Archive
RIP Chairman
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp39q43976po
When I joined the Scottish Conservative Party in 1980, as its press officer, Michael Ancram was its chairman. I was 34, and so was he, a week younger than me. He smiled his way through the interview, because that’s how he was; an aristocrat, yes, a man of influence, yes, but without any side to him. He wasn’t simply a chair, he was a leader whom his entire staff, the Scottish backbenchers and most of the voluntary side, were happy to follow. He didn’t simply talk the talk. He put it on the line when he had to. At that time, the hot issue in Scotland was the future of the steel strip mill, Ravenscraig, in Motherwell, my home town. London would have pulled the plug on it in heartbeat but we had an election to fight in 1983. The STUC held a rally in protest against the feared closure. Michael went along; I was with him. We listened to the speeches, the fire, the brimstone; they had a case, in the short term at least. Michael whispered to me, ‘I’m going to do it.’ He stood up, was invited to speak, walked to the podium, and pledged his support and that of the Scottish party, to saving the plant. He put his job on the line, but he kept it. We went into the 1983 General Election with 21 Scottish seats, and we came out with 21. We knew that was a phenomenal resulting that climate, but it wasn’t good enough for Maggie, who had spent a total of 18 hours in Scotland in the entire campaign, and consequently knew as little about it as clearly she cared. Yes, she gave Michael a job in government in the aftermath, but on the lowest rung of the ladder, Parliamentary Under-secretary of State. Those of us who had worked for and with him saw that as an insult. Looking back, I believe was her way of controlling someone she knew would never be a yes man. Or maybe she was getting even for Ravenscraig.
Four years later, Michael lost his Edinburgh seat, which had always been marginal. By that time, I was out of politics and a director of a corporate communications firm in Edinburgh. I persuaded my colleagues that we had a need for the right non-executive director. They agreed, he and I had lunch, and he joined our board. Not long afterwards, he became our chairman too.
In 1992 politics called him back, inevitably, to a safe seat in England, a different Prime Minister, a proper job, and the respect his talent deserved, although not quite enough to see him win the leadership in 2001, when his colleagues made the mistake of choosing Ian Duncan Smith. Michael gave a lot to his country and he could have given a lot more.
My deepest sympathy to Jane, and to his family.
Stereotypical
Continuing my Tolkien theme, I have been watching the Prime Video prequel to Lord of the Rings. I find myself wondering why in the minds of its creators, dwarves have Scottish accents while their even smaller neighbours, hobbits, have a fine Irish brogue.
How the hell can Amazon be simultaneously xenophobic and sizeist?
Elves? Public school and perfectly groomed. Men? Not quite as posh, but they wouldn’t affect property values.
Tolkien
Why is it that every time I see Orla Guerin, I think of Gandalf Stormcrow, who never turned up bearing good news?
Why …
when a guy is blessed with a voice like Rory Graham does he bother calling himself Rag ‘n Bone Man?
Please explain.
Split decision
Almost as big as AJ v Dubois is the scrap between Prime and Netflix over their version of the Prince Andrew interview saga.
I’ve watched Scoop, the Flix movie and also A Very Royal Scandal, the Amazon series, and my favourite is …..?
For all that Ruth Wilson and Michael Sheen can outact Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell any day of the week, I have to go with Scoop. There’s less extraneous material, plus Billie Piper gives it added value, while her character is almost peripheral in the other.
Top gig
Big thanks to Bob McDevitt and the team for an excellent event at Bloody Scotland 2024.
Thanks also to the outstanding Caro Ramsay, a queen of the craft for her mastery (mistressy?) as a chairperson, and to Neil Lancaster, an affable co-panellist.
I was in at the start of Scotland’s national festival of crime fiction. It was good to be back.
Great expectations?
In common with many among the 80% of the electorate who did not vote for the incumbent administration, I was and still am prepared to give the Labour government time to fulfil its lavish promises before taking to the streets.
In common with what I suspect to be the majority of the population I did not actually need the Winter Fuel Allowance. However I did expect honesty and common sense in addressing the problems that we face as a nation.
So far all I am seeing is finger pointing and much of what I am hearing is bullshit. The so-called ‘black hole’ is unsubstantiated. The claim that winter fuel payments would have bankrupted the nation is manifestly untrue.
This morning the PM is addressing the NHS. He has been rabbiting on about ‘fixing the plumbing before turning on the taps.’ (Keir, lawyers can’t do metaphor.) He says that his administration will produce a ten year plan by next Spring, begging the question, ‘Why didn’t you produce it during your 14 years in Opposition?’
There is another health service. It’s provided by private insurers, and it’s accessible to those who can afford it. Many people have it as part of their employment package. Problems with that, it costs employers in national insurance, and employees through income tax.
Radical it may be, but if those who could afford to opt out of some or even all of NHS provision were incentivised to do so, would it ease current pressures and improve the service for those who can’t? Is anyone in government even looking at that?
Dalmatians
Looking at an inflight magazine that’s meant to sell me Lancôme (for my wife), I find myself thinking that the older Julia Roberts grows, the more she resembles the alternative glam of Cruella deVil. (I’m not being unkind here; I’m a fan of hers.)
Job destruction
A couple of days ago I ventured into my nearest German supermarket: you know the kind I mean: own label foodstuffs, full range of fruit and vegetables, and some household items, randomly arranged, famous for employing the minimum staff to allow them to operate.
Once I enjoyed shopping there. The quality was decent and value for money, and most of all the till procedure suited me; pile everything back into the trolley, pay for it and pack it at my own pace.
It was fine, until they installed self-operated check-out machines, and stopped calling everyone’Dear customers.’ We ain’t, not any more.
The point of these auto things is not customer convenience. They are a means of reducing payroll costs, allowing Aldidl to employ even fewer people. They are also a pain in the fundament, in that they throw too much information at the customer at once.
I find them exasperating, and I said as much to the person overseeing the operation. The response staggered me: ‘I don’t care. I have a job here and I’m not going to get into an argument about it.’
Fine. You won’t get an argument from me, not least because I don’t plan to repeat the experience any time soon.
Cut this tax for the public good
As part of his grand strategy of blaming everything on the Tories, in particular the NHS, which he and his mate Wes says is broken, Sir Keir is avoiding a fundamental truth. It’s his fault.
When the Service was created, the world was fundamentally different. The population was smaller and we had only just entered the age of antibiotics. Since then everything has grown exponentially, the population, and alongside it, a vast range of treatments and therapies, many of them significantly costly. The assumption has always been that the public health system should provide, for everyone.
The fact is that the expectation of the population is no longer realistic. And yet it has been stirred by cynical politicians.
Those who can afford private health insurance should be incentivised to use it rather than being stigmatised as queue jumpers.
If the new government wants to heal public health provision it should do what it can to reduce the demands upon it. Removing benefit in kind taxation for occupational insurance would be a good start.
Divided nation
You don’t have to be a pioneering researcher to work out that most people expect to pay for dental care. Try finding an NHS dentist.
And try to find a consultant physician or surgeon who doesn’t have a private practice alongside his NHS work.
Chilled
Working this morning, until I was diverted by Starmer’s awful grandstanding in the garden. Just do the ******* job, Keir; stop making excuses in advance.
Seeking to calm myself, I took refuge in Oscar Peterson, imho the greatest jazz pianist who ever lived, in live collaboration with Joe Pass, my favourite jazz guitarist.
Now I am so coooool, I can’t get back to work.
Don’t look back …at all
www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce80nm88kjpo
A long time ago, while driving through France and radio-hopping, I happened upon the Gallagher brothers being interviewed by an American presenter, doing instant translations, with phone-in content.
I didn’t care for them before, but when they called a a hapless French fan ‘a right ******* brown-nose,’ it put me off them for life.
Him too?
Anyone else feel that Jermaine Jenas has been brutally treated by the BBC?
Having been subjected, apparently, to trial by Zoom, while on holiday with his family, he was sacked with full-on publicity while on air with a rival radio station.
Jenas admits that the messages he sent were ‘inappropriate but not illegal’ although their content has been withheld and the recipients have not commented. Let’s assume they were sackable. Let’s assume that he is a seedy little creep.
Does that justify the media crucifixion that the BBC HR department must have known would follow its cack-handed announcement of a matter that could have been handled privately?
I am left feeling that to an extent the guy is a victim himself, of the BBC’s determination to restore its reputation in the wake of Huw Edwards and the Strictly bullying scandal.
This is the organisation that employed and aggrandised Jimmy Savile for forty-odd years. Has that uncomfortable truth influenced its treatment of this case?
Whatever it’s as bad an example of crisis management as I have ever seen.
Too long in exile
The following was written as a Facebook comment on the new location of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, an event at which I was privileged to appear for over 20 years and which remains close to my heart. I have decided to re-post it here in the hope that it reaches a wider audience. Who knows? It might spark a protest movement.
‘Charlotte Square was great precisely for that reason. (Its location.) EIBF should be about growth, and introducing newcomers to the world of books. The gardens afforded the space to do that properly. Most of all the location encouraged footfall to an extent that successor venues cannot. We are told that it (EIBF) moved because the pressure of the structures and their contents, for two weeks out of fifty-two plus the construction time, were damaging the tree roots, in a space which is private for the rest of the year. Take a walk to the other end of the dumbbell and see how St Andrews Square is being used, and what it contributes to city life. When I first appeared at the festival, in the last century, it had only just become an annual event and casual visitors had to pay to go on site. The event began to flourish when access to the space was offered free to all. It became arguably the biggest and best on the planet, until the crazy decision to move to a part of the city that is notoriously inaccessible. Those who love the book festival, as I do, should be pressing for its return to its traditional home. Where I live we took a tree out because its roots were threatening to damage a house. Let’s get our priorities right.’
Teaser
Cover imaging for ‘Secrets and Lies’, the new Skinner, is about to be uploaded. Look out for it.
Out there
Thing on Netflix called Obliterated. It explores the boundaries of bad taste, burns them to the ground and drives off into the unknown. So far, it’s great.
Fugit
It’s hard to believe but Mr Brightside is almost 21years old. It’s even harder for me to believe, but Skinner’s Rules is ten years older.
The Kinkster
Kinky Friedman died yesterday. I knew him. I read his books and when he was signed up for the Edinburgh Book Festival I volunteered to chair him.
It was an interesting gig. He brought his guitar, did an hour of songs and standup and only read from his current book because I persuaded him. Afterwards we went to eat. I blew most of my chair fee on the tab. He told me ‘It will be returned to you tenfold,’ which of course it never was.
Kinky was a great friend of Willie Nelson. During that dinner he talked about him, fondly. He told me that one of the things about Willie was that he never refused an autograph, to the extent that he would stand for an hour and more in the rain signing his name for fans.
A couple of years later I was looking for a title for a Skinner and recalled that story. I called Kinky and asked if he minded me using it. He said ‘Fine, go ahead.’ Thus, my novel, ‘Autographs in the Rain’, came to be called what it is. Around that time a couple of US kids appeared in the queue after one of my Festival gigs and asked me to sign a book for him. ‘The Kinkster reads you,’ they assured me.
I hadn’t thought about him in a while, but it was a shock to hear that he had died. This afternoon I read an obituary that said he’d gone back to recording music independently in his later years. When I looked for it on Apple Music, I found a song. It was written and recorded in 2018, and it was about, and dedicated to, Willie Nelson.
The title? ‘Autographs in the Rain.’ Returned to me tenfold, you might say.
