Parliament Archives - Page 5 of 5

A Change Of Name – RGIT To RGU – Part 2

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, History, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Sep 302011

In last week’s Voice, we carried part one of A Change of Name, a chapter from Dr David Kennedy’s forthcoming book in which he outlined how significant pressure had been applied to merge The University of Aberdeen with its perceived less-worthy educational neighbour, RGIT. In the second part of the chapter, we hear of the passionate fight to preserve RGIT and have it elevated to university status in 1992.

So, here we were in 1991 with the prospect of merger very much as proposed by our old friend from Napier way back in 1989. All of the older central institutions were under threat, but the greatest injustice was to those that already had delegated powers from the CNAA to award their own degrees: the technical institutions in Dundee, Paisley and Aberdeen.
Had the Secretary of State inverted the position of the five technological institutions in Scotland, leaving Napier and Glasgow at the bottom, he would have been much nearer the mark in everything but size, and size was simply due to an accident of location.

I know the advertisers tell us that size matters, but quality is even more important. Small can be beautiful.

This massive injustice needed to be fought and the battle for the survival of the Institute was on. I prepared a document setting out the very powerful case for the Institute and then went to see a group of members of the Aberdeen District Council. They were impressed by what they read and the answers given to their questions. Once they were clear about what was at stake, they readily agreed to ask their Council to support our case.

An all-party group from the District Council gave enthusiastic support and decided, if necessary, to lobby Parliament in our favour. Money was set aside for this to happen. The Council also sent a formal request to the local enterprise company seeking its backing for the institute. While the board members of the company fully supported the request, its chairman (Ian Wood – a local businessman) felt the issue was too political and should therefore not be supported. Due to the diplomacy of its chief executive, a letter of support was suitably worded and sent off to The Scottish Office.

Copies of the campaign document were sent out far and wide, including the Prime Minister and most of his senior cabinet colleagues. The response was overwhelming.

Although some quangos were unwilling to commit themselves because of their fear of government reprisals, ordinary people had no such qualms and responded in their hundreds and perhaps even thousands, across all walks of life and across all generations. From across Scotland the letters poured into The Scottish Office, many being copied to me.

For the first time, I realised just how much an educational institution can mean to a community. John Gray, who had founded the Institute in 1885, had done them a great service and they greatly valued what he had done.

Many of the letters were very eloquent, some were very moving, but I think the one I treasured most came from a very special person, a honest man who was courageous and true, and sadly, something of a rarity among politicians: Alick Buchanan-Smith. Alick wrote on 26 August to give us his full support, just a day or two before his premature death.

There were many other letters of support, including a senior government minister, Michael Howard, who knew personally of the work of the Institute. The Prime Minister did not reply in person, but nor did he dismiss it out of hand. My letter eventually found its way down to The Scottish Office for reply. The Head of the Higher Education Division wrote:

“You now have a reply from Mr Michael Forsyth … and there is little I can usefully add. I would, however, re-emphasise that it is not right to suggest that a decision has been taken on this matter when the intention is in fact to take decisions only after consultations and careful consideration of the arguments”.

Once again, the point was being deliberately ignored. Decisions had been taken. Napier had been allowed to call itself a polytechnic and no reply was ever given to my queries about the criteria applied, when these criteria were determined and by whom, nor of the purpose of the exercise, remembering that it all took place in 1988.

If criteria existed for this, why were they not publicised and applied to the other Scottish institutions with degree-awarding powers? According to Mr Forsyth’s letter, “explicit and well-defined criteria” exist which justify according degree-awarding powers and university status to Napier and Glasgow polytechnics, but not to any other grant-aided college in Scotland.

I noted that the Minister had not said these were the criteria that WERE USED in the case of Napier, only that criteria NOW exist that would justify the decision taken by The Scottish Office. This was simply tricky-micky, political evasion.

A press conference launched the Institute’s campaign. The launch was extremely well attended and the arrangements made by our Press Officer were excellent. We got off to a brilliant start. The problem then was, how to keep up the momentum and stop the campaign running out of steam.

At this point I told him very bluntly just what I thought of his threat to hurt students as a way of trying to coerce me.

Our Press Officer, June Davis, better known a year or two earlier as the ‘Torry quine’, was superb. She arranged interviews with a long sequence of North East notables who had responded to our request for support. These interviews were written up and fed to the media, so that rarely a day went by without some comment of interest and support.

Then there were the visits to the Institute, not from supporters, but from The Scottish Office. They came on the flimsiest of pretexts to see what was going on. I received a phone call from another of The Scottish Office worthies. He told me in a very brusque manner that if I kept on with my campaign I wouldn’t get an honour.

In language only slightly more moderate than that used to me by the oil company chiefs at the time of the Piper Alpha disaster, I told him how much I longed for an honour and how worried I was at the prospect of not receiving one.

Being a civil servant, he couldn’t understand my levity. He then said that they could easily have me sacked. I told him that I hoped to leave the job anyway and that my Governors were not too happy about my going at such an early age. He then threatened to make the institution suffer financially. At this point I told him very bluntly just what I thought of his threat to hurt students as a way of trying to coerce me.

The untimely death of Alick Buchanan-Smith meant a by-election in his North East constituency of Kincardine and Deeside. This was a difficult time for the Government.

Disbanding the Gordon Highlanders; de-commissioning of the fishing fleet; and the creation in Aberdeen of the first of the hospital trusts that was widely perceived as some kind of attack on the health service caused some disaffection. Of all these issues, the one that could be resolved with least cost was to settle the future of RGIT.

MPs kept up the pressure in the House, harrying the Minister about the criteria for degree-awarding powers. At last, the Secretary of State and his Minister saw that they would have to concede. The Scottish Office suggested I might invite the Minister to come to the Institute and meet with senior staff. I readily agreed and arrangements were made for him to attend our annual management conference.

When the Minister came into the room to address the staff he ostentatiously ‘left the door open’. Although he made no unequivocal statement about degree-awarding powers, it was abundantly clear that that was the burden of his message. It was exactly one week before the by-election for the Kincardine and Deeside seat.

The battle had clearly been won.

Although the battle was now over, this was by no means the end of the matter. New articles and instruments of governance had to be drafted and submitted for vetting.

The acid test would be whether our university remained true to its traditions and mission

Whereas most statutory instruments are drafted by civil servants, in this case it was for each institution to propose the powers it wished to exercise and to set these out in an appropriate fashion. This was an extremely important task, since it laid down the pattern of governance that, once settled, could not easily be amended.

After twenty years of senior management in education there were aspects in the existing arrangements that I believed could be improved upon. I did not favour the division of staff into academic and non-academic. All had a part to play in creating a successful organisation.

One of the problems is how to exert enough control to safeguard public funds, without becoming excessively overbearing and in effect, usurp the authority of those appointed to exercise it? Although important, systems alone are not enough. So these were the things I had in mind while writing the draft articles and instruments.

Although approved by the Governing Body, it was not acceptable to The Scottish Office. I was forced to follow the existing model, which had been designed by civil servants many years before. Being accepted by them meant that it was also acceptable to the Privy Council, and so at last the job was complete.

On Friday, 12 June 1992, the Institute formally adopted the name of The Robert Gordon University. Aberdeen, once again, had two universities.

The acid test would be whether our university remained true to its traditions and mission, or whether, like so many before, it adopted the traditions and mission of the old universities. If it adopted their values then, without doubt, our own had been vanquished and they had won.

Who can say what the future will bring? In order to at least make clear what I believe RGIT stood for, what the former mechanics institutes had stood for, what the old crafts and trades had stood for, we had a parchment prepared that set out our mission.

“The Robert Gordon University is pledged to produce versatile and resourceful practitioners who are relevantly qualified for their chosen professions and vocations within an educational environment that fosters innovation, enterprise and an enthusiasm for excellence”.

This was formally presented to the City of Aberdeen as an earnest of our intentions. No doubt it is mouldering somewhere in a basement of one or other civic building, but perhaps many years into the future someone will come upon it and know just what we stood for on that memorable day.

A Change Of Name – RGIT To RGU – Part 1

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, History, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Sep 222011

Dr David Kennedy served as Principal of RGIT/RGU, having been appointed in November 1984 and took up the post on 1 May 1985. He retired in September 1997. Aberdeen Voice is delighted to present, in two parts, Chapter One of his forthcoming book wherein he recalls the educational debate of the early 1990s and reveals behind the scenes moves to merge Aberdeen’s two higher education establishments.

1991 was an eventful year for higher education in Britain. Colleges operating under the aegis of the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) had conducted a lengthy campaign for parity of esteem with universities, which had now met with success.

A Government White Paper published on 20 May 1991 set out the proposals for all polytechnics to have the right to award their own degrees and to decide on the name by which they chose to be known.

Significantly, it also set out the closure of the CNAA, thus forcing those colleges without degree-awarding powers to seek an association with a neighbouring university. But it did hold out the possibility for some colleges to qualify for degree-awarding powers at some future time.

Here in Scotland, the immediate expectation was that the five major Scottish central institutions, which were fully equivalent in all but name with the English polytechnics, would also become universities.

In launching the White Paper, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr Ian Lang, confirmed that polytechnics would become universities. He went on to say that other colleges would have to wait until criteria were devised by which they might be judged on their suitability for the university title. He stressed that the title of university had a very special distinction in the United Kingdom and government had to be sure before letting just any old institution call itself a university.

I took the precaution of phoning The Scottish Office to check the accuracy of what had been reported. This was confirmed, but with regret over Mr Lang’s addition about the distinction of the title ‘university’ to the speech they had prepared for him.

In 1986, two local authority colleges, one in Edinburgh and the other in Glasgow, were brought under the direct funding of the SED. They became central institutions.

The one in Edinburgh had a close link with the then Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr Malcolm Rifkind. His wife had worked at the college where she enjoyed a happy relationship with her colleagues. The college principal became an educational adviser to the Conservative Party in Scotland, SCUA, and within a couple of years Napier College triumphantly announced itself as Napier Polytechnic Edinburgh.

The latter must have known what was going on, but kept it from the rest of us.

This was despite the fact that the Scottish Office had hitherto adamantly refused to allow Scottish institutions to use the title polytechnic and had turned down a number of earlier proposals to do so.

Seemingly, having bedazzled the Scottish Office with Napier stardust, its principal went on with great confidence to say that their next name change would be to that of university.

This was in 1988.

The longer established and more mature institutions were surprised that the expected blast from the Scottish Office never materialised. We were to learn later to our cost why this was.

Two years after Napier, and shortly before the publication of the White Paper, Glasgow College of Technology changed its name to Glasgow Polytechnic and advertised the fact as “having earned a few more letters” after its name! Its Principal told me that they had used the word ‘earned’, because they had undergone a thorough vetting by The Scottish Office. The latter must have known what was going on, but kept it from the rest of us. We were never told about any change in policy, nor that the title of polytechnic was of such profound significance in Scottish higher education.

Many non-polytechnic colleges in England had grown in size and maturity and were clamouring for polytechnic status. Government asked the funding council responsible for polytechnics and colleges to recommend the criteria for polytechnic designation. It did this towards the end of 1989: long after Napier had changed its name! The criteria were accepted and a handful of new polytechnics were created. RGIT would have satisfied the required conditions.

Meantime, the Principal of Napier Polytechnic did a little kite flying for the Scottish Office.

He circulated a paper suggesting there were too many institutions of higher education in Scotland and proposing possible mergers. ‘Mergermania’ was in the air.

No one at RGIT had been consulted about this and the announcement caused quite a stir.

During the seventies, universities, unlike colleges in the non-university sector, had been funded to pay for staffing and space in advance of any expansion. This was before the experts had got to work on their predictions of demographic decline, but well after the decline in the birth rate had started.

By the eighties, universities found themselves with an embarrassment of riches: too much space, too many staff, and too many under-utilised resources. Swinnington-Dyer of the University Grants Committee spent much of his time trying to rectify the funding follies of earlier times. The University of Aberdeen was one of those particularly badly hit, as was the university in Cardiff, which perhaps suffered most of all as a result. Edinburgh University had to sell off some of its art treasures to pay its debts.

First mention of a merger between the two institutions in Aberdeen occurred early in 1981, when the principal of the university issued a press statement to the effect that his university would be taking over RGIT. No one at RGIT had been consulted about this and the announcement caused quite a stir. Unsurprisingly, there was considerable resistance to the suggestion.

Shortly after my appointment to RGIT, the principal of the university invited me over for lunch in order to explain the rationale of his plans for merger between our two institutions.

The institute would be asset-stripped of degree courses, students, and estate, leaving a rump of sub-degree work to be done by whichever staff were left. The sale of the estate would pay for staff redundancies and the university would be immeasurably strengthened and enlarged.

This view received strong support from some local people. I was told my position would be protected: a professorial title and an attractive salary, because universities were free to pay professors on a very wide scale.

For my part, I explained that I had already refused the title of professor – being of a Quakerish disposition, titles have never been high in my order of priorities – and nor was money an over-riding concern since, being somewhat abstemious, I had more than enough to meet my needs. However, I understood the point that was being made very well. In their position, I might have agreed with it. But I had a different set of responsibilities, not least to students and staff of the institution for which I carried responsibility.

A senior official in The Scottish Office told me that three influential businessmen had persuaded the Secretary of State of the benefits of a merger. If RGIT were denied the right to award its own degrees it would be forced to seek the help of another degree-awarding body, which, of course, would have to be done on terms dictated by that body. Their hope was that the Institute would merge with its local university.

A local parliamentary candidate (Nicol Stephen) issued a press statement of ‘the plot by the Scottish Office to get rid of Aberdeen’s world famous Robert Gordon Institute of Technology’.

Voice will carry part 2 of A Change of Name next week recalling the fight to save the much-loved and respected RGIT from being absorbed by a predatory neighbour; of the triumph in attaining university status on the abolition of the CNAA; and the bestowal of full degree-awarding power on the new university.

Democracy For Dummies?

Articles, Community, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Apr 292011

By Dave Watt.

Democracy – The belief in freedom and equality between people, or a system of government based on this belief, in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by the people themselves. The Cambridge Online Dictionary

Democracy is one of our modern society’s buzzwords and we all nowadays accept it as a given that stable communities should be free and democratic.
Democracy to us is a positive concept but in our history it is only in the last hundred and fifty years or so that Britain has embraced the idea of democracy.

Previous to this it was regarded, particularly by our rulers as being neither more nor less than rule by a howling mob.

It is, in fact, less than eighty-five years since women over 21 were allowed to vote and less than 100 years since august journals such as the Times’ editorial announced that:

“The suffragettes are a regrettable by-product of our civilisation, out with their hammers and their bags full of stones because of dreary, empty lives and highstrung, over-excitable natures“

About the same time, the good bit less august Daily Sketch , declared that:

“The name of a suffragette will stink throughout recorded history”

Obviously tabloid journalism was alive and kicking the underdog even back in 1912.

One might think that having achieved universal adult suffrage in 1928 that Britain had been a full modern democracy since then. However, there were still such corrupt anomalies on the go as the businessman’s vote whereby a business owner was given a vote for each shop or establishment he owned as well as a vote for his home address.

In addition, the gerrymandering of votes in Northern Ireland by the Protestant Establishment ensured that the native Catholic population was continually on the wrong end of the electoral process. In fact, one Protestant businessman actually had forty-three votes and although this was an extreme case, many of Ulster’s ruling Protestant elite had multiple votes until the Irish Civil Rights Movement of the mid 1960s.

However, here we are in the twenty-first century with universal suffrage for those over eighteen, nobody asks your religion when you turn up at the polling station and we would regard anyone campaigning to curtail women’s voting rights as being something of a loose screw.

In addition, the candidate will spend large chunks of their working week in Parliament and nowhere near the constituency in question

So, do we live in a democracy where one person’s vote is worth the same as another’s? Unfortunately not. If you live in a key marginal constituency – you will get an inordinate amount of media coverage, assorted party leaders will turn up and tell you and you fellow voters what a fine, discerning, intelligent electorate you are.

Your vote will be sought after by phone and occasionally by canvasser and you will be generally coaxed, cajoled and pleaded with to vote for Party A over Party B or vice versa.

However, if you live in a firmly committed area where they simply weigh the vote for Party A or B you will be largely ignored apart from the usual leaflets and the odd party political broadcast. The committed voter, like the poor, is always with us and, like the poor, can be safely ignored by any astute politician on the make.

Voting Systems – There are several types of voting system. The most common in Britain is First Past the Post (or FPTP). This is where a people in an electoral constituency vote for one candidate to represent that constituency. While this is ostensibly fair it is deeply flawed, as the list below will show by a specimen election result.

Aberdeen East

Total Electorate in Constituency 50,000 voters

Candidate A (Longer Sticks on Lollipops Party) 13,000 votes

Candidate B (Shorter Sticks on Lollipops Party) 12,000 votes

Candidate C (Don’t Waste Precious Wood on Lollipop Sticks Party) 10,000 votes

Candidate D (It’s a Bloody Shame the Poor Can’t Afford Lollipops Party) 5,000 votes

Turn out 80%

As you can see from this, although the Longer Sticks on Lollipops Party have won the seat they represent less than a third of the votes cast and in parliament will actually be representing the wishes of just over one fifth of the electorate despite a massive 80% turn out.

this is not much cop when it comes to electing people who are willing to represent the public’s interests

Consequently, bearing in mind that it would be a bold back-bencher indeed who would stand against the wishes of his political overlords (and their pet lobbyists) it looks like the poor voters in Aberdeen East better get bloody used to having longer sticks on their lollipops for the foreseeable future.

The defenders of this system frequently mump on about how important it is to have constituency member of parliament who will be dedicated to that area alone and will be accessible to its residents – obviously forgetting that candidates are more than occasionally parachuted in as a constituency candidate from outwith the area and that most MPs or MSPs will actually be able to answer a phone, read a letter or an e-mail while the brighter ones will even have learned how to read texts on their Blackberry.

In addition, the candidate will spend large chunks of their working week in Parliament and nowhere near the constituency in question.

The next style of voting system is the Single Transferable Vote (or STV) which I have been obliged to do the tedious arithmetic for on several occasions and the details of which I will not go into here, as you would be fast asleep by the time I had finished (if you aren’t already). Suffice it to say that each voter gets several votes and lists them in preference order and the lowest voted candidate is removed then the next etc. until one of the top few are elected.

This is probably more democratic than first past the post but is probably best suited for choosing your student representative when you’re at university than a political contest. This is used in local council elections, so you can see by recent events in Aberdeen that this is not much cop when it comes to electing people who are willing to represent the public’s interests but mainly keeps the same old faces in power while pretending to be a bit more democratic.

There was a move afoot after 2003 to have this system replace the Parliamentary List System – presumably by those in Holyrood who objected to having their cosy little club invaded by a crowd of Greens and Socialists in that year.

The Parliamentary List System (or Regional Ballot) is probably the most democratic of the systems at present in use in the UK but is only used in Scotland and Wales.

It’s democratic and it’s simple and most countries in Western Europe use it and have been using it for over fifty years

The principle behind the list system is that the voters second vote is for a political party within a larger electoral area known as a region. (A region is formed by grouping together between eight and ten constituencies.) There are eight Scottish Parliament regions and each region has seven additional seats in the Parliament.

The MSPs chosen to fill these 56 additional seats are known as regional MSPs. Regional MSPs are allocated seats using a formula which takes into account the number of constituency seats that an individual or party has already won.

However, the outright winner in any serious democracy contest would undoubtedly be Proportional Representation (PR), which is remarkably simple whereby every one in the country votes and all the votes are added up, and each party is allocated seats in the parliament according to the percentage of the votes they have been given. It’s democratic and it’s simple and most countries in Western Europe use it and have been using it for over fifty years.

Why don’t we? Mostly it is more of the previous objection to the aforesaid cosy little club being invaded by those pesky troublemaking Green and Socialist radicals who are presumably closed to the blandishments of the lobbyists, who infest the corridors of power like poisonous termites, busily undermining the democratic process for big business interests.

Voting
Despite the title of Ken Livingstone’s 1987 book pointing out:‘If Voting Changed Anything They’d Abolish It’, Should you bother to vote? Yes, you probably should, ideally. An awful lot of people fought an awful long time to get you a vote so you should probably get down there and stick that cross down. You never know.

From their point of view an oppressive Conservative government got into power in 1979 and has stayed there ever since

One day the electorate might get it right and we might find ourselves with a government that cares for the old, sick and impoverished, has everybody in a house and a job, doesn’t send poor kids from depressed areas off to kill other people’s kids for oil and profit and cares for the environment. You never know.

Who does vote and who doesn’t vote?
Affluent people tend to vote and the poorer people seem not to. Figures in Scotland show that there can be up to a 15-20% difference in voting figures between poorer and richer neighbourhoods even within the same constituency on occasions.

Why is this? Basically what the underprivileged have seen for the past thirty years is an ongoing attack on their quality of life by a succession of right wing free market supporting governments. From their point of view an oppressive Conservative government got into power in 1979 and has stayed there ever since. Consequently, their disenchantment with government and the democratic process has meant that this has taken a back seat to the struggle for a decent life.

In addition, with the advent of the Poll Tax, which was effectively a Sod-The-Poor-Tax many people on the poorer end of society became disenfranchised and simply dropped off the electoral roll by simply being unable to afford to pay the Poll Tax. Its replacement by the almost-as-unfair-Council Tax has obviously not induced these people to get back on the electoral roll.

From an electoral view the parties which have traditionally suffered most from this, have been the socialists who have considerably more support within the poorer sections of society but owing to this disillusion and the aforementioned virtual disenfranchisement have been consistently punching below their weight at election time. Even when they are doing well (and don’t have their hands round each other’s throats, vigorously choking the electoral life out of each other as the SSP and Solidarity are doing at present) this factor reduces their electoral impact.

Who pays for a political party’s election funds?
There is a strange sideways jump in public morality about election funding. To keep it simple: large financial concerns of various kinds will bankroll political certain parties election funding on the expectation that when the party gets into power then the large financial concern can reasonably expect the party in government to enact legislation which will increase their profitability. They are seldom disappointed in this.

Needless to say, whereas this would be regarded as mere bribery and corruption in everyday life, in politics it is just regarded as the norm. For example, Abraham Lincoln, on being elected back in 1861, discovered his Republican party had promised enormous and unrealistic concessions to so many business concerns that, being quizzed a few weeks after the election as to why he was looking so glum, famously replied that “There’s just too many pigs for the teats”.

The Last Word on Democracy
When I was a kid there was a series on TV about an idealistic young US senator which had an impressive voice over at the start, which said:

“Democracy is a bad form of government…but all the others are so much worse“.

Something to think about anyway.

The Treaty of Union of 1707 – Part 3

Articles, Community, Featured, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Apr 152011

Voice’s Alex Mitchell presents the third and final part of an account of the key events which informed and influenced the Union Of Parliament between Scotland and England in 1707, and in doing so, impartially debunks some commonly held and perpetuated views on the issue.

The English certainly believed that the advantages of union would be “much greater for Scotland”, mainly in terms of an “Increase of Trade and Money”, and that England would gain from it only “the Security of its Northern Borders” and a “Source of Men for our Common Wars”.

Again, Seton of Pitmedden remarks that “England secures an old and dangerous Enemy to be their Friend”, and that, in military terms, England would also gain by “a considerable addition of brave and courageous Men to their Fleet, Armies and Plantations”, and that for Scotland: “We send our Commodities and Manufactures to them, and have Money or other Necessities remitted to us”.

The military aspect was certainly significant. The population of Scotland was then about one million compared with five million in England and Wales; Scotland thus had about one-fifth the population of England, compared with less than one-tenth nowadays.

Demographically, and in terms of its labour force and military manpower, Scotland was twice as important as a component of the British Union in 1707 than in 2007. In addition, a huge proportion of Scots had extensive campaigning experience in European theatres of war. The familiar image of “the Scottish soldier” rests on the historical fact that a great many Scots were soldiers, albeit in other nations’ wars. Thus, from an English military perspective, Scotland could be a useful ally, or a very troublesome enemy.

The 25 Articles agreed by the joint Commissioners were to be presented first to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh in October 1706, then to the English Parliament in London. Of the 25 Articles, which were debated and approved one by one, no fewer than fifteen were concerned with economic issues, of trade, taxation and industry, and it was these which generated the most heated debate.

The Court made major concessions on Scottish access to the English market, and later put through a separate Act protecting the Church of Scotland. The indications are, therefore, that the Scottish side fought long and hard for the best possible deal for Scotland, and for one which preserved distinctively Scottish institutions – the separate and distinct church, and legal and education systems – such that Scotland was never to become a mere province of England, a kind of “Scotland-shire”.

The entire Treaty was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 16 January 1707, by 110 votes to 69. There was a clear majority in each of the three estates, being the church, the nobility and the burgesses, that amongst the nobility being greatest. The mass of the common people were violently opposed to union with England, but their views counted for little in 18th century politicking. The Scottish Parliament had voted itself out of existence, and was formally dissolved on 28April. The new Parliament of Great Britain came into being on 1 May 1707.

This doubtless contributed to the patronising attitude of the English majority towards the Scots in London

In retrospect, the least acceptable part of the Treaty was that the Scottish representation in the new Parliament of Great Britain was reckoned according to the ratio, not of populations – about 5:1 in favour of England – but of tax revenues, being about 40:1 in favour of England.

This suggests that tax revenues per capita in Scotland were only about one-eighth of those in England, which may be an indication of how much poorer a country Scotland was relative to England in the years before Union. Taxation, however, did not need to be as high in Scotland as in England, for the simple reason that Scotland consistently avoided getting into military conflict with other nations. At any rate, Scotland sent only 16 peers to join the 190 English peers in London, and 45 commoners to join the 513 from England & Wales.

This doubtless contributed to the patronising attitude of the English majority towards the Scots in London, and the widespread belief, in London as in Scotland, that the Scottish nobility had not merely “sold out”, but that they had sold out for a derisory price.

In the end, the Union was achieved largely because the wiser men on both sides dreaded the consequences of failure, and there were the basic elements of a bargain. England, at war with France, could not risk a hostile Scotland under a Jacobite king, and demanded a complete, incorporating Union and acceptance of the Hanoverian succession.

The Scots wanted free trade at home and abroad. They would have preferred a federal arrangement to the complete, incorporating Union, but could not insist on it because the English were adamant, and they knew that failure of the Treaty might result in renewed economic sanctions, civil war within Scotland and the possibility of military invasion by England to suppress a Jacobite uprising in support of the “Pretender”, the self-styled King James VIII, or his son, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, later known as Bonnie Prince Charlie.

by this time the Union was largely accepted as a done deal. The centre of economic activity had shifted from east to west.

The economic benefits expected for Scotland took some decades to become manifest. This and other early disappointments contributed to the widespread support for the Jacobite Rising of 1715. But free trade and full participation in rampant English colonialism were of immense advantage to the Scots.

This became plainly apparent by the mid-point of the century – hence the comparative lack of support, especially in the Lowlands, for the last Jacobite Rising of 1745. And by this time the Union was largely accepted as a done deal. The centre of economic activity had shifted from east to west.

Glasgow was geographically nearer than any other British port to the English colony of Virginia and opportunities opened up in the trade in Virginian tobacco, Caribbean sugar and in the service of the London-based East India Company. Hence the spectacular expansion of Glasgow from the “pretty little town” described by Daniel Defoe of around 1700 to its (self-styled) eminence as Second City of Empire by around 1900.

Edinburgh, always a city of lawyers rather than merchants, had lost its Royal Court in 1603 and its Parliament by the Act of 1707 and was, to an extent, eclipsed by Glasgow; but its financial and legal expertise sustained it in the longer term.

Contributed by Alex Mitchell.

The Treaty of Union of 1707 – Part 2

Articles, Community, Featured, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Apr 072011

Voice’s Alex Mitchell presents part 2 of an account of the key events which informed and influenced the Union Of Parliament between Scotland and England in 1707, and in doing so, impartially debunks some commonly held and perpetuated views on the issue.

In September 1705, the Scottish Parliament agreed to authorise Queen Anne to nominate Commissioners who were to ‘treat’ or negotiate for Union. She naturally nominated persons sympathetic to that objective, thirty-one from each country.

The English Commissioners were almost all Whigs; the Scots mostly so, such as John Campbell, the Duke of Argyll; but including some critics of the proposed incorporating union, notably the Jacobite George Lockhart of Carnwath, who favoured a federal union such as would have retained the Scottish Parliament as a political institution.

However, the English negotiators insisted that an incorporating union was the only acceptable solution, that nothing less would secure England’s northern borders against foreign aggression; to them, a federal union was simply out of the question and was directly vetoed by Queen Anne herself.

Queen Anne was a Tory whereas King William III’s advisers, if not William himself, had been Whigs; the Union was essentially a Whig project. Queen Anne was herself popular and untainted by Glencoe and the Darien failure. She had, obviously, a familial affection for the Stuarts, being herself, as it turned out, the last of the Stuart monarchs; but she was strongly committed to the Church of England and could not for that reason support her much younger Catholic half-brother James’ claim to the succession. She could not form an alliance with the (Tory) Jacobites without effectively uncrowning herself. She therefore had to press ahead with Williamite (Whig) policies such as the Union. The clauses of the Alien Act which were more offensive to the Scots were thus repealed before Christmas 1705.

The Union of 1707 may be described as an exchange, or surrender, of Scottish parliamentary sovereignty in return for the benefits of free trade with England and her colonies; specifically, of access to English markets. The population of England was four to five times that of Scotland, and richer, with greater per capita spending power. The Union has thus been described as a political necessity for England and a commercial necessity for Scotland. The arguments presented for and against Scotland’s membership of the British Union were strikingly similar to the more recent debate concerning Britain’s membership of the European Union.

Over the 17th century, Scotland’s economy had become increasingly dependent on the English market. Half of Scotland’s exports, mainly of black cattle, linen, wool, coal and sheep, went to England; of this total, cattle accounted for 40% by 1703. The war with France disrupted trade with that country. There were severe grain harvest failures in the “Lean Years” of the 1690s which led to increased mortality, massive emigration to Ulster and an overall loss of about one-fifth of the population.

Although Scotland’s cost-base, mainly in terms of wages, was lower than England’s, it was feared that wealth would be drawn from Scotland to England

The failure of the Darien scheme in 1700 had consumed about a quarter of Scotland’s liquid capital. Scotland had no standing army and her navy consisted of two frigates. Scotland was poor, relatively backward and divided between Highlands and Lowlands, and suffered the many disadvantages of a semi-autonomous commercial and trading position within the context of the 1603 Union of Crowns in which the more powerful partner, England, was vigorously protective of its own trading and colonial interests.

The brutal fact was that, in an age of rampant mercantilism backed by military and naval power, the Scots could trade overseas only with English acquiescence and with access to English markets and colonies. William Seton of Pitmedden, who represented Aberdeenshire in the last Scottish Parliament of 1703-07, argued that:

“This Nation being Poor and without Force to protect its Commerce, it cannot survive, let alone become richer, ‘till it partake of the Trade and Protection of some powerful Neighbour Nation”

– and the only realistic partner for Scotland was England.

Free trade, of course, cuts both ways. Although Scotland’s cost-base, mainly in terms of wages, was lower than England’s, it was feared that wealth would be drawn from Scotland to England and that Scottish manufactures, which were often of poor quality would be unable to withstand competition from superior English merchandise – superior mainly in the sense that it was improving faster.

In general, the Scottish market accepted poorer, shabbier products than would the English or Continentals. The problem was one of low incomes, a stagnant population and a limited demand for luxury goods which Scots artisans could not produce or not to a competitive standard. Of the twenty five Articles comprising the Treaty of Union, fifteen related to trade and economic issues such as industry and taxation. Scottish interests were protected through reductions in taxes, e.g., on Scottish coal and salt, and various concessions were applied to Scottish exports of herring, beef, pork and grain.

It is often alleged that many of the Scottish parliamentarians who supported the Union did so for a variety of self-interested motives, were bribed and coerced, arms were twisted and so on.

Robert Burns famously wrote:

“Bought and sold for English gold … such a parcel of rogues in a nation”.

This may not have been Rabbie’s most insightful observation and it appeals more to a paranoid mindset than to historical fact. There is little evidence of outright bribery. More significant was a lack of unity amongst the opposition to Union.

The Tomb Of Adam Smith, Canongate, Edinburgh

In England, the final thrust towards the Union of 1707 came from Whig politicians who realised that, in a united British Parliament, their party would stand to gain from the arrival in London of Scottish MPs, most of whom would be Whigs, thus shifting the (narrow) majority in the House of Commons from Tory to Whig.

The evidence is, in both England and Scotland, of highly sophisticated arguments deployed by mostly conscientious people who voted according to what they perceived to be their best long-term interests.

Having said this, we do not have to go all the way with Adam Smith to argue, as he did, that persons motivated by self-interest may nonetheless serve or further a wider, national interest.

– Next week, Alex Mitchell presents the third and final part of this informative and fascinating story.

The Treaty of Union of 1707 – Part 1

Articles, Community, Featured, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Apr 032011

Voice’s Alex Mitchell recounts the key events which informed and influenced the Union Of Parliament between Scotland and England in 1707, and in doing so, impartially debunks some commonly held and perpetuated views on the issue.

Recently, in 2007, we saw the tercentenary of the Act of Union of the Parliaments of Scotland and England.

The Treaty of 1707 was not the first attempt to unite England and Scotland. King Edward I of England tried to colonise Scotland in the 1290s. King Henry VIII embarked on another such venture, with his “rough wooing” of 1544-50.

Since the Union of Crowns in 1603, when King James VI of Scotland had succeeded to the throne of England, a single monarch had ruled the two nations, but this was not a sustainable situation, comparable with trying to ride two unruly horses at once.

The Union of Crowns made the Union of Parliaments almost inevitable. In 1650-51, Oliver Cromwell invaded and conquered Scotland, imposing a short-lived unified Commonwealth, with a single British Parliament. Scotland had benefited from the trading privileges this entailed, but the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in the person of King Charles II in 1660 had swept all these aside, specifically by the Navigation Act of 1670.

The geographical proximity of England and Scotland made some sort of accommodation essential.

But English ministers showed little interest in a closer constitutional relationship with Scotland during most of the seventeenth century. Their position changed for dynastic reasons. Under the 1689 Bill of Rights, the line of succession to the English throne was limited to the descendants of Queen Mary II and her younger sister Anne, the (Protestant) daughters of the deposed (Catholic) King James II/VII.

Mary died childless, aged 32, in 1694, and her husband (and first cousin) William III, William of Orange, did not remarry. On his death in 1702, the throne passed to his sister-in-law Anne, whose last surviving child out of some nineteen pregnancies, William, Duke of Gloucester, had died aged eleven in 1700, leaving no direct heir.

The English Parliament favoured the (Protestant) Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover and granddaughter to King James I/VI, and an Act of Settlement was passed to that effect in 1701. It laid down that, in the likely event of Queen Anne dying without surviving issue, the English throne would pass to the Electress Sophia and her (Protestant) descendants.

The 1701 Act of Settlement was extended to Scotland as part of the 1707 Treaty of Union. To this day, only Protestant heirs of Princess Sophia can succeed to the British throne. Neither Catholics, nor those who marry a Catholic, nor those born out of wedlock, may remain in the line of succession.

In the event, Sophia died just before Queen Anne, in 1714, and thus Sophia’s eldest son George succeeded as Elector of Hanover and as King George I of Great Britain, commencing the long “Georgian” era, which extended until the death of King George IV in 1830.

But the English feared that the Scots would prefer Anne’s half-brother, James Edward Stuart (1688-1766), the Roman Catholic son of King James II, in exile since the “Glorious Revolution” of 1689.

A major factor pushing England in the direction of Union was her heavy military involvement in Europe, specifically in the War of the Spanish Succession, from 1702 until 1713. England and the Habsburg Empire were allied against Louis XIV’s France, which at this time had a population of about 19 million compared with less than 5 million in England & Wales, and the military struggle between England and France continued, on-and-off, until Waterloo in 1815.

The English feared that the French could open a second front by inciting Jacobite rebellion, threatening England’s security on her northern frontier. Thus in 1702, Queen Anne assented to an Act of the English Parliament empowering her to appoint Commissioners to “treat” or negotiate for Union.

Otherwise, Scotland had little to offer England. The Scottish state was effectively bankrupt.

English ministers suspected that Scotland would be a financial liability; that the country would cost more to administer, police and defend than could be raised from it in tax revenues. And although England and Scotland were both Protestant countries, opposed in terms of religion to Catholic France, it was feared by English Tories that the more radical elements within Scottish Presbyterianism would have a destabilising effect on the (Episcopalian) Church of England, with its hierarchical structure of bishops and archbishops, appointed by the Monarch.

From a Scottish perspective, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun favoured “nearer union with our neighbours of England”, but in terms of a federal union in which Scotland and England would retain their own Parliaments. He feared the loss of sovereignty an incorporating union would involve.

The Scottish Parliament passed a succession of Acts deemed contrary to English interests, notably the Act anent (concerning) Peace and War

Scottish opinion turned against union in the period after 1689, mainly because of the Glencoe massacre in 1692 and the failure of the Darien scheme, for both of which King William III was held partly responsible. The abolition of the Lords of Articles in 1690 – formerly a means of royal influence in Scotland – transferred substantial powers to the Scottish Parliament, newly elected in 1703, which began to act with new-found vigour and confidence, adopting a position of aggressive constitutional nationalism.

The Scottish Parliament passed a succession of Acts deemed contrary to English interests, notably the Act anent (concerning) Peace and War, which laid down that no successor to Queen Anne should declare a war involving Scotland without first consulting the Scottish Parliament; also the Act of Security, which asserted that the Scottish Parliament, twenty days after Anne’s death, should name as her successor a Protestant member of the House of Stuart.

To England, it seemed that the prospects of Union were slipping away.

With her forces now locked into the War of the Spanish Succession, and unable to risk the withdrawal of Scottish regiments from the north European theatre of war, plus rumours that arms from France were on their way to Scotland, London took the view that the unruly Scots had to be brought to heel and made to discuss the twin issues of the Hanoverian succession and the Union of Parliaments.

This resulted in the formidable economic bludgeon of the Alien Act of March 1705, which proposed that, unless progress had been made on the twin issues by Christmas – specifically that unless Scotland had accepted the Hanoverian succession by Christmas Day 1705 – all of Scotland’s exports to England, being linen, wool, coal, cattle & sheep, would be embargoed or banned, and all Scots would be declared and treated as aliens.

– Next week, Alex Mitchell presents Part 2 of this 3 part account.

Campaign For Recognition Of Battle Of Nechtansmere Site

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Featured, Information, Opinion Comments Off

Mar 082011

With thanks to Kevin Hutchens.

Kevin Hutchens, Scottish Labour’s Scottish Parliament Candidate for Angus North and the Mearns and William Campbell, their candidate in Angus South have united behind the call for formal recognition of the importance of the Battle of Nechtansmere site near Dunnichen in Angus.

According to Kevin Hutchens :

“First indications are that the site of the battle may be near Letham which is clearly in Angus South, however the exact site is unclear, and it is almost certain that skirmishes will have taken place in the Forfar area before and after the main battle and that the battle took place around the area.

What is clear is that at present no archaeological evidence has been found to indicate exactly where the battle site was. So both of us as candidates could lay claim to having the site of this important historical battle in our constituency “.

William Campbell stated:

“Angus is widely known as Scotland’s Birthplace because of the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320. The Battle of Nechtansmere was arguably even more significant because it established more than six centuries earlier that the Northumbrian forces could not successfully challenge the Picts in their own territories.

It was a defining moment in Scottish history, and Kevin Hutchens and I are therefore issuing a joint call to Fiona Hyslop MSP to ensure that the battle, with its contribution to Scottish history and culture, is fully recognised.”

Kevin Hutchens adds:

“Such recognition is long overdue for this important event that helped shape much of the built landscape and place names of Scotland as we know them today “

Footnote by Fred Wilkinson.

The Battle of Nectansmere is recorded as having taken place on 21st may 685AD and is regarded as a key event which assured Scotlands future as a Nation. The Northumbrian Angles, led by King Ecgfrith sought to expand their territory further at the expense of the Picts led by King Bridei Mac Bili.

It is believed that the Picts tricked the Angles by splitting their force into two armies – one cohort fleeing, only to lead them into an ambush by both cohorts, and overwhelming them with ” a hail of stone and spear, as the Pictish army attacked from both sides.” ( source – http://www.information-britain.co.uk/famdates.php?id=172 )

King Ecgfrith died in the battle, as did the vast majority of the Angles, either as a direct result of conflict, or being drowned in the loch in their attempts to retreat. Of the relatively few survivors, many were enslaved by the Picts.

Previous to the battle of Nechansmere, the Northumbrian Angles had for thirty years steadily expanded their territory North at the expense of the Picts.

The Northumbrian Angles numbers were so decimated in The Battle of Nectansmere that they never again recovered the capacity to advance their territory beyond The Firth Of Forth.

Power To The People!

Articles, Opinion No Responses »

Aug 202010

By John Sangster

“POWER TO THE PEOPLE”, what does that mean? It was John Lennon who first brought it to my attention, although I am informed that in a 70’s sitcom the character Wolfie Smith was first to utter it. The reason I say this is that when Jimmy Reid died recently almost every article about Mr. Reid began with Lennon’s song.

So! What does it mean? Do the people not already have power, the power to withdraw their labour or the power to remove politicians from their posts? Continue reading »

The People’s Budget

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Opinion No Responses »

Jul 162010

By John Sangster.

A new government with new thinking, a new way of looking at things? This is what we were told when an agreement was made between Tweedle Cameron and Tweedle Clegg. We were told that the first thing we must do is save money, make cuts, every single penny we save is good for the country. So taking my role as a model citizen very seriously I have come up with an alternative budget.

Newer Entries