Tom Peterkin: on Megrahi

Gordon Brown has finally said something on the Lockerbie situation. The PM said he was repulsed by the reception given to Megrahi when he came back to Libya last week.
Brown is hardly alone in expressing that opinion. His view on whether or not the decision to free Megrahi was correct remains a mystery.
The sight of Scottish saltires welcoming a man convicted of murdering 270 innocent victims was obviously deeply unsatisfactory. So was there an alternative?
One SNP minister told me that he was "very proud" of the way Kenny MacAskill dealt with what most people recognise was an exceptionally difficult dilemma.
The Justice Secretary was in a truly unenviable position. But his sanctimonious comment suggesting that Megrahi had been dealt with by a "higher power" sounded as if it should have come from the mouth of a Kirk minister rather than a Justice minister.
And his suggestion that Scots are somehow more humane than other people, smacked of self-satisfied parochialism.
MacAskill released Megrahi on compassionate grounds, because he is suffering from terminal prostate cancer.
A number of MSPs - notably the Tories - are saying that plenty of compassion could have been shown to Megrahi had he stayed in Scotland for what remains of his life. That would have avoided the triumphant homecoming of Megrahi that was so sickening for so many of the victims' families.
MacAskill said that he ruled out a Scottish solution because of the "severe" security implications. But many at Holyrood are wondering if MacAskill fully explored that option. Pursuit of that course would have upset Libyans, but look out for more questions in the parliament on that topic.

Tom Peterkin on more cricket

The Scottish National Party would appear to be attempting to win over Scotland's cricketing community after Sandra White's silly complaint about alleged excessive coverage of the Ashes series.
Tomorrow Shona Robison will go to Arbroath United Cricket Club's picturesque ground Lochlands Park to lend her support to the Scotland team playing in the European under 15 cricket championships.
Robison is quoted as saying: "Cricket has a long and proud history in Scotland and is one of our fastest growing sports."
She has also reminded cricketers that the Scottish Government has recently come up with £415,000 for the game.
A somewhat different view than that expressed by White when she suggested that cricket was a minority sport in Scotland.
Howzat for a clip round the ear, Sandra?
It's perhaps not surprising that Robison knows about Scotland's cricketing tradition. Her husband the SNP MP Stewart Hosie has occasionally turned out for Panmure rugby club, a fine sporting institution that shares its ground and bar facilties with Forfarshire Cricket Club in Broughty Ferry.

Tom Peterkin on cricket

Like David Maddox, I was irritated to learn of Sandra White's pathetically parochial moan about the amount of coverage devoted to this year's Ashes Series.
Like many Scots, I look forward to this great sporting contest and even - shock, horror - hope that England do well. To suggest that cricket is of little interest to Scots shows at best a misunderstanding of a great Scottish sporting tradition. At worst, it suggests a knee-jerk antipathy to all things English.
Growing up in Forfar, one of the greatly loved personalities in the town was the late Nigel Hazel, a famous Bermudan professional who seemed to play forever and hit many mighty sixes for Strathmore. Elsewhere in Angus, Kirriemuir's most famous son J.M. Barrie also loved cricket and gifted the village cricket pavillion complete with a camera obscura.
Barrie took his own team the Allahackbarries to Kirrie to play a match to open said pavillion. Included in the side was the famous Australian test player Arthur Mailey. Another talented cricketer to play for the Allahackbarries, was the Scottish creator of Sherlock Holmes Conan Doyle, who was a First Class player. Scouring the internet the other day, I discovered that my great uncle W.C.G. Peterkin scored 47 for the Grange against the MCC at Raeburn Place a few years before he was incarcerated in a POW camp during the Second World War.
As someone from the West, White ought to realise that there is a flourishing cricket scene in her neck of the woods. After all, that great West Indian batsman Gordon Greenidge was once professional for Greenock while Mike Denness, the Scot who captained England, was born in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire.
In the coming days, I doubt very much that we will hear English complaints about the amount of coverage that will be devoted to this week's Open Championship. Scotland gave golf to the world and England gave cricket. Both games are enjoyed by people in both countries - something that we should perhaps recognise in a modern tolerant Scotland.

Tom Peterkin on MPs' expenses

Re David Maddox's latest Foulkes sake posting, I was interested to see Lord Foulkes attempt to defend the indefensible. I suppose he, at least, is one of the few prepared to put his head above the parapet and talk about the scandal.
When writing about MPs' expenses for last Sunday's paper, getting politicians to speak on the record about their allowances was a tricky task.
Normally, politicians are desperate to see their names in print pontificating on anything at all - no matter their ignorance or otherwise on the topic.
Perhaps it should not be surprising that getting politicians from any of the major parties to condemn the abuse of expenses proved difficult. After all, it is the one issue that unites them all.
The deafening silence merely reinforces the impression that they've all been "at it".
To me, it is the detail of this story that makes it so fascinating and infuriating. Claims for chandeliers, swimming pools, gardening, tennis courts, groceries, not to mention their second homes - just incredible.
Despite David Cameron's attempt to take the initiative and Gordon Brown following suit - one still wonders whether some MPs "get it"?
By that I mean whether they "get" just how annoyed the public are about the extent to which they've abused the system at our - the taxpayers'- expense.
I know that Foulkes is no longer an MP, but the defence offered by this Labour MSP and peer would appear to indicate to that the political classes have still some way to go before they "get it".

Tom Peterkin on the Kirk

As a member of the Kirk (albeit one who rarely actually goes) I am dismayed to read of the case of Rev Scott Rennie, the homosexual clergyman who has moved his boyfriend into the manse.
It has been reported today that almost one third of Church of Scotland ministers have signed a petition attacking his appointment to Queen's Cross Parish Church, Aberdeen.
It reminded me of an event I covered in Belfast - a place where religion and intolerance have often gone hand-in-hand.
The occasion was the United Kingdom's first lesbian wedding, a celebration which happened in Northern Ireland because of a legal quirk that meant that the Province has a shorter registration period for civil partnerships than GB.
It was held at Belfast City Hall and was hilarious. The guest list consisted of some extraordinarily flamboyant guests from local gay scene wearing the campest costumes imaginable.
Not on the guest list, but in attendance nonetheless was a crowd of hardline presbyterian ministers many from Ian Paisley's church. Waving placards saying "Save Ulster from Sodomy", they bristled with moral indignation as they denounced the guests as "fruits" while shouting "filth, filth - you're going to hell".
But the demonstrators, who really stole the show were two friends of the happy couple who satirised the clergymen by dressing up in their own presbyterian minister outfits. These consisted of toothbrush moustaches, dog collars, hideous tweed jackets and Y-fronts (no trousers).
They carried their own placards. One said: "Bring back slavery". The other said: "Earth is flat."
It was a most effective piece of satire.
Thankfully, the Kirk has traditoinally displayed more tolerant views than those expressed by the clergy in Belfast on that day. But this petition has led me to wonder why some good Christians seem so keen to cast the first stone.

Tom Peterkin on FMQs

With the sun beaming down on Holyrood there would normally be a pleasant end of term feeling emanating through the corridors of devolved power. Today is the last day of business before MSPs have their two week Easter holiday - sorry recess.
The horrendous events in the North Sea, however, have cast a long shadow over that. At First Minister's Questions the main party leaders united in expressions of sympathy to the bereaved. Alex Salmond gave a strong hint that there is to be a public inquiry into the accident and revealed that most of the victims were from the North East of Scotland.
While Tavish Scott, who as the member for the Shetlands has more experience of helicopters than most MSPs, spoke of the frightening flights over mountainous seas into gale force winds that off-shore workers brave as a matter of routine.
The disaster was quite rightly at the forefront of MSPs' minds, which is more than can be said for some London-based news organisations, who relegated the loss of 16 lives down the news agenda way behind the G20 summit.

Tom Peterkin on Alex Salmond MP

That thorny issue about Alex Salmond being both an MSP at Holyrood and an MP at Westminster has raised its head again.
His so-called "dual-mandate" earned him the wrath of the Tories in the papers this morning. The Conservatives released figures showing that he voted less often at Westminster than any other Scottish MP.
He also had the third worst record of speaking in Commons debates and was joint last when it came to submitting oral questions.
Annabel Goldie gleefully pointed to Salmond's website, which claims he consistently ranks in the top 10 hardest-working MPs.
Salmond has already made it clear that he won't stand at the next Westminster election - whenever that is. Nevertheless, his insistence on carrying out two jobs (and that's without counting his third job as First Minister of Scotland) is clearly beginning to rankle.
It is one thing for Alex Salmond MSP MP to annoy the Conservatives, but he should take heed of how this issue is playing in his constituencies of Banff and Buchan (Westminster) and Gordon (Holyrood).
This morning the Press and Journal, the oracle consulted by most of his constituents, said: "There is no doubting whatever Mr Salmond's workrate, but even he cannot possibly give sufficient time to each of the three roles he now has to perform.
"He has already announced his intention to stand down as an MP at the next general election. Perhaps he should give serious consideration to doing so earlier than that." Ouch!

Tom Peterkin: Russell and referendum

Mike Russell's promotion from Environment Minister to Minister for Culture, External Affairs and Constitution seems to me to be an astute move by Salmond.
Although the two men have had their differences in the past, it has long been acknowledged that Russell is one of the most able SNP politicians and one of the "big beasts" of the Scottish Parliament.
It will fall to him to steer through the SNP's plans for an independence referendum next year - a task that will be fraught with difficulty.
Whether the nation has the stomach for a vote on the constitution during a time of economic difficulty is questionable. Gathering the parliamentary support for a referendum bill would be an achievement in itself.
With his rumbustious style this will be a challenge that Russell should relish. The elevation of Russell could also be a smart move by Salmond in another way. By setting aside any differences that may have existed between them in past, he has now shown that he is more prepared to recognise talent over blind loyalty.
The same applies to the elevation of Alex Neil and Roseanna Cunningham, two other politicians who have had a tricky relationship with Salmond in the past.

Tom Peterkin: The Budget

So the SNP budget has finally secured parliamentary support after an unseemly week of huffing, puffing and posturing. With the support of the Tories, the Lib Dems and Labour, Alex Salmond has once again come up smelling of roses despite his combative approach to minority Government. What about the poor old Greens, who seem to have rejected the deal of the century?
Salmond's original offer of £33 million for home insulation to the Greens was cut to £15 million. At the weekend, Harvie warned that if ministers wanted the SNP/Green relationship to "seriously deteriorate, they will find our position over the next two years much more difficult to try and reach agreement, vote by vote, week by week".
So we're in for two more years of legislative battling - courtesy of two Green MSPs. Unless, of course, Salmond can rely on his new pals in the Lib Dems to keep riding to the rescue as they pursue their shared dream of borrowing powers for Holyrood.

Tom Peterkin on the price of peace

It is almost a year since I left Northern Ireland where I worked for three years. I missed the worst excesses of the sectarian conflict that blighted that fantastic part of the world. By the time I arrived there were more tourists than soldiers on the Falls Road and the Shankill. Nevertheless, I discovered that the place had not lost its ability to surprise.
The brutal murder of the Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson after he was outed as a British spy, the decommissioning of IRA arms and the extraordinary deal that saw Ian Paisley go into government with Martin McGuinness were just some of the events that I covered.
Ulster is back in the news today (Wed). There were angry scenes in Belfast with the launch of a report dealing with the legacy of the Troubles by Lord Eames, the former head of the Church of Ireland, and Dennis Bradley, the vice-chairman of the policing board.
The fury was caused by the recommendation that all victims' families - including relatives of republican and loyalist paramilitaries - should receive a £12,000 payment.
Paying the families of gunmen and bombers is a perverse way to come to terms with Northern Ireland's troubled past.
One contributor to the Belfast Telegraph's letters' page told readers that his young police officer brother was shot dead in 1977. Two of the people that killed him are now dead - one on hunger strike and the other killed by his former colleagues.
"How can it be right that the family of the two murderers who shot my brother receive the same as my mother who was left bereaved by their murderous sons' actions?" the letter writer said.
"Have Lord Eames and Mr Bradley no concept of how insensitive and contemptible it is?
"If everyone would just forget who did what to whom, forget Bloody Sunday, forget Bloody Friday, forget Omagh, forget every every damned thing we ever did to each other and live their lives in peace, then maybe we could move on."
The contributor acknowledged that "the families of these terrorists feel their loss just as grievously as the families of the innocent victims".
But he added: "The fact is, there is a hierarchy of victims and no matter what anyone says or does, a dead terrorist will never be seen as a victim by decent people from either community who can tell right from wrong."
Perhaps it would be better for everyone to forget in order to escape from the horrors of the past. But that is far from easy. The monstrous acts of violence that characterised Northern Ireland's recent past mean that far too many courageous and decent people are still seeking answers about the atrocities that have ruined their lives.
This unpalatable £12,000 so-called "gesture of goodwill" will not provide any answers to those seeking justice for their dead loved-ones. Sadly, one suspects that the scars caused by 35-years of senseless violence will remain for some time.

Tom Peterkin on Salmond and Obama

There was a thought provoking column in yesterday's (Tuesday's) Times. Angus Macleod picked up on an article in the most recent Scotland on Sunday in which we revealed that Alex Salmond has sent an invitation to Barack Obama to a Burns Supper the First Minister is hosting in Washington next month as part of Scotland Week.

Angus remarked that it can only be a matter of time before Obama is invited by someone at Holyrood to learn the words of "My Granny's Heilan' Hame" as he lamented the "small country-itis" that appears to be infecting Scotland.

It has also occurred to me that we are seeing more and more Brigadoonery, tartanalia and shortbreaditis (if those are words) festooned about the place in this year of Homecoming.

Angus went on to say that Obama "would be well-advised to steer clear of the event (the Burns Supper) rather than risk an interminable Salmond lecture on how Scots invented and discovered everything worthwhile and how the whole world is obsessed by a small country on the northwest fringe of Europe".

The contributions offered by Scots to the world (penicillin, the telly, telephone, the Tunnock's tea cake) are surely things to be justifably proud of, although the swaggering "Wha's Like Us" attitude is in danger of being overdone.

On balance, however, I almost prefer that sort of attitude to the talk of ending the "Scottish cringe" that was such a feature of Jack McConnell' s administration. I never knew what the "Scottish cringe" was. Was it something to do with an inferiority complex? In any case, nothing made me cringe more than listening to McConnell blethering on about ending it.

Tom Peterkin: National Identity

As 2008 draws to a close I thought it would be interesting to reflect on the opinions of a most colourful Scot, who sadly passed away in October this year aged 90.
Brigadier Frank Coutts was a policeman, soldier and an international rugby player who had a distinguished war serving in the King's Own Scottish Borderers. Readers may well question why his views are of any interest to a politics blog.
But an extract from his volume of reminiscences "The Golden Thread: Mair blethers from the Brig" published a couple of years ago shows that he had a very strong notion of his own national identity.
"I'm as Scots as they come," wrote the Brig. "Born just off the Great Western Road in Glasgow, the fourth son of a Church of Scotland minister, I went to school in Glasgow, served most of my life in Scottish Regiments, married a fellow Glaswegian who was born just round the corner from me, played rugby for Scotland and played the bagpipes to quite a high standard.
"But I am British (Scots), not the other way round."
What would Alex Salmond make of that? It would certainly make an interesting contribution to the SNP's National Conversation.

Tom Peterkin on heavy metal rockers

Like David Maddox, I salute the SNP MSP Christine Grahame who has tabled a parliamentary motion acknowledging the "musical contribution" of the rock band AC/DC. As a native of Angus, I was glad to see that her motion mentioned the late lamented Bon Scott, the original lead singer of the band who came from Kirriemuir.
As every ACDC fan knows, Bon tragically died after a night of heavy drinking in a car parked outside a friend's flat in South London on February 19, 1980.
It has often been said that Bon's first muscial influence was his father Chick who was a drummer in the Kirrie Pipe Band.
The following link should take you to a picture of the aforementioned band photographed after the war.

www.practicalpipers.co.uk/id119.htm

On the left hand side of the middle row is a certain Charlie Scott wearing a drummer's sling and drummer's plaid. I have often wondered if this is Bon's dad Chick. Perhaps someone from Kirremuir could enlighten me.

Tom Peterkin: Hung Parliament

An interesting poll in today's Guardian suggests that Labour is rapidly catching up with the Conservatives. Although the figures indicate that Gordon Brown has yet to overhaul David Cameron, the ICM poll will no doubt fuel more feverish speculation of a General Election early next year.
According to the survey, the gap between Labour and the Tories has narrowed from 15 points to five. Will Brown bottle it like last time? Will his economic policies look quite as clever a few months from now? Will he be tempted to go to the country before the worst of the recession kicks in? Can Dave be trusted with the economy?
One likely outcome is a hung parliament. Given his reputation as a ladies' man, one presumes that Nick (Cleggover) Clegg is no stranger to fervent wooing. Ardent advances of a political nature can be expected by the Lib Dem leader in the weeks ahead. Just how welcome those from Brown and Cameron prove to be remains to be seen.

Tom Peterkin on gout

More alarming Scottish health statistics today including the little known fact that 10,000 overweight Scots suffer from gout - the condition commonly associated with corpulent toffs with a fondness for claret and rich food.
It will be of little consolation to those suffering from this painful affliction, which contrary to the popular image crosses all class barriers, that their symptoms were shared by Henry VIII, Sir Isaac Newton, William Pitt the Elder, Galileo and Theodore Roosevelt.
A famous Scottish sufferer was Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat - the wily veteran Jacobite known as the old fox who, in 1747, was the last person to be publicly beheaded in Britain.
As Lovat discovered, public executions can be even worse for one's health than gout. Happily, they went out of fashion some time ago.
But today's statistics do suggest that our politicians face a huge challenge to turn around Scotland's dismal health record.
They showed that 20% of Primary 1 children have been classified as overweight, including 7.9% as obese and 3.9% as severely obese.
It was Mary Scanlon, the Tory Health spokeswoman, who pointed out it has been estimated that obesity may have accounted for nearly 500,000 cases of high blood pressure, 50,000 cases of coronary heart disease, nearly 900 cancers, over 30,000 people with type 2 diabetes, 14,000 people with osteoarthritis as well as the 10,000 people with gout.
Food for thought as we lick our lips in anticipation of the Christmas booze and food fest.

Tom Peterkin - the Calman Commission

Much of the political reaction to the publication of the Calman Commission's interim report was predictable. "A substantial and serious body of work" said Iain Gray, the Labour leader. "A damp squip...a constitutional mouse," was the SNP's response. Easily the shortest statement came from Tavish Scott who suggested that a more radical approach is required.
"This report is where Scotland is now," Scott said. "Liberal Democrats want a strengthened Scottish Parliament with the United Kingdom - a real home rule settlement. Calman must now produce a blue print for the future."
More to come from the Lib Dems on this one, methinks.