Scotland's Future

There have been a couple of articles the last few days about the lack of a clear vision for Scotland’s future.

I think it will be interesting to see if the politicians can conjure anything even partway inspiring in the run-up to the May elections, but I won’t be holding my breath.

Tags: scotland

Colour Me Impressed

This may well all have been reported elsewhere, but today I noticed that The Scotsman is now directly linking to other sites from within its stories (see this one for an example), meaning you can go and read exactly what generic “reports” are being referred to from the story.

Even better than that, I also discovered that not only has the Scottish Executive website been completely revamped in full XHTML wondrousness, but they also now support RSS for their recent publications. And all with a sensible URI naming scheme as well (although there are still numbers used when you actually get down to the documents themselves, but I guess that’s ok). Sadly, the Scottish Parliament are lagging a bit, but I assume they’ll catch up at some point.

Hats off to whoever is responsible for getting all this fancy work done! If only our companies could follow similar principles…

Update: There’s also RSS feeds for the latest press releases, and also for press releases by topic.

Open the doors!

Following on from my previous post, I love the poem that Edwin Morgan, Makar of Scotland, composed in honour of the new parliament building:

Open the doors! Light of the day, shine in; light of the
mind, shine out!
We have a building which is more than a building.
There is a commerce between inner and outer, between
brightness and shadow, between the world and those who
think about the world.
Is it not a mystery? The parts cohere, they come together
like petals of a flower, yet they also send their tongues
outward to feel and taste the teeming earth.
Did you want classic columns and predictable pediments? A
growl of old Gothic grandeur? A blissfully boring box?
Not here, no thanks! No icon, no IKEA, no iceberg, but
curves and caverns, nooks and niches, huddles and
heavens syncopations and surprises. Leave symmetry to
the cemetery.
But bring together slate and stainless steel, black granite
and grey granite, seasoned oak and sycamore, concrete
blond and smooth as silk ñ the mix is almost alive ñ it
breathes and beckons ñ imperial marble it is not!

Come down the Mile, into the heart of the city, past the kirk of St Giles and the closes and wynds of the noted ghosts of history who drank their claret and fell down the steep tenements stairs into the arms of link-boys but who wrote and talked the starry Enlightenment of their days ñ And before them the auld makars who tickled a Scottish kingís ear with melody and ribaldry and frank advice ñ And when you are there, down there, in the midst of things, not set upon an hill with your nose in the air, This is where you know your parliament should be And this is where it is, just here.

What do the people want of the place? They want it to be filled with thinking persons as open and adventurous as its architecture. A nest of fearties is what they do not want. A symposium of procrastinators is what they do not want. A phalanx of forelock-tuggers is what they do not want. And perhaps above all the droopy mantra of ëit wizny meí is what they do not want. Dear friends, dear lawgivers, dear parliamentarians, you are picking up a thread of pride and self-esteem that has been almost but not quite, oh no not quite, not ever broken or forgotten. When you convene you will be reconvening, with a sense of not wholly the power, not yet wholly the power, but a good sense of what was once in the honour of your grasp. All right. Forget, or donít forget, the past. Trumpets and robes are fine, but in the present and the future you will need something more. What is it? We, the people, cannot tell you yet, but you will know about it when we do tell you. We give you our consent to govern, donít pocket it and ride away. We give you our deepest dearest wish to govern well, donít say we have no mandate to be so bold. We give you this great building, donít let your work and hope be other than great when you enter and begin. So now begin. Open the doors and begin.

Holyrood Back In Business

Catching up on my blog reading today, I noticed Jeffrey had written about the shiny new Scottish Parliament building which officially opened yesterday. Given that I’m Scottish and actually watched some of the ceremony on TV, I feel a bit ashamed that I didn’t write about this yesterday but I guess better late than never.

As ever, the Scottish media and most of the politicians have pissed me off with all their negative reporting and bickering about the building, which I think is simply an incredible piece of work. For me, the late Enric Miralles (the Catalonian architect) has designed an inspirational building, which has aspirations of becoming an iconic building for Edinburgh and Scotland, just as Scotland should have aspirations itself.

The choice of a Catalonian to design the building is meaningful in itself (whether the politicians knew it or not), as Catalonia should be a model for Scotland to follow in terms of self-government within a larger country unit (for want of a better term). Catalonian politicians have been bold and forward looking in their governance of the region, revitalising it, bringing the Olympic Games to Barcelona, no less. By contrast, Scotland chickened out of hosting Euro 2008 itself, brought in Eire which was non-committal to the whole project, and found their resultantly weak bid pretty much rejected out of hand – why didn’t we just go ahead to host it ourselves? Because our current politicians lack confidence and belief, and particularly vision.

There are signs that things are getting better, but I feel the parliament focuses on irrelevant issues. While a blanket ban on smoking in public places would be nice, it is not the biggest issue for Scotland, despite what the media would have us believe. It’s the economy, stupid. I was pretty shocked to learn recently that the parliament doesn’t even have an economic committee, never mind a dedicated cabinet position.

I recently saw Alex Salmond, the comeback leader of the Scottish National Party make a speech in which he provided an overview of how he would approach the economic problem, which requires a long-term plan over a short-term fix. I agreed very much with his ideas, which match my own thoughts (maybe I’ll write that up in more detail later), but I’m not entirely convinced by the notion of full independence from the UK. Fiscal independence is absolutely critical however, if we are to take full responsibility for wealth creation in Scotland, although of course all the media report this as being a licence for the parliament to immediately put income taxes up… sigh

Where I do agree with the media about the parliament is that the current incumbents are fairly ineffectual in their jobs. However, I believe that we won’t have the politicians with ideas, boldness and belief for another few years because they are all still in school. That’s where they will figure out what the parliament is capable of, and understand how to use it for the greater good of Scotland. If they’re teaching Scottish history properly (and not just 1314 and all that), then they will be inspired to make Scotland important again. That’s when the parliament will come good and not just be an apparently easy target for journalists, and perhaps the parliament itself can become iconic for the work it does as well as where the work is done.

Maybe we’ll get nice, new, friendly, uncynical journalists as well… now there’s a thought…

If we could only harness their hot air...

Scotland can be the world leader in marine technology, and we must invest however much it takes to take that lead.

What, even if it proves to be unviable?

A weird coincidence that this story appears, as I’ve been meaning to write this related post since the weekend, when I drove past the Dun Law Wind Farm.

I thought that the Executive could tackle both renewable energy and the health problem with one deft policy: every home has an exercise bike or wheel installed, wired to a battery which is used to power the house (you could perhaps have some emergency juice available from the main grid). Family members must spend sometime on every day, otherwise they won’t be able to veg out in front of the TV with their fish suppers.

You could also use the energy generated from bikes and rowing machines at gyms to power the more complicated bits of electronics in the gym, such as the chocolate bar machine.

Just a thought…

Building a Valuable Scottish Company

A good piece in The Herald today, about shifting the focus away from people who sell out their Scottish-based businesses, and onto those who are actually truly adding value to the Scottish economy.

Scottish Parliament Building

In scale, concept, and sheer ambition, this is a truly extraordinary building. Nothing in it is, even remotely, commonplace.

As we’re about to enter the Fraser Inquiry, more nonsense is about to spout forth from all and sundry. I don’t know why anyone ever believed it would cost £40m anyway—that’s just ridiculous. £400m seems a far more realistic figure for such a unique structure and its contents.

I believe that Dewar and Miralles (Scotland’s first First Minister and the building’s Catalunyan architect, neither of whom can speak at the inquiry, of course) intended this building be representative of the parliamentarians who will use the building in the years to come; not those who are there at the moment, who are representative of nothing more than farce.

Scotland’s parliament will not be fully effective for another 15-20 years, when people who understand its powers and what good can be done for Scotland come through and are elected.

Sadly, I expect nothing more than muckraking and slinging from the current incumbents.

Scottish Enterprise Miss a Trick

I spotted a story in Monday’s Digital Media Wire:

Google to Choose Dublin as European Headquarters, Ireland Says

Dublin—Irish development officials are saying that U.S. Internet search engine giant Google is likely to establish its European headquarters in Dublin. The country’s Investment and Development Agency (IDA) said that it is in the final stages of negotiations with Google, which had also been considering Zurich as a base for its European operations. If Google does choose Dublin, it would be a coup for Ireland, which has been scrambling to replace hundreds of technology jobs lost over the last two years. “The (IDA) board is on the verge of a decision,” spokesman Colin Donlon said. Financial terms of the reported deal have not been disclosed.

If this is true, then it follows hard on eBay’s decision to open more offices there as Karlin Lillington noted recently. Good for Ireland; I’m truly happy for them. My concern is what Scottish Enterprise and it’s sister Scottish Development International have been up to while all this has been going on.

First, some history: throughout the 80s and early 90s, SDI and it’s predecessors did a very good job of attracting high-profile, high-tech companies to locate businesses in Scotland: IBM, HP, Motorola, and Sun being just a few examples. Of these, only Sun still has a notable presence (it’s facility at Linlithgow is the only thing remotely Silicon Valley-esque about Silicon Glen). The agency was slated when Motorola, NEC, IBM, Compaq, and others all shut down or drastically reduced their facilities (mostly manufacturing, so the economic reasons should be obvious). The worst was the very high-profile case of Hyundai, who started working on a semiconductor fab plant at Dunfermline, only to stop after a couple of months. It lay empty for about 5 years (I’m not sure what it is now; a shopping centre, or something).

So, because of all the flak it took for this, Scottish Enterprise embarked on a new strategy: smart, successful Scotland. Which is fundamentally fine, though the agency is currently in turmoil and still being attacked on all sides by the media. It also seems to have turned its back on inward investment (luring foreign companies to Scotland)—which is a big mistake. Yes, Scotland needs successful, native companies in order to generate wealth for the country and its inhabitants (not just in high-tech, but that’s where I’ll focus). Wolfson and Rhetorical being two companies who are enjoying success (Wolfson will IPO on the full London market before the end of the year).

However, just as validly, SDI should be seeking to attract the same high-value jobs (not more manufacturing jobs; not that they’d come anyway) from foreign companies. That means software development and biotech. As such, attracting a Google development centre (if that’s what the Dublin plan is) to Scotland should have been the absolute priority for SDI (and if the Dublin site isn’t a development centre, then SDI should start on that sooner than right now!). Why? Because a pre-IPO Google site in Scotland would make its employees fairly wealthy (presumably). This of course, begins the virtuous circle of people getting rich from hard work, then having their own idea and going off with their wealth and talent and kicking off new businesses, which hopefully do the same thing; just as has happened in Silicon Valley and in Seattle.

This virtuous circle is what underpins the smart, successful Scotland strategy, but SE and SDI should be exploring every available avenue to kick start the processs. If the initial success comes from an American (or Japanese or Korean or Taiwanese) company… well, who really cares? The end result would justify the means.

Why Scotland Needs a Nokia

From The Sunday Herald: Let’s put a Finnish to the new Nokia myth

I think this article somewhat misses the point. Scotland doesn’t need a company like Nokia per se; it needs a company like Nokia to act as a wealth generator. You could equally argue that it needs a company like Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Oracle, or even ARM. All these companies create wealthy smart people, who are then sufficiently well-off that they feel they can take a risk and kick off a new company, thus generating new jobs and new wealth (hopefully), and so on. I guess you could call it the Circle of (Business) Life.

It doesn’t matter how Nokia got where it is; Microsoft had it’s fair sure of luck and opportunism as well. What matters is that it did get where it is.

Soapbox Politics

As you may or may not know, yesterday saw the second election day of the modern day Scottish Parliament. In an interesting series of results, minority parties and independent candidates scored the most victories.

Listening to BBC Radio Scotland this morning, the analysts and reporters were all terribly excited by this development, and wondering why it happened and what it all meant.

• The majority of people have yet to see a direct impact on their lives as a result of the parliament, other than a set of petty squabbles between the major parties, truly insignificant scandals involving MSPs, and a poorly managed development of the new parliament building. No real surprise since the Holyrood parliament does not (yet) have fiscal independence of its Westminster overlord. End result: an apalling 48% of eligible voters actually made the effort of voting;
• The major parties (Labour, Liberal Democrats, SNP and Conservatives) had nothing of note to say during the election campaign. Compare that to the vociferous efforts of Scottish Socialist Party, the Green Party, and the independents, who may only have focussed on particular issues, but therein lies their secret;
• The leaders of the various parties were all interviewed on the BBC a couple of weeks ago. The two ‘winners’ during those interviews were Robin Harper (Green) and Tommy Sheridan (SSP) – they were hugely passionate in their causes (however disillusioned you might think they are ;-)). Jim Wallace (LibDem) and John Swinney (SNP) did not fare well at all, and their parties came off worst last night (in influence, if not in actual numbers);

So what does that mean for the Scottish Parliament? Well, the ruling ‘party’ remains a Labour/LibDem coalition, but with a majority cut-down to just 2 seats. The rest of the seats are highly fragmented between the other parties.

The dynamic of the parliament should change: debates might actually focus on the topic in hand from a variety of angles. The SSP and the Green Party will now have representation on the ‘Business Bureau’, which is the parliament’s cross-party panel for selecting topics for debate, selecting who sits on committees and other parliamentary business. A broader cross-section of interests should be a a good thing.

The downside of this fragmentation is that it could become far harder to pass any legislation, leading to a completely ineffectual government (though some may argue that is already the case).

Only time will tell how different things actually become.

To all the major parties who were wondering aloud this morning just why the minor parties and independents had made up such ground, my message would be this: talk about what you believe in, not what you think might be appropriate; in other words, get on your soapbox. Oh, and make sure you work damn hard to actually do something positive. Self-preservation is not what gubernation is about, so please stop squabbling amongst yourselves, because the electorate doesn’t really care what David thinks about Jack, or Jack thinks about John, or even what John thinks about Margo. And the media has a role to play in this as well – focus on the real issues. In fact, there is only one issue: how to make Scotland a great country to live in. Just over 100 years ago, we constructed the Forth Bridge, and now we can’t even build a parliament.

Speaking of which, please just finish the Holyrood building will you? Once it’s done, it will be a fine home to what could and should be a fine institution, running a fine nation.