The cost of keeping nothing secret

 The voters in South Dunfermline could be forgiven for wondering which are the parliamentary candidates and which are the council candidates, going by the election leaflets Calton's contact in Dunfermline has sent him. The would-be MSPs all seem to be more exercised by issues such as the proposed closure of a local school, local bus services and the state of the town centre, none of which they would have much control over if elected, than issues of national importance, such as the economy. The Green candidate is even concerned about the ability of Pars fans to buy their club! The Libdems are relying heavily on Willie Rennie's track record as MP for the area, conveniently forgetting that he was comprehensively booted out by Labour's Thomas Docherty in 2010. Calton suspects that Labour will do the same to the SNP this time round, especially with the latter's choice of a recycled Lothians list MSP as candidate to replace the disgraced Bill Walker.

Meanwhile the SNP seem to be increasingly sensitive to accusations that they have been in any way "economical with the truth", leading to journos and other bloggers/tweeters inventing new euphemisms for telling porkies. Calton's current favourite is "saying one thing in public and another behind closed doors". Whether or not the SNP are being honest with the people of Scotland is a matter of debate. What is clear is that a good number of people, including Johann Lamont and Calton, think that they are not being honest, which means that the SNP have a massive credibility problem. The onus is now on them to prove that they are being honest and are not hiding facts which are inconvenient to their arguments for independence. Otherwise they are going to struggle to convince people to vote yes next year. And spending £20k on legal action to keep the fact that they didn't have any EU advice secret doesn't help their cause.

Settling for Plan B

Calton is indebted to the First Minister for explaining the difference between fiscal policy and monetary policy at FMQs today, however he is not sure if Alex answered Johann Lamont's question, namely, does the First Minister have a Plan B if the Bank of England doesn't give us good terms on Sterling? Calton is also not so sure that you can separate fiscal and monetary policy quite so easily as the First Minister seemed to be suggesting. Granted, the Bank of England is nominally independent of Westminster, however the inflation target which it is trying to meet is set by Westminster and, should one be in any doubt about the link between the Chancellor and the BofE, the former gave the latter a new remit yesterday in the Budget. Would the Chancellor of an independent Scotland be able to do the same? What if the two Chancellors do not agree on monetary policy? Under the SNP's plans, Scotland would be able to set taxes and spending levels but would not be in control of interest rates, inflation or the money supply. Perhaps Johann is putting her question the wrong way round - why are the SNP settling for Plan B for an independent Scotland when we could have a Plan A?

Don't mention the war(s) Alex

Calton does not often find himself in agreement with the Libdems, either north or south of the border, especially when they start claiming that they are influencing the other parties, however Sir Malcolm Bruce has hit the nail on the head in his speech to the Scottish Libdem Conference when he talks about the damaging effect of the current SNP Government on Scotland. Watching a few FMQs is enough to convince anyone that absolute power has corrupted absolutely and the SNP have no intention of answering any questions that don't suit them. Accountability is zero in this majority situation. When the First Minister starts harking back to Iraq in response to questions from Johann Lamont you know he's struggling. He'll be taunting Ruth Davidson with Chamberlain's appeasement next and when he resorts to Churchill's resignation from the Asquith Liberal Government over Gallipoli, the bottom of the barrel will have been well and truly scraped. Oh, for a decent opposition leader to puncture his pomposity! Is it any wonder that Orkney and Shetland are talking about leaving a Scotland run by Salmond?

How to worry a rat

Calton is surprised to find that Labour has never called for Alex Salmond's resignation. That glaring omission may well be rectified in the light of the First Minister's subsequent admission that the figures he quoted at Johann Lamont in FMQs today were in fact wrong. Looks like a ding-dong argument has been followed by a right clanger. It wouldn't be so bad for the First Minister if he hadn't kept on repeating the incorrect figures. As it was, he reached bedrock in his enthusiasm for digging and so has all the further to climb to get himself out of the hole. It will be interesting to see if he dumps all the dirt on his hapless Education Secretary Mike Russell. Given that Salmond trotted out the incorrect figures in defence of Russell at FMQs, the question of the Education Secretary's future is still moot, especially since it is clear that Johann Lamont is not going to let the matter drop any time soon. A terrier with a rat would hardly be more tenacious.

The benefits of a minority government

Johann Lamont is quite right to point out that in order to maintain popular but expensive SNP pledges, such as the council-tax freeze, no tuition fees and free personal care for the elderly, taxes will have to rise or other services will be cut. Calton said much the same thing a few days ago, however, as long as the SNP have a majority in the Scottish Parliament, both Calton and Johann are whistling in the wind. The SNP can do what they like. All that the Scottish Labour leader can do is carry out her policy review, set out her plans for how she would balance the budget and hope that the SNP's autocratic attitude gets up enough people's noses to wipe out their majority at the next election.

Hardly an average family

It's a bit disingenuous for Johann Lamont to use Nicola Sturgeon as an example of why free prescriptions are a bad thing. Nicola and her husband hardly represent an ordinary family. The example Johann should consider is the much more common one of a working person or family who earn just enough to disqualify them from benefits but not enough to afford the extra burden of prescription charges. Calton has said it before and he'll say it again - no-one should be left standing in a pharmacy clutching a much-needed prescription, wondering if they can afford to pay for it!

What's in a name?

Calton is now on the north-west coast of Scotland where free wifi is scarcer than sea eagles hence the lack of posts. Radio and TV reception is none too good either and so he is a bit behind with the latest news however he did hear that schoolgirl Martha's blog NeverSeconds has now raised nearly £100,000 for Mary's Meals and a kitchen in Malawi is going to be named after it. Great news.

Calton also heard that the SNP have been advised to drop the word 'independence' due to negative connotations but apparently it's OK to talk about Scotland being an 'independent nation'. Amazing the difference replacing a couple of letters at the end of a word can make! Perhaps Alex Salmond should drop the 'd' at the end of his name - he is certainly as slippery as a fish when it comes to FMQs. In the same vein Johann could swap an 'o' for an 'e' in her surname as she bemoans Scotland's fate under the SNP. Calton just wishes people would stop trying to insert an 'r' into his first name!

Walter the Sissie gets trounced

In FMQs this week, Willie Rennie (in a good impersonation of Walter the Sissie) whined about the 'serious forces' (an Archbishop and a Cardinal) ranged against him and his fellow-supporters of gay marriage and challenged Wee Eck to stand up to Big Brian (Soapy) Souter. As if that's going to happen. Instead, Wee Eck told Walter where to go in typical bully-boy fashion. Seems like a waste of a question to Calton since the only purpose of it was to try and embarrass the First Minister about yet another of his rich friends. Johann Lamont has already tried to do that and failed, as the ability to be embarrassed is not one of Alex Salmond's more obvious qualities. And let's face it - if the Libdems had as powerful a backer as Souter, would they not try their best to keep him (or her) onside? Walter must be wishing he had a big pal like Soapy to protect him from Eck.

Labour's big gun - boom, bust

Johann Lamont must be really desperate if she is reduced to drafting in former Chancellor and Prime Minister Gordon Brown to support the unionist cause. This is the man who presided over a debt-fuelled, deluded boom, changing the goalposts continually to try and make out that he was still following the golden rule of prudent borrowing, the man who raided our pension funds to provide the money for a spending spree we couldn't afford and who was quite rightly kicked out of office as soon as the electorate were given a say in the matter. Does the Scottish Labour Leader really think that he is going to be an asset to her campaign? Calton thinks he should be chained up behind bars like other big beasts.

Get the gloves off

Really, do our political leaders have nothing better to do than to trade comments on who drank what beverage with which media mogul? Is that the most pressing issue at the moment? It would seem so, given the considerable amount of time it took up at FMQs today, much to Calton's disgust. Alex Salmond couldn't resist having another go on the sun bed this week, contrary to Calton's advice, however Johann Lamont should know by now that slinging mud at the teflon-coated one only results in getting splattered by return. And when is someone going to put forward a motion to abolish the tradition of opposition leaders having to ask an innocuous question first, before getting their teeth into the First Minister? It just gives Alex yet another opportunity to be smug without actually giving any information of interest. It's turning into a farce. Scrap it and let the fight begin right from the off.

A paucity of progress

The words 'modest' and 'Alex Salmond' do not normally occur in the same sentence, which is why it caught Calton's eye, however it turns out that, in this case, the adjective was referring to the progress made at the Salmond-Moore talks today and not to the First Minister. Given that the two of them have had weeks to prepare for these talks, so little advancement was disappointing. Michael Moore at least has the excuse of having had chickenpox. One wonders what Alex Salmond's excuse was. Calton has to agree with Johann Lamont, who is reported as saying that "it doesn't bode well for Scotland's referendum that the First Minister and the Scottish Secretary can't even agree what they agreed at their meeting." (She was referring to the fact that the FM thought that the referendum date was agreed whereas the SS still wants it earlier than October 2014.) So that means that the only thing which has been agreed is the role of the Electoral Commission. It's not looking good.

Sack the lot of them

After the childish behaviour displayed by our elected representatives during First Minister's Questions today, Calton thinks we might be better scrapping Holyrood and putting the lot of them on the dole. The thought of that rabble running an independent Scotland is certainly not an attractive one. Yet again, Alex Salmond did not give proper answers to any questions relating to the actual issues raised by independence, such as defence and monetary union, and yet again, Ruth Davidson and Johann Lamont failed to pin him down. The Labour leader was the one who came closest when she said that the First Minister wanted 'independence at any cost'. Quite. Why let the facts get in the way of your ambitions? It took Ms Lamont a while to get to her punchline about Alex Salmond being the 'Fred Goodwin of Scottish politics' but the comparison is apt. Hopefully it will not also be prophetic, for Scotland's sake.

Die another day - maybe

It was nice to see Alex Salmond being forced to answer some questions about what independence would actually mean in First Minister's Questions today. Johann Lamont is shaping up to be a reasonable opponent for Alex, with Ruth Davidson providing good backup. Sadly, neither of them quite managed to pin Alex down as he twisted and turned over the issue of monetary policy. He hid behind the fact that Westminster politicians no longer set the Bank of England interest rate while completely ignoring the fact that they do set the inflation target that the BofE has to meet. Had either Johann or Ruth picked him up on that it would have been a killer blow. Unfortunately neither of them did and so the First Minister lives to fight another day. You're going to have to do a bit better than that, ladies!

The old blame game

Like Johann Lamont, Calton is getting a little tired of hearing Alex Salmond trot out the same old chestnut about not having the economic levers necessary to help the Scottish economy. Not because it isn't true - the First Minister is quite correct in saying that Westminster still holds many of the powers he would like to deploy - but because, even if Scotland becomes independent, he will still not have the economic levers if we stay in the EU. Perhaps that is why the SNP is so keen on continued EU membership - it is much easier to stand up and complain that, much though one would like to help the unemployed, one's hands are tied, than to actually do something about it. At the moment the First Minister spends a lot of time blaming Westminster. The prospect of him spending the years post-2014 blaming Brussels is a very real one, although not one Calton particularly wishes to contemplate.
'Plus ca change - c'est la meme chose'.

2012 Wish List - continued

Ruth Davidson has said that nothing is off the table in a review of Scots Tory policies. In the light of that, Calton would like to add the following to his 2012 wishlist:

• The Scottish Conservative Party to provide a credible opposition to Alex Salmond's 'Independence in Europe' policy by putting the case for remaining within the UK and distancing ourselves from Europe. That way, we stand a chance of being able to cut some of the EU red tape which is hampering our businesses. It will also put some clear blue water between the Tories and pro-EU Wilhelm Rennie/Yohann Lamont, thus giving the voter a bit more choice come 2015.
• The Scottish Conservative Party to drop its policy of re-introducing prescription charges. No-one should have to stand in a pharmacy, clutching a much-needed prescription, wondering if they can afford to pay for it, as many hard-working people used to do before the SNP abolished the charges. If money needs to be raised, tax sugary drinks instead.

Where angels fear to tread...

Given that one of Scotland's main health problems, after alcohol, is obesity, Calton wonders if it was really a good idea for Johann Lamont to appoint the obviously overweight Jackie Baillie to the position of Health, Wellbeing and Cities Strategy spokeswoman. Jackie is known for her campaign for a public enquiry on the CDiff outbreak at the Vale of Leven, and has also successfully campaigned for greater protection of disabled parking spaces, however Calton fears that she will struggle to convince the masses of the necessity to lose weight unless she does so herself. Calton knows that he risks making himself deeply unpopular with this post, and Lord knows, there are probably other MSPs with less obvious but more damaging habits health-wise than Mrs Baillie, however is it too much to expect our leaders to lead by example?

Calton's New Year Message

It is understandable that both Johann Lamont and Ruth Davidson should choose to use their New Year messages to urge Alex Salmond to get on with the independence referendum. The current uncertainty (and continual sniping at Westminster) is not good and could make international companies jittery about investing in Scotland until they see which way things are heading. However, Calton does not think this year is the time to make such an important decision. In common with fellow-blogger the wee red squirrel, Calton believes that a lot more debate needs to take place around the independence issue before it goes to the people. We also need to wait and see what is going to happen in Europe before deciding whether to go for the SNP's oxymoronical 'Independence in Europe' vision or stay with Cameron's isolationist policies. It is therefore with some reluctance that Calton finds himself agreeing with the First Minister's policy of waiting until the second half of this Parliament before holding the referendum, albeit for different reasons!