Unusual musical combination

Big John and Paul "I'm too old for this haircut" Weller...

On Scottish nationalism and the collapse of the Irish economy

Liking this post from Johann Hari where he points out that Cameronomics has already been tried out to destruction on the Emerald Isle:

"Throughout the nineties and the noughties, Ireland was held up as a poster child by the right. People like John Redwood and (yes) David Cameron said its model of low taxes and almost-total deregulation showed the way forward for Britain. In fact it produced the most corrupt and over-extended banking sector outside Iceland. Just one bank – Anglo Irish – is now on course to receive a €30bn extended bailout, equivalent to every penny of tax collected in the country in 2009. The Celtic Tiger had its claws ripped out, and it's shaking at the back of its cage."

To be honest, I hadn't been particularly aware that the neo-Thatcherites had done this because if you live in Scotland, the politician one most associates with cant about the 'Celtic Tiger' is, of course, Alex Salmond. Take the following (please) from the Hootsmon around this time last year:

"What is the way forward for Scotland? What should be our inspiration? And what examples should we follow? First Minister Alex Salmond is in no doubt: Ireland."

That he should have gone quiet about this now is understandable - what is frustrating is how few journos or politicians have been able to nail him down on this point. The 'arc of insolvency' quip coined by the Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy went some way to wiping the smirk from Salmond's face - but even the best soundbites by definition lack specifics, and it's these that Salmond and the SNP should be made to answer.

Johann's points about Cameron don't apply to Salmond in the sense that the latter does not advocate deflationary budget cutting - but still, his advocacy of the Irish model should be exposed for what it was - a shallow appropriation of a seemingly successful economic model that has little or no relevance to Scotland.

For example, Salmond made much of - indeed made explicit in election campaigns - the Irish experience of attracting footloose capital by competitive rates of corporation tax. It was part of the reason that the excruciating Braveheart was filmed largely in Ireland. Salmond has never, to my knowledge, been made to address the fundamental problem with this sort of policy - namely it assumes the neighbour that you're freshly independent from is happy to oblige by keeping its corporation taxes at a helpfully uncompetitive level. And don't mention the potential erosion of national tax bases by such competition; Salmond, despite being a nationalist, doesn't care to consider such inconvenient questions.

Then there's membership of the EU. Good for Ireland because their relatively large agricultural sector meant they received considerable transfer payments courtesy of the CAP. Also, membership of the Euro meant until recently lower borrowing rates than Britain. Now, Ireland was always going to gain more than Scotland given the size of its agricultural sector - but after the enlargement that took in the ten Eastern European states, neither Ireland nor Scotland can expect to receive the level of subsidy that they had hitherto become accustomed to. The question of the Euro can be, I think, largely ignored as an entirely superficial and opportunistic attempt by the SNP to base the future of a country's constitution on ephemeral economic conditions.

Finally, there is the more fundamental secular trend in Ireland's economic development to consider. Their growth rates in the last two decades of the twentieth century can be attributed in part simply to the fact that they were experiencing classic catch-up from relative backwardness. You had a fairly young and well-educated population ready to move from the land into modern industries in a way that most European states had experienced some decades earlier. At the risk of being offensive with such a summary: once Ireland realised there was more to life than Catholicism and Kerrygold butter, they were bound to grow - but this is not an experience that is relevant to the rain-soaked workshop of the world's first industrial superpower.

It's not that these details are important to the nationalists. They are - or I should say were - happy to use the example of Iceland, which isn't even a member of the EU, still less the Eurozone, if they thought it suited their argument. Because despite their leader being an economist, the SNP represents the politics of pure identity - all the rest of this is window-dressing. It's naive of me, I dare say - but if they were pressed on one or two of these points, this would become increasingly obvious.

Tories and teaching

When it comes to education, the Tories are Maoists - believing as they do in permanent revolution. The latest wheeze from the people who have spent my entire adult life pouring scorn on anyone working for the public sector in general - and teachers in particular - is to make teaching the 'noble profession'. How are they going to do this? Well, one way is to make sure every teacher has a Desmond:

"So we will end the current system where people with third class degrees can get taxpayers’ money to enter postgraduate teacher training. With our plans, if you want to become a teacher – and get funding for it – you need a 2:2 or higher."

Both Chris Dillow and Tom Freeman are sceptical. They're right to be. Allow me to throw in my own experience. I know I hide it well but I actually have an excellent degree - but I'm not an excellent teacher. One of the reasons for this is I hate people - and teenagers especially. This, rather than poor academic qualifications, is what's holding me back in this gig. That and various substance abuse problems...

The ability to acquire knowledge yourself and the kind needed to help others to do so are not the same. No scheme designed to bring the flip-chart generation into teaching is going to alter this fact. I mean, what are they going to do when they realise that their excruciating management-speak is actually incomprehensible to humans? As if to make my point, Cameron's speech itself is laden with a smattering of 'blue skies' bullshit. For example:

"There is no limit to what a child can achieve with the strong and confident teachers, so there can be no delay to the reforms we have set out."

No, there is. Even with the best teachers, I think pupils are still going to find things like alchemy a little beyond their reach. Cameron then finishes his speech with this kind of vapid cack:

"The best and the brightest talent. Fair reward."

Hits head on keyboard, pours another vodka and prepares for a bright future with no fucking verbs!

Lazy-ass blogging

Introducing Karen Armstrong's Charter for Nausea...

"If you're not on your knees after that, praying to your God for the cleansing hellfire to engulf all the simpering cretins in that advert, you're spiritually dead inside. One can only wonder at the mentality of people who think that showing this stuff to Ahmed the Infidel Smiter will cause him to re-evaluate his life choices. More likely he'd behead every actor in that clip, and in a fundamental sense I'd be cheering him on."

Choice quote from Mr E's fisk of Tisdall's latest appalling shite.

Glasgow = 1920s Chicago?

Even by the standards of this relatively violent city, this was pretty hardcore:

"A GANGSTER dubbed Scotland's "public enemy No1" has been shot dead in a supermarket car park.

Kevin Carroll appeared to be the victim of a classic gangland hit outside an Asda store in the Glasgow suburb of Robroyston at 1:25pm yesterday. The 29-year-old career criminal – who went by the underworld nickname "Gerbil" – died at the scene.

A key figure in the Daniels crime family, his death sparked fears of a new turf war for control of north Glasgow's drugs market.

Mr Carroll, also known as Kevin McCabe, is understood to have been shot five times as he sat in his black Audi S4, while shocked lunchtime shoppers watched."

It was a Glasgow Councillor's historical reference that struck me:

"Billy McAllister, a Glasgow councillor who is trying to organise a summit on fighting organised crime, said: "How many deaths does it take until we are going to get tough on criminals in this city?

"It is like Chicago in the 1920s.""

Hyperbolic? I think so. The drugs trade doesn't produce as much gangsterism as Prohibition did in interwar America for the simple reason that alcohol was and is much more popular than any of the illegal drugs sold on the streets of Glasgow. Still, the analogy has some relevance - it's just a pity that the Councillor didn't follow through the logic of his position: the Americans decided that at least one of the problems with Prohibition is that the people selling the product that was made illegal on account of the supposed harm it causes were more dangerous than the product itself - so they adjusted their legal order accordingly. It would be refreshing if a few of our politicians would even consider the possibility that this historical experience might just have some lessons for us today.