General, how can they be certain they weren’t  caused by people getting X-rays?   Secondly, why have we been kept in the dark for so long about the radiation in our bananas?  None of us who were in CND in the 1980’s knew about this at the time.  If we had, we’d have made stickers for our Citroen 2CV’s saying “Bananas.  Nein danke !” 

More seriously, this now makes the Windward Islands a bigger threat to global security than Afghanistan or Al-Quaeda.  Davis Cameron should order air strikes there, while he still has an air force.

I’m flying back from London tomorrow.  Better not try to get than banana through security at Heathrow.

Vladimir McTavish is appearing at The Griffin, 266 Bath Street, Glasgow on Saturday 9^th April at 8 pm,  as part of the Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

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Anne McLaughlin - The Election Blog 2011

Anne McLaughlin, SNP candidate for Provan and champion of the Florence & Precious Belong to Glasgow campaign.

When I was unexpectedly elected in February 2009 after Bashir Ahmad sadly passed away, I had one advantage over many other MSPs. I’d worked for 3 different MSPs and I learned the lessons they were too immersed in the job to learn.

So I was clear from the start that I wanted to take time to decide what interests I was going to focus on so that I didn’t end up doing nothing well. Ha! Easier said than done.

I was also clear what those interests would be. Asylum was not one of them. Of course I would represent my constituents who happened to be asylum seekers but for some reason that I’ve completely forgotten now, I didn’t want it to be one of my core interests.

Ironically enough that was precisely what I became known for to those who follow politics. I had come into contact with a few asylum seekers and had done my best to help them but it was all very low key, they were part of my caseload. And then two of them were detained in Dungavel Detention Centre and seeing them in that place made me realise that I really couldn’t turn my back on the issue and that I had to do everything I could to change our approach to asylum and those who need it.

I had had no real illusions about how we treat asylum seekers in the UK but I really was quite blind to just how shocking the reality is. The reality of a system that is about stopping people coming here rather than helping people who are in dire need. A reality that says it’s perfectly acceptable to imprison young children for indefinite periods of time. And a reality that allows vulnerable people to sleep on the street with no statutory right to a bed for the night or any income whatsoever.

The first time I learned about the latter was when my now good family friend “Sam” came in to the office to tell me he’d been evicted because his claim had finished and his weekly allowance had been stopped. This is someone who’d fled his village in Darfur when rebels burned it down raping and killing villagers along the way. His family disappeared in an instant and he was taken to torture camps.

He’s a gentle, lovely young guy who wouldn’t harm a fly and he’s been deeply traumatised by his previous life. He has terrifying flashbacks and yet here we were saying it was fine for him to sleep in the street and perfectly acceptable for him to do without food or clothing. One of my worst moments as an MSP was discovering, after reassuring him that he must have that wrong and he would “definitely” be entitled to something, that I was wrong. Having to tell him that was not easy. I was close to tears but I knew seeing his MSP cry would not be helpful to him so I saved it for later that night.

There are so many other examples I could give you of what is wrong with our system but space will not permit me. Suffice to say that tinkering at the edges is not enough. When parliament eventually comes to an end for me, I would be keen to head up a review of our asylum system in preparation for Independence.

We have to be thinking now about what kind of system we want. The last thing we should be doing is inheriting the current UKBA and changing only the name. There is much I would do differently but it has to start with looking at the culture within the existing organisation. A compassionate asylum system would be based on need and the desire to do good in the world in which we have done so much harm in the past.

Given the tremendous support I’ve found for my asylum seeking constituents from Alex Salmond, Michael Russell, Nicola Sturgeon, Fiona Hyslop, Alex Neil and Kenny MacAskill to name just a few, I feel sure I will have the full backing of the SNP for such changes once we are Independent and are able to say to those who need our help “you are welcome”.

To quote the Dalai Lama “compassion … is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival”.

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Prof. Mike Danson - Election Blog 2011

Professor Mike Danson is a respected economist at the University of the West of Scotland

You would be forgiven for believing that the UK was in a deep financial crisis of record levels of state debt; the media, political parties and commentators repeatedly tell us such. The actual figures show that public sector debt is close to the lowest it has been for almost two centuries. Yet deep cuts in the welfare state and in ordinary people’s standards of living are being pushed through because ‘there is no alternative’. Well there is, and an independent Scotland should and would be following a different path.

But then we are fed other myths which, if repeated often enough, are also taken to be self-evident truths. Here in particular I am thinking about the notion that joining an ‘Arc of Prosperity’ of northern Europe would be a disaster because, as we all know, they have been going through a torrid time with exposure to the bitter winds of recession, globalisation and falling living standards. The truth is somewhat different.

According to the IMF, World Bank, CIA all of the Nordic and Celtic countries continue to have higher living standards than the UK, and Scotland is even below the UK average. Each household would be better off by at least one-third if we had the economic performance of Sweden or Finland, and have far higher incomes if we were in Denmark never mind Norway. And Iceland and Ireland, those two ‘basket cases’ according to the last Labour Government and other unionists, are still well ahead of Scotland.

Our Nordic neighbours are also the most equal societies on the planet, Scotland within the UK suffering some of the very worst levels of inequity and poverty in the developed world. Women, young people and the old all fare much better in these small open economies. Ireland, which follows the Anglo-Saxon economic and welfare model, resembles our levels of inequality.  In terms of happiness and quality of life, Forbes Magazine and the OECD have reported repeatedly that the Nordic countries, with their social welfare states and relative affluence, occupy four of the top five spots in the global ranks. The UN Human Development Index shows the same relative order, with the UK and so Scotland lagging far behind.

In the comprehensive Legatum Prosperity Index, widely promoted by Lord Mandelson, again all the members of the Arc of Prosperity are well ahead of our position, even after the crisis had wrecked its worst on the economies of Iceland and Ireland.

And yet these happy, prosperous and inclusive nations are small independent states, surely they would be swept aside by banking crises? Well not according to the IMF, New York Times and our own Iain Macwhirter who each have praised Norway and Sweden for showing how to address the failures of their own bankers and banks at no long term cost to their economies or people. The EU reports that, among member states, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are all continuing to have surpluses in their public finances and levels of public debt far far below the UK and Ireland’s.   

 In summary: we should be aspiring to join this arc of prosperity, reversing a century and a half of relative decline, and adopting an economic, tax and welfare regime that taxes the rich and protects the poor: high tax Sweden, Denmark and Finland are well ahead of the UK and Scotland in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index. Only through independence can Scotland join that Arc and see poverty and inequality attacked, living standards and quality of life raised.

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Harry Reid - The Election Blog 2011

Harry Reid is a distinguished journalist and author. He was formerly editor of The Herald.

The great mystery about modern Scotland is the continuing, wholly irrational and, it has to be said, somewhat tribal support for the Labour Party.

Labour admittedly continues to produce Scottish politicians who are able, though not of the calibre of Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, John Reid, George Robertson, Donald Dewar and Alistair Darling. Over a couple of generations, Labour nurtured a special group of Scottish politicians.

It would be wrong to deny that they were skilled, heavyweight operators.  But only one of them, Donald Dewar, made it clear that his main commitment was to Scotland...

As a journalist working in Scotland right through the 1970s and 1980s I was able to track closely the burgeoning careers of these politicians, in some cases from well before they were elected to Westminster.  I saw exactly what drove them and how they operated.  Several of them – notably Gordon Brown and Robin Cook - seemed from a very early stage to predicate their careers completely on eventual success at Westminster. Gordon Brown was at a young age elected chair of the party in Scotland, but this was in the same year as he was elected a Westminster MP.

From then on, it was obvious that he was operating in a context that was wholly Westminster- oriented. What took up his time and his energy and consumed his personal ambition, were British issues in the British parliament.  Indeed he once told me: “I certainly didn’t go into politics to argue about things like whether Scotland should have its own army”

This attitude applied also to those other able Scots: they were all in effect more concerned about England than Scotland, for Westminster is obviously far more concerned with England than Scotland. Their careers were brazenly, unashamedly Unionist.

If you contrast them with the equally able group of outstanding politicians we have at the head of the SNP - Alex Salmond, obviously, and also people like Nicola Sturgeon, John Swinney, Mike Russell and Kenny MacAskill, who are all consummate political operators, and who would incidentally grace any UK cabinet, it is obvious that their political careers are completely focussed on serving Scotland.

For them Scotland is not some tedious sideshow back north where you have a constituency and a few chores to attend to from time to time. It is the be all and end all of every moment, every decision, every aspiration of their political lives.  Admittedly Alex, like Winnie Ewing before him, spent time in Westminster, but no-one could ever accuse that pair of being Westminster careerists like so many Scottish Labour MPs.

The point is that all these outstanding figures, Salmond, Sturgeon, Swinney, Russell and MacAskill, are in politics solely to serve Scotland, not England. Indeed this is such a devastatingly obvious point that I’d have thought it would be at the centre of the current discourse as we approach a crucial Scottish election.

Yet there are even people in the independence movement who take the romantic view that nationalism, and the drive to independence, should somehow transcend mere politics. Don’t believe that: it’s a delusion. To achieve our independence we’ll need plenty of sheer, hard politics – and a cadre of committed, credible and experienced politicians.

Meanwhile Scots voters in the coming Holyrood election have a simple and direct choice to make - between those whose political world is Scottish-centred, and those who serve a party that is so blatantly and overridingly Unionist that any alleged commitment to Scotland can only be some kind of opportunistic afterthought. Labour candidates may be standing for the Holyrood parliament but their party does not regard this as the main parliament. By definition, within their own party they will be seen as second best.

The irony here is that Labour set about delivering devolution as soon as it regained power at Westminster in 1997, and delivered it speedily and well. But we must always remember that many in the Unionist Labour Party were certain that devolution was the best way of preventing an eventual push for Scottish independence. This is, and has been for two generations and more, a very strong current in Labour thinking. Give the Scots so much, but no more, so that we can hold the good old UK together - that’s how many of these people think.

As a Scot, I want to be governed at our Scottish parliament by politicians who put Scotland first, in each and every political decision. It’s as simple as that.

Harry will be joining  John Swinney, Paul Scott and Tom Nairn at the launch  of A Nation Again (Luath) this Wednesday, 5.30, at the Quaker Meeting House, Victoria Terrace Edinburgh. All very welcome.  Details here

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Mike Small - The Election Blog 2011

Editor of Bella Caledonia online magazine: 

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On Nuclear Scotland and the Marriage from Hell

David Torrance wrote in the excellent Scottish Review last week:

“Despite the continuation of the UK being the overwhelming desire of the Scottish and British people – as expressed at election after election – the SNP have managed to turn the sobriquet 'unionist' into a dirty word.”  

A friend of mine once moaned that he didn’t like the term ‘unionist’ remarking that ‘we’d turn into Northern Ireland’ if our political language came to use such terms. Yet these terms are important and growing in usage.

They unpack the political realities of where we are, who we might become and what structures rule over us. 

Without them we are tied to the everyday. Tabloids whine about fuel prices without asking why the prices are rising. TV pundits denounce protesters, without asking what drives 500,000 people onto the streets of London. Everyone denounces Scotland’s alcohol culture but rarely asks what drives a nation to drink. 

The SNP haven’t turned the term ‘unionist’ into a dirty word but the nationalist movement has flushed this language to the surface. This language is the political map of where we are and where we might venture, without it we are lost in the undergrowth of everyday, thrashing about reacting to anything but reflecting on nothing.

On the big questions of state and nation - it’s essential to distinguish between unionists, nationalists, republicans, and monarchists. On the issues of liberty and freedom its important to chart where you stand as libertarian or authoritarian on personal and public issues. On the questions of economics and democracy it’s still vital to distinguish whether your belief system is based on socialist principles, capitalist ideas or liberal thinking. 

Now armchair pundits will immediately bomb such analysis claiming that the world is more complex: what about social democrats, federalism, what about DevoMax they will cry? What about new social movements and issues, like ecology? How does George Galloway, a left-wing British Nationalist fit on the map (a good question, ask George).

These same pundits will croak that people live in the real world where a closed nursery or an unpaid mortgage is more important than a political theory, lifeless and exact. All of which is true. The upper echelons of political theory won’t get a look-in on STV news as politicians jostle to hug weans and kiss babies and generally pose for endless photo-ops, soundbites and Twitter links.

But two huge – and very different issues are about to zoom out of the wilderness that will mean everyone should now the difference between a unionist and nationalist, and a nationalist and a republican. At the end of next month we will be (whether we like it or not) awash with Union Jacks.

The marriage of Kate Middleton and William is going to be a massive propaganda exercise for our ongoing status as subjects in a constitutional monarchy which lies at the very heart of British political identity. As we witness massive cuts in public services, and a huge attack on education, health and basic provisions, it will be up to British nationalists and Unionists to defend this ceremony and all that it represents.

The costs of the royal wedding is estimated at £5 billion to the (UK) economy by creating four consecutive four-day weekends in April. Security costs are difficult to estimate, but are likely to be vast. St James's Palace says the couple are going to have an ‘austere wedding’, which will not weigh too heavily on taxpayers. But the Royals' understanding of the word austere is likely to be somewhat different to yours and mine.

Even the quiet wedding of Charles and Camilla in 2005 cost £5 million, and it's highly unlikely to cost less than ten times this much. So conservative estimates put the starting cost at around £50 million. Top-end estimates have come in closer to £100 million.

Graham Smith, a spokesman for the anti-monarchist group Republic, said: "William is not the head of state; there is no guarantee he will ever be head of state. This is a private occasion which I'm sure the Palace will want to milk for maximum PR effect. It is not for the taxpayer to pay for any part of this event; the Windsors must cough up."

As our attention wanes from Fukushima, new research is being unearthed from the rubble and debris of private nuclear companies reticent to disclose harsh realities. But the reality is that Fukushima, slipping away from our media mindscape as it is, is now being re-categorised as a level 7 disaster. What does this mean and what has it to do with the Scottish elections?

The accident that began at the Fukushima nuclear power plant on March 11^th has already released radioactivity that requires it to be classified as level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale INES, according to new analysis prepared for Greenpeace Germany by Dr Helmut Hirsch. His assessment is based on data published by the French government's radiation protection agency (IRSN) and the Austrian governments Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG). The total amount of radionuclides iodine-131 and caesium-137 released since the start of the accident until March 23^rd, as reported by the two institutes require the Fukushima accident to be reclassified to the same level as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster twenty five years ago in April 1986. In fact so high are the releases that they are amount to three INES 7 accidents.

In contrast to the Chernobyl accident which involved one nuclear reactor, Fukushima has suffered major failures at four. Three reactors have suffered loss of coolant to a scale that has led to nuclear fuel melting. In addition, nuclear reactor spent fuel stored at the site has lost coolant, caught fire and in one case suffered a hydrogen gas explosion which destroyed unit 4 at Fukushima.

Dr Hirsch concludes, “Taking all the releases from the Fukushima-daiichi reactors together this even obviously an INES 7 with the possibility that it is three INES 7's, taking each reactor separately which results in a release of 100,000 Tbq each.” 

All of which is far too much technical information. The basic facts are this, Japan has just experienced a devastating nuclear crisis and Scottish labour strategist John McTernan has this to say: “What's going on in Japan is probably the single best advert for a new generation of nuclear power stations - not just here in Britain, but also around the world.” 

What has this got to do with our political language? Unionists are united about new nuclear, from newly converted Liberals to Brownite Labour cheerleaders (including Iain Gray in his Torness constituency) to old-school Conservative enthusiasts. Only the Greens, the SSP, Solidarity and the SNP stand against new nuclear power in Scotland. 

As McTernan states: “The honest answer to our dilemmas is a renaissance in nuclear power.” This week Scottish Labour announced that Mcternans was not as many thought a lone-wolf howling at the moon but represents mainstream Labour thinking. Earlier this week the Labour Party in Scotland published an 80 point economic plan that contained a pledge from the party to "remove the presumption against new nuclear for the future."  Since 2007 the SNP government has resisted moves by the UK government to build new nuclear plants north of the border.

The SNP have called Labour’s pro-nuclear election policy ‘entirely the wrong one for Scotland’ and have argued that no country with Scotland’s energy mix should be contemplating a new nuclear power programme.  Mr Salmond said: "Labour’s very judgment is called into question." and his party has claimed every pound spent on nuclear is a pound less for renewables.

We do know that - in all of this - Unionism is a force of inertia and deference. The month ahead is a time for Scottish republicans to stand up and be counted and protest the obscenity of a lavish wedding in a time of austerity. It’s a time for ecologists, democrats and (true) liberals to stand together and fight for a clean green Scotland, powered by renewable energy where a nuclear disaster cannot occur. One path leads to celebrating inequality in a time of increased poverty and economic uncertainty, the other leads to equality and prosperity and the potential for economic dignity. 

In 1997 there was talk that the devolution referendum be delayed because of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Let’s not delay any further in pushing onwards to the real change that’s needed in Scotland.

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Stephen Maxwell - The Election Blog 2011

With the Parliament now locked down the Election campaign is properly under weigh. It will not be the campaign that supporters of the Scottish Independence Convention would most like to fight. The opportunities - and the challenges - of independence will not dominate the parties' manifestos or the hustings, even less the media coverage.

The Conservative and Liberal Democrats will be so locked into defending their record in Government that they will have little scope or energy for promoting the modest enhancements of Scottish powers promised in the Scotland Bill. They will hold the Bill in reserve against any developing attacks from the champions of fiscal autonomy or independence.

Labour will be no keener to broach issues of Scotland's political status. Its policy position is an enigma so far. Of course it will criticise and cavil at SNP's record in Government but on most of the potentially divisive issues - the council tax freeze, a graduate tax, free bus passes and prescriptions – it has fallen into line with the SNP. There are hints that its Manifesto will contain a commitment to merging social care and health and try to outline a distinct strategy for business, jobs and training. But unless it has been nurturing a secret conversion to radicalism it will have difficulty distinguishing its proposals from the left of centre mainstream of Scottish policy. Almost its only distinctive policy so far is its call for tougher action on crime delivered by the Daily Mail's representative in Scottish politics Richard Baker. But overall Labour seems likely to downplay policy in the interest of maximising the reflex Scottish protest vote against a Tory Government in London.

The Scottish Green Party has a sharper policy profile. Its headline demand is for a 3p Scottish 'variable rate' supplement to the UK standard rate of income tax to support Scottish public services against spending cuts and for the future replacement of business rates and council tax by land value taxation. And it opposes a new Forth Road Bridge. In direct contrast with Labour's evasions the Greens are following a high risk strategy directed at attracting the necessary minimum of votes to secure some list seats. It seems to be targeting voters disappointed by the fragmentation of Scotland's radical left rather than Nationalists frustrated by the SNP's failure to deliver an independence referendum.

The fall out from the crisis of the global financial system gives the Scottish Socialist Party and Respect/Solidarity plenty of local material for an ideological assault on capitalism. No doubt their first priority will be to avoid getting locked into a circle of recrimination around Tommy Sheridan. It remains to be seen how far they will choose to highlight the political implications of Scotland's consistent electoral rejection of pro-market Governments from Thatcher to Cameron. The apparent takeover of the pro independence Solidarity by unionist Galloway might be expected to give the SSP a clear run except that that supreme political huckster seems intent on squaring the circle of asserting that there is no Scottish mandate for the cuts while still insisting on the supremacy of Westminster.

The SNP has announced that it will fight on its record in Government, the quality of its Cabinet team and its vision for Scotland's future. Most supporters of independence will be disposed to take the first two elements as read but may have concerns about how expansive the vision will be. Will it focus on the case for independence or one or other of the varieties of fiscal autonomy, or be restricted to calls to “Be part of better” as illustrated by particular achievements or ambitions – renewables, council tax freeze, a minimum unit price for alcohol....... The danger is that without a forcefully articulated vision of an alternative Scotland the SNP risks being drawn in to a close quarter defence of its record in Government (including the cuts) and too much focus on personalities.

But judging by the recent record those unpredictable events which so often determine political outcomes will create new opportunities for making the case for independence. Osborne's unexpected tax grab on North Sea oil income in disregard of its effects on a vital Scottish industry makes the case for full fiscal powers for Scotland more eloquently than a hundred academic papers. This month's revelation that the Trident submarines based in Faslane are using a Fukushima type nuclear reactor reinforces the case for Scottish control of the base just as the intervention in Libya with all its risks and costs revives the issue of Scottish control of foreign policy. The news that in a grisly reprise of the Thatcher era the new Tory led coalition emphatically rejected by Scottish voters will take around £14bn in Scottish North Sea oil revenues in 2011-12 even as it slashes Scottish public spending by £1.3bn restates the basic democratic case for Scottish independence. Independence may not be at the top of any party's campaign agenda but it can still project a powerful and perhaps decisive presence on the Election stage.

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Elaine C. Smith - The Election Blog 2011

As Chair of the Independence Convention I have the honour of kicking off our series of "Election blogs" which will run from now until the Scottish elections in May. All of us to a man and woman in the SIC have become more and more frustrated, disgusted, and dismayed at the level of political and intellectual debate on the issues that affect Scotland, constitutionally, emotionally and economically.

In all of our media, from TV and radio to tabloid and Broadsheet, it feels like the debate and discourse has been reduced to that of a sound bite, a few pictures and a reductive by-line. 

Surely things should and could be better?

The fear of journalists and editors alike (and not just in the totally pro Union papers which sadly does mean almost all of them) when it comes to Scotland’s future, is palpable. Confusion, ignorance and bias abound and that is very frustrating for anyone who wants self determination for Scotland. But thanks have to go out to some journalists like Iain MacWhirter for making me personally feel sane of a Sunday morning and help me to realise that I do not actually live in a parallel universe. I don't mind a good fight with any arch Unionist, having respect for their beliefs and principals, but why can't the argument be a decent and informed one.

It suits Labour in Scotland to keep the debate in the run up to the election to be about Westminster politics and not about the Scottish Parliament. It was a ploy which worked well for them in Glenrothes and in the UK election so the plan will I am sure be to continue in the same vein with the electorate hoodwinked into thinking that by voting Labour they will be delivering some sort of a blow to the Coalition. We know it won't......if there is any blow then it will, I believe, be another in a long line of self inflicted wounds that the Scottish electorates have given to themselves by voting for what they believe to be Socialist Principals but instead getting corruption, cronyism and neglect in return.  

Fifty years of Labour rule councillors, MSP's and MP's, in my neck of the woods here in Glasgow has done little for those who need it most... the poor, the elderly, the sick and the unemployed. Shame on them all...

I just want to the tribalism to stop and for people to see what is really being offered to them and exactly what they have NOT been given in return for their loyalty over many years.

 So these next few weeks will be tough for all of us who believe in Independence.....not because of the issue itself, but merely in trying to get the issue on the medias agenda to be discussed in an intelligent way, absent of the usual scaremongering and fear.  

We at the SIC have decided to contact as diverse a range of contributors as we can in an attempt to create that decent, intelligent discussion about this wee land of ours and who rules it for the next few years. Over these next few weeks we will have a terrific range of people giving their thoughts on the election and where we as a nation should be heading. This will hopefully create a resource for people and the media to get a decent debate and accurate information and intelligent opinion.

So join in and get the discussion going...don't just leave it to four guys in suits on a late night politics show that turns the punters off rather than leaving them engaged in the future of this country.

All the best,

Elaine C Smith

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