LIKELY as not, the cheers from the SNP conference delegates that permeated Alex Salmond's speech at the weekend would not have been notably muted had he decided to recite "Mary had a little lamb". But give the First Minister his due, judging from the newspaper reports of his speech, the boy done well.
I didn't see his performance either in person or on TV (with a houseful of Hibees glued to the titanic struggle being shown live from Dundee, it was no contest), so my assessment rests on what he said, and not how he said it.
It was good to read t
hat he had spent some time putting Scottish independence into an international, and global, context. As I wasn't there, I don't know how much time of his 40-minute tour de force was allocated to this aspect of the arguments, of the urgent need for Holyrood to exercise sovereign powers in what we used to call foreign policy. EU membership has made redundant the demarcation line between "home" and "foreign" affairs. Any scepticism about this has been blown away in the past few days with the news that Brussels has decreed bagpipes break EU noise regulations.
It's also undeniable that small countries have the advantage over big, complicated bureaucracies like the UK when the need arises to wriggle though the protectionist tariff barriers still common in the global economy. Because of the short lines of communication between policy-makers and producers, they're quicker at switching policy direction such as is now required because of food crops being needed more than bio-fuels. If Alex spelt out the part Scotland could play in our brave new world, it was time well spent, particularly when Gordon Brown's speech the following day rubbished the idea.
According to the Prime Minister, Holyrood couldn't deal with climatic and environment challenges without Westminster. He didn't mention that the UK can't act alone either on these matters, and others. The name of the game is interdependence, and if other small, natural economic and social national communities like the Scandinavians can play, why not Scotland?
The peoples of the northern countries have constructed, deconstructed and re-constructed the formal and political relationships amongst themselves, while maintaining their social and personal union. It's entirely feasible that the UK's now very different communities can retain the best bit of the Union, the social union, like the Scandinavians and, from a very different starting point, the West Indies. The UK should construct a modern vehicle for co-operation amongst the islands, nations and regions that comprise the UK, the Republic of Ireland and the dependencies.
I wish the First Minister had highlighted this part of his speech. That could have had the effect of making Gordon Brown's vision for Scotland look dated and small – deservedly. As it was, the part of his speech emphasised to the media was the least attractive part to non-SNP supporters who're now prepared to give the idea of independence serious consideration.
Rather than boast that 20 SNP MPs would make Westminster jig to Scotland's tune, he could have outlined how a group of that size would have a trial run at the sort of cross-border co-operation, and separate policy-making needed in two sovereign parliaments in Holyrood and Westminster. His nose-tweaking is unlikely to go un-noticed amongst MPs who up until now have been relatively disinterested in affairs north of the Tweed. He's put words into the mouths of those who most strongly oppose devolution, never mind independence. He should remember that sometimes, the smartest thing is to play nice.
Non-catholic tastesI confess to a certain lack of interest at the news that future princesses of the realm would not be knocked off their succession in favour of younger princes of the same realm regardless of their intelligence, sensitivity and fitness for the job. It was of more interest that this crowd of Westminster wimps chickened out of putting right a much more relevant discrimination in one of the written parts of the British constitution.
Although Gordon Brown's Government proposes to allow princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses and what have you to hold on to their places in the line succession to the throne if they marry Catholics, there's opposition to the English Solicitor-General's wish to include the heir to the throne.
So now there's only one area that needs to be tidied up . . . what did Charles mean when he said he wanted to be "defender of faiths" rather than the Faith.
Chew on thisGood for Nigel Griffiths. I think I'll buy him a curry as a thank-you for introducing his Bill in Westminster that would ban TV advertising of junk food before the 9pm watershed.
The Edinburgh South MP has taken the first step to making the global food conglomerates realise that governments will take them on – if they don't mend their ways and revise the recipes for snack food that makes children obese, they'll be prevented from marketing them.
In such a competitive field, that would hit profits, hard. I'd go further, as I told MSPs about five years ago – I'd tax according to fat, sugar and salt content in processed food.
The full article contains 878 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
