The Daily Record - Magnus Gardham

Poll Spinning

2009-06-09T11:37:00Z

GOOD poll spinning from the SNP - as always - today but the full picture is worth looking at.

Angus Robertson said victory in an independence referendum was achievable after the latest TNS System 3 (now TNS-BMRB) poll.

It showed:

Support independence 36 per cent

Oppose independence 39 per cent

Undecided: 25 per cent.

The SNP say - correctly - that's the lowest level of opposition since the TNS series of polls (seven in all now) began in August 2007.

But they don't say the latest survey is far from the most encouraging in terms of independence.

It actually shows a fall in support for independence from the previous poll in February, when it stood at 38 per cent - two points higher.

And the SNP ignored the April 2008 snapshot when support actually outweighed opposition (41 per cent backed independence, 40 per cent opposed).

Critics are also wary of the TNS series because it asks a "soft" question. (Voters are asked if the Scottish government should "negotiate a settlement with the Government of the United Kingdom so that Scotland becomes an independent state".)

The Nats won't be worrying, though.

They've achieved a good - and on-message - hit in one Glasgow paper today with an exclusive leak of the latest results.

Tories continue to eat at Salmond over food expenses

2009-06-04T10:54:45Z

THE Tories kept up the pressure on Alex Salmond over his £800 food expenses yesterday.

Annabel Goldie wanted to raise the issue at First Ministers' Questions but that was ruled out by the Presiding Officer.

It didn't matter. She had the press release ready.

]]> It amounted to a call for Salmond to release his diaries from August and September 2005 to "dispel doubt" over his claims.

(Remember, he claimed the maximum Westminster food allowance for those months while spending much of the time in Scotland, fighting by-elections in Cathcart and Livingston, among other things.)

FM's chief spin doctor said the diaries would not be published.

Stalemate, but Goldie has left a question mark dangling over Salmond's use of Commons allowances.

As for questions that were asked at FMQs, Tavish Scott had another swipe at Salmond's dual mandate as MP and MSP.

He pointed out that Salmond would miss an important Holyrood vote to be in London next Wednesday for a Nationalist-led debate on dissolving Parliament.

It's a gripe Salmond - who plans to step down as an MP at the next general election - has dealt with many times in the past.

But, unusually for him, he missed an easy put down yesterday.

By voting to dissolve Parliament, he would be voting to dissolve his own career as an MP. Tavish's problem solved!

Finally on FMQs, there seemed to be rather more Labour than SNP MSPs in the chamber. A sign of who was campaigning harder in the Euro elections?

SALMOND ASKED TO EXPLAIN WESMINSTER FOOD CLAIMS

2009-06-03T10:12:52Z

ALEX Salmond is under pressure to explain why he claimed £800 for food during Westminster's summer break.

The First Minister only gave a handful of occasions when he was in London in the summer, when he was confronted on a radio phone in.

And the records show he spent much of the time - summer '05 - in Scotland.

The story was overshadowed by yesterday's dramatic events at Westminster. But it's worth a closer look.

Salmond, as the Telegraph revealed earlier this month, billed the £800 for groceries and meals in August and September 2005.

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Asked about the claim on BBC Radio Scotland yesterday he said: "I was in London in these months, in 2005, that's where I was.

"MPs often go to London.

"I'll tell you actually why I was in London, I was getting a rented flat in London in that year and that's in the main why I was in London.

"I was also, for example, at the William Wallace commemoration events which were being held to celebrate the 700th anniversary, these were all legitimate parliamentary events."

But he actually spent much of August and September north of the border - fighting two by-elections, reshuffling his shadow cabinet, holding a party conference and attending Robin Cook's funeral.

He began August in Scotland after visiting an Aberdeenshire animal sanctuary on July 31 when he posed with a donkey.

A few days later he posed for pictures in a hydrogen-powered car in Aberdeen, in a stunt promoting green technology.

And on August 12 he joined mourners at the funeral of Robin Cook in Edinburgh.

Salmond was in London on August 23 for a service at Westminster Hall, hosted by the SNP, to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the death of William Wallace.

He spent even more time in Scotland in September.

Salmond campaigned hard in two by-elections, for the Holyrood Glasgow Cathcart seat and Westminster Livingston seat which fell vacant following the death of Robin Cook.

He made about half a dozen appearances on the campaign trail.

They included a visit to a playgroup in Livingston.

He also launched a poster campaign and, a few days later, took part in a photo-call at the Alishan Indian restaurant in Cathcart.

At the start of September he reshuffled his shadow team.

And, just before the by-elections, he played a key role at the four-day SNP conference in Aviemore.

The Scots Tories jumped in yesterday, demanding a list of all the dates Salmond stayed overnight in London in August and September of 2005.

They also asked whether Salmond went away on holiday in the period.

And a spokesman added: "If, as Alex Salmond has suggested, some of these costs may relate to the dining room at Westminster in earlier months, can he supply documentary evidence to support this claim?."

Salmond's spokesman refused to answer the questions, saying: "The Tories don't sit in judgement on anyone.

"There will be an independent audit and we are confident of the position of all SNP MPs."

He added: "Alex was often in London in the summer of 2005 securing a rented flat, which was unfurnished, and furnishing it for what must be a record low figure for an MP of £2000 on a job lot of second hand furniture.

"In any case, bills incurred during the parliamentary session often fall during the recess period, for example for Commons dining facilities."

Later, Salmond responded personally.

He said: "The Tories' latest attack is laughable - from the party of moats, duck islands, tennis courts, chandeliers, and flipping.

"I was in London in both August and September, securing an unfurnished rented flat and other engagements and during that period also paid bills from the Commons refreshment department incurred during the parliamentary session.

"I have never claimed I was in London during all of these two months - any such suggestion is totally absurd.

"I am delighted to have my expenses judged by the independent audit of all MPs' claims and am entirely confident that the position is rock solid.

"How many Tory MPs can say that?"

He's hoping that's the last word on the matter - but expect growing pressure on him to pay back the cash.

SALMOND FACING PRISON PROBE

2009-06-02T11:42:13Z

ON Sunday, the FM's chief spindoctor declared opposition attacks over prison absconds had "fizzled out".

Twenty four hours later, it emerged a complaint over Salmond's handling of the issue has been referred to former presiding officers Lord Steel and George Reid.

The row is not exactly fizzling out, but Salmond is confident that he will be cleared of misleading parliament.

He insists it would have been wrong for him to reveal a second criminal was on the run from Castle Huntly, as the timing of any announcement was an operational matter for the police.

His opponents believe he had a duty to alert parliament, rather than keep quiet and score political points about his record on prison security.

It seems that feeling is shared, in some quarters at least, at Tayside police.

Police sources say they would have had no objection to the First Minister revealing that killer John Brown had absconded.

They say the timing of the announcement was dictated by the somewhat prosaic "operational matter" of when they received a picture of Brown from the SPS to go with the press release.

Salmond and MacAskill under more pressure over prisons

2009-05-29T12:27:07Z

LABOUR and the Tories are cranking up the pressure on Alex Salmond and Kenny MacAskill over prison absconds.

Labour are making the issue the focus of their Euro election campaign - their glossy new leaflets include a petition calling for MacAskill to be sacked.

Meanwhile Annabel Goldie has written to Salmond demanding a Holyrood statement explaining his "conduct".

]]> The affair is becoming a crisis, and one of the biggest the SNP government have faced.

Salmond and MacAskill have both protested that, while they were aware that killer John Brown had gone on the run, it would have been wrong for them to announce it.

The timing of any public alert was an "operational matter" for Tayside police, they insist.

Nevertheless the fact they kept quiet - and even boasted of their record on prison security while knowing Brown was at large - has caused real anger.

Don't forget, Brown walked out of Castle Huntly while MacAskill was on the rack over the case of gunman Brian Martin, who went on the run from the same open prison last week.

Initially the Justice Secretary defended the decision to place Martin in an open prison, claiming he had not absconded previously and guidelines were met.

Later it emerged Martin had absconded before and MacAskill had to admit the armed robber should not have been in Castle Huntly after all.

One puzzling question: why was Salmond so bullish debating prison security with Iain Gray and Annabel Goldie at First Ministers Questions yesterday when he knew details of the Brown case could be made public at any time?

An MSP I spoke to this morning puts it down to his "gambler's intstincts".

Prepare for an autumn by-election.

2009-05-22T15:54:12Z

NO decision on the timing of the Glasgow North East by-election will be taken until after Michael Martin steps down as Commons Speaker and MP on June 21.

It makes a summer poll highly unlikely.

Scottish Labour - who were keen to avoid a July campaign - are now very confident it will take place in September or October.

And who knows if it will be a separate by-election?

Speculation about an October general election continues to grow. The people of Springburn could be going to the polls with the rest of us.

Timing is important - unless you're Labour

2009-05-14T12:48:22Z

About that "Tory-Nat alliance"...

Timing is important in politics - which is why the following sequence of events was slightly unfortunate for Labour yesterday.
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4.15pm: Labour join forces with the Tories to press for mandatory jail terms for knife crime. (Labour's press release on the issue dropped 45 minutes after the Tory announcement.)

It all rather tickled the Tory press office, as you can imagine.

Is new alliance a coincidence?

2009-05-14T12:40:20Z

Another thing about that "Tory-Nat alliance"...

Just spoken to a Labour MSP who was not un-involved with the mandatory jail for knife crime call. He's admitted: "There were some odd coincidences yesterday.

Is new alliance a coincidence?

2009-05-14T12:40:20Z

Labour not scaremongering over BNP

2009-05-14T12:38:05Z

LABOUR are worried the Westminster expenses scandal will give fringe parties - including the racist BNP - a boost in the Euro elections on June 4.

Campaigning in Glasgow yesterday, MEP David Martin said there was a "real danger of an anti-politcs vote" that would help the BNP.

It's become fashionable to dimiss such claims as Labour scaremongering designed to get their core vote out.

And it's true the BNP have no realistic chance of winning a Euro seat in Scotland (unlike parts of England).

But we should not forget the BNP polled 19,427 votes across Scotland in the 2004 Euro election, a 1.65 per cent share.

If the total or the share go up, it will be a major embarrassment for all the mainstream parties and the country as a whole.
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The present state of play, Brussels-wise, is this:

Scotland has seven MEPs - two each for Labour, the SNP and the Tories, and one Lib Dem.

But the number will be cut to six at this year's election.

The Tories are expected to lose one of their MEPs under the proportional voting system, if the results are similar to the last Euro poll.

Both Labour and the SNP hope they can increase their tally of MEPs to three.

But the real battle will be over which party polls the biggest share of the vote.

Labour polled 26 per cent in 2004 compared with 19 per cent for the SNP. That result forced John Swinney to quit as the Nats' leader.

David Martin said: "I think we have a reasonable chance of getting three seats, we're fighting for three.

"But our main objective is to remain Scotland's largest party - to get more votes than our opponents. If we do that we'll be very happy."

Nicola Sturgeon gets applause at Hero awards

2009-05-14T12:34:57Z

NICOLA STURGEON brought the house down at the Daily Record Our Heroes awards night on Friday with a near-the-knuckle gag.

It was aimed at host Tam Cowan and was the one about car parking, female drivers and male boasts.

I'm sure I don't need to spell it out.

Nicola, who was presenting an award, may have been taking revenge for a few swine flu jokes.
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Her handling of the scare has been widely applauded, not least by senior Labour MSPs.

Meanwhile, another much-anticipated date on the social calendar looms, though probably not one which will earn the description "glittering".

Scotsman Scottish political editor Hamish Macdonell launches his book about the first decade of devolution - Uncharted Territory (Methuen, £14.99) - tomorrow.

The good news is...it has an index.

This is by far the most important thing for MSPs, public figures, fellow hacks even, who think/fear they'll merit a mention.

It's a disaster for sales, though, as the above mentioned simply borrow a copy to see what's been said about them.

Worryingly, I'm told I'm mentioned in despatches.

Hamish and I embarked on a crawl of Dublin pubs to test the reaction to Ireland's smoking ban in 2004. I just hope he emphasises the entirely professional nature of the visit.

Cybernats are a growing problem for the SNP.

2009-05-06T11:00:29Z

THE SNP are under growing pressure to distance themselves, publicly and clearly, from the increasingly nasty material popping up on Nationalist websites.

The issue has been bubbling away for a while.

But last week a Nationalist scandal site ran a particularly unpleasant spoof/smear about Scots Labour leader Iain Gray's private life.

And the Scotsman's (English-born) political reporter David Maddox came in for playground abuse on another site.

]]> He's more than able to look after himself, as his calmly devastating column in Tuesday's Scotsman proved.

But the more the issue is getting talked about, the more of a problem it is becoming for the SNP.

They insist the "cybernat" bloggers are not party members and, therefore, beyond their control.

But official denunciations have been, at best, half-hearted.

It may be the party are reluctant to speak out too loudly for fear of drawing attention to a deeply unattractive streak in Nationalism.

But their failure to do so gives the impression that party bosses tacitly approve of the cybernats.

If I were a conspiracy theorist I'd be tempted to think some of the stuff was actually written by Labour troublemakers. Damian McBride, anyone?

It really is that bad for the SNP.

Patrick promises us a tweet

2009-04-16T09:37:49Z

CAN'T wait to read Patrick Harvie's blog today.

He's promised a "full blog update" to those tweets he sent from the dinner at Gordon Brown's home last night.

]]> If you've not already seen them, the half-dozen or so messages he sent out included:

"You'll never guess - the boys are ending back on bloody football," and:

"Not surprised that I'm the only one heading home by train instead of limo."

He signed off with: "And we're onto smalltalk. Full blog update tomorrow."

It's caused a bit of a stushie - "pathetic" was one comment from a party spokesman last night.

But the PM let it be known he was "utterly relaxed" about Pat's Blackberry fumblinbgs.

"It's his style," a Government spokesman said.

What's more, we're told his "passion and analysis impressed the PM," when talk turned to the issue of ensuring a sustainable green recovery from the economic crisis.

Patrick's presence round the North Queensferry dinner table took political hacks by surprise. We'd been briefed "main party leaders" would attend, which usually means Labour, SNP, Tory and Lib Dem.

I don't know if the Greens leader was a late stand in for Annabel Goldie, who was ill and sent apologies.

But I do know Iain Gray, the Scots Labour leader, was keen to have him on board.

That fits a pattern of Labour warming to the Greens.

It's been in evidence since Patrick's budget bust-up with Alex Salmond and John Swinney. Labour seem to have one eye on a possible post election alliance.

As for those tweets, we can be sure Patrick did not twitter lightly.

Have a look at this from his blog yesterday:

"Lots of us are getting all fired up with enthusiasm for the power of the internet and its potential to create new and exciting aspects to our democracy.

"But while we can hope that it will lead to a political culture which better serves the public interest we shouldn't blithely assume that will happen by magic.

:If we don't take care it could just as easily lead to an even shallower, coarser, and more fear-driven form of politics.

"Do we want political parties and governments, instead of chasing the next tabloid headline, to simply chase the next Twitter trend?

"I guess what I'm driving at is that alongside the potential for technology to bring new dynamism to democracy, there is also a huge amount of utter crap out there."

He's aware of the pitfalls.

So we can assume he does not believe "the boys are ending back on bloody football" is "utter crap".

John 'Mutton' Might Worry

2009-04-15T10:48:18Z

GORDON Brown's cabinet meet in Glasgow tomorrow and details of various ministerial visits on the day emerged from No 10 last night.

The trip, of course, comes amid no little hand-wringing over the unpleasant activities of ministerial press minders.

So much so that Defence Secretary John Hutton might feel slightly paranoid if he looks closely at the Downing Street op note.

It says: "The Prime Minister's visit will be open to pooled media in the usual way.

"He will be accompanied by Minister for Scotland Jim Murphy and Defence Secretary John Mutton."

More on that Scottish government pay freeze.

2009-04-01T10:57:51Z

WELL that didn't take long.

The FM will now donate all the Westminster pay increase coming his way to his charitable trust, his chief spin doc has just announced.

He'll donate his take home pay from the £1475 increase to the Mary Salmond Trust.

It means that, like all other government ministers, his wages will be pegged at 2009/9 levels.

Quick work to close down a potentially embarrassing story.

Chief spin doc said: "This is a decision for government to show, as a government, we are on the side of the people."