David Maddox: How strategic chess moves are important in Scottish politics

As reported in The Scotsman today there will be an announcement later on this afternoon about a loan deal for the famous Lewis chessmen (some of them pictured above) to tour Scotland and even return home to the Hebrides for a short period.

Following my online debate with the Green's spindoctor James Mackenzie (of Two Doctors blog fame), this is yet another example of the importance of chess to political stratagems.

Most importantly they have become pawns in the great game played over separatism or unionism. The Nationalists cry: "Look at our heritage being held on to by those nasty people in London."

So this loan deal announced today is the Unionist response and an attempt to be reasonable, a move meant to take away one of the SNP's attacking pieces.

Time will tell if it works or leaves the British state further exposed.

Mr Mackenzie, of course, believes there is more merit in a game which involves the luck of the fall of the dice - he says backgammon, but it may as well be snakes and ladders.

It will be interesting to see if his MSPs have learnt some new strategies that do not depend on luck in trying to get their £1 billion of free insulation. It appears, at least from other parties, there are moves being played in this area too.

David Maddox: The Greens - not all is how it seems

I notice that James Mackenzie, that tireless spindoctor and general dogsbody for the Green Party in Scotland, has come up with a surprising admission on his Two Doctors blog.
As the world leaders sat down to discuss nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, Mr Mackenzie the official mouthpiece of a party supposed peaceniks, announced that he wants to increase his own personal nuclear arsenal from two to three.
He was talking about his collection of board games - apparently he already possesses Confrontation and War on Terror, which sound more like George W. Bush's hobbies. Far be it for me to suggest that this is a sign of latent megalomania in the otherwise urbane and personable spin doctor, but it does appear that for him subconsciously, as in a misquote of the James Bond movie, the world (let alone Scotland) may not be enough.
However, we must hope he does not become a global domination because the world may be left lacking. As his blog shows he probably would not allow either chess or cricket to be played, thus depriving civilisation of its two best past times.
His objection to chess is that he believes computers are better at the game because they can process more information. Yet the only time the world's best player lost to a computer was Garry Kasparov against the second Deep Blue constructed by IBM.
Subsequent investigations have suggested that IBM may have cheated and used other grandmasters in a bid to boost its share price. The company quickly dismantled the computer before any checks could be made or a rematch could take place.

David Maddox: Only a pawn in their game

Forget Obama, Brown and Gaddafi at the UN, the SNP's plans to liberate Scottish television from the BBC and especially Nick Clegg's speech, the news this week that Garry Kasparov and Anatoli Karpov are to resume hostilities over the chess board to mark 25 years after their first epic encounter was for me the story of the week.

It brought back memories of how as a 10-year-old fanatical chess player (sadly never better than a Norfolk county finalist) I avidly followed what became one of the greatest mental contests in human history (pictured above). As this week has shown it is one that will only end when one of the two grandmasters finds that his next opponent is the grim reaper in a Seventh Seal or, for the less high brow, a Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure fashion.
It also reminded me of a conversation I had with James Mackenzie, the Greens spindoctor and general dogsbody famous for his Two Doctors blog, about board games.
He is a collector of weird and wonderful board games and I believe has one with the aim of nuking the world, which perhaps isn't the Greenest objective.
But he is also a keen backgammon player and is teaching Green MSP Patrick Harvie how to play. Unfortunately he does not like chess and in a recent e-mail to me said: "Chess is a limited game which can be won simply by processing further into the future than your opponent."
A surprising observation for an otherwise intelligent and cultured individual about arguably the greatest test of mental skill ever devised.
But, getting back to Kasparov and Karpov, what has this rematch of the old grandmasters got to do with politics? Well actually quite a lot.
In 1984, five years before the Iron Curtain fell, this was a contest between the old and the new. Karpov was the Communist Party's establishment man, appropriately a strategist who strangled his opponents with carefully worked out positions. Kasparov represented the new Russia, pro-capitalist and pushing for freedom, which again was reflected in his faster, more flamboyant unpredictable style of play.
The two were enemies over the board, personally and politically. Their enmity was such that a board had to be fixed under the table to stop them kicking each other.
Initially, as with the old Communist regime, Karpov had the upper hand, but the match was abandoned when he was 5-3 up because the two were deadlocked in constant draws and there were fears for their health.
Then in 1985 they returned for a rematch and, in what would eventually reflect the new order, Kasparov won easily. He never lost a match to Karpov again although they clashed many times.
Kasparov actually went on to get involved in politics as an opponent of the Putin regime. After he was arrested following a demonstration it was interesting that one of his first visitors in prison was his old rival Karpov, showing that respect for a great opponent overcomes enmity and differences of opinion.
But their contest a quarter of a century ago was not the first to have a political dimension. Before Karpov became world champion, the American Bobby Fischer became the first man to overcome Soviet domination of the chess world when he beat Boris Spassky in Reykjavik in 1972 (pictured below), in contest that was loaded with Cold War politics.
Fischer is the one player who could lay claim to be on a level with Kasparov and Karpov as one of the greatest players ever. But he reportedly went mad and walked away from the game after winning in 1972 only to re-emerge years later apparently supporting the unpalatable Serbian regime in the 1990s.
He once described chess as "war on a board" but was not the only one to give it a dimension of reflecting life and politics.
The former US President Benjamin Franklin said: “Life is a kind of Chess, with struggle, competition, good and ill events.”
Although as Arthur Conan Doyle noted it is not always a good thing. He said: “Excellence at Chess is one mark of a scheming mind.”
Which brings me back to my conversation with James Mackenzie. The Greens have at times shown a certain endearing innocence when it comes to the darker arts of politics, not least in their hopeless budget negotiations earlier this year.
So, taking some Holmesian authoritive advice, perhaps Mr Mackenzie should be teaching his MSPs how to position their pawns rather than relying on the random throw of the backgammon dice.

David Maddox: Still chums then?

A little bit of gossip from Wednesday evening after John Swinney's "glorious" victory in passing a budget at the second time of asking this month.

You will remember that he went out of his way to humiliate the poor Green MSPs (both of them) for having the audacity to join with the former executive partners (Labour and the Lib Dems) to vote down the budget. The offer of £33 million for a free for all insulation scheme was chopped down to a wholly inadequate means tested scheme for £15 million.

Afterwards the Greens' spin doctor (and general dogs body) James Mackenzie (pictured, left) could be seen in the White Heather Club (Holyrood's bar) drowning his sorrows with glasses of Peroni and muttering darkly about the SNP. For all it seemed that the Greens "love affair" with the Nats, propping them up in difficult votes was over.

But as fate would have it, or rather a seat arranger with a sense of humour, within an hour he was to be seated next to Kevin Pringle (pictured, right), Holyrood's lord of spin and the chief special adviser to First Minister Alex Salmond, for a delayed Burns Supper. And at the end of which the two were seen hand in hand singing Auld Lang Syne. So maybe "auld acquaintance" has not been forgot and they have made up, but only time and a few tight votes will tell.

One more ironic twist was that the Burns Supper in question was arranged for MSPs and hangers on by Energy Action Scotland and Scottish and Southern Electricity, two of the biggest supporters of the Greens' insulation scheme.

No doubt they reminded those of the 123 MSPs present who voted against it that had the Greens got their way 1.8 million households in Scotland would have bills of £340 a year less, less old people would have died of cold, at least 1,000 jobs would have been created and carbon emissions would have been reduced in Scotland by six per cent.

Perhaps it was with this lecture in mind that the Labour MSP Jackie Baillie noted as she gave the reply to the toast to the lassies: "Regarding insulation, we have all missed an opportunity this week."