The Committee Room Names

I received an email last night from MSP Tricia Marwick regarding the naming of the Scottish Parliament Committee Rooms. It contained the Scottish Parliament press release outlining the final selection of names for the Committee Rooms.

They are:

Robert Burns – CR1

Mary Somerville – CR2

James Clark Maxwell – CR3

Alexander Fleming – CR4

David Livingston – CR5

Adam Smith – CR6

It is a commendable selection, and I approve of the decision to acknowledge the arts and sciences rather then political figures.

The inclusion of Mary Somerville is particularly interesting. She is seldom acknowledged alongside other Scottish scientists despite being one of the first female members of the Royal Astronomical Society and having a large body of highly commended published work. I have to admit, that I hadn’t heard of her before yesterday evening.

The text of the Parliament’s press release can be found here.

For reference, the beady eyed amongst you may notice that the press release was published before my previous post. This is due to the fact that I wrote my post in response to the initial BBC story about the naming of committee rooms, which simply stated a decision was to be made. I then waited until the next day to publish the post, giving myself time to check for errors. Sadly I neglected to check to see if the BBC story had been updated, by which time it had been.

A Nuclear Deal, But Not For Britain

Today, the United States and Russia announced that they had reached an agreement on a new arms reduction treaty. This will reduce the number of nuclear warheads each country is allowed to own to 1,550. That is still 3,200 nuclear warheads too many, but it’s progress.

What is disappointing is that this agreement doesn’t include other nuclear states. Part of this is for the simple reason that no other country maintains as large a nuclear arsenal as the US and Russia, who currently hold in the region of 5,500 warheads between them (this figure may or may not include ‘mothballed’ weapons which are stripped of fissile material, but which may be reactivated at some point in the future). Even China’s nuclear arsenal is thought to consist of less then 500 warheads, comparable to the arsenals of Britain and France. However, when just a few warheads can cause irreparable damage and kill millions, there is no reason why France, Britain, Israel, China, Pakistan, North Korea and India aren’t being pushed towards arms limitation or arms reduction treaties.

At present, UK policy is to hold no more then 48 nuclear warheads in each of it’s four submarines. Each Trident missile can carry up to eight warheads with variable yields up to 1oo kilotons, which seperate from the missile in the atmosphere and descend on individual targets. The warheads are thought to be based on the American W76 warhead, using some parts which can only be supplied by the United States, as was revealed by the Sunday Herald in 2009.

At any one time, one Vanguard-class submarine is undergoing maintenance, one is on routine operations and two are either in port at Faslane or on exercises. Using the 48 warheads per ship figure, that means that at least 144 nuclear warheads are accessible at any time. That is more then sufficient to wipe out two thirds of the world’s capital cities. Given the range of the Trident-II missile is 11,000 kilometres and the warheads can travel further during their decent, it’s also sufficient to reach quite a lot of them.

Nuclear warheads are also high maintenance, as per the above Herald article, which would suggest that it would be reasonable for there to be a back up set of 48 warheads, as well as the 48 onboard the boat undergoing maintenance at Faslane. That makes for an estimated total of 240 warheads.

240 too many.

In the spirit of the new arms reduction treaty, the British Government should, if not hasten to scrap Trident altogether, reduce the number of warheads. Given the treaty reduces the Russian and American stockpiles by between a third and a quarter, it would be an amazing move for the Ministry of Defence to immediately announce it was reducing British stockpiles by that amount. No doubt it would also save money in the long term and allow money to be diverted to equipment which can actually be used rather then posed with.

Six Great Scots For One Great Parliament

Flippant post titles aside, the Scottish Parliament has sought suggestions from MSPs for six famous Scots (or Scots-decended people) to name their committee rooms after.

This is an endeavour which I cannot disagree with, although the price of the name plates for the rooms (£2,000 each according to the BBC) seems slightly over the top. Personally, I would like to see some of Scotland’s less remembered names remembered rather then Burns and Scott, who already have not inconsiderable memorials. So here’s my suggestions for the committee rooms names:

- The Keir Hardie Room  - While this suggestion is very political, Kier Hardy, the Glasgow-born founder of the Labour Party, played a massive part in the history of the UK and Scotland. He is seldom recognised for the role he played in building the trade union movement, founding the Labour Party and working towards devolution. It’s worth noting that while Hardie was never a member of the SNP’s predecessor parties, several of his collegues were and he did influence them.

- The Mary Slessor Room – Slessor spent little of her life in Scotland, living and dying in Nigeria. Since her image was added to the Clydesdale £10 in 1998, I have heard people time and time again wonder who she was. She is, in fact, an Aberdeen-born and Dundee-raised missionary credited as one of the earliest women’s rights activists in Africa, working to help oppressed Nigerian women.

- The James Watt Room  - Watt was one of the forces behind the industrial revolution, discovering the double action steam engine. While many Scots are credited with making massive changes to society, few went quite as far as Watt, who quite literally powered two centuries of industry.

- The Margaret MacDonald Room – Often dwarfed by the reputation of her husband, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Margaret MacDonald was one of the leading lights of the Art Nouveau movement. Many of her works can still be seen in Mackintosh designed buildings around Scotland.

- The Adam Smith Room – Little needs to be said about the father of modern economics, a man who, despite his long term effects on society is seldom acknowledged.

- The John Knox Room – Knox is by no means a man who is revered by history, indeed, it’s probably accurate to say that he’s still one of the more disliked Scottish figures, known for his intolerance and general foul temperament. Yet by bringing Presbyterianism to Scotland, he left a lasting mark on the nation which has often set us apart from our peers.

I doubt any of these names will be adopted by the Parliament, except maybe that of Smith, but I may be surprised. No doubt they are all on the long list. Of the likely candidates, I suspect that one room will almost certainly be named after Donald Dewar.

NB: Edited to correct factual inaccuracy regarding Mary Slessor’s place of birth.

MSPs Fleeing The Good Ship Scottish Labour?

I was surprised to read yesterday, that Jack McConnell may have been in talks with the Conservative Party with regards to keeping him in his job as a special representative on conflict resolution or another position.

Aside from the fact that, these claims, if true (and Mr McConnell maintains they are not) represent a not insignificant act of disloyalty to his party (and commitment to his work abroad), they seem to fit with a number of other interesting rumours about Labour MSPs seeking other lines of work.

Just last week, Iain Grey’s name was floated in the media as a successor to Anne Moffat. Earlier this year, Cathy Jamison’s name was also floated as a potential MP, while Margaret Curran has already been named as Labour’s PPC in Glasgow East.

These four names represent a fair amount of talent within the Scottish Labour Party – both Curran and Jamison have been involved in leadership contests within Labour – and are shoo-ins for cabinet positions if Labour win the 2011 election. So why do they want out?

I can think of two main reasons: firstly, they do not believe that Labour can win the 2011 election. They may even suspect that the Lib Dems and the SNP will finally form a coalition, rendering much of the (poorly used) influence Labour has in Holyrood moot. In the case of Grey, the reasons for his interest in a Westminster seat are said to be because his present seat will cease to exist and he’s concerned about losing his seat outright.

The second reason I can think of is that these various people see no future room for advancement in Scotland. While this is understandable in the case of Jack McConnell, who has not seen quite the same political fruits of retirement as his predecessor, for Curran, Jamison and Grey, it’s faintly mind-boggling. After all, they represent a good cross-section of Scottish Labour’s talent and it is disappointing that they would give up their status so easily just for a slim chance at reaching Cabinet.

It will be interesting to watch the final Labour selection battles anyway. No doubt, few of these rumours will come to pass, but it does all seem a bit odd.

Tory Candidate In Western Isles Gaffe

This isn’t the sort of post I’d normally make because it is, quite honestly, putting the boot into a young candidate who has a good chance of losing her deposit, but I know I have a few readers who are familar with the Isles and will no doubt be tickled by the reference.

From the Hebrides News website:

The prospective Tory general election candidate for the Western Isles has made a hugely embarrassing gaffe by backing a spoof harbour in a landlocked village.

Conservative hopeful Sheena Norquay confusingly insists that developing the fictional port at Achmore in the middle of the barren Lewis moor is a top priority.

The 22-year-old hopeful unexpectedly stressed one of the main island issues is “the building of the harbour wall at Achmore.”

However, the policy is a complete nonsense as no such harbour exists.

Achmore is a dry land village is located in the centre of Lewis, surrounded by hills and moor, and is the furtherest inhabited community in the Hebrides from the sea.

It has the distinction of being the only Western Isles community not located on the coast and the island’s TV transmitter mast  is sited on its high terrain.

According to the article, Ms Norquay was brought up in Aberdeenshire and is a final year student at St Andrews. I do actually feel quite sorry for her, because she is, in every way the token candidate, with the Tories only polling 610 votes in 2005. I wonder if she’ll even be able to get the benefits of working an election campaign given her University commitments?

It does also, of course, illustrate why parties shouldn’t parachute in candidates who aren’t familiar with the area, as Labour have found out in Liverpool, where the PPC has not gone down well with the locals and may even have prompted a Socialist Labour backlash led by actor Ricky Tomlinson.