Swinney hands back Scotland’s only tax power

Yesterday’s revelation that John Swinney has failed to renew the computer system which allows use of Scotland’s only national taxation power took my breath away.

Ask almost anyone who the most able, competent, respected performers are in the SNP administration and you will see John’s name at the top of the list. I don’t always agree with his policies of course, but he’s usually a star performer and a genuinely likeable man.

But his decision to unilaterally and completely quietly allow Holyrood’s only tax power to lapse is unforgivable.
He doesn’t want to use the power to vary the basic rate of income tax – he prefers to hand on the Tory cuts to Scotland. He is completely entitled to that view. It’s shared by most politicians in Scotland at the moment; so far only the Greens are talking about raising revenue to defend public services – and even we prefer to empower councils to raise taxes locally first, with income tax used only if we can’t fill the gap.

But the political parties, all busy writing manifestos for May’s election, have now had their hands tied. We have all been told that the power has been effectively surrendered, and the electorate can no longer choose to endorse the use of a fundamental feature of the devolution deal which they voted for by around 2/3, back in 1997.

John Swinney constantly puts the case for more financial powers – a case I support. What would happen to a Chancellor who had to admit to Parliament, after someone else exposed the facts, that he had allowed HMRC to forget how to change the rate of income tax? I can’t think of much that would result in a quicker sacking.

John Swinney is, as I say, someone who I have respected even when disagreeing with him. But this disgraceful act of negligence cannot be overlooked. Coming so close to an election, I know that there is little chance that this will be seen as a resignation matter, but he will end his period in office as the SNP minister who handed back to London a fundamental part of the devolution settlement, and left the Scottish public less able to defend the country against the vandalism of a Tory Government we didn’t vote for. This is shameful.

How should Scotland face the Liberal/Tory cuts?

The UK coalition government’s spending cuts are an assault on the poorest and most vulnerable in society and pose a huge challenge to anyone who wants to see a progressive agenda for the people of Scotland.

The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) announced by Chancellor George Osborne included £18bn slashed from the welfare budget and will see at least 500,000 public sector workers consigned to the dole queue, with as many more job losses in the rest of the economy as a result.

This is absolutely the last thing the economy needs and will make recovery less likely. More than that, it will cause untold amounts of harm to individuals, communities, and to our whole society. They’ve attacked higher education, child benefit, housing benefit, social housing, and more. The Tory/Liberal programme is a more savage attack on social justice and the foundations of the welfare state than anything Margaret Thatcher attempted.

And it’s unnecessary! A host of other options exist, including slowing down the deficit reduction, or raising revenue in progressive ways, from those most able to pay. A financial transaction tax, or Robin Hood Tax, would ensure that the banks paid their share for the damage they’ve done. Progressive income tax or a one-off wealth tax on the richest 10% would mean that those with the broadest shoulders took more of the burden. George Osborne could be shutting down the tax City’s avoidance machine, rather than wiping out massive tax bills for his friends in big business.

Listening to the spending review was a nauseating experience – the LibDem/Tory coalition is clearly determined to exploit the deficit to justify the most fundamental attack on the welfare state since its creation. For many right wingers this is a dream come true but it is ordinary people across Scotland and the UK who will be living with the nightmare consequences for generations.

Cameron’s claims that the coalition government would be “the greenest government ever” also proved to be hollow. Chris Huhne has pointed out that the UK needed £200 billion to rebuild its energy infrastructure however George Osborne announced today that the much trumpeted Green Investment Bank will have a paltry £1bn allocated to it, while the huge publicly owned banks like RBS continue to pour our money into some of the most polluting and unethical industries in the world.

The challenge for Scotland – and a key test of devolution – is to maintain a progressive agenda in the face of this radical right wing ideology. It’s vital that the SNP doesn’t just hand on these cuts to Scottish public services, but instead sets out how we in Scotland can raise revenue too. Greens have put forward our ideas, by proposing to empower councils to raise a range of taxes locally. As long as Council Tax continues in its current form, additional higher bands would ensure that the wealthiest pay more. Land Value Tax could do even more to raise revenue and reduce people’s housing costs at the same time. Other options should be explored, such as a hotel tax, a sales tax, and some use of environmental taxes. Finally, it’s time for a full debate on the national tax-varying power, which could help protect vital public services. If the other political parties are unwilling to contemplate raising revenue, then all they have left is to hand on the cuts.

Whatever the SNP propose in their budget, Parliament as a whole must ensure that public services are maintained and the people hardest hit by the Liberals and Tories are given some protection. Like most Scots I want a society which uses its wealth to attack poverty, but right now it’s being used to punish people who’re living in poverty.

The evidence from around the world has never been clearer – equality is better for everyone. It makes society healthier, happier, safer and greener. And the values which have created the inequality we can see around us were values of selfishness and greed – the same values which led to the financial crisis and shaped the political environment which allowed it. So Greens are not only opposing the UK Government’s cuts; we’re not only trying to shape an alternative Scottish budget which will protect public services; we’re also speaking up for the values of a better society which will put the emphasis on health, wellbeing and quality of life.

Pow-wow with GOW

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting the ‘GOW Community’ – so called because their tenement building is formed from Gibson St, Otago Street and Westbank Quadrant in Glasgow’s West End. Before I tell you a bit about the transformation they’ve achieved, I just want to point out how important that distinction is. Most people who live in tenements (there are lots of us in Glasgow!) are most aware of the street we live on, but we don’t often think about our relationship with the rest of the building. Tenements could provide the opportunity for a community to look inward and see shared space, shared resouces, and the chance to meet and learn from one another. Even GOW’s logo suggests this perception of a tenement…

Like many people in Glasgow, residents of the streets which make up GOW once looked out onto a backcourt which was filthy, neglected and unsafe…

Through their persistent efforts to clean up that backcourt they’ve succeeded not only in creating a delightful and welcoming shared space, but also in creating a community which is stronger and more creative. They’ve developed services for themselves like better recycling, and they’ve got ideas for the future which lots of us in Glasgow could learn from.

Some people would no doubt say that this is the trendy West End, and that they have advantages not shared elsewhere in the city. But the reality is that this is a really challenging place to build up community links – there are lots of commercial units on Gibson Street, and the needs of residents and businesses don’t always coincide; there’s also a very high percentage of short term tenancies here since it’s so close to the University. That means a rapid turnover of residents, but also some HMO landlords have been really hard to engage with constructively. It’s sad to say, but some private sector landlords to treat their properties simply as cash machines, and have little interest in looking after them as homes or as part of a community.

So the GOW residents have done something quite remarkable. Even just looking at the bin stores, which are covered to keep them dry and cleverly designed to be relatively hidden, you can see what a transformation could be achieved in tenements across the city with the right commitment and imagination.

It could be the most transformational experience for Glasgow if all our tenements offered a view not of a smelly, dirty, walled-off bin store for each close, taking up all of the space within the building, but instead a well designed shared facility like this, with room left over for lots of shared green space to relax, to play, to grow, and to meet one another. In many places we could even see shared energy systems like micro-CHP, heat pumps or solar thermal panels providing lower monthly bills as well as income to keep up the maintenance on the shared areas.

Tenements were once a model of community living. Few of us would want to go back to shared wash-houses in the 21st century, but by sharing the green space and perhaps the energy which can be generated locally, tenements could help to rebuild the community relationships which were once central to tenement life and could be again.

Woo?

For the second time since I was elected as a Glasgow MSP, there has been a proposal to close down Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital, also known as the Centre for Integrative Care. Last time this came up I took the time to visit and speak with staff, patients and a group of medical students on placement there, who had started out sceptical and changed their views after seeing the centre’s work.

Since that time, there has been a lot more attention brought to the issue of homeopathy, due largely to the work of campaigners for evidence-based medicine, many of whom want an end to NHS funding for anything remotely “alternative”. If a treatment actually works, they argue, there should be a clear scientific evidence base and it should be regarded as mainstream, not alternative. If it doesn’t then it’s just a quack remedy, and the NHS shouldn’t be peddling it.

The strictly rational viewpoint is one which I have a lot of instinctive sympathy for. I’ve been accused of being a fundamentalist follower of the church of Dawkins on other issues, so why would I support public funds being used for unprovable (some would say simply bogus) treatments? Over the last few days I’ve had a number of messages asking whether I’ve changed my view.

The short answer is yes, but perhaps not to the extent that some would like. Before I explain that, I should publicly thank the campaigners who have raised the profile of the issue. I’m willing to admit that my knowledge of the subject was weaker than it should have been, and I take responsibility for not having learned more in the past. Having said all that, in the context of an economic crisis, a climate and energy crisis, and the biggest attack on the welfare state since it began, I still can’t quite see how either promoting or attacking homeopathy gets to the top of anyone’s agenda.

(OK, that should get me a nicely outraged response from gimpy, if nothing else does!)

So what’s my current view? It still seems to me that the proper regulation of alternative medicine (maybe I should call it something else, but it’s the most widely understood term) is the best policy approach, rather than piecemeal support or opposition to individual techniques. Regulation should require a proper evidence-based assessment of treatments and put an end to undemonstrable claims, and deserves to be supported by many practitioners as well as sceptical critics. It may be that homeopaths would find it harder to clear the regulatory hurdles than practitioners in some other fields, perhaps even impossible, but if they are making specific claims about effectiveness it’s only reasonable that they should face the same standards as other schools of medicine.

If certain products can’t be shown to have objective evidence on their side, is it ever ethical to use them? Is it legitimate for doctors to use what they know to be a placebo effect to make patients feel better? I have mixed feelings about this, and no doubt others have considered the medical ethics in far more detail. But let’s be clear – it happens every day in ‘conventional’ medicine too. If it’s wrong to deliberately induce a placebo effect even in cases where ‘real’ treatment isn’t available or isn’t working, then we need a pretty fundamental examination of practices throughout the NHS, and my guess is that we’d come to regret taking so absolutist a stance.

I suppose this has a bearing on my reasons for arguing six years ago that the GHH should remain open, and why I still feel that way. The staff there aren’t untrained quacks, they are fully qualified medical professionals, who offer a range of ‘alternative’ techniques in addition to mainstream medicine. Ending the use of homeopathy, if that was to be the result of a fair and evidence-based regulatory approach, would mean closing one cupboard. Shutting the whole hospital on the other hand would mean losing something far bigger than just the treatments which have been criticised. Whether it’s because of the individual staff there, or the one-to-one time that’s spent with patients, or the way the wards are organised, or the shade of the damn curtains, the place is getting something right. Patients with complex conditions who have been on multiple drug regimens for years are finding it easier to live without those drugs. That saves money, but it also reminds me that for all the medical wonders which science has achieved, some people still have to live with untreatable pain and suffering. Helping them to get through that and to face their life should be a part of their treatment, and it’s something that the NHS often falls down on.

Change the place, sure. Regulate the field, absolutely. But keep hold of what’s good about the hospital and learn from it. I don’t want to keep the GHH because of sugar pills, and ditching them would be no loss that I can see. But I do want to keep the high quality care that’s being delivered and the trust which the patients have in it.

There is a better way

“Vote blue, screw you”. That was the message Tory voters should have been given in the recent election campaign, Caroline Lucas told the Green Party conference this weekend. As for LibDem voters, they must be wondering what happened to the Clegg pitch of progressive values and honest politics.

Certainly the reality of the public service cuts which the Liberal/Tory coalition has planned is only just beginning to dawn on many people, including those who are already struggling to deliver services to meet the increased demand which the recession has caused. At a meeting this week called by Unison’s Glasgow branch there was a mixture of personal testimony about the impact on local services and determination not to accept the Government’s planned vandalism of the welfare state.

Naturally, the difficult question came up after I’d addressed the meeting – what will I do when the Scottish Parliament debates the devolved budget?

I won’t easily forget my experience in the week when I was accused of ‘bringing down the budget’ back in 2008. It’s a big decision to vote against a budget, even more so when you know the Government doesn’t have a majority and the vote is more than a symbolic stance. Back in the days of Labour/Liberal coalitions, we sometimes voted in favour of the budget, sometimes against, and sometimes abstained if we felt the arguments were finely balanced. But that was when we all knew that Ministers had the votes in the bag already; we all knew what the outcome would be.

With the SNP in minority government we’ve tried to take the same stance – looking at each budget on its own terms, engaging constructively, but casting our votes in the way most consistent with a Green agenda. So far, we’ve voted for them once, against once, and stayed neutral once. On the day the budget fell it wasn’t because we voted against it of course; it was because precisely half the Parliament did so. Nevertheless, in many people’s eyes we carried the can. The fact that one week later Labour and Liberal MSPs trotted into the chamber and voted Yes to exactly the same budget was absurd, but given the Government’s unwillingness to work constructively I still think we made the right choice. The underwhelming implementation of the policies at stake bears that out.

This year though, the situation is compounded by the Liberal/Tory cuts. If the budget falls, it will mean that public services will be even more vulnerable as every Council, health board and public employer immediately takes the ‘worst case scenario’ plans off the shelf.

The hope must be that a budget can be constructed which is supportable. But the principle policy levers which we need if we’re to avoid the cuts are all held at a UK level – decisions on the timing and pace of the deficit reduction; the balance between tax and spending; fairness in the economy; the benefits system; these are all in the hands of Ministers who are pushing the cuts agenda. What can Scotland do to protect services?

The answers are hard to find – and they will be hard to persuade people to vote for too – but they do exist. Could there be a case for raising income tax by a penny in the pound? I’m not yet convinced, but we do need to ask whether people would be willing to share the load in this way if the alternative is seeing mass redundancies in the public services. Could we broaden the tax base despite the strict terms of the Scotland Act? I think we can, but I don’t yet know which other parties would be willing to allow Councils to raise a Land Value Tax or road user charges as well as an addition to the Council Tax. Crucially, we’d need to find a progressive way of doing this so that the well-off pay more. Can we pull back from some big-ticket spending decisions which were made before the UK coalition began its assault on spending? Absolutely, and in some cases those decisions were made on pretty shaky grounds anyway.

Over the next few months we need to work hard to put together as much of an alternative agenda as possible if we’re to see a budget develop which can gain the support of the Parliament. There’s also a huge job of advocacy to be done, in defence of the values which underpin the welfare state itself.

Some people have fallen into a habit of refering to the Independent Budget Review as the Beveridge Report. This should be a moment when we instead recall the original – the report which identified the five giant evils of society. Squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease. The welfare state has made great progress against these evils, and the language we use for them has changed too. But they have not been defeated, and each one of them will be made worse by the Liberal/Tory cuts agenda. If we’re going to challenge that agenda successfully, and make sure that voters have the chance of a progressive Scottish administration which will find a better way, we need to recapture the values which were strong at the birth of the welfare state, and which have been under continual assault in the recent decades of free-market, consumerist, shallow and selfish politics. For too long Governments have behaved as though they’re running a sort of hotel – we each pay our bills, and we each receive our services in return. But this is a society, not a hotel. If we can recapture and communicate the idea that we pay for things collectively because we’re all better off if we care for one another, the wreckers of the welfare state will be fail, not just in Scotland but throughout the UK.

Dry land at last

So I’m back. Back in the land where freighter terminals not only have public transport but also trees, green spaces and even a wind turbine!

Actually as I write this I’m onto the next stage of my journey home, sat on a train at Antwerp station which should be on it’s way to Brussels before I finish the post.

Very pretty station by the way. Very pretty indeed.

Then I’m bound for London, hopefully making use of the compensation journey I’m due from Eurostar after the nightmare trip back from the Copenhagen climate conference last winter. With any luck there will be time for coffee and a bite to eat at the station.

I actually found it harder to sleep last night than I did throughout the journey, despite the calm waters and the ship’s engines being largely off. The excitement of something happening, of the destination appearing, of an actual view to look at, had me getting up to stare out of the window time after time.

Even now, as the train sets off, I’m aware that my eyes are struggling to adjust to the change of perspective and the presence of actual scenery. When I first set foot on board the ship I wondered if I’d come away swearing never to travel that way again. In fact I’d sign up in a heartbeat for another freighter journey, though I’d prefer to do it with a few friends, and I’d want to plan it further in advance to try an get a shorter (and cheaper) route. I also find that I actually have some real feelings about the trip, some kind of emotional understanding of the distance I’ve covered. It’s a far cry from the sterile, deadening experience I’d be having if I found myself waiting at an airport baggage retrieval system after a seven hour flight.

I’m sure this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and sparing the time will always be a barrier to slow travel. But if you consider the journey not as an inconvenient chore to get through but as an integral part of travel, almost as though it’s part of the destination, it can be far more satisfying and relaxing than time spent in any manufactured tourist experience.

And so to sea

I always knew that one day my ship would come in, and today it did. I will be boarding for the long trip homeward in a couple of hours, and I’m just taking the last opportunity for a bit of wifi in a lovely little cafe near my hotel. One more blogpost, a few more tweets, and a skype call or two. Then eleven days or so with no network. I’m feeling withdrawal symptoms already.

What of this strange land I’ve been exploring? It’s as conflicted and polarised as I’d expected, not only on the topics like climate change and LGBT issues which I was deliberately focusing on, but on the very nature of this “experiment in limited government”. The current hostility between Democrats and Republicans, and between the wider ‘conservative movement’ and everyone else, is only the latest phase in a very long running conflict, the conflict into which the country was born. The polarisation between right wing and left wing media is also more polarised than ever – it’s almost impossible to find actual news coverage which is free from bias of the most blatant and manipulative kind.

It would be easy for me to characterise America’s inability (and the right’s unwillingness) to act on climate change as simple selfishness. Americans may think that they have the most to lose from the dramatic emission cuts which are needed… that’s if a change to their current energy-intensive lifestyles is to be considered a loss. But it may be that they have far more to gain as well, including some freedoms they forgot to protect. In their jealous guarding of the right to drive everywhere, they have in practice lost the freedom to walk (you wouldn’t believe the distances I’ve had to go to find the simplest things, from a bookshop to a laundrette, often along sidewalks which couldn’t be called pavements because they’ve never been paved). In defending the many freedoms of business, they’ve been left with a public which doesn’t feel free to live simply and within their means; with a media which is daily attacking people’s freedom to think for themselves; and with a political culture which narrows the range and depth of democratic freedom to an extent which would no doubt have horrified the founders of the nation.

This is also a country which seems disturbingly obsessed with the idea of being number one, of proving over and over again what a great thing America is. Which makes me wonder who they’re trying to convince.

I don’t have the answer to that, and I certainly don’t know what the outcome of their ideological war on the climate will be. I also have more thoughts to mull over before I can express them properly. Thankfully I will have plenty of time in hand…

Goodbye internet, until I see you again on the other side of the Atlantic.

N’awlins. The best place in the world?

How can I describe New Orleans? How can I put into words the utter delight of the place, and my dismay at leaving do soon? Quite simply this could very well be the best place in the world.

My stay here has been a straightforward holiday – the programme I’ve been participating in ended in Houston so there have been no meetings or piles of reading material to get through. Just a wonderful city to explore.

I was excited by its reputation for food and music, but to be honest I really only booked some time there because it’s more or less en route from Houston to Wilmington, my departure point from the US later this week.

I’m indescribably glad that I came. There may well be a festival or one sort or another pretty much any time, but I felt immensely lucky that my arrival coincided with Satchmo Summerfest, the free open air festival in celebration of the great Louis Armstrong. Sunday was one long blissful day of jazz, beer, sweltering heat, red beans & rice, fried chicken & mustard greens.

There’s something wonderful about the diversity of the place. Every race, every age, every style that’s cool and everything that’s not. I would never have believed that a wiry, lean black guy dancing frantically in nothing but pearls and sparkly purple pants and waving the tiniest daintiest tassle-fringed umbrella ever seen could not only get away with it, but somehow make it look impressively butch.

Thankfully the crowd, increasingly drenched in sweat as the day wore on, also included many 50-something jazz fans dancing with huge enthusiasm and zero talent, in whose company even rhythmic inadequates like myself feel empowered to shuffle vaguely.

New Orleans is more cool than the cool places – a kind of cool where it doesn’t matter if you’re cool or not. Nobody’s keeping score. Will it mean anything if I say that it felt post-retro? It’s a city where the old rubs shoulders with the new with a completely natural charm; buildings, clothes, furniture, people, and of course music. Everything is up for continual reuse including the tunes.

There’s also a pride of place here which is genuinely well founded, by contrast what I felt to be an automatic and empty nationalism I found in some parts of the US.

Later (with a fair amount of drink taken, it has to be said) I almost wept to think how lucky I was to be there. I’d call this a real place. Not the first one I’ve visited… Chicago definitely qualifies… but the first that I could see myself falling in love with.

And the food. Oh my, the food. I don’t quite know where to begin, but I know that I’m ending with a definite commitment to cook some gumbo as soon as I get home. Whether cheap or expensive, the food was pretty much always sensational. The spices were rich but never overpowering, and the seafood was always a hit. Whoever thought of putting a deep fried soft shell crab into a roll and serving it like a burger deserves a place in whatever afterlife they wish. Last night I wandered back to the guest house quite sober but with a belly full of the best meal I can remember eating, and wishing that I could promenade along Decatur every night of every week.

I leave wanting to know more about the place, and have been recommended to watch the HBO series Treme, which it seems is as much about the musical heart of the city as it is about the striving for recovery after Katrina.

What of the future for this extraordinary place? Rising sea levels and stronger hurricane seasons could pose a terrible challenge to New Orleans. But it’s alive now, and magical. This city can provide moments worth living in here and now, whatever the future holds. Sometimes it seems that the only rational thing to do in the face of an uncertain future is to take the irrational decision to commit to surviving despite ourselves.

“Say, its only a paper moon, sailing over a cardboard sea, but it wouldn’t be make-believe if you believed in me…”

I just don’t like Houston

Throughout my American adventure I have been blogging belatedly. The delays have previously been caused by the electronics, the wifi, and the long hours of meetings. But with Houston, I just needed some time to come to terms with the place before I could begin to set out my thoughts.

In short, I hated the place.

I knew I was going to an oil state. The oil state. I thought my prejudices would serve me well, but they were utterly inadequate to the task. This was a city built of road. It really isn’t possible to walk anywhere, and even if it was there’s nowhere to walk to. There seem to be no real streets or places, the sort of bustling lively urban areas which real cities are made of. Instead there’s just an endless sprawl, every building looking like a motorway service station or out-of-town mall.

I had just two days of meetings there, but reaching the venues took a total of about eight hours of driving (I could never have done that myself… thanks go to my escort officer Paul, a nice chap who only does these assignments occasionally after retiring 15 years ago from the State Dept… he actually went to China with Nixon!). The landscapes we passed through were just mile after unending mile of bleak industrial desolation, the view from the road punctuated only by fast food chains and huge adverts from law firms urging people to sue somebody.

To be sure, Houston has some things which must be said in its favour. It is more liberal than the surrounding state (as the political advisor to the new Mayor… the first openly lesbian Mayor of a major US city… was at pains to emphasise) and is finally beginning to install some public transport infrastructure albeit in a small way. There are also some examples of more radical thinking about energy resources, economic growth, and the need for smaller, closer, walkable communities. But in general the complete lack of any planning controls have resulted in a whole region devoid of any shape or form, as developers have simply run amuck.

Most people’s response to my questions on climate change was, perhaps predictably, to bury the head further into the sand. With a few exceptions, people either looked at me blankly or changed the subject so quickly that it appeared they hadn’t understood what I was talking about.

I can understand, of course, that a generally right wing state with its economy so utterly tied to the oil industry would oppose cap and trade legislation or a carbon tax. But the denial is so deep here that a state which will also see direct effects of climate change – from more severe hurricane seasons to changing migration patterns – seems also to be ignoring the adaptation agenda.

I was utterly relieved at the end to climb on board the Greyhound and make my way to New Orleans. Better still, when I arrived I found that I was just in time for the Satchmo festival. More on that tomorrow, but for now I’ll leave you with the words of a trumpeter who worked on the TV series Treme who was speaking at a Q&A during the festival:

“I just don’t like Houston.”

It’s Star Trek, Jim, but not as we know it

Those who know me and my tastes won’t be surprised that when I saw this online, I made a beeline for what I took to be an open-air screening of an old Star Trek episode in a Seattle park.

How wrong I was. How delightfully, wonderfully wrong.

What I found after a longer than expected walk to the Dr Blanche Lavizzo Park was in fact a full, line by line, scene by scene live performance of the episode, The Naked Time!

With home made costumes, minimal props, and a split-second sense of timing the community theatre group Hello Earth were striking exactly the right balance between respectful fandom and knowing humour.

Even in a city with a sci-fi museum, this was an unforgettable highlight. I can’t recommend this highly enough, for anyone with a love of warp drive and a sense of humour.

(that’s sickbay in the foreground, the bridge centre-stage, and if you look closely you’ll see ‘Engineering’ chalked on the back wall!)