St George's Day

Today is St George's Day so cue a flurry of announcements from our politicians !

And to accompany our blog post here is the wonderful statue of Saint George and the dragon from St George's Cross in Glasgow. The statue was presented to the people of Glasgow by the Cooperative Wholesale Society in 1897 and stood on the old Co-op building at the cross until the building was demolished in 1985 at which time the sculpture was saved and it was given its new site in 1988.

So lets wait and see what Alex Salmond has to say today about links between the North of England and an Independent Scotland when he visits the Borders.  And playing for the other side today we have David Cameron making a plea as well ! More later !

And we still have to digest (and read in the first place), Gordon Brown's announcement yesterday about pensions and whether an Independent Scotland can afford the public sector ones.

And did you watch What Women Want last night on BBC2 with Jackie Bird ? It was quite interesting about whether women vote differently, do we take longer to ponder the opposing arguments or do we just want the answers and haven't yet been given them ?
And this morning Morning Call is discussing those same issues on Radio Scotland - did you hear me speaking to Kirsty Wark in the introduction to the programme ?

Brian Taylor's Big Debate

Just back from being in the audience at Brian Taylor's Big Debate, a BBC Radio Scotland Programme !

Some interesting questions and an interesting panel.  And pulling it all together with humour is Brian !  Take the chance to get in the audience if it is ever recording near you.

Issues which came up with regards to Independence included firstly the energy issue. An audience member explained that Scotland's oil is not mostly in foreign ownership, the companies are merely licensed to remove the oil and have to re-apply every seven years and pay a large license.  This sounds like he knows what he is talking about, but does anyone have some references or useful links about this ?  Also on the same point someone mentioned about how much Scottish land is actually in Scottish ownership. Fiona McLeod, SNP MSP said one inspiration that originally took to coming into politics was from the 7:84 theatre company who took their title from the fact that 84% of our land was in only 7% of people's hands.  But generally the fact that we have a variety of sources of energy was mentioned, and also the fact that no energy comes freely, the all need some sort of subsidy or investment, but also Patrick Harvie the Green MSP mentioned how we should also take climate change into account when making energy decisions.

Further issues raised included the Europe question and there was a general feeling in the room that we should be in Europe, whether that was in an Independent Scotland (which, as someone said, might be the safest bet if we want to be in the EU) or from the UK, which is currently a definite Member State of the EU. However it is by no means certain that England wouldn't vote to come out even though Scotland would stay in.  A UKIP audience member then was asked to comment. It was unclear really what his comment was but he was certain he was being censored, even though he was invited to continue his point three times ! And for a party with currently no representation in Scotland this seemed pretty fair !!

You can listen in to the debate here, where the other issues raised included parent's being best educators of young children / childcare and also the Red Road Flats / Commonwealth Games opening ceremony issue: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zdxvs