Nationalism - The Same Everywhere

It is quite something when Scotland's First Minister and the leader of the Scottish National Party condemns the leader of Russia for violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine, given that she is constantly agitating for the destruction of the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom. Certainly Putin's means should be condemned and Calton has no hestitation in doing so but is an aggressor from outwith the borders necessarily worse than one from within? As long as she continues to eschew violence Sturgeon has the moral superiority over Putin but in other ways they are very similar.

Both of them are harking back to an earlier period in the histories of their countries and wish to return to it. Putin wants to revive the Russian Empire and Sturgeon wants Scotland to be independent again. (Independent and bankrupt, just like it was in 1707.) Both of them have an enemy which they are fixated on - NATO and Westminster. They surround themselves with yes-men and don't like criticism. They seem to think they are above the law. And both of them are very reluctant to give up the reins of power.

'Nationalist' seems to be a dirty word with SNP members these days but a nationalist is what Nicola Sturgeon is - by her own admission on many SNP conference video clips. So is Vladimir Putin which just goes to show that nationalism is the same the world over.

How to Start a Bank Run

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is going down a very dangerous path with his threat to freeze the bank accounts of protesters. What he doesn't seem to understand is that the banking system of the western world relies on trust. There are no vaults of gold bars to back our currencies. We deposit our money in the bank because we trust that we will be able to get it back out as and when we need it. When that trust evaporates we get what's known as a run on the bank. In the past that has always happened because trust in the particular bank has failed, as in the run on Northern Rock. Investors in that institution started to get worried that their deposits were not secure and so they queued round the block to get them out. Banks never have enough ready cash to pay out in that situation and so the UK Government had to step in. Otherwise Northern Rock would have gone under, taking people's deposits with it.

Now we have a situation in Canada where a politician is threatening to deny people access to their money. If banks comply with orders to freeze accounts it will have the same effect of damaging trust in the banks, even although the banks are not failing. People, not just in Canada but around the world, will look at what's going on and will start to wonder if they would be better withdrawing at least some of their cash from whichever bank it happens to be deposited with, just in case one day their account is frozen. They may not be planning to protest or do anything else which might merit Trudeau's negative attentions but the seed of doubt has been sown: maybe my money is not as safe as I thought it was. Who knows what the trigger for future invocations of emergency powers might be? They are only supposed to be invoked in extreme situations in Canada but Trudeau is driving a truck through that. More trust destroyed.

In the case of Northern Rock, UK politicians stepped in to save depositors' money (at the expense of shareholders) by nationalising the failing bank. Canada's leader is risking causing a run on healthy Canadian banks by his draconian actions. He may not care if Canadians lose their trust in him but if they lose their trust in the banking system it won't just be him who pays the price.

Shot Down in Flames

 Calton has never seen a newly elected government so beleagured by bad press right from the get-go as the current Scottish Government. Usually there is a honeymoon period but that seems to have been cancelled, just like many other wedding plans and honeymoon trips over the last two years. Sturgeon moved quickly to bolster her position by bringing in the Greens after being denied a majority yet again but it doesn't seem to have helped her popularity, or her temper. Regular watchers of First Minister's Questions will have noticed that, lacking real answers to the opposition questions, she plays the man, not the ball, particularly where Douglas Ross is concerned. The Tory Leader is youthful looking, leading Sturgeon to mock him for being infantile. Such ad hominem attacks are not very smart coming from a woman of a certain age who looks like Maw Broon and sounds like a fishwife but intelligence is not one of the First Minister's strengths. For proof of that one only has to listen to the recording of her speaking on the topic of doors and ventilation at today's FMQs: "If a door is hung in such as way that it is inhibiting the natural flow of air, then one of the options the local authority should have is to rectify that." (She means by chopping bits off the door rather than opening it.) Having been chased up this particular tree by Ross's "absurd" line of questioning, Sturgeon refused to come down, rather like the cat in Trumpton. Unfortunately the real life Fire Brigade has refused to come to her rescue, choosing instead to pour fuel on the flames of the controversy by raising issues of fire safety. If only those pesky firefighters were as compliant as Police Scotland ...