Third class citizens

I must apologise profusely for the grievous error in my previous post. The Scots are actually third class citizens in the UK, not second class. What is the cause of this deflation? Well it seems that Brian Taylor and Douglas Fraser have stuck their fingers in their ears whilst simultaneously sticking two fingers up at the poor Scottish license fee payer (quite a feat, just try it...). Both of their "blogs" now bear the sombre message...

We are no longer enabling comments on this page as a general rule. We will continue, however, to enable comments from time to time on this page as we do across our online service to provide users with the opportunity to contribute on particular stories.

See for yourselves: Brian and Douglas.

Aha, I thought to myself, the Beeb is making swingeing cuts and the moderators have been given the chop! Erm, except that the following blogs still seem to be accepting comments from the great unwashed...

Nick Robinson - UK Politics
Mark D'Arcy - Parliament
Betsan Powys - Wales
Mark Devenport - NI
Gavin Hewitt - Europe
Mark Mardell - North America
Katty Kay - Washington DC
Damian Grammaticas - Beijing
Soutik Biswas - Delhi
Robert Peston - Business
Stephanie Flanders - Economics
Fergus Walsh - Medical
Jonathan Amos - Science
Richard Black - Environment
Rory Cellan-Jones - Technology
Will Gompertz - Arts

I suppose it's fair enough, it's not like anything much important is happening in Scottish politics at the minute, is it? Nor in Scottish business. Not as important as some exhibition on Da Vinci anyway. Well dear reader, I can only urge you to draw the same conclusion as me: if the BBC aren't interested in your opinions about Scotland then they surely can't be too interested in the license fee from Scotland.

Free and unfair elections

So, the BBC Trust has rejected the SNP/Plaid Cymru appeal against their exclusion from the leaders' debates. The SNP are apparently unable or unwilling to spend the cash a court case would require, so I guess that's the end of the road. Money 1 - 0 Democracy. Much will be said on this subject, but I would like to register the following points:

1. The three parties included do not field candidates throughout the UK. There are no Labour, Conservative or Lib Dem candidates in Northern Ireland.
2. The Trust remarks that there are only "three individuals who could realistically aspire to be Prime Minister of the UK" . Let me be the first to congratulate Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron on retaining their seats. I didn't realise they had already been re-elected in their constituencies. Or does anyone think any of them would still be Prime Minister if they were no longer MPs (actually I wouldn't put it past Brown given his penchant for unelected ministers)?
   
3. Much is made of past electoral support in the Trust's ruling, although there are a few Freudian slips where they simply refer to the electoral support of the three main parties. And this gets to the heart of the matter - surely the whole point of the election is to determine the electoral support of the parties! Who are the BBC or BBC Trust to determine this in advance? Are they denying the possibility of substantial changes in the levels of support for different parties? A quick glance at the history books should disabuse them of that notion.
4. The Trust maintains that impartiality is preserved by sufficient "signposting" during the debates, when Westminster-reserved matters are being discussed, as well as by additional debates where SNP/Plaid Cymru can take part. Now, without wishing to insult the viewers, it is inevitable that they will be confused at times during the debates as to which bits are UK-wide and which are Scotland/Wales-specific. Viewers will pop out to make tea and come back halfway through an answer, Auntie Elspeth will phone up for a chat, the dog will start barking, and viewers will just simply forget the signposts. Confusion is absolutely inevitable and the viewers' (mis-)perceptions of the debates absolutely will have an effect on voting intentions (anyone heard of Clegg-mania?). Regarding the additional Scotland/Wales-specific debates, it's stretching reality beyond breaking point to suggest that they will enjoy the same media profile as the UK debates. It's manifest nonsense as the media coverage of the last week demonstrates.
   

I imagine the whole debacle has arisen as follows:

1. It would be nice if we could have meaningful TV debates ahead of a general election.
2. We can't have every party represented or it would be chaos.
   
3. We can't have SNP/Plaid Cymru/NI parties involved, as they aren't directly relevant to the whole UK.
4. If we only have Tory/Labour/Lib Dem leaders then we are not covering the election fairly in Scotland and Wales.
5. Technically we can't broadcast the debates to restricted areas (all regional channels are available on Sky for example).
6. So there isn't a fair way to stage the TV debates. But f**k it, let's have them anyway, as I said in point 1 it would be nice to have them, wouldn't it?

Every time you hear about "free and fair elections" in future, ask yourself whether that description applies to the UK. Free perhaps, but fair?

A parting shot: why would the following not have worked? Have the debates as they are, but with a representative from the SNP and Plaid Cymru included. The SNP/PC representatives may only speak when devolved matters are being discussed (ironically this idea is inspired by the SNP policy of not voting on England-only matters at Westminster).

Welcome to the Brigadoon Broadcasting Corporation

Well, since the BBC website is hacking and coughing this morning, and since an unrelenting work schedule has finally (albeit briefly) relented, I thought I'd keep any of you still checking in on Brigadoon abreast of the latest news...

New EU President to be announced

EU leaders will today name the BBC test card doll as their preferred candidate for the post of EU president. In a move seen as warding off attempts to parachute Tony Blair into the job, the heads of 26 member states will rally around the inane, grinning puppet and tell him to stick to bringing peace to the Middle East.

Tories 'split on Europe'

Political pundits were reeling yesterday as it emerged the Tories might not all agree on Britain's relationship with the rest of Europe. By 9am this morning the BBC had received no complaints that this rag-tag bunch of right-wing xenophobes have repeatedly been invited onto the prestigious Question Time programme.
More scoops: Ursine quadraped defecates in sylvan wilderness; Pontiff sports unusual head adornment; Rangers blow it again, Celtic determined to match them.

Where did it all go wrong?

Audit Scotland have announced that Scotland is facing the biggest budget squeeze since devolution in the years ahead. If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of the two men pictured opposite, they are urged to contact their faces with clenched fists or similar blunt instruments.

Counsel for a poor mortal

Update at 12:15, 14/07/2009:

oldnat (of Blether with Brian fame) has helpfully pointed out that Stirling council split their expenses figures, one set from April 2007 to 3rd May 2007 and the other from 4th May 2007 to March 2008. Shetland have done the same and I suspect (but couldn't find the info) that the same is true for Clackmannanshire. It seems that the Beeb 's geeks have not noticed this though - out of 467 councils in their spreadsheet 125 have an average cost per councillor below £6000. The obvious moral of the story is to check the source data...and not to trust the Beeb too much!

The revised table minus Clacks is below. Happily Orkney and Shetland are now bosom buddies in the table, not much difference between their costs. But I'm still puzzled by Midlothian and West Lothian Councils...why does a councillor in West Lothian cost on average £10,000 more than one in Midlothian? Anyone got any idea? Might dig a bit deeper into the council websites when time allows...

Council	# Cllrs	Total cost*	Cost/cllr
West Lothian Council	32	£835,518.00	£26,109.94
Inverclyde Council	20	£474,598.35	£23,729.92
Argyll and Bute Council	36	£817,143.63	£22,698.43
Highland Council	80	£1,727,849.81	£21,598.12
North Lanarkshire Council	70	£1,478,710.00	£21,124.43
Edinburgh City Council	58	£1,216,614.85	£20,976.12
Scottish Borders Council	34	£698,538.00	£20,545.24
Shetland Islands Council	22	£446,618.20	£20,300.83
Orkney Islands Council	21	£425,911.34	£20,281.49
Western Isles Council	31	£624,554.00	£20,146.90
East Ayrshire Council	32	£634,824.94	£19,838.28
Aberdeenshire Council	68	£1,337,062.36	£19,662.68
Glasgow City Council	79	£1,544,427.00	£19,549.71
South Lanarkshire Council	67	£1,308,586.30	£19,531.14
East Lothian District Council	23	£440,939.00	£19,171.26
East Dunbartonshire Council	24	£459,825.02	£19,159.38
Moray Council	26	£496,496.00	£19,096.00
Dumfries and Galloway Council	47	£889,981.00	£18,935.77
Perth and Kinross Council	41	£761,610.87	£18,575.87
Angus Council	29	£536,249.00	£18,491.34
North Ayrshire Council	30	£554,398.84	£18,479.96
Aberdeen City Council	43	£794,498.00	£18,476.70
West Dunbartonshire Council	22	£406,113.12	£18,459.69
Stirling Council	22	£403,958.68	£18,361.76
Fife Council	78	£1,418,840.30	£18,190.26
East Renfrewshire Council	20	£350,773.00	£17,538.65
Falkirk Council	32	£545,823.55	£17,056.99
Renfrewshire Council	40	£671,787.24	£16,794.68
South Ayrshire Council	30	£494,514.00	£16,483.80
Dundee City Council	29	£477,115.38	£16,452.25
Midlothian Council	18	£293,157.27	£16,286.52
Clackmannanshire Council	18	?	?

Source: BBC Research + oldnat's investigative powers

---------------------
Perhaps someone can help me out with the following...

BBC Research has produced an interesting list of councillor pay and expenses for 2007-08, broken down by government region and also by council. Glancing at the figures for Scotland (see table at the bottom of this post) I noticed huge variations in the cost per councillor. For example...

		Council	# Cllrs	Total cost*	Cost/cllr
		Orkney Islands Council	21	£425,911.34	£20,281.49
		Shetland Islands Council	22	£50,476.63	£2,294.39

*Total cost = Pay, expenses and allowances for 2007-08.

No, I haven't got those numbers wrong. Can anyone shed some light on this? Why the vast discrepancy between two councils that, to an ignorant mainland loon at least, look like they should be broadly comparable? The only thing I could think of was the Shetland oil fund. But then again I'm pretty sure Clackmannanshire doesn't have one of those, yet they seem to be blessed with much cheaper councillors than Midlothian...

Council	# Cllrs	Total cost*	Cost/cllr
Midlothian Council	18	£293,157.27	£16,286.52
Clackmannanshire Council	18	£69,934.61	£3,885.26

Now for the really weird part. Despite the yawning chasm in the table above, Midlothian have the 4th lowest cost per councillor in Scotland. In fact it's actually Clackmannanshire that pips them to the bronze medal, albeit by a whopping £12,401.26 per councillor! In other words no council in Scotland has a cost per councillor between £3,885.26 and £16,286.52. What's going on?

To round things off, the 22 councillors of Stirling Council cost a total of £48,708.08, i.e. £2,214.00 per councillor. In contrast, the 32 councillors of West Lothian cost £835,518.00 in total, at an average of £26,109.94 per councillor. Why can 3 of our councils give us councillors at an average cost below £4,000, yet all the rest cost from £16,000-£26,000?!?

Now, there may well be a very good reason for this bizarrely skewed distribution of costs, in fact I really hope there is. If so I'd love to know what it is! Please respond via the comments box below.

Council	# Cllrs	Total cost*	Cost/cllr
West Lothian Council	32	£835,518.00	£26,109.94
Inverclyde Council	20	£474,598.35	£23,729.92
Argyll and Bute Council	36	£817,143.63	£22,698.43
Highland Council	80	£1,727,849.81	£21,598.12
North Lanarkshire Council	70	£1,478,710.00	£21,124.43
Edinburgh City Council	58	£1,216,614.85	£20,976.12
Scottish Borders Council	34	£698,538.00	£20,545.24
Orkney Islands Council	21	£425,911.34	£20,281.49
Western Isles Council	31	£624,554.00	£20,146.90
East Ayrshire Council	32	£634,824.94	£19,838.28
Aberdeenshire Council	68	£1,337,062.36	£19,662.68
Glasgow City Council	79	£1,544,427.00	£19,549.71
South Lanarkshire Council	67	£1,308,586.30	£19,531.14
East Lothian District Council	23	£440,939.00	£19,171.26
East Dunbartonshire Council	24	£459,825.02	£19,159.38
Moray Council	26	£496,496.00	£19,096.00
Dumfries and Galloway Council	47	£889,981.00	£18,935.77
Perth and Kinross Council	41	£761,610.87	£18,575.87
Angus Council	29	£536,249.00	£18,491.34
North Ayrshire Council	30	£554,398.84	£18,479.96
Aberdeen City Council	43	£794,498.00	£18,476.70
West Dunbartonshire Council	22	£406,113.12	£18,459.69
Fife Council	78	£1,418,840.30	£18,190.26
East Renfrewshire Council	20	£350,773.00	£17,538.65
Falkirk Council	32	£545,823.55	£17,056.99
Renfrewshire Council	40	£671,787.24	£16,794.68
South Ayrshire Council	30	£494,514.00	£16,483.80
Dundee City Council	29	£477,115.38	£16,452.25
Midlothian Council	18	£293,157.27	£16,286.52
Clackmannanshire Council	18	£69,934.61	£3,885.26
Shetland Islands Council	22	£50,476.63	£2,294.39
Stirling Council	22	£48,708.08	£2,214.00

Source: BBC Research