Wendy About to Make Double U-Turn

On Friday I decided that's I'd had enough personally of blogging about the Wendy house of cards over the referendum for independence statement Labour's Scottish leader made last week. However, when you wake up this morning and the Scottish Edition of the Times headline is 'Mad' Wendy on Brink over new U-Turn some promises, even those made to yourself have to be broken.

They do say a week is a long time in politics and it appears that having made that U-turn statement last Sundaoy to hurry up the Nats over a referendum on independence, Wendy Alexander is being forced into doing another three point turn this weekend. Is a U-Turn of a U-Turn a Double U or W-Turn. Anyway the result is that Wendy appears to have been going around in circles this week, looking like a headless chicken rather than a leader of the second largest party in Holyrood. It may have been when the Prime Minister failed to back her up properly in the commons that Wendy's spinning, not spin doctoring, started in earnest.

Whatever is going on it is making her position as a leader almost untenible. Her predecessor Jack McConnell has brended her 'mad', and she has also garnerd criticism from former First Minister Henry McLeish who said she had been ineffective in opposition and former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. Yesterday Scottish Labour's national executive met and as a result Ms Alexander tried to pull herself out of the inreasing mire she had created for herself, then dragged her party into, by saying that her party could no longer guarantee a referendum.

Oh dear the party had sheepishly followed the leader, first assuraning they backed her on her call for a referendum, but then turned on her. It looks like Wendy's house of cards is on the brink of collapse.

Harnessing Solar Power Like Nature Intended

Consider the lilies.

Well if it's good enough for the bible. Imagine the scene a pond in summer, the sun blazing down and the water lilies covering it are soaking up the sun's rays to provide the energy for them the grow and flourish.

Well Glasgow based company ZM Architecture have used that imagination to take the step one stage further. They have observed this happening in nature and have come up with a new way to utilise that idea to micro generate power by large lily-esque solar panels on the River Clyde in the middle of the city to help cut the carbon footrpint of Scotland's largest city. It is an ingenius scheme and one that many of the world's major cites should be able to take on as well as they are usually built on some water course of coast.

As the energy is created locally little of the it will be lost in transportation to end user, and it utilises an now underused part of the reason the city was located where it was. It will prove to be a useful addition to local energy production in our urban areas.

It's Now or Never: The Convenience of Entymology

Yesterday PMQs was more a matter of entymology than what was happening in the Wendy house up at Holyrood. However, Dave leader of the opposition and second most powerful Tory in London asked away:

Labour’s leader in Scotland, Wendy Alexander, says that there should be a referendum now on Scottish independence. Does he agree with her?

Up stood the Tim'rous Beastie, to correctly say that she had not said now. However, now is one of those words in politics that does not have the same entomology as elsewhere in the known universe. You see now in politics takes some time to actually come to reality cogs need to be set in motion, to enable now to come to be at the appropriate time.

It was when Dave tried to follow up with:

She said: "I don’t fear the verdict of the Scottish people," she told BBC Scotland on Sunday, "Bring it on."

What else could that possibly mean? Can I ask the Prime Minister again? Does he agree with Wendy Alexander or not? It is not much of a leadership if no one is really following him.

However, then the Tim'rous Beastie ignored the facts that Ms Alxeander's aides had clarified her statement on Sunday, by telling the world that she was in favour of a referendum. On Monday that she had said she wanted it within 12 month, a relative now in the world of political planning. That on Tuesday the Labour group at Holyrood had met and agreed this new tact, with Gordon Brown's own spokesmouse saying the issue is "a matter for the leader of the Labour Party in Scotland". Having had that clearance Ms Alexander clarified her position by saying that ideally such a referendum should take place in 2009.

To what is happening to the Wendy house of cards or the Tim'rous Beastie who's facing agitated reactions from his mischief of mice. From the outside clearly they are playing this on the hoof and nobody quite knows what is going to happen next. One leader has found a potential way to get out of the trough they are in the other is still looking and he is possibly jealous that there is a get out clause for his Scottish counterpart.

Corrected: Thanks to Bernard Salmon for correcting my English usage. Apologies for any insect lovers who thought I was referring to their speciality instead of the derivation and usage of the word now.

News of Wendy's Neverendum Spreads to Englandshire

It's good to see that Wendy Alexander's comments regarding a referendum on Independence has raised some post from the non-Scottish Lib Dem blogosphere.

Nick Barlow writes with barely contained excitement about the possibility of a Super Thursday in 2010 if the referendum falls on the same day as the by election. Many of us in Scotland, especially those who advocate a referendum, fear that possibility.

It would mean a number of things. All parties would be facing the General Election on the single issue, independence. There would be no room to be distinctive on other issues, everything would be tied into whether it would be improved or worse in an Independent Scotland. It would also could lead to a similar occurance to last may, or the London Mayoral elections, where all otherparties would be slung aside as the big two fought it out.

I'd personally want us to face a question on independence separately away from the other issues and the chore that is hard enough of trying to retain and gain seats in Westminster. Also this would allow us to explore all the nuances of what independence needs without having to worry about all the issues on a local level in those keys seats.

However, he has only sketched some initial thoughts and says he expects to post more later.

Alex Wilcox is looking at the psychology behind this announcement so soon after the disastorous elections down south. He takes a differing view from myself saying not like I did on Monday that is was taking the fight to the SNP but it was actually taken the fight to the Tories on the national stage. Also in a way trying to prevent the Scottish voters falling out of love with Labour in a similar way to what happened to the Tories in recent decades.

Both make interesting reading from an outsiders point of view.

Meanwhile in Scotland fellow Lib Dem Bernard Salmon adds his thoughts on it. While he thinks that me and Iain Dale are in error to renew (like I've ever not un-newed it) our claims that the Scottish Lib Dems should do the same. I was reminded last night that I'm not alone especially within my local party on thinking that the lack or even considering or discussing of this following last May's result made us look illiberal and undemocratic. The fact that he also disagrees with the official party line shows that the party is somewhere between a rock and a hard place on this issue right now.

Ladies Take to Your Corners Please

And Prepare to Come out Fighting

Well after Wendy Alexander threw the first punch in the latest round of the Independence referendum fight at the weekend. Which she, backed by her cabinet member brother Douglas, hastily followed up with a call that the SNP were running scared by holding it in 2010. You may be forgiven for thinking that the Nats may have been reeling.

Well they sent out Alex, nope my mistake, the First Minister is not the big hitter on this one, it's Nicola Sturgeon that's been sent out to take this on. She said echoing the chant of Big Daddy in the wrestling ring that the Nats shall not be moved, not even it would appear to bring forward their primary aim to take Scotland forward to independence that bit quicker. They still want to have it in 2010, which looks most likely to be an election year. So the issue may still be buried behind other issues and not given the clear light of day that it needs and deserves to be debated fully.

Nicola accuses Wendy of being desperate. Wendy accuses Nicola of running scared. Looks like the WWE big event may bale beside the build up to this fight at Holyrood.

Wendy Comes Out Fighting

For weeks, neigh month, the leader of Labour in Scotland has looked like a punch drunk boxer, up against the ropes waiting for the next punch or hoping that her corner would through in the towel, while facing Alex Salmond in the chamber at Holyrood. However, just like in all the Rocky films you think its all over then, using all effort one final telling blow swings the whole thing around. Well Wendy may be setting up a few jabs ahead of that telling blow.

Yesterday she announced her intention to back Alex Salmond's call to give the people of Scotland a say on independence by referendum. As regular readers of this blog are aware I've long held the view that by calling a referendum and giving people a clear view of all that independence would entail, it would knock the wind out of the Nats sails, when it fails.

I personally don't think that the people of Scotland do want independence and that view appears to be backed up by opinion polls. If senior SNP backers like Tom Farmer are urging caution about haste over the matter, I think Wendy Alexander is right to bring it on. Lets give the people of Scotland what they actually want a devolved Parliament, inside the UK with greater powers to govern the people of Scotland better.

Look What the Old Boy Done

A couple of weeks ago I looked at just what Labour had promised us on taxation. Unlike Kezia Dugdale through her red rose tinted glasses I gave them a less than exemplary grade. Which leads nicely unto education.

We all rememebr the mantra leading up to the 1997 Election, when at the 1996 conference Blair pormises:

"Ask me my three main priorities for government, and I tell you: education, education, education."

So lets take a case study, some where where education and politics both have influencial sons. I suggest Kirkcaldy in Fife home of Adam Smith one of the pioneers of political economics and also the town where as a three year old the Prime Minister moved and was educated before he crossed the Forth to attend Edinburgh University.

Now there are 4 high schools in Kirkcaldy, but as Education, Education, Education was the mantra of the Labour governemnt we'll base our case study in Brown's alma mater Kirkcaldy High. Now surely the Labour Chancellor, Blair's right hand would ensure that the matra applied to his old school, that it would now be an excellent example of Labour education policy for Scotland.

Wrong! Far from being at the pinnicle of education Kirkcaldy High's report card read most do better. It is actually one of the worse schools in Scotland. Lindsay Roy was tasked for pulling the school out a spiral of decline in 2006 after Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) criticised the school for poor exam results, low staff morale, and disruptive behaviour among pupils. Having been honoured for services to education the appointment looked like a wise choise, however the progress report has classed the school "weak" the second lowest of six grades. The report went on to say:

"There had been no improvement, and in fact some decline, in levels of performance in external examinations. The school's overall response to the main points for action in the 2006 report had been weak."

Contrast with the first year of after the election when "good progress" was found to be made at the school. Of course as education is now devolved it doesn't really fall under the MP who has a nice London address of 10 Downing Street to sort out the current mess.

Whoops look like another new Labour pledge that has fallen by the wayside.