We are Devo

With apologies to Devo*. Altered image © Eidetic Memery.
See James Cook's Article on BBC

I’d been listening out all day on the 1^st October for something to mark the start of work on the Vow. Scant mention of it, I’m afraid. Of course maybe there’ll be something by the end of the month. I thought, maybe there’d be a word somewhere in the vast media machine that made so much of Scottish affairs a mere two weeks ago.

Still, it IS business as usual down there, where important things are decided. The conference season is heaving with promise. Ed and Co last week - austerity, ‘save the NHS from the Tories’, reassurance for big business, raising the minimum wage in six years; Dave and Co this week - deficits (when they spring to mind), tax give-aways, ‘how the Health Service will be saved’, terrorism and extremists (rebellious Scots to crush?), foreign wars to prosecute… Oh, and every one gives the nod to us woadies in the heather. The Vow will be honoured. Then silence.

So the media has nothing to report, has it? Apart from William Hague on Radio Four on the morning of the 1^st, adroitly reinforcing the promise: it will be delivered. More powers, more powers.

Never mind that a week ago he confirmed to Andrew Neil that if Scotland receives, say, £5 billion worth of extra tax raising powers, the Barnett formula would be reduced by the same amount. Barnett, incidentally isn’t going to be the part of any legislation because it already exists. And, it’s not in statute anyway. It’s an instrument (if that’s the right word) of the Treasury with which, I suppose, they can continue to torture us, or at least fiddle with to do whatever they like.

At the Tory conference, the BBC showed Dave heaping praise on Ruth Davidson for her sterling Tory efforts. No mention of the content of her actual speech, though. In it she said the Smith Commission should rule out discussion of Devo Max (which would deliver everything to Scotland except foreign affairs and the Armed Forces). Now that’s what I call going back on a promise. Significant new powers! She loves Scotland, apparently. She’d do anything for love, but she won’t do that

Late evening on the 1^st, the BBC also showed a potted history of the Referendum, How the Campaign Was Won. You could see the slant from the start. Still, Lesley Riddoch remarked in the programme, the BBC don’t understand how balance works, they have no sense of ‘equivalence’. Hence their ham-fisted bias toward NO, one that NO exploited. If NO didn’t take part in debates, the BBC would have to omit any YES viewpoint ‘for balance’. Add to that an ingrained institutional leaning toward the status quo and moribund, slack journalism: there you have it.

No conspiracy, just a sloppy one-sided-ness where no-one asked the deeper questions, nor probed, nor got in behind the issues. Everyone can still say, hands on palpitating hearts, oh, we never even knew we were doing it. Like institutional anything, sexism, racism, whatever, it’s a product of closed minds.

So, even in the lightened mood post-ref, this programme still glossed over so many critical points and moved selectively through the story. Some players were barely mentioned. Derek Bateman and Robin MacAlpine, for example, not al all.

In the end, with a sense the story had been told, but abridged like a Reader’s Digest reprint, I liked Alan Little’s summary. I’d already seen his pieces on Britishness in which he linked that to the sense of belonging we had, particularly in working communities, when we had a ‘British’ industry. It was that, he suggested, gave us the feeling we were in a common project, better together.

Thatcher took all that apart. In the decline, Britishness has withered away, leaving a stump of jingoism and the same saccharined sentiment so many pointed to in their stereotype of the Scots. Britishness an amputated emotion; its only remaining sensation is like a phantom limb: long gone but still as real in the mind, itching and hurting, longed for by many.

Alan Little reflected, the Union still has to wake up to the need for something positive to replace it.

All the promises, pledges and vows don’t address that one thing. As time goes on those who remember the days of British Steel, the Coal Board and Shipbuilding learn to live with their loss or else, being older, take their broken dreams to the grave. The younger Scots only saw their pain second hand and don’t have the same sense of belonging, the more so when Westminster rides down the working people who carried Britishness in their hearts. So the young, the working people are waiting to be convinced. Still waiting.

So the 1^st of October came and went. On the morning of the 2^nd I read Pete Wishart’s letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons. So far, on the 16^th, there’s to be an adjournment debate on the promise, a mere half-hour.

“A solemn vow made by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition must surely rank as one of the most important joint statements delivered by the House in recent times. A half hour adjournment debate is, therefore, clearly insufficient to consider all the issues concerning this ‘vow’ to the Scottish people.”

Is this what they call a ‘consultation’? Hardly. Scotland’s back in it’s box where it belongs. Not worth anything except lip service. The arrogance is astounding. It’s a bloody insult.

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*With apologies to Devo, of course. Here's their story. Subversive. Oh, yes.

Are We Not Men? : The DEVO Documentary from Tony Pemberton on Vimeo.

Settled Will or Unsettling Testament

In Scotland, the Labour party didn't win a majority at the last Holyrood election. I guess that meant the Scottish people didn't want them to govern. Now, I'd not suggest for a minute (even in a rant) that they should now desist from proposing policies or framing a vision, even a modified one, of a Labourite Scotland in future.

Same for YES and NO. I hear some regard the result after the18th represented the settled will of the Scottish people. 'Will', I can accept but 'settled' is a vexed question. If for no other reason than the point above.

I know, we've had a referendum not an election. Plenty were happy to point that out or fudge it as required. Still, I saw nothing in black and white, to say the question should never be asked again, that it was settled, as some say, for a generation. It was a referendum, granted, seeking an answer to a point of principle not to elect representatives. There's no reason for the question of principle to have a time of deferment attached to it.


We don't say to a political party not elected, give up and go home, never again darken our doors with your discredited ideas. However much we might wish it, their principles, policies and objectives are their own and they have the right to express them in the political process.

Scotland's settled will, then. 55% to 45%. Pretty near a 50:50 split. About 10% difference between two visions of the future. We need to tease out what those visions were. Lord Ashcrofts poll, strangely enough, analysed why YES and why NO and the reasons differed on the issues most compelling to each. YES put the social justice-fairer society high on the list along with our future in our own hands. NO were unconvinced on currency, unwilling to risk independence, generally in favour of the union.

For me, as aYES, it was clear. I found NO entirely lacking in vision and with no positives for the Union. Even at the last, the Brown package held no detail though, if it had, it could have been the vision so long awaited. I wondered why so late. Now, I still wonder at the timetable, on which so many may have voted NO, as it has nothing inspiring in it and certainly no detail.

So, indeed, the people of Scotland have spoken. I respect the decision but I still fundamentally disagree with it. 1.6 million did with their votes and, I suspect some have already crossed over in the days of fudge in Westminster that followed. This is a matter of principle and a matter of facts, for me. Principle, in that I believe in what YES felt Scotland could be in its own right. That embraces ideas of fairness, justice and an open, internationalist place in the world. It was as much about self-determination as our example to the world: passionate, peaceful argument through a democratic process as an example to troubled planet, including a new flavour of politics, a spirit of co-operation and not conflict.

I feel Westminster have already said all they will about the achievement, having wiped their brows and returned to the run of politics they know. The UK should be proud. We had this debate without guns and coercion of that kind. We did have misinformation, a hostile media and a coalition of parties who gave us nothing until the last minute, who could not or would not make a coherent positive case for the Union based on their own principles. That was shameful.

In the last analysis, I have to say, I will not set aside my own principles. I won't give up on social justice or a different kind of political discourse. I won't tell the YES movement to stand down.

I will use the UK political arena to make these principles a reality. I'll stand firm with my UK counterparts on that goal, just as I would have as a good-neighbourly independent Scot. Solidarity, after all, cross all borders, as any socialist will tell you.

I will continue to expose lies, duplicity and unalloyed spin for the sham it is. I'll call out any politician who tries to varnish the truth for their own advancement. I will honour all shades of opinion expressed by honest people according to their hearts and minds.

If the opportunity to ask any question again arises, I'll ask it. If the chance to ask YES or NO to independence comes again, I'll seize it with both hands.

The people are always speaking.

By Their Conspiracies Shall Ye Know Them

Cartoon by Robert Crumb

I'm wary of conspiracy theories. I worry they're part of another conspiracy altogether.

We've had a few 'dirty foul, ref!' moments since the 18th September. Oddities at the counting, unexplained fire alarms, confusion over YES and NO piles, ballot papers blank on the back. After the fact, these are shown in fuzzy images shared on social media. We all get a bit twitched by it.

I'm certain we need to look into things like this but the key thing is evidence. Investigate, build the case, put up the evidence. Let's face it, the first rule in conspiracy is cover-up. The next is plausible deniability. The third is these people are deluded fanatics and can't believed, about anything. If there had to be a fourth, it's break rule number one, leave a fuzzy trail so you can use two and three against your opponents. Five, if you really want a fifth, is distraction.

So there's the challenge, how to unpick the several allegations carefully and rationally without appearing hysterical and deranged. Be informed, be aware, but above all, keep a calm sough.

Now here's another caveat. All politics is based on conspiracy. We form a world view and from it structure the world as we believe it should be. We choose to interpret the work, events and the people in it according this structure. It colours our behaviour and the way we understand the behaviour of others. Nothing wrong with that. It's the human condition.

We form communities, societies, political parties out of this, of course. We live in communities and societies and conformity is a subtle pressure for most of us. There's room for variation and, all being well, live and let live prevails. Politically, though, the motivation is to mould society and community and to garner the power to do it with. People sign up, toe the party lines and there you have a collective of individuals agreeing to interpret the world in a broadly similar way; agreeing to trying to make the world into their image of it. To me, that's a conspiracy.

An uncritical acceptance of the given world view begets the party hack, the unprincipled apparatchik, the prevaricator, the dissembler and, in the end, the bigot, the zealot and the fanatic. That's why I believe we can never uncritically accept demands of loyalty from any political leaders. We have to make loyalty dynamic, a process of inter-related loyalty, us to them, them to us. Otherwise, political belief and commitment, become blind faith. Applied unconditionally, it can lead to the worst of conspiratorial behaviour. Blind eyes, sleight of hand, half-truths and falsification.

What I believe, too, is that truth wins out because it's self-consistent. It is what it is. Lies and attempts to pervert the truth introduce inconsistency. When what you say is true, or you believe it honestly to be so, whatever you say is basically consistent. Of course, argument arises around facts and interpretation, feelings and their expression but, fundamentally you have no need to twist your story to fit a construct. Liars leak their inconsistency as they try to maintain the shape of their imposed construct. Look at Gordon Brown's body language with Dimbleby. More than nerves, that, the sheer effort of a man trying to avoid the pitfalls of his own fabrications.

That's why I think conspiracy is not the opposite of cock-up but its progenitor. The effort of lying is so great that liars end up exhausted keeping up the facade. They thrash themselves against honesty and fair-mindedness until their mendacity is plain to see. As that unravels we have to be sympathetic to those snagged in their net of manipulation, the ones made complicit because they believed the fabrications and became the second hand proponents of it.

So, in the world of referendum conspiracy, let's be sanguine. Some of what we've heard may reflect our own misunderstanding of the process*, or be within a normal margin of human error. It could be the work of misguided individuals or even some clandestine part of a bigger picture. In the last of these, my concern is: the smartest conspiracy of all would set out to feed our suspicions, leak these fuzzy images until we leap up with anger, fuel the indignation until we're distracted. Then they would deny it, call us deranged, take over the moral high ground and leave us mired in an argument manufactured to kill our focus and energy.

So, I repeat, gather information, find facts, the evidence and quietly build a case. You need to have a grasp of the processes and the rules and be able to lay them out. Until then, keep it quiet until there's enough for you to speak out.

In the meantime, we should watch the collected political conspiracies of Westminster. We should be vigilant. I've no doubt they'd rather we were still arguing with the referee while they're trying to break from the pack for a run at the goal.

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* Wings Over Scotland published a piece on this, by Douglas Daniel, an official referendum agent for Wings. He said:

"Believe me, if anything dodgy had been happening, this vile cybernat would have been screaming it from the rafters."

On lying: an article in the US journal, The Atlantic, Is Lying Bad for Us? discusses why.  On page 1, near the end, and on page 2, it touches on how stressful it is and how it distorts the liar's world view.

Divides and Divides to Be Crossed

Let's be clear on how Scotland has been divided. More importantly, the several ways…

The referendum split 55-45, a gross figure and, not as some have portrayed it, so decisive. The coarse red map of NO with wee blue things nestled in it does't reflect the truth. In reality the distinction is a pointillist mosaic of red and blue dots. Many towns and villages voted like Glasgow. That isn't part of the 'decisive, settled for a generation' view. Nor does it sit well with the collective amnesia rising like a fog in Westminster as the main parties wrestle for political gains of their own.

Look at it another way, we are a coalition of YES campaigners and voters alongside the persuaded NO and forever NO campaigners. I sense, among the first of those categories, a horrible realisation that the Brown promises of a week ago were just that, made-up muck (for want of a less polite word).

Cameron has tied 'The Vow' into Devo-Plus for all and the English answer to the West Lothian question. He's got a brawl to come with his own back benches but he can sell it on the wholesale destruction of Labour - for a generation. He's already poised to whittle away Barnett .

Milliband is, as he so often was in Scotland (on the street), silent about Scotland. Ed Balls has the temerity to stand up for cuts to child benefit, more austerity, benefit caps. He's more red than Tory by a bawhair, politically a hideous puce.

Clegg is, as usual, liberally quiet. Looking for a fence to sit on. Never mind, he's Orange Book. When the fence turns up he'll sit on it but his feet will be on the side where the rich people live.

Back home, we have the rump of these, our local stooges, the Lamonts, Davidsons, and Rennies witheir attendant Darlings and Murphies. Never a chink of light between, arms linked in a resolute wall of opposition to Scottish purpose. Be sure, that purpose of social justice, fairness and creativity, for all they pay lip service, are diametrically a threat to their corporate allegiances. The division there lies between their covert coalition of dread and our own coalition of vision.

In Scotland, the SNP, the Greens, Scottish Socialists, Solidarity along with community and local groups came together with a positive spirit of unity. We set differences aside to reach a collective goal. And that put an indelible stamp on our political nature. We aren't afraid of disagreement. We are prepared to respect sincere NO voters. Of course, we'll argue, discuss and persuade but we recognise that argument is the foundation of real democracy. We expect our opponents to show integrity and we'll respect them for it.

Deep in the South, I suspect these views have no place. Westminster will bray in the same monotonee as before. Respect is not even skin deep there. It's a shred of scurf, nothing more, brushed aside in a moment of distaste. What's more, in narrow party interests, they'll divide us and divide us to their hearts' content, if it serves them.

Here, we have many bridges to build, between YES and disappointed NOs, and many to maintain. The political movement we grew is nurturing itself, its voice unstilled. That is also the voice we have to project to reach though the rupturing Westminster turmoil.

It must ask questions:

• Where are the promises of change?
• Where is the detail you hid from us when you made them?
• Where is the real consultation about that, for Scots, English, Welsh and Northern Irish voters?
• Why so late? Did you think you'd get away without offeringf it?

It must provide the answers we want:

• Nothing short of Devo-Max will do;
• Full fiscal autonomy - with control of ALL tax revenues, including oil;
• Social justice - no bedroom tax, end demonising the poor and disabled, no more food banks;
• Regulate the banks and the City;
• Regenerate industry;
• Scrap Trident.

That's a start. But if we don't ask the questions and provide the sample answers it'll all be swept aside in a tide of self-serving politics. The Westminster carpets hide too many demands that have turned to dust.

It's feet to the fire time.

Straw in the Wind

So what's this? Jack Straw thinks we should now legislate so the Union that is the UK can never be dissolved (read it here at the Times). Forgive my foaming at the mouth. Has he any understanding of the act of Union that began this? Scotland's people are sovereign in this whereas the people of England are not. Parliament took sovereignty from the monarch at the time of union but Scotland, as set out in the Declaration of Arbroath, made the people sovereign.

The implications of the Act of Union and the Declaration, as I read them, are that the UK Parliament can't just pass a law to make it impossible (illegal) to pursue independence ever again, without settling the question of sovereignty. Otherwise, any attempt to rule as he suggests, would be a breach of that act and in itself tear up the union.

Christine Graham MSP made a statement in the Scottish Parliament on the subject in March 2014*.

* This is an audio-only clip and it repeats after 6m 30s.

But it's the mindset. Don't you think? Jack Straw thinks of Scotland as a region. In his eyes, the Act of Union eradicated the Scottish nation. It didn't, it merely transferred decision-making to a new parliament in London.

David Cameron, very likely, takes a similar view. His answer to the West Lothian question points that way. It's rather simplistic to think a separation of voting rights, so Scottish (and Welsh or Irish) MPs are barred from voting on purely English matters. This is also regional thinking. It ignores the interplay between parts of the UK (so highly regarded by NO in the Referendum debate) as if purely English decisions would have no implications for the rest of the UK. It also creates a two-tier political process where our representatives operate with differently weighted votes.

You can't argue that the UK is better together as a union and then go on to say we exclude parts of it from voting in the place where mutual interests reside. This is a recipe for discontent if not disaster. Fully devolved regional and city assemblies might achieve some form of parity but, if the UK accepts MPs from all of them, their mandate is to act in accordance with the views of the peoples and regions they represent in the interests of the union. With no exceptions.

The Westminster reluctance here is clear. Full devolution (as in Scotland's elusive Devo-Max) would involve not just tax varying or tax raising powers, but control of ALL tax revenues. Independence in all but name. This exposes the establishment's propensity to fiddle the figures. For Scotland, oil revenues are usually book-kept out of the equation, attributed to the Treasury as a UK asset. Other tax revenues are fudged and finally top-sliced to pay for Westminster expenses, the Lords, infrastructure projects of little benefit beyond establishment heartlands.

With clarity here, all of us would know where we stood but Westminster would have to own up to essentially having its fingers in the till. It would be like your accountant, having long trumpeted his competence and trustworthiness, was exposed as the one who used your funds to finance speculation on the money markets, in military adventures, favouring one client over another and never you.

So, Straw. Introduced the Human Rights Act; also proposed the end to trial by jury of terror suspects; Home Secretary at the time of 9/11, he presided over the Iraq war. He also strengthened extradition rules in favour of the USA, and was accused of making them too one-sided. He was also accused later of complicity in the USA's practices of extraordinary rendition and torture.

Don't get bogged down in accusation and defence here, that's for other forums. Just reflect on the mindset. Straw's is typical, suggesting clandestine deals between hawkish figures, spooky shenanigans on the world stage, and the smoke-filled rooms of Old Labour. Political fog, smoke and mirrors. Transparency. Just a word.

That's the signature of a kind of politics we don't want any more. And it's reasserting itself. Jack Straw is an indicator of the prevailing mood. He's wrong about Scotland. They all are. Being wrong hasn't stopped them before.

Picking up the Pieces

Something was born two days ago; different offspring but ours just the same. The voice is till there, the passion and the will to build a future regardless. We need to find the energy to carry on.

Somewhere south of here, there's something about change in the air. But the politics of same-old is there too, dragging us back to spin and manipulation just like before. The Great Vow under-scribbled by the Three is already being turned into a Vow to appease Greater England, to become a party-political battleground, a fait accompli for our southern cousins they won't even have two years to wrestle with. Its a recipe for fudge. It'll run into the sand and, in some watered-down form, trickle out roughly on time but awfully deformed.

In that timescale, no-one, English, Welsh, Irish and Scots, not the least, will be consulted. There's simply not enough time. Given that the NO campaign never understood the real issues for YES, where will that leave their new powers bill? The Conservative, Lord Ashcroft, published poll results which show the differences. But the NO campaign and presumably the Westminster establishment they represented seemed to think it was about nationalism, currency, pensions when it was about self-determination and social justice. The first favours the Westminster economic model their world is built on while the other aspires to a social agenda for which economics is a driver.

Worse still, the arguments that will now follow may well set us at loggerheads. It's classic divide and-rule. In the end there's an out, conveniently staged, how can we sort this out with these disagreeable bairns we have as an electorate? Let's just make their minds up for them.

Still, there's another divide in divide-and-rule, the one we've spent two years wrestling over. It's between the Three, between all who align themselves with the politics of power, elites, privilege, organised wealth, and those aligned with people, inclusiveness, openness, responsible wealth creation. YES embodied a real coalition of the willing, brought together the SNP, Greens, socialists with a common purpose and reached out to previously unengaged ordinary folk. No matter what differences we might argue over for practicality, the sovereignty of people in that process was paramount, self-determination and honesty at its core.

I don't believe the Westminster machine can embrace this at all. It's too mired in subterfuge and deceit, too interconnected inside its London bubble to see beyond the finance-media-political cartel consolidated there. I do believe it will dilute, delay and distort the promises it made to Scotland and at the same time pander to divisive forces in England while silencing the concerned majority with obfuscation and distraction.

Here in the rarified North, where we've lived through an inspirational campaign and seen engagement with it, YES and NO, on a huge scale and largely good natured, we have something to share. We have the whole gamut of argument and counter argument, contention and promise, to hold the feet of the establishment to the fire. We are the fire and there are many over our imaginary border who would to join us to achieve the same aims.

The pursuit of social justice and self-determination isn't going away and the turn of events that puts the question out in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, opens the debate there too. If YES goes on in Scotland as it seems it will, the calling to account of the old establishment will remain a rallying point. If it goes on as it might, our YES becomes a YES to social justice, self determination and grassroots power for all parts of this tortured island.

We, in Scotland should be open to that. For our part, we must make the demands now for the 'new powers' settlement. Not the closed-doors sham consultation which will never happen, We have to state clear objectives for it. Not just what it delivers in the terms of Gordon Brown but what it has to deliver as a coherent promise for Scotland, and particularly the NO voters who supported it. There has to be real power. Real transparency. We need to see the economic flows from us to the Treasury and back again, the top-slice retained and what it pays for, We need to understand that tax-raising powers mean just that and aren't a back way to slash public spending and then make us pay for it again at our own expense.

To these ends, the YES Movement goes on. I favour of working with all shared interests in Scotland to achieve our goals of independence, social justice and a new politics. We should also take these issues across the UK since we've been committed to our part in it and find common cause there.

PS 1.6 x 10⁶ is just the numerical 45% - 1,600,000 YES voters. God, I'm obscure…

Determination, Then

My subtitle for this blog was too prophetic: the long road to social justice. Sorry about that.

I've just caught up with the feelings the NO vote has generated. A lot of us are despondent, gutted, downhearted. The deepest gloom is the thought that, given the chance, we have given a mandate to the Westminster machine, that we've collectively bottled it.

Maybe that is merely testament to the doubts sown by what was still, in my view, a relentlessly negative NO campaign. Too many people didn't want to take the risk. It is what it is.

The up side is the huge turnout, the clearly deep engagement in the political process. Scotland has spoken. What we have to embrace isn't just this expression of participative democracy, we also have to keep the voice we've found.

This is especially true when we accept that the NO vote has been translated into a YES to new powers. This has thrown a huge task into the laps of the coalition of the identical fronted by Gordon Brown. As I said before, YES or NO, we must use our new voice to ensure these promises are not only kept but the detail of them not yet revealed actually meets our requirements. We have to keep the timetable, make a case for what Devo-something actually delivers. For example, if that means tax raising powers, we should also demand real transparency in tax transfer from Scotland to Westminster, direct tax raising in Scotland (including North Sea oil revenues) not just for additional funding but collecting revenues with powers of retention before transfer to Westminster.

This is crucial because, I believe, for many NO voters, in particular, honouring promises is pivotal. If the proposed extra powers run into the sand, their voices will be heard along with those who said YES. They will be part of one single Scottish voice. Personally, I'm doubtful the powers can be effectively delivered against the background of Westminster in-fighting. We have to try. We've been promised the social justice Scotland aspired to in the UK as a whole. We have to speak out to make sure we get it.

The work goes on. There's even more to be done. We've thrown our hat in the ring. Let's add our voices to that clamour, if only to bring some sense, and share our experience and skill in popular engagement. If we're better together we've all got to make sure we are, together.

Unanswered Question

Tonight is YESmas eve. The snow of leaflets has almost stopped. Tomorrow is the day we all have control of our destiny. What we decide will keep it there, or not.

So a note for the undecided, the ones it would seem the Labour party are desperately calling on to rise and vote NO. Having signed on their website to ask a few referendum questions of my own, they have me on their mailing list and, boy, have they been busy. Four times today alone, have I had emails from them: from the party itself, Gordon Brown, Johann Lamont and, a few minutes ago, Ed Milliband himself. I politely declined the first three and two of my answers are posted here. Ed Milliband, I steadfastly ignored. At least I wasn't in public transfixed by a real person, looking like as duck in the crosshairs. The question I'd asked, by the way, remain unanswered.

That's been a theme, a mantra of the NO campaign. Too many unanswered questions. It cuts both ways. We've had 'answers' from NO which in themselves have been questionable, answers they've spontaneously provided to questions about currency and pensions, for example, where they said the opposite of what, when checked, was true.

NO's missing answers actually boil down to this: none of the answers YES give are ones we like. The truth is out there, as they say, on websites, social media, in the Wee Blue Book, even in the mainstream media, if people seek out what they need to know. Some don't suit the NO campaign, some do. Information is like that. You may pick and choose, build your argument. Just be honest, though, when you simply dislike or disagree with some of the answers you've been given.

In the last week, of course, there's a wholly new set of unanswered questions. These are contained in the Gordon Brown surprise package. In this case, we have no answers either. Partly because the unseemly timing hardly allows anyone to ask; partly because answers with meaningful detail have to wait until we've taken the decision for which they're crucial. The package, ratified ('rat' being the operative syllable) by the three superheroes of Westminster without a nod from either party nor electorate, is a bucket of fog.

There's the difference. Choose, if you're NO, between answers you have actually heard but may not like and obscure promises no-one might even deliver but which you want to believe in because they sit on the other side of the decision. Choose, if you're YES, between a future you aspire to or a future shrouded in misdirection, a political conjuring trick.

This is the eleventh hour, or will be when I finish this. Actually the only unanswered question is the one we answer tomorrow. Put, as Justin Curry said, our saltire in its box. It's now or never. Screw your courage to the sticking place. Hold the line.

Oh, aye, eat your cereal.

Oh, dear... Dear Douglas...

Oh, my God! The Labour machine is working overtime. Now Douglas Alexander wants me to be so inspired by Gordon Brown's performance at the NO rally today that I'll vote NO tomorrow. This is too much. What a waste of bytes and bandwidth. I've had to let him down too. Sob.

This email also came from Labour HQ in London. Does that mean Scottish Labour is as irrelevant as I think it is?

He sent me this:

Here's what I emailed back.

Dear Douglas

I don’t think he did. He was extremely impassioned but, to be honest, there are too many unanswered questions. The new powers package came too late for me. I’ve been waiting for two years to hear a vision for Scotland’s future in the Union. To produce something this late is simply an insult. You’re asking me to sign up to something with no detail that you’ll piece together afterwards. And you have to get the party to agree to it, then the Tory and Lib Dem parties. The Tory back benches have the knives out already. And if you think Labour will win in the next UK election, you’ll really need to deliver on the mystery box well before it or else the Scottish NO vote will be adding their voice to a continuing YES-oriented movement. They’ll desert Scottish Labour at the first mis-step. The outcry will be loud, very loud.

As for Gordon’s performance. From what I’ve seen, there was passion in it but he still comes across as smug and hectoring. His performance with David Dimbleby was an even greater testament to a man not being entirely frank. He grinned too insincerely and too often, he was rude to David Dimbleby and his foot-tapping body language showed he was leaking badly.

Also, I saw you in the Milliband debacle video the other day. I don’t know if Ed meant to actually say something but standing there like a duck facing a retriever was hardly edifying. I guess you had to step in. Then after Johann quoted the experts over Trident and put her hand on her heart to say ‘if I thought that the YES campaign would save those poor children, I'd be voting YES’. By which time Ed had snuck off, followed by minders and camera crew, then you and Johann. Not much engagement there.

Well, you've guessed it, I’m for the other way. I’ve voted Labour in the past but I'm very unlikely to do that again. First the earth will have to stop heaving in Cumnock New Cemetery (Keir Hardie - remember him - he’s deid and buried there. Then you’ll need to tak a tumble to yersels. Big time.

So, it’s a YES for me.

Cheerio

Edwin

I'm off to watch Bake Off.

Dear Gordon…

I've had three emails today from Labour. One from Johann Lamont and two from Labour HQ in One Brewer's Green, London. One of the latter came from the man himself, Gordon Brown.

So, apart from Johann telling me to phone somebody so I can help the reffy rend-em effort, the rest come from darkest London. Very in touch, I thought. 

The first asked me to donate a tenner to the campaign. It's hard to see how they'll spend that in the next 24 hours, but, hey… I replied (since it's a proper email address, onenationpolitics@labour.org.uk) and said sorry. I added they'd blown it for me and that I hear Keir Hardie is spinning in his grave.

But Gordon, now, he sent the following:

Edwin,

News broke yesterday that could swing the outcome of the referendum: the SNP have been hiding plans to make £500 million of cuts to our NHS if there's a Yes vote.

The NHS lie of Alex Salmond has been exposed. People need to know the truth about what he will do to Scotland if they vote Yes. 

Can you share this on Facebook now?

Tomorrow we will cast the most important vote of our lives, a decision we can never go back on. It's vital that people can vote based on the facts — not Alex Salmond's falsehoods. 

Click here to share the graphic now.* 

Thank you.

Gordon

* I couldn't bring myself to show it here. It appears, Yessified, above, though. Oh, and I removed the link. Don't want to distract anyone…

I had to reply. I doubt if he'll ever read it but…

Once again sorry, Gordon. 
 
You’ve misrepresented the threat to the Scottish NHS from changes in Barnett consequentials triggered by spending reductions as privatisation affects NHS England. The Treasury has the final say on the formula and can block (as they did with the Olympics) any beneficial knock on through Barnett to Scotland. 
 
Despite Andy Burnham saying, loud and clear, the NHS in England is under threat from privatisation, you haven’t even discussed or acknowledged that. Here you follow the Tory line, an almost opposite view..
 
You’ve never acknowledged how TTIP represents a huge threat to the NHS nationally in the event of a NO. Even though the Tories have publicly stated (on the BBC) that it’s right to include the NHS in the arrangement. Despite representations from unions and campaign groups, Vince Cable has refused to remove it from the table.
 
If there’s a financial gap to plug in Scotland it’s because of successive cuts already in Barnett, caused by Osborne’s austerity, an austerity you have pledged to continue if you return to government.
 
A YES vote secures to the Scottish people the power to vote for a government which will bring them the changes they want. This may be the SNP but it could be Labour (despite you dodging the question with Mr Dimbleby). Indeed, you actually suggested you’d rather Scots suffered the occasional Tory government in future rather than being able to elect governments for themselves, even they were Labour ones.
 
Most galling of all is the fact you have been so willing to align with the Tories. In particular, you silence yourselves up here and never even utter the criticisms you voice in another place. For a former Labour voter like myself, you’ve confirmed my disaffection. I think you’ve betrayed your deepest principles. The fathers (and mothers) of the Labour movement in Scotland have simply been betrayed.
  

As for lies, I noted, last night, you rested your case on several points which had already been contradicted by events or pronouncements from the UK government. Pensions was one. There is no threat to existing pensions because the UK government guaranteed them. Future pensions are another matter but as uncertain in the Union as you imply in an independent Scotland. To refer to a pensions threat in so broad a fashion, was so disingenuous as to be, effectively, a lie. So much of what you and your NO partners say is in that vein, at best a grain of truth spun into huge falsehoods. 
Finally, I have to conclude your eleventh hour contribution to the debate is a calculated strategy. The ‘new powers’ package and the collective vow from all three of you is planned deliberately to flash a deal before the people so late they have the briefest moment to say yes or no to it. Otherwise, if it is actually an afterthought, it’s lateness is an insult. Why could you, in Labour, at least, not have embraced adult debate, published this vision for the future in time for it to be discussed? Was it your buy-in to the arrogance of Westminster? And did you also subscribe to the London view that Scotland is a joke with self-determination as its fantasy punchline?
 
You continually raise the question of uncertainty. Independence is full of it, I agree. Yet you never acknowledge the uncertainties of the continuing union, except to say vote for us and we’ll fix it later. Now, when you say there are too many unanswered questions, don’t you see how that also applies to your last-minute mystery package? There far too many unanswered questions there too. Too many contradictions as well, Gordon, for me to believe in.
 
So, sorry, Mr Brown. It’s a YES from me.

Ah, well, time to tell Johann to shove it.

Wow, the Vow

The Vow, so late in the day, is still a pig in a poke. This is the vision we've all been waiting for. Now it's waved under our noses with moments to spare. No time for scrutiny.

Why so late? We're being treated like the followers of the Great Prophet Zarquon whose second coming was eagerly awaited. He eventually turned up in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe seconds before the end. Cheers, then BANG!

At least, for Zarquon, that was his second coming. For the No Better Together campaign this is the first we heard of it. Unless you count the sporadic morsels of future policy dribbled out since the spring by the individual parties.

For me, such abyssmal timekeeping is just disrespectful. Really, it's despicable verging on wicked. It's also calculated to deceive. We're being asked to sign up quick, and never mind the small print. Sign now or the game's a bogey. Why wasn't this presented clearly to us months ago? Is it really a back of the fag packet effort? Or is it a calculated sleight of hand to spoof us with a bag of half promises too tangled to tease out in the final days and too complicated to deliver.


Here's the gift, the vow they didn't call a pledge in case we remembered how Nick Clegg broke his last one on tuition fees. More powers, more fairness, guarantees of Holyrood for ever, Barnett set in stone. Not a lot of it bears scrutiny.

The powers are poorly defined, broadbrush headlines. If you consider them a moment you get this: Scotland sends its taxes to the Treasury (as before), they send only some of it back (Barnett), then Scotland gets to tax itself some more to do the extra stuff like protect the NHS. Westminster still keeps a chunk back, like it's done for years. That's left hand giving and right hand taking. A shyster's trick.

And fairness, laudable but vague. Where has it been throughout the last Labour administration and the years of Cameron's Tories? Buried under austerity, food banks and endemic inequality that began as New Labour polished up what was left of their principles and joined the spiv establishment.

Holyrood enshrined. But, as ever, no government can bind the policies of another to come. Enshrined but still vulnerable to the political weather. Or just plain revenge.

And Barnett, preserved. Not in law. Barnett is a Treasury mechanism and can be varied as they see fit. Remember the London Olympics? The Barnet formula should have added a proportional amount to funding for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland because of the extra public spending on the London infrastructure. That didn't happen because they decided the Olympics benefitted all of the UK. If public spending is reduced, we lose; if the Treasury wants to finagle us into not getting so much, they'll just do it regardless.

Then, against a background of growing Westminster indignation, we see Tory MPs say this pledge comes at too high a price. English people feel the same because no-one asked them. How can three parties who oppose each other, yet have stood hip to hip against Scottish independence, how can they hope to deliver any of this? Not while the back benches fume and sharpen their little political knives. Not while the groundswell of English and Welsh public opinion echoes Scottish cries for fairness (hah!) and self government.

Even Nick Robinson, recovered from his embarrassment over the Treasury business, said tonight on the BBC,  they have no detail on these proposals. They can't give any details.

I watched Eck tonight with David Dimbleby. His was the affable, reasonable politician speaking to 'David'. Brown preceded him, 'Mr Dimbleby, you don't understand', he said several times. Compared with Eck's relaxed commitment, Gogs had his customary smug grin and his endlessly tapping feet. They showed just how much he was leaking. Body language is a curse.

Pledge? The Vow? There's nothing there, just a headline with no story. The poke has no pig in it though it's full of porkies. Wake up you NO people! These jokers have you by the snouts. The only pigs around are the flying kind, migrating to warmer latitudes for the duration.

We've better things to do, us and you, than go on listening to this. We've a huge job ahead. We're building the future. That is something we can do better together.

Genies and Bottles

Do you think, when it’s done and dusted that’ll be it? I mean, YES or NO, the whole scene in Scotland and the UK has changed. The can of worms is opened, the genie is out of the bottle, the stable door is open and the horse, well, whatever way it turns, has bolted.

Politics as usual is the phrase that haunts me now. That’s because I don’t think we can go back to it. 

Once upon a time there was a public meeting. About a local issue. Feeling was high: the local council was thought to have acted against the interests of a community. I remember one councillor spoke in support. Even he, in apparent solidarity, said, now the community had voiced its concerns, we should leave it for elected members to deal with.

We can take it from here. Now you’ve spoken, be silent again. Let us take care of it.

I realised then, democracy is about the right to dissent, not just the right to agree.

 

In the referendum YES is the dissenting voice, shifting away from the status quo of the Union; NO is the voice of no change and, I fear, politics as usual. 

For me, democracy is free speech, every voice’s right to be heard, never silenced once a vote is cast, to let others run reckless with its mandate. We should always remember, if assent is a rubber stamp, dissent is proof of democracy working; argument and debate is its beating heart.

So we come to genies and bottles. Come next Friday, do we just stand down? Do we accept, if it’s NO, the promises we’ve seen writ large on tabloid front pages? Do we let the politicians in Westminster (because that’s where the promises have to turn from vague puff about fairness and guarantees into power), do we let them make the running? Should we watch them settle back into the yah-boo arguments of Westminster, making decisions and amendments to decisions because we voted them the right?

Or will we continue the popular engagement we’ve created here, both sides, YES and NO, and use its voice to demand change and that promises are kept?

Come next Friday, if we’ve said YES, do we just stand down or will we, as one older woman said to Robin McAlpine, not go back to our sofas? Will we run with the vision, from the White Paper, from the Greens, from the radical left, and build a Scotland where the voice we’ve raised now is still heard? Can we re-engage with, maybe even change, Labour, the Tories or the Lib Dems who are left here in Scotland?

Can we do politics in a better way than the complacent, haranguing politics on the green benches of London? Can we make it more inclusive, further devolved so that it’s full of argument and a white heat that shows our mettle without rancour?

Make no mistake. The challenges begin on the 19^th, whether we’re holding Westminster to account as never before to honour their commitments within the Union, or making sure the mandate we’ve given as an independent nation to negotiate a settlement with the Union is pursued with vigour.

The work has hardly started. The genie is out of the bottle all right. It’s in our voices now and it will be heard. Think about your choices. 

If you vote NO, be prepared to raise your voice with ours to get what we were offered. 

If, like me, you vote YES, be prepared to work together as a nation, to speak out, raise our voices to build it.

Ordinary People - Where Did They Go?

Weeks and weeks ago, when all this began, everyone was ordinary. At least, that was the claim. I remember the new websites, the blogs, the media scoops. The people we heard about were always ordinary: single mums, pensioners, office workers. Every one was concerned about our future but none claimed special status or importance of any kind. Never mind that some turned out to be activists, well-heeled party donors, the great and the good climbing their respective greasy polls to influence and office.

This was a very much a feature of the NO campaign and a bit suspect, part of a duplicitous urge to misrepresent.

But I remember thinking, who's ordinary? What's that about? I'd followed National Collective, and lots of other YES sites, and found the tone of stories there tended more toward how extraordinary ordinary people were. There didn't seem to be much need to claim some just-plain-folks label to give political choice validity.

So, what was the deal with ordinary? I felt it sprang from a need to hide the hand of power as it fiddled about and manipulated. It presented ordinariness as a front which, in the end, said to me, they think ordinary people are puppets, hollow, lifeless shapes to be animated by an unmentionable purpose.

I believe the YES side emphasised the opposite: people were amazing, creative, different, welcoming difference. Paradoxially, it said, we're in this together and embraced everyone from company directors to labourers and didn't make a fuss about it.

That was how it was and the status quo, NO, was represented by figures, unassuming, normal, just like the rest of us. Except they weren't. Under the surface, there were the vested interests, those who wanted us to accept a smokescreen of the same-as-you when that was so far from the truth.

All very well. We saw the rise and fall: the Vote No Borders nonsense, embarrassing attempts to puff a whiff of the grass roots from nothing; the intransigent flannel from Scottish Labour, trotting out discredited horror stories from the mouths of the faithful; the long line of put up jobs and corporate jobsworths showering gloom on our heads like some dismal rain.

And now we see it. A northbound in-flux of Westminster might, the charge of the great hundred galloping to our rescue. Messages of doom wrapped in this strange love-hate they have. The long line of bankers and business big cheeses giving us their lines of prospective failure, temporary good times, long-term decline and, generally, our complete uselessness and hopelessness in the face of a future we can't comprehend and certainly can't handle.

Now, amongst all these prominent figures, who's no longer there? Mr, Mrs and Ms ordinary. These poor sods, once pushed to the front, are floundering in the wake of the figures who are really important. They've outlived their usefulness. Nobody needs their homespun sincerity, even if it was manufactured, They're dead ducks. They can't save the Union. They never could, but for a while, they served to stave off the notion of independence.

Now that strategy's stopped working, the big guns are wheeled out. The ordinary, the closet NO activists, the party faithful, a few door-chappers, the flag-knitters and wavers, all of those folk, doubtless sincere in their way, are left by the wayside. Now's the time of the ones who matter: the bankers, the party leaders, the business executives, tame academics, mandarins and apparatchiks, the fantastically wealthy. They're the ones who'll save the Union. Sod the little people.

I hardly wondered where the ordinary folk had gone. I'd half-expeected them to be swept aside. Expendable. I'm truly sorry for them. They must have lent their names, their faces and their heartfelt beliefs to the cause, only to find the seven hundred horsemen of the establishment ride over them like a wave, also too wee, too poor and too stupid to make a difference. We knew you never could. You were the electoral cannon fodder, the diversionary tactic, the dispensable and gullible troops in our war of blind self interest. Stand aside for the elite!

Truth to tell, there are no ordinary people left. NO has trampled them under their parade of the important. YES has never thought ordinary was any way to describe people who engaged themselves in our different visions of a collective future. All I can say, to all the ordinary NOs, don't be so easily sidelined. Vote with your hearts (and I, for one, will respect it) but don't fall for the disrespectful trick that raised you up and chucked you aside when the chips were down.

To YES, I say, go on. Be extraordinary, surprise us, principally yourselves. Ordinary was never a word to describe any of us. Rise to the occasion. Be as magnanimous in victory as you would be proud in defeat. Honour the same in your opponents. We have a country to build. None of us are ordinary people. We're so much more.

Protection Racket

Assurances come thick and fast. Always predicated on an underlying fear. Whatever you are planning will have dreadful consequences BUT everything’s safe with us.

In an independent Scotland, all the things you hold dear, aspire to, believe in, will become dry sticks in the wasteland. With us, just vote NO, and we’ll look after you. We’ll see you all right. We’re the only ones who can protect your ideals, all the things you cherish.

But just move the tone slider a little on this. Move it from slime, through cheese, double-talk and cant until you get the first hint of menace. Two clicks past innuendo and one before threat. Do that and these protestations have another meaning.

You love your family, don’t you? And your kids? You don’t want anything to… happen. We can protect you. The price? Stick with us. We’ll stop anyone else causing you trouble. First hint, and we’ll send in the big boys. We’ve got 'Nuke-You-Leer 'Nick. We’ve 'Last Resort' Carney and 'Desperate' Dave.

Anybody give you grief and we’ll send back Al 'Darling' Cicatrice or Seamus 'Mugger' Murphy. They won’t take anything for an answer. There’s never enough answers for these guys.

The price? Oh, aye. Just give us your pay packet and we’ll let you have enough to live on. Maybe some extra for holidays and the occasional bun-fight. We’ll see you right. But don’t ask any awkward questions of your own or we’ll duff you up or let 'Pie-face' La-la-la-Mont speak to you.

It’s a racket. Protection is a lie. Its how they keep us in line. They use the same fear, the same weapons, to bludgeon everyone, friend or foe alike. Our enemy is your enemy, right?

And the proof of it? Take the NHS in Scotland. We’re assured time and again that it’s already ours – to fund, fiddle with and generally run or ruin as we like. If we stuff up, it’ll be because we’re too crap to do otherwise.

Studiously avoided is the truth.

Part 1.

We may have the power to run our Scottish NHS but we don’t control the funds. They come up in a shabby wee wagon they detach from the Westminster gravy train. It’s the Barnett truck and what goes in it are wads of notes made up of sums in proportion to what Westminster doles out for its own public services.

That’s the real deal and, if they manage to cut back on what they spend, there’ll be fewer wads on the truck for us. Health spending squeezed means squeezed everywhere. Across the UK, England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, cuts or charges or deeper privatisation, privatisation without end.

Part 2.

Then there's the TransatlanticTrade and Investment Partnership - TTIP. This is a trade agreement being cooked up in secretbetween the EU and the USA. It effectively opens up areas of public services to corporate bids. It would give private enterprises, corporations, the right to bid for public sector contracts. More than that, it would make the NHS in the UK (and in Scotland too, if we vote NO) obliged to accept such bids. Also, if a government, after an election, gained a mandate to remove that right to bid or end any contracts given through it, corporations whose profits were threatened could sue the government.

This is undemocratic in the extreme.

Participating governments can exclude key parts of their services, like the NHS, for example. Phew! You say. Well, no. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary and minister responsible in Westminster, hasn’t put the NHS into the equation. Presumably because the coalition doesn’t want it there. So, if we do nothing the NHS will be privatised by cut-price healthcare corporates from the USA moving in and providing services for less (cost and quality). But the Tories won’t care because that’s where they want it to be. Labour will point fingers but they won’t lift a finger.

If you need more, Google 'TTIP', visit sites like http://ttip2014.eu/ or seek out sites like 38 Degrees at https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/ to petition against it.

The NHS is under threat. Labour isscreaming about it in England and Wales. They’re just not saying so to us up here, bedridden as they are with the Tories. Why the double standard? Why not admit ii? Because then they’d have to admit, no matter if we have devolved control, the Scottish NHS is threatened by, not just dwindling budgets, but by the access the TTIP agreement forces on us. Unless we vote NO and keep the NHS out of TTIP or resist it completely.

So, where’s the protection we’re told comes from the Union? With a NO, Nowhere. The austerity-privatisation agenda steamrollers on. The Mob are doing exactly as they please. You don’t want anything to happen to your family… your kids…

Exactly, when you need healthcare, nothing will happen. Otherwise, if necessary, they’ll do whatever they must to protect us from ourselves.

A Road Not Taken (It’s No Joke)

An Englishman, a Welshman, an Irishman and a Scotsman are lost in the wilderness.

You know the format. Worthies on a comedy mission setting stereotyped characteristics against one another.

Well, I’m going somewhere else with this. It’s a referendum analogy. Why? Because I’m fed up with the other analogies: divorces, domestic dysfunction and divvying up the CD collection.

So, all four wander on. Mr English, Mog Jenkins, Roddy Claudy and Mack Scottie, have already decided who should lead. Mr English took charge, because he’s tallest and can see further. Self-appointed, maybe, but well-intentioned. The others went along with it for a quiet life. Mr English gets them to share their belongings. He takes the best of their two penknives, gives Scottie the other. He hands Jenkins the cheap pair of binoculars and keeps the high-powered ones for himself, to help his looking. Claudy gets to keep the bowler hat.

They’ve been in the wilderness so long, food and water’s scarce. It’s not looking good. They discuss the way out, argue about which direction. Mr English knows best. He’s got a lot of knowledge and he can stand up on rocks to see into the distance. He leads them down into a gully. Scottie suggests staying on higher ground but isn’t listened to. Jenkins, having once lost a card game with Mr English, nods. Claudy says, let’s get going.

In the end, hungry and dispirited, they descend into a wide ravine, dry, parched and bleak, no horizon. Mr English insists they follow the path. It’s obvious and must lead somewhere. The privations of their journey, endless effort and hardship must be borne to the end. Standing on boulders, staring out for hours wears Mr English down. More and more, he gets the other three to carry him. Often, when he’s asleep from his efforts, they gnaw on carrion, suspiciously thinking there’s less wizened flesh on the bones than last time they ate. Jenkins says, I think Mr English has a nibble when we go looking for more. Claudy shakes his head.

They stumble on. Rubble in the ravine makes walking difficult. The walls are steep and Scottie sees the occasional goat track winding precariously upward. They stop to rest, setting Mr English down, and wait for him to mount a boulder and look. Scottie says, we should head up the ravine walls. We’d maybe see better frae there, maybe find some better carrion to eat.

Mr English leaps up. No, he says, we must keep to this path. I know it will lead us to safety. We must be strong and press on. The others are not convinced but, hungrier than ever they go on. Mr English stumbles. I’m sorry, he says, you’ll have to carry me again. I must preserve my strength for looking. Without my ability to look and my great height we’re doomed.

Days later, bearded and haggard, they sit, slumped together. Mr English says, you see, we support each other, you with your lifting me up and me with my ability to balance on rocks and look. They pass around another hunk of meat and chew it’s stringy dry flesh. Mr English takes an extra bite. He glances at the others in resignation, sighs, …dry flesh is good for long distance vision… and balance.

Later that day, Scottie has a dilemma. He should stick with his friends but he knows they’re going deeper into danger. He faces Mr English, Claudy and Jenkins, it’s nae use, brithers, we’ll have tae try a different way. I reckon up that goat track.

Too steep, too high, too difficult, says Mr English, it’s a foolhardy enterprise. Mr English fixes Scottie with a glare. I’ve done this before. I know we’re going the right way. Claudy says, maybe Mr English knows best, he’s done right by us so far. And he’s been doing all the looking. Jenkins looks at them all, would it work? It’s a stiff climb… all that way…

They stagger on down the now immense canyon, its walls higher than ever, the sky a narrow blue between red rock. There’s a river now, a raging flood on one side of them as they scramble over outcrops above the rapids. They still eat carrion and leaves from scrubby bushes. Despite the twists and turns, Mr English still ascends prominences and stares ahead. They carry him all the time now.

Scottie reaches breaking point. He presents his choice. There’s a way up. I’ve seen animal tracks and I’m going to follow them up. It’s a hard climb but I’m fit. I’m a decent scavenger, I’ll find enough to eat. I ken I can make it.

Mr English is vehement. You’re not capable of it, Scottie. You’ll fall to your death, or die of thirst. Besides, think of Mr Jenkins here, and Mr Claudy. Show some solidarity! They’ve helped you carry me so I could look out for us all. You mustn’t walk away. If you have a duty to any of us, it’s to them!

Scottie replies. I just think, if we go on, we’re headin into mair danger. We’ll get to where we’ll hae to climb anyway when there’s nae way past the rapids. We’ll have less strength then. We’ll all end up piles of bones under the cliffs. This way there’s a chance. You could come wi me.

No, says Mr English, we’re better together down here. You’ll die without our support. We’re stronger, don’t you see? You’re too weak and, frankly, you don’t have the sense to make it alone. What do you think, Mr Jenkins? Mr Claudy?

Claudy shrugs. He says to Scottie, I think I’m better with Mr English. I’m for keeping on. Jenkins seems to waver, I know he doesn’t let us get a word in. But he’s got our best interests at heart..

Scottie is exasperated. He says to Mr English, I know you’ll have to walk more now but I’ve got to follow my instinct. To Jenkins and Claudy, he says, don’t let him make you carry him. He can walk fine. And don’t let him eat more than you…

Mr English cries out. Scottie! You’ve always disliked me but I can’t believe you’d make such a stupid choice because of that! Don’t you see, if you climb up there, what’s left of your shoes will disintegrate. Your shirt will fall off. Look. I know these things. You’ll lose your reason. Your eyesight will go. Remember I understand far more about looking than you do. Your muscles will waste away. You won’t have enough breath. Any judgement you have will leave you. You don’t know the risks.

Scottie looks up, I have to believe in myself. This what I though we had to do all along. I know you didn’t agree but we never really talked about it, did we? There’s a different way and I’ve got to take it. Before I’m worn down using what energy I’ve left after carrying you on this hopeless trail.

Mr English sighs. You might think this is right for you. I know you’re wrong. You’ll be back in a day or two. Tail between your legs. If you survive that is. Well, it’ll be too late. We three will have moved on.

Jenkins, bleakly: I’m sorry, Scottie, part of me agrees but I’m sticking with Mr English. We’ll muddle through. Claudy mutters: I thought we were a team…

English: Well said Mr Jenkins, Mr Claudy. To Scottie, I can believe you would abandon me. Your dislike has turned to hatred. It’s not pretty, I tell you! It’s as if you’ve become like those villains and robbers we fought in the old days. Now you’re no better than them. But what I find despicable is the way you’d abandon Claudy and Jenkins, your decent, loyal friends. Shame on you!

Scottie: If I’ve disliked anything, Mr English, it’s your ideas. The way you think you’re right and never talk to the rest of us. The way you expect us to bow to your cleverness, then carry you and give you most of what we have instead of sharing it. And, no, it’s not about abandoning you all. It’s about showing you another way. I wish you’d join me or at least think again.

English: Go then! But don’t expect any help once you do because, if you get into trouble, you’re on your own.

A long time later, Scottie has struggled up the cliffs. His determination drives him. He’s reached a point, not so far from the top, where he can still see English, Jenkins and Claudy. They’ve moved on a little way but he see now they’re arguing. As if the way ahead is uncertain and they can’t agree which way to choose.

He climbs upwards to the edge of the cliff. Over it, he sees he was right: desert with an expanse of scrub, prickly pear and mesquite, and in the distance, low, green hills: food and water, meagre but manageable, on the way to where he can build his strength.

He looks back over the lip of the canyon. Shading his eyes, he sees the three small figures below. Mr Jenkins is standing on the rocky bank, powerless. Claudy is on the water’s edge, reaching out. Mr English is in the water, fallen from his vantage point, floundering, the torrent rushing past him and threatening to sweep him away.

Scottie breaks open a prickly pear fruit, sucks its juice and eats. With his penknife, he trims two sticks from a branch of mesquite. He gathers more fruit, removing the spines He takes off his shirt and ties them in it.

Back over the cliff edge, Mr English and his friends are much as they were: Claudy, helpless on the bank. Mr English in the swirling eddy. Jenkins has moved away and is now starting to climb up the cliff path.

Scottie secures his bundle, loops it in his belt, and starts back down.

Choosing to go his own way hasn’t made him heartless. Making decisions for himself, asserting his independence, never meant walking away when his help was needed.

Refusing to stay with the others, following his own path, didn’t mean abandoning them completely. They were his friends after all. He only wanted to stand with them by choice, as an equal. Having left, and now, carrying sustenance and two decent sticks, he began to go down again.