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Solarpunk: Growing the Hope We Deserve

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

(This blog post previously appeared in Common Weal’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.)

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. – William Gibson

So began William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer and so began what is now known as the Cyberpunk genre. So began countless other generation-defining books, films, works of art, technology inspired by the ideas the genre explored. So began me – 1984 was the year I was born. Cyberpunk is my generation.

Cyberpunk is a world of crushing dystopia. Tortured air and acid rains bleach the life and soul out of polluted cities. There is no society or community here. An individual is one against millions, toiling thanklessly to meet a quota set by an uncaring human if you’re lucky; an equally uncaring AI if you’re not. This is a world where Megacorporations rule to the point that even Governments can do little to prevent them sucking the last dregs of the world’s resources into their ever growing, ever insatiable maws. Technology can provide you with the kinds of miracles that once founded religions but only at a terrible cost. And yet there are those who still work at the edges of this world, or beneath it, or hidden within it, who still fight for what hope remains in the world. Cyberpunk is often about celebrating the rebels fighting against crushing authority. Those who refuse to accept that which others tell them is “inevitable”. Victories are sometimes fleeting, sometimes they are indeed entirely futile, but victories are still possible. Hope can still be found in the “desert of the real”, even if it is a grimy, flawed and compromised kind of hope.

But in Gibson’s opening it is a curiously analogue metaphor that defines the digital frontier of cyberpunk. A sky as grey as analogue static. You don’t have to be much younger than me to be someone who doesn’t understand that metaphor in the same way that I can. The UK – by far not the frontrunner in this particular technological race – completed its television digital switchover a decade ago. For generations now and those to come the dead channel of television will be a brilliant sky blue.

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(Source: Wallpaper Cave)

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Penetrating Pension Politics

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 4 Comments

Understanding is a three-edged sword. Your side, my side, and the truth. — J Michael Straczynski

This week – amidst several weeks of some of the most fraught politics both south and north of the border – saw the re-emergence of a political topic that is both quite defining of my political career so far and has been the source of some of the most vicious and personal attacks levied against me by folk on the other side of my political leanings (albeit, even that was far less abuse than many folk receive on the internet as a matter of course simply for the “crime” of having an opinion in public while not being a straight, white, middle-class, cis-male). But hey, what’s one more time into the breach amongst friends…

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(Source: Centre for Ageing Better)

I am, of course, talking about the matter of how state pensions are likely to operate in the transition years immediately after Scottish independence. Sparked by some senior members of the SNP catching up with and seemingly now adopting the position that I introduced six years ago. Namely that:

After Scottish independence and unless there is a political deal to the contrary or a drastic shift in current policy, the State of the remaining United Kingdom (rUK) – assuming it successfully claims Continuing State status with regards to the former UK – shall continue to pay its state pension to people who have paid UK National Insurance in proportion to their years of payment regardless of their citizenship, their geographic location during their period of working or their location upon reaching retirement age and this includes qualifying pensioners living in post-independent Scotland.

It is important however to discuss each of the clauses in that statement and to do so while remaining, as far as possible, above the emotive statements and political bias that have characterised this topic. Perhaps no other – except perhaps the topic of the physical customs infrastructure at the border – is more emblematic of the complexities of disentangling two states and even that exception will ultimately affect far fewer people and in far less tangible ways. Not all of us frequently or regularly cross the border into England. Many more of us face the prospect of growing old and having to prepare for eventual retirement.

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Why I’m Voting Against The SNP/Green Deal

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 3 Comments

‘We must take advantage of the “tide of fortune”’.
‘I know about tides, sir. They leave little fish gaspin’.’ – Terry Pratchett

Edit 28/08/21 – The Scottish Green members voted overwhelmingly in favour of the deal and it was subsequently also voted through overwhelmingly by Council. The SNP members similarly voted overwhelmingly in favour in their consultative ballot. The deal shall now go ahead as written.

Tomorrow is going to be one of those turning point days in Scottish politics. The SNP and Greens have agreed to a cooperation deal that would see the closest relationship between the two parties in Holyrood, the closest that Greens anywhere in the UK have got to being in Government and the closest arrangement between any two parties in Scottish politics since the Labour/Lib Dem coalitions that ran the country between 1999 and 2007.

Tomorrow, the Green membership will decide whether or not to endorse that deal in a binding vote at an EGM.

In this blog, I’m going to lay out why I plan to vote against that endorsement.

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We Need To Talk About: GERS (2020-21 Edition)

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments

“Never make predictions, especially about the future.” ― Yogi Berra

This article was previously posted on Common Weal. You can also read my previous work on GERS on this blog behind the following links: 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20

In my analysis of GERS last year, I remarked that this was in a very real sense the end of an era not in the sense that it would show us anything different from the previous years but that it was the last year that wouldn’t. Covid has upended the entire world and for statisticians that means the worst possible thing that could ever happen to their data tables – a discontinuity.

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Post-Nationalist Scotland

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments

“Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it….” ― George Bernard Shaw

Yesterday my wife and I took part in a fascinating radio interview looking at how people, particularly migrants to Scotland, have come to support independence. I hope I’ll be able to share it with you in a month or so when it’s due to be published though at this stage I have no idea how much – if any – of our conversation will make the final cut (the programme is expected to be about ten minutes long, we talked for over an hour and the interviewer spoke to several people apart from us). As one might expect the conversation looked, in part, at the nature of Nationalism in Scotland and how that is viewed by both migrants and the countries from which they came. That part of the conversation got me thinking about my own views on Nationalism and where Scotland is, or could go, as part of our journey towards independence.

Be assured, that this isn’t going to be another lazy attack on Nationalism as we have seen levelled against proponents of Scottish Independence (particularly by those who wave their own flags just as hard under the more sanitised name of Patriotism or National Unity). Indeed, I shall defend at least the logic of Nationalism later in this piece. But I shall lay out why I think it only takes us so far in the philosophy of independence and set out a proposition that there is perhaps a hint of what an independent Scotland could look like in a post-nationalist world.

(And yes, I appreciate the irony of writing this on a day when a lot of folk are watching groups of men defined by their national identity kick a ball around. I never was one for Football.)

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Scottish Elections 2021:- The Results

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 6 Comments

“Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” – Abraham Lincoln

A strange election in strange times has, after more than the usual delay, returned a result that seems almost strangely familiar. Prior to the 2016 election, the “received wisdom” was that the majority SNP government was going to come back to power with that majority and thus usher in five years of “boring government” under a “one party state”. Instead, we got a minority government and everything that followed from that. This time round, the challenge to “restore” that majority government was rejected and we again find ourselves with a Parliament that looks really quite similar to the one in 2016. Many of the names have changed, many of the seats have not. The SNP have fallen one seat short of a majority, the Tories remain the “2nd party” by equalling their previous tally, the Greens have increased their ranks and Labour and the Lib Dems have reduced. Despite enthusiastic campaigning by their activist, no new parties have entered Parliament and none have left either (though the Lib Dems have dropped below the “major party” threshold which may have significant implications for them). From a pure democratic stance, at 63% the turnout was the highest of the devolution era – despite or in spite of fears that the pandemic would suppress it. More voters is always a good thing. As is diversity in the Parliament with record numbers of women, people of colour and other underrepresented groups in the House.

A full breakdown of the results in each constituency and region can be found here.

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(Source here)

There will be discussion over the coming days about the makeup of Government and whether the SNP continue to run as a minority or whether they form a formal coalition – most likely with the Greens. For my part, with a track record of two minority governments I think that a coalition is unlikely and my preference would be against one anyway for reasons I’ll detail below but primarily because of my feeling laid out on Thursday that a Government that can rely on whipped loyalty will make less good decisions than one that has to justify itself to Parliament.

The call for a second independence referendum must now intensify. There is a Parliamentary majority capable of passing a referendum bill and instructing the Government to proceed with its manifesto promise. Indeed, between the SNP and the Greens there is now as many pro-independence MSPs in Parliament now as there were in 2011 when the first indyref was initiated. Mandates are sure to be traded – some more, some less valid – and we’re still lacking an effective pressure campaign to keep the tactical and strategic advantage on our side, but I think it is likely now that the only person who can actively prevent an independence referendum within the next Scottish Parliament is now Nicola Sturgeon. The campaign is there for her to take and run with.

For more detailed analysis of each of the parties and the overall political landscape, keep reading below the fold.

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To Those We Are About To Elect

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 9 Comments

“Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power.” – Seth Berkley

This has been an unusual election, put upon us by unusual times. The pressures of the global Covid pandemic here in Scotland have greatly limited electoral campaigning (though I do believe there’s a bright future ahead for digital and semi-digital hustings and other meetings) and the count itself has been extended to allow for the safety of the staff involved. The grand tradition of watching over-tired politicians and pundits trying to say nothing for as long as possible between 10pm and the first results coming in was pretty much absent in Scotland this year. Normally, around this time, I’d be reporting on the results and my analysis of them but as things stand we’re not expecting the first Constituency results in Scotland until this evening and as the Regional results can only be tallied once all of the Constituency results are in, we’re not expecting the final results until Saturday night or maybe even Sunday morning.

Instead of that analysis (which shall come when we have the results) I want to write an open letter to all of the politicians who will take up seats in the upcoming Parliament.

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How Scotland Votes: A Guide to the 2021 Scottish Election

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 9 Comments

Disclosure and Disclaimer: Although I am politically active and an active member of the Scottish Green Party, this post is intended to be objective and politically neutral. This is a guide on how to vote, not a blog trying to convince you to vote for or against any particular person or party.

Introduction

On May 6th, Scotland will once again go to the polls to elect a new Parliament. This will be the sixth election since the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and the second election since I started writing this blog and these “How to Vote” guides. You can read my previous guides to elections in the UK behind these links which cover the 2016 Scottish Parliamentary Elections, the 2017 UK General Elections, the 2017 Scottish Local Authority Elections, the 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections, and the 2019 UK General Elections.

This will also be the second Scottish Parliamentary election that will include voters who were born after the re-establishment of Parliament and possibly the first to include election candidates who were born after the start of the devolution era.

It is also the first Scottish Election to involve voters from Scotland’s newly expanded electoral franchise. Whilst 16 year olds were enabled to vote in elections follow the 2014 independence referendum, the Scottish Electoral Franchise Act returned voting rights to EU/EEA citizens who had them stripped from them as part of Brexit but also extended voting rights to non-EU citizens. Anyone in Scotland who is aged 16 or over on May 6th and has right to permanently reside in Scotland. Limited voting rights have also been extended to prisoners who can vote if they are serving a sentence of less than one year (though the recent presumption against prison sentences of less than one year means that this affects very few prisoners – perhaps only around 500 individuals). As a result, Scotland has the second most expansive electoral franchise in the UK (Wales also allows all permanent residents aged 16+ to vote but has extended prisoner voting to those serving less than four years) and, prisoner voting aside, one of the most expansive franchises of all European democracies.

The result of this is that this election will include the voice of tens of thousands of people who have, until now, been unable to vote in the country they pay their taxes and many call “home”. As noted in my disclaimer at the top of this article, I am a politically active person but this blog isn’t about any of that. I want to walk first-time voters through the voting system for this election. Whomever you actually vote for, this is how to do it.

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Working Towards A Different Future

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 1 Comment

“I live in my own little world. But its ok, they know me here.” – Lauren Myracle

There have been a few articles popping up lately extolling the virtues and the potentials of converting part of your home into an office. Take this article in the Financial Times from January as an example. A year since the start of the first UK Lockdown and many of us who have transitioned to home working are starting to adapt to this being a long term move or are at least getting a bit sick of taking up so much space in the living room or at the dining table. Many are starting to look at ways to modify their homes to make working from home more comfortable.

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I know because I’m currently in the process of doing precisely this. I’m particularly looking forward to my fiancée and I not tripping over each other while we’re both working (particularly when one of us is in a video meeting or giving a virtual public talk) and I’m looking forward to creating a line again between our working space and our living space.

But I must check my privilege when discussing this kind of thing. As a home owner with a job that can be worked from home, I am in the very fortunate position of being able to think about and do this kind of thing. Not everyone is.

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Pit-Stop Politics

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments

“Remember that political parties are tools, and don’t let yourselves turn into party tools.”
― Ted Mallory, Prophet, Priest, & Pirate

A year ago today, Common Weal published “Within Our Grasp” – a policy paper describing an escalating pressure campaign designed to compel the UK Government to either sanction a Section 30 order for a second independence referendum or to compel them to accept the results of an unsanctioned referendum or other pathway to a democratic mandate for independence.

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