We Need To Talk About: The Green Investment Bank

June 25, 2015June 25, 2015 / Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

Another day. Another broken promise from Westminster. I had been expecting news like this since the referendum last September but I’ve been frankly shocked by the rate at which they’ve been coming and where the hammer-blows have been falling.

Today it was announced that the Government will sell off the Green Investment Bank. The bank, capitalised with some £3 billion of taxpayers money, was set up in 2012 with the mandate for providing investment and incentive for renewable schemes across the UK. Its headquarters were located in Edinburgh in a bid, as it was reported at the time, to attempt to head off the push for Scottish Independence. Indeed, even just the week before the referendum dire warnings were uttered about the potential of Scotland “losing” the bank if we voted Yes (The news that the bank hadn’t actually been investing more than a token amount within Scotland in its first year or so was, of course, conveniently placed to the side).

Instead, now that we’ve “safely” voted No, the bank is to have up to 70% of its shares sold off to private interests for somewhere around £1.4 billion, under half of its initial capitalisation, at a time when it has just announced that it has become profitable.

Of course it’s not all just about the outright betrayal of Scottish voters. In this move, as well as last week’s scrapping of onshore wind incentives, David Cameron and his new Tory majority government are flexing their ideological muscles. Gone utterly is their “Greenest Government Ever“. To quote Scottish Greens co-convener Patrick Harvie on the topic today:

“The sell-off of the Green Investment Bank proves that David Cameron’s comment about wanting to ‘cut the green crap’ has now become a full-blown mantra for a right-wing Government determined to wreck our renewable energy opportunities. The bank was a half-hearted effort by the Tory-Libdem Coalition, with limited powers and funding. Rather than taking another backward step we need governments to go further and faster on developing new energy sources and cleaner industries as the need to leave fossil fuels in the ground becomes ever more urgent.”

Added to this is the call from Green Party of England and Wales MP Caroline Lucas:

“The Government’s rash and irresponsible plan to sell off a large chunk of the Green Investment Bank calls into question their commitment to investing in a low carbon economy.

“At precisely the time when we should be leading the world in the fight against climate change our Government appears to be in retreat. The Government should keep at least a majority stake in the Green Investment Bank to ensure investor confidence is upheld and the commitment to low-carbon lending remains.”

This is just another string of sell-offs by the Government of profitable parts of public service at a substantial loss to the taxpayer (joining such company as the East Coast Mail Line, The Channel Tunnel, The Royal Mail and many of the banks bailed out in 2008). It is purely an ideological move by the Tories to get the Government out of the business of owning any kind of body capable of serving the public.

I have to wonder what they think the endgame is. Just what do they want Tory Britain to look like?

And is there a place in it for us on the ground?

How Scotland Votes: A Guide to the Scottish Elections

June 6, 2015December 30, 2018 / Dr Craig Dalzell / 20 Comments

A Guide to the Holyrood Election System

The Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament Building. Source: Wikipedia

I know that it feels like we’ve just finished a rush of politics and campaigning and that the next step will be a while away but believe me, a year is not a long time and the 2016 Scottish Parliament General Election will be upon us before we know it. The various parties and actors are already starting to formulate their plans and draw their lines and the speculation over what could result from the vote and how those results could be achieved are being debated over the various Internet and social media channels.

In much of this speculation and amongst my conversations with some of my peers I’ve realised that more than 15 years after the first Scottish elections there remains much to be said about our level of knowledge about how our votes are cast and how the seats are calculated. Here, therefore, is a guide to how it all works.

Continue reading →

A Lesson From History

May 31, 2015February 24, 2020 / Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

Scotland has become a strange country where videos from Government feeds regularly trend around social media, has it not? Gloriously so, I think.

Two such videos are, as of writing, doing the rounds.

One being Brendan O’Hara, the new SNP MP for Argyle and Bute, and his maiden speech in the House of Commons.

I’m not going to take anything away from this speech. It is a wonderful one. My concern lies instead with the other video going around. Namely, the reply from the Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.

This reply is being held up as some kind of paradigm shift within the House of Commons’ attitude towards Scotland and the SNP. I, however, was reminded of a passage from Aneurin “Nye” Bevan’s memoirs, “In Place of Fear” published in 1952 (page 7-8 of the First Edition).
Continue reading →

Four Conservative Policies Which Attack Your Human Rights

May 17, 2015May 18, 2015 / Dr Craig Dalzell / 1 Comment

In my previous post, I outlined the Conservative plan to strip you of your Human Rights and replace the ECHR (Full text of the Convention here: http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf) with a British Bill of Rights. I maintained then that I didn’t believe that the Tories actually want to remove, in general, any of the rights within the bill but do want to give themselves the power to remove your rights selectively whenever it chooses to.

We will still have to wait to see what any proposed British Bill of Rights actually contains to see if this prediction bears fruit but while reading up on this it has become quite clear to me that several imposed or proposed policies skirt a very fine line with regard to the articles within the ECHR. I’d hazard a guess that if any of your Human Rights are to be removed then the following would be the ones to watch.

Continue reading →

We Need To Talk About: Human Rights

May 13, 2015May 13, 2015 / Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments

“For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.” – David Cameron, 13th May 2015

Well, that didn’t take long, did it? No sooner than a few days after the news that we’re to endure another Tory majority government (albeit one with a majority only barely greater than Major’s 1992 fragile win) and we see what’s in store for us. Almost first on the agenda, an aggressive move against our civil liberties and a move to withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights.

To understand the significance of this we need to look at the history of the convention and why it came about.

Like much of the early history of the European Union and other such institutions, the ECHR was birthed from the recoil from the horrors of the Second World War and was drafted by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in 1949. It sought to match the then newly drafted Universal Declaration of Human Rights and was part of the wider strategy by the Allied nations to ensure that no government or country could attack its own or any other populace with the severe violations committed during the war. Over 100 parliamentarians from twelve countries, including the leading role played by the UK, drafted the 59 Articles of the Convention.

Some of these articles are so self evident; such as the right to marry and raise a family, protections against torture, the right to life and freedom from slavery, that it may be a wonder to some that they have only been put into such a convention within living memory. And yet, Cameron would sweep them away. What could possibly scare him so?

Certainly Article 7’s clause against retroactivity may yet cause him problems due to the debacle in 2013 when Iain Duncan Smith’s Workfare program was deemed unlawful until the government decided by fiat that it was and always had been. (See: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/dwp-retrospective-law-fascist-workfare.html)

Even Article 16, which prohibits EU nations from considering other EU citizens as “foreigners” has serious implications for his attempts to restrict welfare, the right to work and the right to free movement within the European Union.

But from what’s been said just this week, it seems that what Cameron is most interested in is avoiding a repeat of the 2009 instance of the near-breach of Article 15 on derogations from the Convention in extremis. In that case (A v United Kingdom: http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=002-1647) it was found that while the UK was right to apply to partially suspend the convention in the wake of the Sept 11th attacks the measures it actually took (extending detention without trial and control orders to British citizens as well as foreign terrorists) were disproportionate.

I rather suspect that Cameron’s attempts to replace the ECHR is less about removing the rights entirely but about allowing the government the “flexibility” to bend the rules whenever someone becomes an inconvenient embarrassment much like the case of Abu Hamza al-Masri who spent ten years successfully arguing that it would be illegal to extradite him to a torture using country to face prison conditions which would be considered degrading under British law and where he could possibly face the death penalty (i.e. The United States of America). Now, al-Masri was not a pleasant person and when he finally was deported he was duly tried, found guilty and incarcerated for his crimes but to scrap the entire basis for our human rights just to speed up the getting rid of such inconveniences is simply beyond the pale. It opens us all up to the time when we, too, become an inconvenience. As Cameron has stated, it is no longer a matter of whether we break the law or not.

Our Human Rights are just that. They are Rights. They are not suggestions to be ignored by the government at will. They must be protected and we must oppose the government’s inhumane attempt at authoritarian control.

It has long been the last defence of the proponents of the police state that those who have done nothing wrong have nothing to fear.

It is time for those people to step up now. Read that quote in the opening again. That defence has been shattered by the Prime Minister’s words today. What is your response now?

Further Reading

The Full Text of the ECHR: http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/en/Treaties/Html/005.htm

The Scottish Government’s adoption of the ECHR: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Justice/law/human-rights/Europeanconvention

More on the ECHR and Scots Law: http://www.scottishhumanrights.com/careaboutrights/howaremyhumanrightsprotectedinlaw

The implications for Scotland if ECHR is abolished: http://www.scottishhumanrights.com/careaboutrights/howaremyhumanrightsprotectedinlaw

14 Myths about ECHR spread by the press: http://rightsinfo.org/infographics/the-14-worst-human-rights-myths/

How abolishing ECHR could lead to indyref2: https://commonspace.scot/articles/1322/michelle-donnelly-why-abolishing-the-human-rights-act-won-t-make-britain-any-more-sovereign-and-could-be-the-road-to-indyref2

My Completely Informal Election Predictions.

May 7, 2015May 7, 2015 / Dr Craig Dalzell / 1 Comment

Now that the polls have closed and we’ve got that agonising wait till we either crash out watching the TV pundits searching for anything to say or the results actually start coming in, I thought I’d throw out some completely informal, mostly gutfeel-based predictions of the numbers of seats won by each party.

Continue reading →

Letter to the Editor: TTIP

May 6, 2015May 2, 2016 / Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

Printed in the Carluke and Lanark Gazette – 06/05/15

My letter to the Carluke and Lanark Gazette, printed on Wednesday 6th May, 2015.

A copy of the text is below the fold.

Continue reading →

How to Make Housing Affordable

May 4, 2015January 5, 2016 / Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

(Image: Tenement House, Glasgow. Source: Wikipedia)

Housing is always a touchstone issue during election campaigns and this one is most certainly no different. Two of the most oft-quoted in the manifestos this time round are: “How can we build “Affordable Housing”?” and “How can we afford to build them at all?” It seems strange that we are quite content to allow banks to borrow, or even flat out create, the funds it requires to supply us with a mortgage for a house but it is almost anathema for a government to do something very similar. I am going to make the very simple case that we need to dispense with this illogical paradigm and start looking at how to build a stable, long term housing policy fit for purpose.

For the purposes of this exercise I looked at a couple of example mortgages available from the commercial banks today. One typical one offered me a £90,000 mortgage with an initial interest rate of 4.2% fixed for 2 years. Assuming that that rate didn’t change over the 25 year term of the mortgage I would be faced with paying £485 per month for those 25 years until the loan was paid off. The total amount repaid (discounting inflation) would be just over £145,000. Given that we are currently experiencing historic lows in our interest rates and that they are unlikely to drop further this gives us the lowest bound to the repayment. Add in, on top of that, the profit margin demanded by a private landlord and the costs soon mount up rather staggeringly. It really is no wonder that many of the UK’s richest people are in the property market.

But what would happen if the Government borrowed that money instead and invested it in a social house for me? Today, May 4^th 2015, a 25 year UK bond attracts an interest rate of 2.515% (Source: http://uk.investing.com/rates-bonds/uk-25-year-bond-yield). The first thing to note is that this interest rate is guaranteed to be fixed for the entire 25 year term. There could be no uncertainty over the possibility of unaffordable interest rate rises of the kind which led to so much chaos during the 2008 crash. This opens the way to a long term government housing policy rather than the election-by-election tinkering we see now.

At this lower interest rate we could charge the same £485 per month and expect to have the loan paid off in full almost five and a half years early at a total cost of only £114,500, a saving of £31,000 or 21%. By having the government borrow for us, we can afford five houses for the price of four! Alternatively, the monthly rent could be cut by £80 per month and the 25 year term maintained whilst still undercutting any private landlords (even if they pass on their bank mortgage at cost).

What happens after the loan is paid off could be a matter for government policy. The rent could be maintained, providing the government with a ready and reliable revenue stream. Or the house could be granted at a discounted rate or entirely rent free to the tenant for the remainder of their occupation (with the house returning to the social stock once it is no longer required), or the rent could be reinvested into more housing stock to keep up with demands from population growth and (dare I mention that dreaded word?) immigration. The UK’s population is growing at less than 1% per year meaning that we’d need just one new house built every year for every one hundred in the stock. The rents from those hundred could easily accommodate for that level of demand. Our hypothetical £405 per month rent for 25 years is now just £410 per month, still greatly cheaper than our private landlord and we no longer need to worry about the costs of housing the next generation (wherever they come from).

Of course, many other questions still remain underneath this housing policy such as: where do we build these houses? (the old green belt versus inner city regeneration question), how do we manage (or tax) the land on which they are built?, what infrastructure do we build around them?, or how can we encourage business development in or near these areas to provide jobs for the residents. These are most certainly vital questions to be answered as part of a holistic and complete housing policy but one thing is certain. Neither your bank nor your private landlord concerns themselves with these questions. Even if none of them are answered within this article I believe that I have demonstrated that allowing a government to borrow to invest in our society need not be the terrible thing that some politicians would have you believe it would be. Surely, lining the pockets of the banks and landlords the way we currently are is the least effective, most costly way we could possibly be doing it?

We Need To Talk About: The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

April 21, 2015February 4, 2016 / Dr Craig Dalzell / 1 Comment

What is it?

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), also known in the US as the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA), is a free trade agreement currently being negotiated between the United States of America and the European Union. It is largely based on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed between the USA, Canada and Mexico in 1994 and is a cousin to various other trade agreements being negotiated between the US and other states such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

What’s so good about it?

Proponents argue that TTIP will eliminate trading tariffs and other trade barriers between the EU and US and will allow the harmonisation of health and safety laws and other regulations ensuring that goods and services exported to either or both blocs can be made to comply with regulations in all areas. They argue that this will bring economic growth and increased trade.

What’s so bad about it?

From a trading tariff standpoint, it is hard to see how this agreement will bring much in the way of benefit. Due to prior trading agreements organised via the World Trade Organisation, tariffs between the EU and US average at a little under 3% so there is little to be achieved by eliminating them. Instead the concern with TTIP lies mainly in its focus on non tariff related matters.

One major concern lies in the idea of “harmonising” the likes of health and safety law. The Greens, along with our partners in the European Free Alliance, strongly oppose any measure which would bring historically more stringent European health and safe regulation “down” to historically more lax American standards. As an example, there are currently large divergences between the US and EU with regards to which chemicals are allowed to be used in the agricultural sectors. The EU currently bans the use of growth hormones in meat and milk production whereas they are in common use in the US. Unless TTIP acts to ban such hormones in US (unlikely given the strength of the agribusiness lobby with American politics) then it is difficult to see how forced “harmonisation” of these laws would do anything other than open the EU to such produce. Similar arguments extend to subjects like the production, regulation and labelling of products containing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

Similarly, one of the arguments levelled by proponents of unconventional gas and “fracking” is that disasters and pollution caused by lax US safety standards could not happen here. If TTIP acts to bring EU standards down to US standards then this argument is undermined.

This example leads to another major concern of TTIP. Draft proposals leaked to the public indicate that corporations would be given the power to legally challenge any member state which acted against the principals of TTIP and maintained any real or perceived “barrier to trade” against the corporation. This could include breaking the prohibition of chemicals banned in the EU but legal in the US within the agricultural or chemical sectors mentioned.

These legal challenges, known as Investor-to-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), have occasionally been seen within countries such as challenges launched against the Slovakian government when it attempted to renationalise its health insurance sector or against the Egyptian government when it attempted to increase the national minimum wage. Under TTIP the scope for companies to use ISDS’s could be greatly expanded. For instance, this could mean that American private health insurance companies could attempt to sue for “access” to our NHS market and any attempt to keep the healthcare of our citizens in public hands could be deemed a “barrier to trade”. At the very least, the possibly lengthy and complex legal battles would prove an expensive drain of time and tax-payers money.

Finally, another particular concern about TTIP is the fact that all of this negotiation is being done behind closed doors and away from the democratic process. The UK government and our MEPs have very little direct access even to the documentation of the treaty and many of the concerns raised have only become apparent after documents were leaked to the public. Without proper democratic scrutiny and transparency this treaty simply cannot address the needs of the 500 million+ citizens to be affected by it. A treaty of this magnitude simply cannot be decided by a few industry lobbyists.

What can we do about it?

Education is key. So far TTIP has seen vanishingly little media coverage so many people are still unaware of even its existence never mind the implications of the treaty if it were to come into force as it currently stands. Several papers have been referenced at the end of this article explaining TTIP in more detail and anyone interested in the topic should certainly read them and share them with others.

Whilst this treaty is largely occurring way above even National level politics, the impact of it will be felt at all levels. Lobbying your local representatives at all levels of government (i.e. MSPs, MPs and MEPs) to express your interest and ask them to pass your concerns on is vital. Seeking their opinions and where they or their party’s differ from yours can also be powerful, especially in an election year.

Finally, you can get involved in the grassroots activism. Many online petitions exist and can be signed and many social media sites are frequently used to seek out and share information. Joining your local political party or activist group can also help you get more directly involved in campaigning for reform of this important treaty.

Just a Few Words on the Ongoing Crisis in the Mediterranean.

April 20, 2015April 20, 2015 / Dr Craig Dalzell / 3 Comments

On the 15th April, 1912 a ship sank in the Atlantic. Of the 2224 crew and passengers, many of them migrants searching for a better life, over 1500 died when the Titanic went down.

As of the 20th of April, 2015 an estimated 1500 migrants searching for a better life have drowned in the Mediterranean this year.

The former humanitarian disaster etched itself onto our collective psyche. Inspired books, folk songs, films, exhibits, and memorials and resulted in changes in international law to ensure that it never happened again.

History will judge us most harshly if we turn our backs on this one.

For a few more words, here’s Frankie Boyle’s take on things: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/20/britain-criminally-stupid-race-immigration

“We have streets named after slave owners. We profited from a vile crime and feel no shame. We fear the arrival of immigrants that we have drawn here with the wealth we stole from them. For much of the rest of the world we must be the focus of bitter amusement, characters in a satire we don’t understand. It is British people that don’t learn languages, or British history. Britain is the true scrounger, the true criminal.”