Do you want salt on that? Snow joke.

Nobody panics like the British. And there's nothing that can panic us more than "extreme" weather - that is, any weather that isn't just "cloudy with a chance of showers". This week the great British public have been stocking up on salt. They started with the winter grit - B&Q ran out (with a 900% sales increase). Then they tried table salt - Tesco ran out (with a 400% increase, one ASDA store reportedly selling a years supply in a few days). Now apparently it's dishwasher salt.

Seriously though, has anyone noticed how little councils grit roads? They grit the biggest ones and the rest are left. Worse still, pavements seem barely touched. It's like Dancing on Ice everytime I go to work, and I can't even skate!

The AA reported at the beginning of December that it reckoned most councils had less than half of what they needed, only having enough to cover them for 6 days. Some councils are already showing signs of this problem, including Falkirk Council which reportedly had to borrow from neighbouring Stirling Council within a week of the start of the snow. When the AA's initial claim was made, it was rubbished by councils who said they could get more supplies within "48 hours" but 2 whole days without grit is a long time to leave roads for.

It could be that their is a shortage because people are panic buying but it could be that councils still aren't prepared. Either way, I still end up waltzing on ice.

New Year - New Ideas?

Poor old Gordon Brown; it doesn't look like 2010 is going to be going to be a great year for him. After a decade waiting in the wings, GB made it into Number 10 but it's likely that the removal men might be moving in sooner than he hoped.

Polls suggest it is David Cameron that will be moving in. Which doesn't bode well for the UK. As much as DC has done well to change the image of the Tory Party: his party still favours big business over jobs; marriage vows over help for families; tax cuts for the richest and welfare cuts for the poorest. All this and it's unlikely that Scotland will elect more than a single Tory MP.

But all is not lost for GB. He was once known for thinking outside the Red Box, maybe a bit of thinking like that could rescue him now.

Radical suggestion 1: he resigns. I know it's been suggested a thousand times but hear me out! He resigns as Labour leader and calls a leadership contest, one in which he may stand. It's all a bit John Major I know but it worked for him and he didn't have the political savvy of GB (although GB is looking increasing grey). Regardless of whether he stands we can expect a good contest with the likes of Jack Straw, Harriet Harrman, Alan Johnson and David Milliband standing. With less than six months till a general election, the Labour contest would dominate the agenda for nearly half of this and a stronger leader would emerge in time for the election proper. It would give Labour the chance to not just debate policy but to communicate this to an electorate who are unsure what they stand for and how the coming decade could be better.

Radical suggestion 2: ok, so GB is still heading for defeat. But worse than defeat would be defeat in his own back yard. It's likely the SNP will make gains in Scotland, which would only help DC. To pre-empt this he could call a multi-option referendum on Scottish devolution/independence. This shatters Alex Salmond's plans for the next year and shows Labour is serious about the Calman Commission proposals for further devolution. Opinion polls have consistently shown that where Scottish voters are given the option of independence, more powers or nothing, the always chose more powers. In fact, why not even throw in a referendum in Wales to give them law-making powers like they are asking for? The Tories are making real inroads there and while this doesn't directly challenge them it will put Labour in charge of the agenda. This will prove the Labour Party are really talking about real progress, and allow voters to influence change.

GB needs to do something radical so he owns the agenda or all may be lost.

Somalia - are we doing enough?

So in reading my Saturday newspapers in bed this weekend, trying to stop my dog ripping The Times to shreds, I noticed a letter from the Prime Minister... (obviously not from Flash Gordon, the spelling seemed correct throughout) of Somalia:

"Sir, Clare Lockhart’s article (“At last. Obama’s vision offers hope for all sides”, Opinion, Dec
3) marks a sea change in international support to troubled countries. What is so
startling is that all the conclusions are as true about Somalia as they are
about Afghanistan.

We accept that after 20 years without government, the situation in Somalia
will appear beyond repair but the reality is very different. Piracy and the
growth of Islamic extremism are not the natural state of being. They are but
symptoms of an underlying malaise — the absence of government and hope.

Regional stability is increasingly at stake as Islamic extremism and the
piracy problem grows and my government is working hard with your Foreign and
Commonwealth Office to present and initiate our Somali lead strategy that will
help the Somali people themselves to bring Somalia back from the brink.

The help we need is first in the restoration of both effective government and
the training of national security forces required to secure peace and enforce
laws.

Second, in restoring and enforcing Somalia’s economic exclusion zone so that
Somalia can use its vast potential wealth in fish, oil and gas to fund its own
future. Our fishermen currently watch as other countries plunder our waters.
While we condemn it outright, it is no wonder these angry and desperate people
resort to “fishing” for ships instead.

And third, in launching a large- scale civil affairs programme to train our
young people and establish legitimate commercial livelihoods.

You have employed these same principles to great effect in other
conflict-ridden countries (that harbour terrorists threatening UK national
security) such as Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, so why not here too?
The irony is that it would cost only a quarter of what is being spent right now
on the warships trying to combat piracy, to fund our plan and actually solve the
problems rather than simply chasing them round the Indian Ocean.

Omar Sharmarke
Prime Minister, Transitional Federal Government of
Somalia"

So what is Mr O Sharmarke writing to The Times for? Has he lost Obama's email address? Has he accidentally deleted Gordon's mobile number? Or are the Saviour's of the Universe not listening to him? Seems likely. I mean, I don't think they even have oil.

Nobody's listening. Even when three members of the Somalian Government are killed in a suicide bomb attack in the countries capital (by an al-Qaeda related group). What makes this worse is that it was in an area of the country that was supposed to be "safe" for the government.

Governments do not listen because the public are uninformed, and the public remain oblivious until mainstream media deem it newsworthy. Crises are created mostly by the media. If Bob Geldof hadn't shed a tear at a TV report on Ethiopia would the world have worried so much at the famine there? So maybe Mr Sharmarke has the right idea, maybe he'll get the public's attention and our government will start listening.

In the end I took the dog for a walk and gave up on the newspaper. His constant jumping up and down got my attention. But so did the Prime Minister of Somalia. I just hope more people in the UK take notice to.

Afghanistan: State of the Nation 1

As I've said previously, Afghanistan has been brought to the forefront of public debate in the last few weeks, not least because Obama has announced his new strategy for the war. Indeed, it is now being defined as "his war" and, hence, one of the main pillars that will define his presidency.

However, whilst the possibility of more troops has been debated at length, very little is written about what is actually happening on the ground. Not just what the troops are doing, or what is happening in the presidential palace but the state of the nation on the ground. I am going to try and bridge that gap. As such I have a number of questions I want to answer:

How much of the country does Karzai control? Do Taliban factions have control over parts of the country?

What stage is reconstruction at?

Schools/hospitals

Utilities (gas/electricity/water etc)

Who’s paying for this?

What countries have troops in the country?

To what extent have the extreme laws of the Taliban era been repealed?

What is the role of Pakistan in defeating rebels?

Answers coming soon........ (anything anybody wants to add?)

What's with the constant phoney war?

It must be nearly panto season! Scottish politicians petty arguments are really irritating.

Take the Secretary of State for SNP-bashing (Jim Murphy) and his Depute-Assistant to the Under-secretary (or Scottish Labour leader) Iain Gray:

"The SNP have broken all their promises on everything - what about that diet Alex Salmond promised?" BUT

"Why are they wasting all our money on an independence referendum? [their number one promise and reason for existence]"

IAIN GRAY (pictured right) ANNOUNCING TRANSFER OF AIR GUN POWERS




"The SNP know they can't get their referendum bill through parliament, they're bluffing" BUT


"We [the disloyal opposition] accept all the findings of the Calman commission but we're not doing anything for a few years, and the Tories don't like it at all and the Lib Dems, em, they say maybe [so really we're bluffing to, we're not interested in more reforms].

And at the end of the day everyone knows the bill is going to fail and Alex Salmond's srategy is to make all the other parties look bad rejecting it.

But of course apparantly the honeymoon is over, the SNP Government and the Scottish public are sleeping in seperate bedrooms. They've thrown Fiona Hislops blouses in a black bag and left it at the doorstep. They're asking for the wrong kind of divorce....

....Is it just me who thinks that its just because the general election "phoney war" has started and the media is focused on the Tory/Labour fight? That the Scottish public, worried about a Tory government, are returing to the Labour bosom? Do they really think life would be better if Iain Gray and not Alex Salmond were leading Scotland? Do they even know who Iain Gray is yet? I doubt it.

Maybe the SNP will be marginalised a bit till the election. Maybe they'll start losing some votes, maybe they won't get their referendum. But, in all probability there'll be a new Prime Minister and a whole new ball game this time next year.....

Afgahanistan - everyone is talking about it but saying nothing

Is it just me or is there very little in the press about what is actually happening in Afghanistan?

We know when our soldiers die, we know when they want to send more but do we actually know anything about the country there in? We know what the President of Afghanistan is up to but does he actually have any grip on the country? I don't know the answer to these questions but I'm going to make it my mission to find out.

Anybody out there who can brief me?

A tale of two health systems

The NHS is something we take for granted. The thought of paying for basic health care is an alien thought to most Scots and any politician who questioning whether the NHS should exist would be crazy. So it should come as no surprise that people in Britain have reacted angrily to some American’s criticising our National Health Service, especially since many are badly misinformed and some are dangerously misleading.

This has all came about because President Obama is trying to reform healthcare in the US. Without going into the the details of his plans it is obvious he is not talking about creating some sort of US national health service. But that has not stopped critics of his plans from saying that is what he wants. Worse, some have talked of how he wants to set up “death panels” that will decide who gets healthcare and who doesn’t – including former Vice-President candidate Sarah Palin.

I don’t know the exact details of Obama’s plans but I do know that its aim to increase the number of people who have health insurance – 45.7 million don’t have any sort of insurance in the United States, a shocking figure in one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world. I just want to add two stories to the debate: one I heard when visiting the States last year and one about my own family in Scotland.

I met the woman in Grand Rapids in Michigan when I was visiting the State last summer; she was a social worker so the conversation eventually turned to healthcare and the NHS, of which she was really interested. She told me that her father had been diagnosed diabetic some years before and his kidneys had failed shortly after. He had recently retired so was no longer covered by his employers health insurance. In any event, his illness cost him nearly his whole life savings, leaving him nothing for his retirement.

By contrast, my grandfather’s kidneys failed some years ago. He had to get dialysis treatment for a number of years and eventually got a transplant but now has to take tablets every day to keep his kidney healthy. At no point did he have to pay a penny. Even taxis or buses to the hospital for his dialysis treatment were paid for. He can now enjoy his retirement to the full with all the money he has saved up over a lifetime of working.

The contrast could not be more stark. Whether his level of care would have been better in an American hospital may be debateable but the point is: he got treatment. Without the NHS I doubt he could have afforded it and if he had he would have very little of his hard-earned savings left.