The Royal Mile: Presenting A Different Scotland

Those Scots who visit Edinburgh’s Royal Mile at any time of year may notice something a bit strange about it – alongside the National Trust properties, the museums, the pubs and restaurants and the various historical buildings, there are a massive number of shops which profess to sell Scottish culture. The so called Tartan Tat shops.

These shops present tourists with an opportunity to buy cheap kilts, tartan memorabilia, CDs of bag pipe music and other mementos of a false image of Scotland. Leaving aside the questions of national identity and symbolism which are raised by attempts to export the shortbread tin image of Scotland, these shops stretch nearly the full length of the mile, starting adjacent to the castle and reaching down almost as far as the Parliament. There are also similar shops off the South Bridge, North Bridge and Princes Street.

These shops do present a nuisance to Edinburgh natives, with their wares spilling out on to the street and music (generally the Red Hot Chilli Pipers) blaring out. They also have late opening hours compared to many of the other shops in the area. Vacant properties on the Mile are likely to be snapped up in a matter of days, as was the case when a small burger bar on the High Street sold up and was replaced, in less then a month by a tartan shop, despite being near to several other tartan tat shops, some owned by the same family.

The amount of real estate being taken up by these shops is also detrimental to tourists. During the summer, even before the festival, it’s hard enough to find a table in a pub or eatery on, or even near, the Royal Mile. With less potential space, it’s just going to make things harder for the tourists to enjoy Scotland’s capital. The number of tartan shops also lead to the street as a whole looking scruffy and tatty.

Which is why I welcome the news that Edinburgh City Council is seeking to balance retail space in city. A motion passed at the council meeting last week means the Council will seek to gain the views of local residents and stakeholders such as Visit Scotland. It will also look at legal options open to the council to maintain retail diversity on the Mile. Councillor Beckett should be commended for putting forward this motion.

And The Trams Squeal On…

Yesterday, Edinburgh City Council was presented with the latest update report on the construction of the Edinburgh tramline. This came after several weeks of increasingly vocal opposition from both the Edinburgh Evening News and the SNP, including reports that Steve Cardownie, the SNP deputy council leader, would call for a referendum into scrapping the trams.

The report itself was delivered at the same time as inauspicious news for the tram-works. According to an Evening News poll, published on the same day, 63% of respondents said they were have opposed the trams if asked before construction began while 47% of respondents were in favour of ditching the project. The paper even secured comments from Malcolm Chrisholm, Labour MSP for Edinburgh North and Leith, who was a strong advocate for the tramline during the Labour administration, distancing himself from the project.

I attended the council meeting to see how the Labour opposition (who planned and began implementation of the tram project) and the Lib Dem portion of the coalition would deal with the public anger currently being generated by the project. The answer is not terribly well.

The debate on the trams opened with a submission from the Edinburgh Rail Action Group. This group has lobbied for the rebuilding of stations on the Edinburgh South-Sub Railway for a number of years, despite the idea being brushed off by both the Scottish Parliament and Network Rail. In the chambers however, their representative Harold Nicolson made a firm stand in favour of giving the people of Edinburgh choice on the future of the trams. He also called for greater accountability and transparency in the operation of Transport In Edinburgh (TIE), the organisation running the project.

This was followed (after submissions by UNISON and Holyrood Academy’s Parent Council on other matters), by the presentation of the report. Unhappy with the Lib Dem movement to accept the report, the Tories and Labour both tabled amendments to it which were duly accepted, following extended debate. The Tory amendment was of particular interest, requesting reports from TIE, to be delivered on fixed dates. These will outline the future costs of the tram project with a firm estimate of the final costs and the revenue of the tramway. This should be delivered on September 16th 2010.

The main event at the council meeting was the amendment which wasn’t accepted. This was a motion put forward by the SNP’s Steve Cardownie calling for those in charge of TIE to be brought before a special meeting of full council to answer questions on the project. It would likely have resulted in a congressional hearing style meeting in which the council would have been able to hold those running the project to direct account in a public forum. Alas, it was not to be with only the SNP voting in favour of the amendment.

Nonetheless, this amendment did serve the purpose of helping to highlight the various opinions in the council. The two common threads running through the debate were the mismanagement of the project and the blame for this should rest with. The answers, coming from various parts of the chamber and with varying levels of credibility, included TIE, Labour, the contractors, the Lib Dems, the SNP, the people of Edinburgh and the Greens.

There did seem to be some point of agreement however. Both the SNP and some of the Labour group suggested that a referendum should have been held before the project began, while the Lib Dems and Labour managed to agree on a number of points about why the SNP should be taking more responsibility for the tram works and not continuing to oppose the project while forming part of the council’s executive.

There were a number of samey arguments flung around in favour of the trams, including the suggestion that the trams would benefit Edinburgh in the same way they’d benefited many European and English cities and towns. Without the revenue estimates requested by the Tories, these lack credibility at the present time, not least given the economic changes which have been seen since the trams were approved. As was pointed out (I believe by Cllr Work), most of the cited cities don’t have an award winning and publicly acclaimed bus system.

Some interesting points about the works at present were made by Cllrs Beckett. Cllr Beckett gave details of information he’d received from a residents group, showing that air and noise pollution in their area had increase due to traffic reorganisation for the trams, also pointing out that while SNP does not have a representative on the TIE board, Labour does, giving the latter greater responsibility over the tram project then the former.

Closing remarks on the debate came from the Lib Dems, and were very apt. The councillor in question (who’s name I didn’t catch) talked about how all of the councillors had a responsibility to the city and people of Edinburgh. Wise words, not least because the council needs to have a long, hard think about how the city can best be served at a time when large cuts are going to have to be made.

The tram project squeals ever onwards, albeit with public disapproval. On one hand, it’s gone too far to simply stop, but on the other the full cost is as yet unknown. The bright side of the council meeting is that the Tory amendments will at least see greater transparency in the future. Hopefully, this will be enough transparency for Edinburgh to weather this wretched folly.

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For purposes of clarity, my own personal perspective on the tram project as a whole can be found in this article on the Guardian Edinburgh blog. Thanks to Tom Allan of the Guardian, Al Innes and Fay Young for allowing me to gatecrash.

America Gives Us A New Reason For Afghanistan

The Anti-War movement has been dubious about the reasons for the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan ever since George W. Bush announced that he wouldn’t tolerate states known to harbour terrorists. It was commonly thought that untapped oil reserves may exist in region or that supply corridors were at stake.

US technology and culture website, Wired, has a short article up regarding a New York Times article which claims that the US Government have discovered massive amounts of Lithium. The deposits of Lithium, which are found in compound form, are said to be worth trillions of dollars, not least because the number of devices which use Lithium in batteries is increasing rapidly. Lithium compounds are also used in the medical and nuclear industries.

As the Wired article states, the Lithium deposits in Afghanistan were known about decades ago. The political instability within the country proved to make the it unfeasibly expensive to mine and ship the minerals out of Afghanistan. Until such times as safe corridors have been established in the area, it will remain difficult to extract the mineral wealth of Afghanistan.

The potential benefit for American and European companies (and economies) if the mineral deposits can be tapped is likely to become a major factor to justify maintaining coalition forces in the area. The economic benefit would likely cover the existing (and ever increasing) expenditure on troop upkeep.

It will be interesting to see how this justification sits with the voters in Europe and America, who are increasingly displeased with the constant attrition of NATO troops.

Is Edinburgh Going To Scrap The Trams Again?

On the 16th of November 1956, Edinburgh Corporation shut down it’s extensive tramway and began the long and not terribly easy process of ripping up the tram tracks and cutting down the overhead wiring. In parts of the city, the remains of this network can still be seen, with some buildings on Lothian Road, Princes Street and Leith Walk retaining brackets for holding overhead wiring. The last remains of the tramworks can also still be seen, to the rear of large patch of wasteland on Leith Walk.

On the 24th of June 2010, Edinburgh City Council may take the first step towards halting the creation of the new tram network. Unlike it’s predecessor, the new Edinburgh tram line has proven to be a white elephant for the city as costs spiral out of control, disputes with the contractors head towards the courts and delays mean that trams may not start running until 2012, beyond original projections for the project.

Opposition to the trams is now widespread. The SNP, both in Edinburgh City Council and Holyrood have long opposed the trams. Many Edinburgh residents also oppose the tramway on the basis that there is a perfectly good bus service in the city, so good in fact that Lothian Buses recently invested £3 Million in a new fleet of plush express buses to ferry visitors from the airport to the city centre, catering for a route which is expected to provide the trams with the majority of their traffic. Unsurprisingly, more then a few residents in the south of Edinburgh are irked that they have had to pay for a project which they personally will receive little benefit from.

The solution to this, as proposed by SNP council leader Steve Cardownie, is to hold a public referendum into the trams. This idea is due to be discussed by the council and seems likely to pass, if only because the city cannot afford to bankroll the trams indefinitely or indeed, at all. A bail out by the government is not an option – originally the SNP opposed continued tram funding on principle, now, as cuts begin to bite the money simply isn’t there.

Construction continues at the Haymarket Interchange

Giving the people of Edinburgh a say on the trams is possibly the most sensible thing that can be done now. For the Lib Dems, Labour and Tories, it avoids a climb down on an increasingly embarrassing flagship policy, while the SNP get to walk away with a political victory. Spending will not stop if the public say no however, as in order for the city to see any returns on the trams, the segment of the network from Edinburgh Airport to Haymarket has to be completed. This will not be cheap given that considerable work still needs to be done between Haymarket and Gogar and at Haymarket Station. Wiring also needs to be erected along much, if not all, of the route.

Whatever happens, the tram project represents a massive embarrassment to Edinburgh, with the tracks embedded in Scotland’s most famous street serving as a testament to folly and £600 Million down the drain.

Minimum Unit Pricing – The First Vote

After a silence of several months on the matter of minimum unit pricing – the price limitation of alcohol supported by the SNP, the Westminster Health Select Committee and the BMA – the topic is back on the agenda. It couldn’t have been more timely given alcohol sales are about to skyrocket off the back of the world cup, which has spawned dozens of cheap offers prior to the opening ceremony on Friday.

Today, MSPs will be debating the Alcohol Etc. (Scotland) Bill, which lays out a variety of methods to curb Scotland’s levels of alcohol abuse. It will pass to Stage 2, during which amendment can be proposed, because the Lib Dems, Labour and the Tories support the the measures within the bill other then minimum unit pricing.

If the bill is successfully amended to remove minimum unit pricing, and not amended to include a limit of sufficient value, then it will likely prove itself as effective as previous Labour legislation aimed at curbing alcohol abuse. For those who don’t remember, Labour were ineffective at best in tackling alcohol abuse, with little to no progress made on the issue either in Holyrood or in Westminster (the sober and sedate body which allowed 24 hour licensing). Labour now seem hellbent on maintaining this reputation, pursuing a heavily partisan agenda where no justification for one exists.

One bright side of the whole affair is that an amendment to outlaw highly caffeinated drinks will be forthcoming. The monks of Buckfast Abbey will be wringing their hands at this news since it will ban their product – a bottle of which contains more caffeine then many heavily caffeinated soft drinks. The potential effects of this cannot be underestimated, although the potential for Buckfast either adapting to the new requirements or being smuggled into Scotland for grey market sale is high and would likely negate any potential benefits. There is also high possibility that those who drink Buckfast and become involved in anti-social behaviour would simply switch to another similar drink, such as MD 20/20, a truly foul but widely available American fortified wine with additional colourings and flavours.

It will be interesting to follow the future progress of this bill. If successful, it has the potential to make far reaching social changes and end part, but not all of Scotland’s dependency on alcohol.