Larry's Lunchette

At boarding school, aged eight, we all had individual tuck-boxes, to store the contents of occasional parcels from home; our family retailed confectionary – I got generous parcels – but remember being in the group whose tuck-boxes were always empty – as opposed to a more ‘disciplined’ group who rationed supplies. While I’m ‘agnostic’ about the ‘potty training’ element – there’s something fundamentally ‘true’ about Freud’s observation of anally ‘retentive’ and ‘expulsive’ behaviours; it’s almost inevitable that 70 years later, my ‘pension pot’ tuck-box is empty.

One of my life’s failures is, that I have never been able to understand, or make an accommodation with money; I have an envious/hostile attitude to wealth – which is not indifference, but resentment. Inevitably, my swashbuckling financial delinquency has let people down – broken faith – even shamefully with friends: no excuses. On the positive side, I haven’t allowed myself to be bullied by money; most of the time, I’ve been lucky enough to sustain the defiant independence of the outsider – removed.

It’s a blessing of old age, that we naturally withdraw from the external world of projects and possessions – to a more intentional, considered life; the natural urge to ‘acquire’, becomes the impulse to discard and simplify. Marcus Aurelius wrote: “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it’s all within yourself, your way of thinking”.    I said goodbye to the daffodils this week, tidied away…got the sweet peas in, a bit later this year…I’m considering upgrading my irrigation system….

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Guardian columnist, Simon Jenkins, writes that Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP are in the ascendant – that some sort of Scottish Independence is inevitable – that Theresa May needs to face up to this. “The fate of the United Kingdom, and not Brexit, is the cardinal issue of current British politics”. All across an over-centralised Europe, devolution/partition is the direction of travel; the great post-war political alliances are disintegrating – minority loyalties are re-emerging. But as Brexit teaches us, ‘separation’ can have any number of shades; Westminster needs to start giving ‘independence-lite’ the same attention it has been forced to give ‘Brexit-soft’.

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During the 20 years of devolution, there has been much bold rhetoric about land reform in Scotland – even some forward-looking policy; but it’s very difficult to see any sign of a radical redistribution of land – any sign that the legal might of the big landowners is being challenged. Monday 29 April, at the University of Strathclyde, was an important gathering of ‘Scotland’s finest’ land reform campaigners. Addressing the final session, Lesley Riddoch argued, that tackling the problem of Scotland’s weak local democracy was pivotal to land reform; like myself, she is ‘not that hopeful’ that our SNP administration considers this a priority.

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The same issue of land ownership has flared-up at the southern tip of Loch Lomond – 40 acres of what is arguably one of the most beautiful stretches of inland water anywhere; this publicly owned land, is in the process of being sold by Scottish Enterprise to a private developer called Flamingo Land. Debates about the ownership of enterprise and land are not new, and there are ownership options specifically designed to ensure democratic and environmental accountability. A nation that talks bold land reform, can’t allow control of a cherished green space to be lost to shareholder profit. A Scottish Greens petition is gathering signatures.

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Independent investigative journalists, the Ferret, have published information that Scotland’s largest Local Authority Pension Funds have investments worth nearly £130m linked to the war in Yemen – an estimated 70,000 casualties. The UK has been arming Saudi Arabia during the conflict, through the very arms companies invested by our pensions.

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In his 2006 book, Thatcher and Sons, Simon Jenkins argues against ‘centralism’ – articulates our missing tier of local democracy:

 

“There is a political tradition, lost in Britain, but alive abroad. That tradition is of self-government properly so called – lying at the intermediate tier – above family and neighbourhood – but well below that of the nation state. Democracy can only be based on tiers of autonomy, on people trusting people who trust other people, on a hierarchy of trusts. Only this will allow others to exercise judgements and accept risk on our behalf.

 

P4P was set up to support SEs and third sector organisations to better access public procurement and other contracting opportunities through the formation of partnerships and consortia. This was, in part, in response to Scottish Govt’s Procurement Reform Act (2014) which was aimed at promoting good, transparent and consistent practices – that would include smaller contracts (or ‘lots’) as well as specific consideration being given to community benefit clauses. There was a belief that the Act would remove some of the barriers that existed both for third sector/SE organisations as well as small, locally-based businesses – and result in increased benefits within local economies. This article, by Susan Love of Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) suggests that sadly the Act has had little or no impact on changing procurement behaviour – with, if anything, practices becoming more entrenched. With a lack of political will to address these issues, local communities, SEs and small, local businesses will remain ‘locked out’. See recent FSB Report.

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