And now, the movie

The film being made of the Scottish parliament building is mirroring its subject:

The film has also been hit by a series of budget increases which mirror those of the Holyrood project itself. Originally planned with a budget of £370,000, with the Scottish Arts Council and BBC Scotland sharing the costs, the latest estimate is £820,000. Scottish Screen joined as an additional funding partner later on.

Yet again people are angry but I fear for the worst. The building is ten times over budget and the initial expected cost of the film was £370,000. Surely it will end up costing £3,700,000.

Where's the Terminator when you need him?

Anti-social behaviour: Who's to blame?

No sooner had I written the previous post when I noticed this article in The Herald:

A remarkable 90% of Scots have expressed support for Jack McConnell's emphasis on young people in the Scottish Executive's moves to tackle anti-social behaviour. The high level of endorsement, recorded by NFO System Three in a poll for The Herald, is found across every political party, class, geographic region, and age group. Support never falls below 85%.

The high level of support doesn't surprise me at all although I'll be amazed if anything meaningful is actually done. Already, the usual suspects are moaning:

The surprise outcome last night provoked a furious debate between politicians and campaigners, with Mr Mc-Connell and his ministers being accused of generating undue concern about the levels of youth crime in the run-up to the new anti-social behaviour bill.

I'm not at all surprised to read that Socialist Party MSPs, Professors of Criminology and single issue pressure groups are completely out of touch with the majority - the careers of these people would not exist if crime were properly dealt with.

I have just finished reading A Brief History of Crime by Peter Hitchens of the Mail on Sunday. It is an admirable survey of why crime is rising and who is to blame.

Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart (click to hear Elvis!)

I think that this guy is a nutter but what harm is he doing?

The man dubbed the "naked rambler" has been remanded in custody after appearing in court in the Highlands.

Stephen Gough, who is trying to walk naked from Land's End to John O'Groats, appeared at Dingwall Sheriff Court on Monday

The Scottish police and courts seem to be spending vast sums of our money harassing Mr Gough who has almost completed his Land's End to John O' Groats walk. Most of us would much prefer these resources to be devoted to catching burglars rather than giving additional publicity to the naked rambler.

New blog with Scottish connections

I haven't mentioned the new Adam Smith Blog although I did add a link from here a few weeks ago. Have a look at the blog: today there is a post by Alex Singleton about the possibility of Scottish independence at the instigation of England.

We don't want a socialist IoD

I was rather disappointed to read this in today's Herald:

THE new head of the Scottish section of the Institute of Directors has called for a halt to the "unrelenting torrent of abuse" that has been directed at Scottish Enterprise, the economic development agency currently looking for a new chief executive.

New IoD boss David Watt goes on to say:

"Criticism is not enough," Watt said. "You have to make alternative suggestions, and so far not many people have come up with them."

The Institute of Directors is normally very robust in defending business and regularly calls for reductions in the size of government. Alternative suggestions have been made for Scottish Enterprise: abolish it and use the savings to reduce business taxation in Scotland. I do hope that the IoD isn't becoming part of the leftist establishment.

The state is the problem

The third letter here is from Andrew Duffin, a regular F&W commentator

Elect your local sheriff

Scottish Tory leader David McLetchie will be speaking at the UK Conservative conference in Blackpool. He will be opposing the creation of regional assemblies in England. No surprise there but I was intrigued by this:

The Scottish Tory leader will also refer to reforming the police service to make it more locally accountable, although he will make no mention of the proposals to be launched this week by the shadow home secretary for smaller police forces in England and Wales with elected police chiefs in the manner of the sheriff system used in the United States.

An aide to the Scottish leader said that this was not being considered north of the border, where the problems were similar to elsewhere but the solutions would be different.

So what "different" solutions are to be advocated for Scotland? This looks like a cop-out - no pun intended but the sanction of being voted out by the people is precisely what should be faced by senior police officers and indeed judges.

More on vouchers

The Scotsman has really got the voucher bug this week with Alex Massie following up previous articles and Saturday's editorial also covering the topic.

According to the editorial:

The arguments against vouchers are twofold. First, it would benefit middle-class families who have the knowledge and mobility to use them to access the best schools geographically. Second, that stripping a failing local school of pupils and resources only makes matters worse for the children left behind in it.

These two objections are satisfactorily disposed of but I was rather surprised that the editorial didn't discuss the primary argument that has been raised against education vouchers by free market advocates in the USA. What concerns American libertarians is this: Will it not be only a matter of time before the state increases regulation of private schools that accept education vouchers thus reducing the freedom and attraction of such institutions? He who pays the piper calls the tune. This is, I believe, a real danger although I expect that British private schools are already subject to considerably greater government oversight than those in the US. Nevertheless, I do believe that a pilot voucher scheme should be tried in Scotland as the initial step towards breaking the stultifying control of our schools by members of the predator class.

Why we are free to blog

This is a photograph that I took three weeks ago at the Battle of Britain air display at RAF Leuchars

Education update

I have now noticed that the Scotsman carries an editorial today in favour of vouchers. They also write:

For instance, Judith Gillespie, of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, says: "It’s the children who achieve - the schools don’t deliver their performance. It is nonsense to suggest that a school where 40 per cent pass three Highers is better than one where 20 per cent do." Fortunately, most parents don’t agree with Ms Gillespie’s strange notion that the quality of a school’s teachers or management is irrelevant to their children’s performance.

The Scotsman is noticing the strange beliefs of Ms Gillespie that I commented upon here

What price education?

Despite the politically motivated trashing of the Scottish education system, parents still seek the best for their children:

Parents are paying up to 120 per cent above the asking price to secure a property in the catchment area of state schools with the best reputation.

As a property expert explains:

Jamie Crocket, a valuation manager for Glasgow Solicitors Property Centre, said: "To be blunt: in certain areas schools drive the market."

Some parents are calculating the cost of private education at about £6,000 a year for each child - and deciding it would be cheaper to pay an inflated price for a house near a good state school.

Finding £6,000 a year to educate each child would certainly seem to be beyond the means of all but the wealthiest. However, we need to look a bit more carefully at the figures.

In the current issue of Economic Affairs there is an excellent article by James Tooley of the University of Newcastle. Mr Tooley writes:

The average cost of private education in this country is about £5,000 per year, yet only about £2,900 is made available for each state-schooled youngster, so where would the difference be made up? The answer is easy: if you throw in all the costs of the state bureaucracies, the Department for Education and Skill (DfES), Ofsted, the Teacher Training Agency (TTA), the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA), et cetera ad nauseum, and divide by the total number of pupils, then you get to precisely that magic figure of £5,000!

Clearly Mr Tooley is writing about England, but I have found these statistics covering Scotland and have been able to calculate that the average direct cost per pupil (primary and secondary) is £2,860 per year - almost exactly the same as Mr Tooley's £2,900 for England. As well as excluding the costs of the state bureaucracy, the Scottish figures:

"may not necessarily include all the costs of running the school. Other costs relating to the school may also have been incurred during the period, for example, capital spending or a proportion of total education authority expenditure on services such as those provided by advisers and psychologists."

So it looks as though we could give every Scottish parent an annual voucher for £5,000 per child to be spent on private education with no additional cost to the taxpayer. If private schools had 100% of the market instead of less than 20% I could easily see prices dropping from £6,000 to £5,000 per pupil or even lower. Let's go for it.

Let's save a bit of money

Brian Wilson, the MP for Cunninghame North, has spoken out against list MSPs - those elected to the Scottish parliament under the proportional representation system. Naturally, his targets have responded:

He was immediately accused of "throwing a tantrum", and his comments provoked an angry backlash from list MSPs, who said they were much more useful than him - and doing more work. Mr Wilson exposed the tension between those elected on party lists and constituency members, as well as the distrust that still exists between MPs and MSPs.

I find myself in unusual agreement with Colin Fox who is a "list" MSP for the Scottish Socialist Party:

"The truth is list MSPs for the SSP are very busy both with casework and campaigns in their region. Compare them to Westminster MPs with little to do and we can see the difference."

I don't of course approve of any of Mr Fox's "casework" and "campaigns" but he is right to draw attention to the fact that Scotland's Westminster MPs have little to do given that so much domestic governance is now devolved to the Edinburgh legislature. We need to make two changes. First, Scottish MPs should be banned from voting at Westminster on any matters that have been devolved to Edinburgh and second, the salaries of Scottish MPs should be halved to take account of their reduced responsibilities. What possible objection could be made by Brian Wilson?

The left hand doesn't know what the other left hand is doing

Last week the Scottish education minister announced the scrapping of school league tables. League tables! Information for parents! My goodness, that kind of thing is far too "divisive".

It now turns out that Mr Peacock has run into a small problem:

However, the newly appointed Scottish information commissioner, Kevin Dunion, has now said that restricting parents’ access to information would be in breach of the government’s own legislation - the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act.

The law, which comes into effect on 1 January, 2005, gives the public the right to see any information held by public bodies unless its release jeopardises national security or the public interest

Presumably the government will claim that exposing the abject failure of the state education system is against the "public interest" and indeed probably threatens national security.

Let's get the state out of the education business once and for all. That day may be nearer than one may think if this article is anything to go by.

Incidentally, why does Judith Gillespie of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council (sic) always support the interests of the producer class and never those of education's consumers?

Gordon, you plonker

Is this actually good news for Scots?

The majority of UK company directors would rather deal with someone who sounds like Gordon Brown than Del Boy Trotter, a study of accents has found.

I would hope that company directors go by more than how people talk. Maybe Del Boy sells us the odd bit of "dodgy gear" now and again but he usually gets his comeuppance in the end and justice is done. Gordon Brown, on the other hand, has destroyed our pensions, strangled business with red tape and is taxing us to death, leaving taxpayers "boracic" and companies with few "nice little earners".

I'm a company director. Give me Del Boy any day.

Whisky and Freedom

Well, you can't be too careful these days.

The US Defence Threat Reduction Agency is spying on the Bruichladdich distillery on the Isle of Islay.

This seems perfectly understandable given that:

"The United States is part of the Chemical Weapons Convention. That includes monitoring and visiting commercial facilities where they would be able to make chemical weapons."

And:

The US admitted watching the distilling process because it is similar to the manufacture of chemical weapons.

I wonder though if the US authorities realise that Bruichladdich isn't the only distillery on Islay. There are many others and what's more I have been to several of them. As far as I recall, I didn't see all that many inebriated Muslim fundamentalists in the bar of the Bowmore Hotel or in the Harbour Inn, although perhaps I couldn't tell them apart from the locals after I had sampled a modest quantity of the local product.

Scotland needs Mises and Rothbard not Krugman and Keynes

The Scotsman tells us that Wendy Alexander, former Enterprise Minister and Scotland's best-known MBA, has organised a programme of lectures designed to boost our economic growth rate:

The speakers, dubbed the "Real Madrid" of economists, will include William Baumol, an emeritus professor of economics at Princeton University, Paul Krugman, an economist and commentator, James Heckman, a winner of the Nobel prize for economics, and Ed Glaeser and Nicholas Crafts, both from the UK.

If these guys are the "Real Madrid", then Paul Krugman is the David Beckham of the team, at least in terms of his media stardom. But can Krugman score for Scotland? I suspect not. The only economics that makes sense is that of the "Austrian School" whose intellectual base is now at the Mises Institute.

They are expert Krugman watchers:

That truly great economic journalist, Frédéric Bastiat, who saw the first waves of socialist humbug sweeping across Europe in the late 19th century, wrote, responding to the Paul Krugmans of his day: "We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education ... We object to a state-enforced equality (of rights). Then they say that we are against equality ... It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."

And:

At root, Mr. Krugman's crusade is one of envy. He parodies his opponents, ignores arguments that undermine his thesis and accuses anybody who does not agree with him of being "fanatical," brainless, hard-hearted or a liar.

He sounds just like a member of Ms Alexander's Scottish Labour Party.

The Scotsman's Bill Jamieson has some idea of what is wrong:

Today, we enjoy (sic) a rising level of government spending and a growing dependence on government in all its forms. Only one thing is wrong. The heart of Scotland’s economy has ceased to beat.

Writing to me about Jamieson's commentary, Andrew Duffin says:

As long as most of our people think the state is the solution, Scotland will continue to fail. Once they realise that the state is the problem, we can start to put things right.

I don't expect that's what Krugman will be telling us.

My photo of Hayek

I was very pleased to receive this video of Friedrich Hayek from the Liberty Fund of Indianapolis. The video was sent to me because it contains this photo of Hayek that I took at the Alternative Bookshop in London when the great man was visiting in 1980.

Down with "social divisiveness"

Our governing politicians are beginning to notice that Scotland's population is falling. The solution: encourage more incomers

Mr McConnell's message was aimed at bright and qualified youngsters from outside Scotland, including the rest of Britain and the EU, and further afield. More than 5000 overseas students graduate in Scotland annually, and the executive wants them to stay to help stem the country's falling population.

Many workers from beyond the EU would require work permits and visas, a power reserved to Westminster and a source of criticism provoked by the detention of some skilled workers and their children in Dungavel.

Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser rightly observes that the executive has contributed to the population decline by refusing to reform "public services". But of course what is needed is the privatisation of almost all of these so-called services. Then our economy would be the envy of Europe. In the meantime the government is actively making things worse:

MINISTERS are to scrap the publication of national exam "league" tables, describing them as ''meaningless".

Peter Peacock, education minister, said the tables in their current form were "illusory", offering only "a very narrow measure of a school".

In a separate major reform of school education, Mr Peacock will announce today that he is scrapping national testing under the 5-14 programme and will consult the public on plans to replace the tests with a sophisticated form of scientific sampling.

Of all the Lab/Lib administration's crimes, the worst is surely the destruction of Scotland's education system. The educational-political establishment is paranoid about any kind of objective testing. Very well, let's expand this principle. It seems to me that elections for parliament are divisive - how devastating it must be for losing candidates to be "socially excluded" from power. Instead MSPs must be selected at random from the electoral roll - in a "sophisticated scientific" way of course. Think of all the money that could be saved by abolishing elections. Indeed, given that the idea of inculcating knowledge is regarded as being somewhat fascist these days, why not pick teachers at random as well?

Government jobs: where should they go?

There was a huge row when it was announced that Scottish Natural Heritage would be relocated from Edinburgh to Inverness. The same arguments have started up again after VisitScotland has said that it too may leave the capital. Remaining in Edinburgh is one of ten options being considered. It is understandable that Edinburgh politicians are against any move:

David McLetchie, Scottish Conservative leader and Edinburgh Pentlands MSP, reportedly said: "The Scottish Executive and VisitScotland will have to be a lot more convincing than they were with SNH, when they ended up having to order the body to make the move, upsetting employees, and costing the public purse tens of millions.

"No-one should under-estimate the impact and trauma such changes can have on employees and their families, and if their expertise is lost to VisitScotland as a result of this, everyone ends up a loser."

Margaret Smith, Liberal Democrat MSP for Edinburgh West, was quoted saying: "Many people don’t want to be forced to move. If they aren’t prepared to, we end up with a diminished service."

The Edinburgh Evening News expresses its concern:

But the fact is that Edinburgh is the gateway to Scotland for the vast majority of tourists. So where exactly could be a better location for the tourism agency’s headquarters?

Despite the fact that the quango is based here, there are already concerns that VisitScotland does not give Edinburgh the attention or the funding that the city deserves.

In fact Edinburgh receives only a tiny part of VistScotland’s budget, which hardly makes sense when the industry, and indeed the Scottish economy, depends so heavily upon the city’s success.

The News suggests that VisitScotland's under support of Edinburgh may be because the city succeeds in attracting plenty of tourists without government aid. If so, that seems a reasonable policy. I am not at all convinced that tourism, or any industry for that matter, should be supported by the taxpayer. If we are to "aid" tourism, surely funds should go to parts of the country that are most in need of visitors. I am sure that taxpayers in post-industrial Lanarkshire aren't too happy at seeing their money used to attract yet more tourists to prosperous Edinburgh.

Of course Edinburgh's politicians and newspapers will speak out for their city but I think that the policy of decentralising government departments away from the capital is correct. Devolution has given Edinburgh an even larger share of Scotland's better paying jobs - just as government activity in London has boosted that city at the expense of the rest of the UK. Private sector workers constantly have to move from one part of the country to another and they rarely enjoy the benefits given in the public sector. The real solution to these relocation rows is to leave money in the pockets of taxpayers and let the market, not politicians, decide where jobs should be. I have little doubt that a privately run economy would see a far more equitable distribution of jobs throughout the country than one managed by politicians. It's no coincidence that the world's capital cities usually have the best-paid jobs.

Here's one you really couldn't make up

Who's going to start a business when this kind of thing is being introduced:

EMPLOYERS may have to provide prayer-rooms for staff and allow religious holidays as part of radical new laws to prevent discrimination at work.

I imagine that employment law is a "reserved" matter and therefore beyond the powers of the occupants of our own expensive parliament. That's a pity for I am sure that the massed ranks of Glaswegian socialist MSPs would love to sort out this legal conundrum:

Lawyers say the provisions also throw up a number of issues in terms of sectarianism, especially in the west of Scotland. Employers would be subject to a tribunal claim unless they offer a "rigorous" recruitment policy, open to both Catholics and Protestants.

A policy of limiting hiring to proven supporters of Partick Thistle may not get you off the hook.

"Fuzzy" Liberals

According to that disastrous politician Shirley Williams, formerly of the Labour Party and now LibDem leader in the Lords, her current party's image is unclear:

"We are still too fuzzy. Our central themes are not clear enough and not obvious enough to the public," she told a fringe meeting at the party conference."

Party leader Charles Kennedy agrees and thinks "something should be done":

He said voters were looking for the party to produce a more "robust" agenda. "We have to put more detailed policy flesh on the bones of our approach," he added.

I think this is quite wrong.

The strength of the Liberal Democrats is their image as a kind of unthreatening middle-of-the road party, attractive to dissident Tory and Labour voters alike. Appearing to have no policies is good, or rather having a policy to suit every interest group is better as Tory councillor Brian Meek has noted:

..... in the local elections last May there was a proposal to close off an Edinburgh road which had become a rat-run for drivers. The problem was the residents were divided about whether this was a good idea.

The LibDems had the ideal solution. In the part of the street for the closure they put out a leaflet supporting such action. At the other end of the road they issued a leaflet opposing the plan.

And it's not only in Scotland that the LibDems perform this trick:

The constituency of Cheadle, in the Stockport area, has a female LibDem MP who told the local paper last month that she was fully in support of foundation status for Stepping Hill Hospital. Days before, at Westminster, she voted against the idea of foundation status for any hospital in the country.

If I were asked to advise the Liberal Democrats, I would tell them to retain their "fuzziness" for as long as possible. It wouldn't do for them to be outed as a group of politically correct, tax-and-spend, nanny-statists who besmirch that grand old word "liberal".

Onwards to £500 million

Today's Scotsman gives some detail of where the extra spending on the Scottish parliament building has been incurred:

More than £4 million was spent on cranes, twice as much as expected, and more than £10 million was spent on specialist glazing - four times the amount initially planned.

For the main debating chamber, Holyrood planners initially expected to pay £14.7 million for the frame - a figure which has soared to £34.4 million - and £5 million for joinery, the latter figure having more than doubled to almost £12 million.

And if the politicians still want to take the piss:

..... toilets in the Holyrood building were planned to cost £1.3 million, but the final bill is expected to reach £2.4 million, an increase of 87 per cent.

But the really interesting news was in yesterday's Mail on Sunday for which there is unfortunately no website. The Mail reported that the contractor responsible for the Assembly building frame (up from £14.7m in 1998 to a staggering £34.4m) was O'Rourke Scotland Ltd and that they had "in 2001 donated to Labour Party funds by taking tables at fundraising dinners and contributing gifts to the value of £5,000 or more." I wonder if Jack McConnell will give back the donations. Let's hear it from the opposition.

Who's bingeing?

The latest thing to attract the attention of Scotland's control freaks is our "culture of binge drinking." We drink standing up, usually without an accompaniment of food and, horrors, we insist on everyone standing a round. Naturally, something must be done, and when that's the case there's always a politician or two waiting in the wings.

Hugo Rifkind isn't happy, but I think he is encouraging control freakism himself:

Last week's government report identified a "culture of intoxication" among Britain's drinkers. In return, I'd like to identify a "culture of stating-the-bloody-obvious" among the compilers of government reports. People who drink like to get drunk. Of course they do.

I have little doubt that I have been visiting pubs for a lot longer than Hugo. In the last month or so I have visited licensed premises in Ayr, Perth, Pittenweem, Selkirk, Bristol, Keswick and Edinburgh. And guess what Hugo - I haven't seen anyone drunk. It's a lot cheaper to get drunk at home - not that I can understand why one would want to get drunk in the first place. People go to pubs to drink but also to socialise and to enjoy the atmosphere. Let's leave our pubs as they are. Now, binge tax-consumers: there we have a real problem.

Why Edinburgh's road pricing scheme may not work

I like to get the weekly supermarket trip done early on Sunday morning when the roads and the store are quiet. Although it is further than its rivals the prices at Asda are less than elsewhere and there is also the opportunity to call in at Borders on the way home.

And so at nine this morning I found myself driving up Lothian Road, through Tollcross, across the Meadows (remembering the new speed camera) and over South Clerk Street ready for the right turn. But there was no right turn: I had to go left, and along St Leonard’s Street I went with no opportunity for turning back. There was still no explanation as to why the roads were being blocked.

Eventually I reached the Royal Mile, expecting to continue ahead and make an easterly turn beyond Waverley Station. But that road was closed as well. I had begun to notice large numbers of traffic wardens and police motorcyclists. Could there perhaps be a large demonstration? It seemed unlikely: the protests against the Iraq intervention hadn’t produced this degree of traffic "management". In the clogged-up Royal Mile taxis were doing u-turns and I did the same. Back along St Leonard’s Street I went, past the home of Inspector Rebus, and on to Cameron Toll.

Eventually I reached Asda and then Borders. I decided it might be better to return by the alternative route, but where the A1 does a ninety-degree left turn at Jock’s Lodge the road was blocked again. After a lengthy detour through previously undiscovered and extremely congested back streets I eventually reached Leith Walk and headed for the City Centre. By now it was after ten and Queen Street was amazingly busy for that hour on a Sunday morning in Edinburgh. Residents’ cars had received parking tickets and more police were in evidence. Then I saw the sign that explained why there was so much chaos on the roads. It was the day of Edinburgh’s “Car Free Festival”, which:

gives us some quiet time to reflect on these issues, and a tantalising glimpse of what our town centre streets could be like with less motor traffic.

Well, on "reflection", I have come to the conclusion that our City Councillors' plans for road pricing in Edinburgh will produce total chaos. In principle I accept that road users should pay the economic cost of their use but this morning showed that local politicians are the last people on earth to be trusted to have anything to do with transport.