Rising star of the SNP and Yes Scotland staff member, Gail Lythgoe recently attended an independence debate at the University of Stirling as a panellist. She married the now Minister for External Affairs and International Development, Humza Yousaf in 2010 and have been widely tipped as the ‘power couple’ of Scottish politics. At the relatively young age of 24, Lythgoe is now an Executive Assistant at Yes Scotland. Head of News, Liam Beattie, caught up with her after the recent event.

Fresh from finishing being a panellist at the University of Stirling’s independence debate, I chatted to Lythgoe in the Students’ Union to gauge her thoughts on the work of Yes Scotland as well as the next 17 months of campaigning. I started off by asking her what she thought of the discussions that took place during the Stirling debate.

“It was interesting because most of the issues brought up were the issues that entire country is bringing up. I’ve had really good feedback from the people in the audience about what I said and the case I was putting forward for an independent Scotland. It is fantastic the reception that we had and I would like to hear more undecided people asking questions and getting the answers that they need. But I think the event was great”.

Recently there has been much focus on those Scots who have yet to make up their mind over independence; I wanted to find out whether Yes Scotland would be looking to target those people in order to persuade them to vote yes.

“The way I see it is that the vast majority of the population are undecided - you have the core yes and the core no and you can’t change them. But Rob Shorthouse (Better Together’s Director of Communications) said tonight that there are very few undecided people and that there is a very large no group. But I feel that there are so many undecided people and Rob indicated that the debate had already been happening for years and that is where I think Better Together is not in touch with people. Yes Scotland has hundreds of supporters out on doorsteps who are saying that actually there are a lot of questions.  As we are a grass-roots movement we are actually listening and engaging with what people say. So I think there are far more undecided people who are ‘soft no’s’ than polls seem to indicate.”

At this point Lythgoe was clearly very exhausted after a busy day at the office and from being grilled by the Stirling audience, so I finished by asking what work Yes Scotland had ahead in order to secure a victory on 18^th September 2014.

“It is funny you should ask this as one of the steal-away lines from the last week has been from Dennis Cannavan who said “The political pundits have all written us off because of this massive mountain we have to climb” He also said that he enjoyed climbing mountains and that is what change is and that’s what taking the future into our own hands is. To me the campaign and the fight for what is right for Scottish society and for Scotland does not end on the 18^th September, it is going to be the following 20/30 years. It is going to be my entire lifetime of making sure we don’t have food banks that we don’t have welfare cuts that hurt the vulnerable in society. So there is a mountain to climb and then Everest after that”.

Lythgoe raised some salient points during the interview, specifically the work needing to be done by Yes Scotland to convince the ‘soft no’s’. This will most likely be those who are sympathetic to Scottish Labour but do not necessarily support the Salmond administration, these people will be key in order for either campaign side to secure victory. For Yes Scotland in particular, they have managed to shake-off the perception that this is an SNP led campaign, to an extent. By talking about issues that Scots can relate to such as the deeply unpopular Bedroom Tax and cuts to the welfare budget, they may be able to appeal to those Labour supporters.

With just over seventeen months to do until Scots go to the polls to make the most important decision they may ever have to, it is very much game on for both campaigns.  

On 26^th March 2013, the University of Stirling hosted a debate on Scottish independence hosted by the University of Stirling Chancellor and BBC Radio 4 presenter, James Naughtie. The debate was a very lively affair and featured salient points made by both Yes and Better Together representatives. Unsparingly the majority of those who were in attendance at the debate intend to vote No in 2014. Head of News, Liam Beattie, caught up with Naughtie where they talked about the debate and the media coverage leading up to the referendum.

After being thoroughly impressed with his chairing of the debate, I was delighted to have secured an interview with James Naughtie who made the headlines last year after a now infamous mispronunciation. On approaching Naughtie I informed him who I was and this was met with a very warm handshake and was politely told to refer to him simply as ‘Jim’. After several failed attempts to find a quiet area in the Logie Lecture Theatre, we decided to sit at the back of the room and begin chatting.

I kicked the questions off by asking what his thoughts were on the debate that had just concluded.

“I thought it was a good debate, I thought what was interesting about it was you got a bit of the colour and the flavour of what we will be hearing over the next 18 months. The interesting thing about it is, on the one hand you get some quite complicated arguments about how the economic figures stack up, what happens to Trident and the arguments about the legal framework under which EU accession talks would take place with an independent Scotland, which is all important stuff. But what we also got, and what I was particularly glad about, was a more gusty argument about the gut feeling about an independent Scotland being able to go its own way. We heard the Yes Scotland campaign arguing that they could create the kind of society, which you know would be smaller, would be less powerful, might even be a little poorer but would in their view be better. And from the Better Together campaign we had the view that, there was really something offensive about believing  that in these countries, which have been yanked together for more than three hundred years, you could separate them off and have them doing different things, when in fact we are all in this together. Those are two very different fundamental and quite different points of view, but they are terribly important because they underpin the more practical arguments and I am glad that came out together with all the passion that people showed.”

Even before the referendum date was set, there had already been many high profile debates take place on the issue of Scottish independence. In the next 18 months Scots will be exposed to lots of statistics, rhetoric and passionate arguments from both sides. I was keen to know whether Naughtie thought that people were warming to the debate on independence.

“Well yes, it is almost dangerous to say that people are warming to a debate because then the whole thing dries up and people start going round saying they are fed up of it, of course there will be peaks and troughs. But the truth is this is a debate that has been going on in Scotland in different ways for a very long time. I am old enough to remember the first time of the rise of Scottish nationalism in the early 70s on the back of the discovery of North Sea Oil and then the arguments about proposed devolution in 1979, it is always there. It comes in peaks and troughs. But I do think this time there is a genuine argument about whether, in an independent world it makes sense to have an independent state or whether we are creating a different kind of world where the notion of small 19^th century independent states is really outdated. And that is a terribly fundamental argument about the way the world is going to be divided up, the way that parliaments and governments operate in the 21^st century. Of course over and above that, does it make any difference if Scotland is independent from the UK because of the forces that are operating across the world – in defence, the economy are perhaps above all that. These are terribly fundamental questions and I do think that people are very concerned about them. My own hope would be that most people vote on a thoughtful approach to these questions and not just because they feel in a Braveheart sort of mood and decide to vote Yes, or in an ‘I hate Alex Salmond’ mood and vote No.”

Finally, as a representative of the UK’s largest media outlet, I wanted to hear Naughtie’s thoughts on the role of the media in the run up to the referendum.

“One of the things that I think is quite interesting and I think slightly depressing, is that sometimes despite the arrival of devolution in 1999, it seems the level of comment and debate in the Scottish press and parts of the Scottish media generally isn’t as high as it should be. There is a parliament operating in Edinburgh, there is all kind of things going on that didn’t used to go on in Edinburgh and it seems to me that the public discourse hasn’t yet lifted itself up to that level. It hasn’t met the seriousness of events and I would hope that the UK media understands Scotland a bit better than most of them do at the moment. But that in Scotland there is a really mature, well informed and informative leadership from the media so that people are getting reflected the complexity of the debate because I think that only a fool would say that it is a simple debate. I hope the Scottish media rise to the challenge and it is really important because if they don’t I think it is a pretty sad day and not a very good advertisement for our country”

The points raised by Naughtie during our brief chat are very important ones, particularly the issues around the media coverage of the independence debate. Many Scots are still very unsure how they intend to vote next year and are looking to the media to provide those answers.

America's democracy is in trouble. Whilst the sublimely written constitution, elegant separation of powers and typically American openness are still present, the world's first secular republic has a major problem with it's ever eroding plurality. The observer who does not live under a rock will undoubtedly already be aware that the USA is effectively a two-party state with the Republican and Democratic Parties representing the uniquely American 'left' and 'right'. America's pluralism problem is that one of those parties is not working, has not been working for sometime and only now, following it's second humiliating election defeat, seems to acknowledge this and doing something about it.

 

There may be some readers who rejoice in the failings of the GOP for partisan reasons. The poor fortunes of American conservatism must be music to the cloth-ears of British liberals; and while I may sympathise with them to an extent, their lack of perspective is troubling. Constitutionally, the role of Republicans, at least while in opposition, ought to be providing an alternative, pro-business, small-government approach to government whilst keeping President Obama and other Democrats in check. However, without a credible Republican force, Democrats fall victim to their usual vices of over-spending and regulation not to mention the influences of automotive and oil industry trade unions. So, regardless of which side of the aisle has your personal support, a strong and competent Republican Party is in your interests.

 

Traditionally, the Republican Party has been the stalwart defender of freedom, personal liberty, the free-market and small-government combined with a uniquely Austrian monetary and fiscal policy, these elements gave it credibility as a party of government. However, the GOP's political strategy has been at the behest of an overly socially-conservative and economically bizarre minority; to which it has been afraid to stand up. This lack of backbone has led to the likes of Sarah Palin (who punctured the otherwise credible John McCain's presidential run with a clumsily-placed stiletto), Christine O'Donnelll (the only politician in living memory who had to deny accusations of being a witch, rather than just ignore them), Michelle Bachman (less said, sooner forgotten) and Rick Perry (who couldn't remember one third of the departments which he wanted to abolish) becoming the voices of American conservatism and the Republican Party. The list of extremists and moderates pushed to the extremes is seemingly endless and includes names like Santorum and Gingrich alongside many more relatively unknown wing-nuts of dangerous levels of influence.

 

If it continues along the same path then the party of Lincoln and Reagan will find itself treading even deeper water than it is at the moment, which, as outlined above, is not good for anyone concerned. Thankfully, there are signs of a change.

 

The first is that the Republican National Committee has embarked on a wholesale rebranding of the party. While the results of this are unforeseen, any change away from a mechanism which turned a moderate Mass. Governor like Mitt Romney into someone who didn't, by his own admission, care about 47% of the American population, must be a good thing. If they can successfully reestablish the Reagan 'big-tent' consensus which brought together the different brands of American conservative under a moderate, liberty-minded, centre-ground then the first seeds of a GOP revival may have been sown. One can only hope that the rebranding lives up to this legacy and is not purely cosmetic as the American electorate will see through such a facade.

 

The second positive sign takes two forms. First, the level of coverage in the national media being given to seasoned Republican politicians who embody the previously mentioned policy direction has been increasing both in quality and quantity. Where in recent years the media may have called on Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich to provide a response they are increasingly turning to Bobby Jindal or Chris Christie for comment. This commentator welcomes as little tea-bagging on television as possible.

 

Additionally, the traditional conservative, and by proxy, Republican media appears to be moving closer to the centre, or at least away from the fringe. Recent editorials in The Washington Times calling for bi-partisan action on fiscal matters the tacit support for marriage equality from Bill O'Reilly both serve as examples for a larger argument. The conservative media is moderating and I suspect the conservative politicians will not be far behind as in today's political sphere it is difficult to establish whom is leading whom.

 

The success of the Democratic Party is the story of professionalising politics while the recent faltering of the GOP is the story of amateurs in professional roles. Hopefully, for the sake of American democracy if nothing else, the Republicans will continue on the road to legitimacy. America cannot afford any other eventuality.

 

.....and that's on the Record.

Cyprus is the latest member of the Eurozone to be thrust under the unfortunate spotlight of international economic scrutiny and it is not performing well. The proposal for a ‘levy’ of ten per cent on Cypriot savings, twinned with manipulation of banking business hours, as part of yet another bail-out was defeated in a moment of sanity on behalf of the Cypriot Government but a bail-out is still planned for Cyprus and I suspect other Eurozone nations will be forced to follow. 

Ignoring the immorality of state-sponsored theft of private assets, the economics behind the defeated ‘levy’ were that of ideology run amok over pragmatism and common sense. Savings form the bedrock of a country’s return to prosperity, savings allow domestic businesses to invest, innovate and employ people who in turn earn more (or at least earn something); the earners become savers and the whole process repeats itself. Real growth does not come from the government seizing private assets and wasting them in paying back an ill-advised loan it was forced to take in the first place, see the bail-out. Attacking savers in this manner is exactly what NOT to do if economic growth is your target. If, however, further misery is your goal then savers ought to be public enemy number one.

However, all is not well in Cyprus. While the ‘levy’ might not have happened, the damage to market confidence in Cyprus has already happened. At a time where markets are already at their least confident the very mention of a raid on savings (the engine of recovery) and further supranational government restrictions of the private sector will do nothing to calm them. It remains to be seen just how much damage will be caused by the proposed ‘levy’ but one thing is for sure, Cypriots will find out to their cost. The genie is out of the bottle and no amount of wishful thinking will push him back in. 

There is a way back to prosperity for Cyprus and the other troubled nations. They must leave the Eurozone and return to their own national currencies; which they would have to devalue in order to stabilise their domestic arrangements. This devaluation would make Cyprus and the other nations far more attractive than they currently are to foreign investors and, more importantly, to tourists. This process would not be easy, the initial impact would be tough but encouraging savings and investment in this way is the only reasonable course of action in the long-run. The alternative is another round of bail-outs, spending and further regulation; a true turn-off to investors, savers and all those who could pull Cyprus out of it’s economic doldrums. One thing is for sure, Cyprus cannot afford to be in the Eurozone anymore; economically or socially.

Cyprus can be taken as a case-study for the problems of the Eurozone as a whole. In hindsight those who maintained that the economies of the industrial and prosperous North of the continent could not feasibly share monetary and fiscal policy with their developing Southern neighbours were completely correct. The tools available to Eurozone ministers are similarly blunt tools with which they are trying to solve a very fiddly problem and in doing so are causing more damage despite their intentions.

?Naturally, resentment has built up in the North where Finnish voters have expressed their dislike of being used as a lender of last resort to bail out the South as well as in Britain where UKIP have risen in popularity to a point where they cannot be considered anything other than a legitimate political party. Furthermore, the growing discontent in the South, exemplified by the rioting and the emergence of the right-wing extremists known as the Golden Dawn as a force to be reckoned with in Grece. Economic difficulty, fascism and civil unrest are very often found in the same place and it would seem that these problems are growing at a dangerous rate in the South of our continent. 

Albert Einstein is often said to have defined insanity as the habit of doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results. If this is true, the Eurozone is in dire need of an extra straightjacket or two.