Only pizzas are delivered

Only pizzas are delivered is sound advice contained in a jargon busting document issued by the coalition government in the summer of 2013.

It's advice those around Clegg should have taken when launching the party's summer campaign earlier this year which I criticised in similar terms at the time.

And it wasn't just the jargon strewn language of the summer campaign that was a problem - it was its poverty of ambition.

Sadly, this poverty of ambition (along with some more Whitehall speak) is apparent in the party's pre manifesto - which is a collection of timid technocratic proposals - designed to keep the wheels of Whitehall turning slowly under another coalition government.

However, the public have had four and a half years of timid coalition government and so far have taken every opportunity they can of punishing the Liberal Democrats for their role in it - something those around Clegg fail to understand while continuing with their busted strategy.

They have just a few short months to change tack if 2015 is not to go down as an historic and wholly unneccessary rout.


Happy New Year!

David Steel on Borders Rail

David Steel's thoughts on the closure (and reopening) of the Waverley rail line are featured in these two videos from Borders Rail:

It also has some interesting updates on the engineering progress of the project.

Friday favourite 138

At last an African charity single this blog can endorse:

Jihadi terrorist estate agent headline of the day

The Surrey Herald reports: 

Jihadi terrorists force Staines estate agent name change

To distance itself from the Jihadist terrorist group, an award-winning estate agents in Staines will change its name from iSiS to Oasis

Waverley route - tracks reach the Borders for first time since 1970s

With track laying now reaching the actual Scottish Borders I stumbled across this progress video.  Hopefully the promised David Steel interview will be available soon.

A last trip round Kingston's Hawker factory

The Hawker factory on Richmond Road in Kingston was the first building I saw when I moved to Kingston in 1990.  Its massive Art Deco facade was a dominant feature of the area and its bulldozing in 1993 remains one of the worst decisions of the planning inspectorate.  But I stumbled across this film recently showing the factory after its closure - which quite strangely only hints at the granduer of the main building just at the end of the video.

Jesus found in Kingston pub

I took this photo in the toilet of the best pub in Kingston this evening...

Saturday song

It's time for that fantastic alliterative replacement for 'Friday favourite' - it's a post referendum 'Saturday song':

Why we're not better together

Thursday's Scottish referendum looks set to go to the wire and despite the best efforts of the Westminster establishment the last days of scaremongering looks like it has only halted YES's momentum - but has clearly not turned it into any movement for the NO campaign.  So its likely effect is to reduce participation and drive turnout down - particularly from those who don't usually participate in the democratic process.

The pitch of the NO campaign is basically that it is too risky and uncertain for Scotland to take any decisions other than those Westminster, Whitehall and the City of London are happy to give away to the Scots.  The upsurge in YES voting intention didn't change this essential power relationship it only made the list of things the establishment were prepared to give to the Scottish Parliament to determine a bit longer (assuming the Westminster parties can agree an any of it).

The UK remains one of the world's most centralised states - with more than 95% of all public revenues and spending being the responsibility of the Treasury - just 4.4% is raised and accountable to local authorities through the Council Tax.   This bureacratic over centralisation drives out local initiative - in England as much as elsewhere - and contributes to the disconnect between the government and the governed - particularly the further you go from the south east of England.

Now this isn't news and liberals have had a long held belief in political and constitutional reform - and particularly decentralising power to local communities.

So it wasn't surprising that many in the party were confident post 2010 with the Liberal Democrats part of the coalition and with Nick Clegg having responsibility for constitutional reform that progress would have been made in recasting the UK into a more modern decentralised and pluralistic democracy.  Sadly reform of the House of Lords and the voting system have been an abject failure, localism proved nothing more than spin and with MPs snouts in the expenses trough like never before Clegg and the Coalition have failed to make any meaningful progress.

So all that's left of the constitutional reform agenda is the Scottish independence referendum courtesy of the SNP government in Edinburgh.

The break up of the failed centralised UK state and the opportunity to decentralise power - not just to Scotland - but to the parts of England that are being squeezed by the sucking of power and wealth into the south east ought to have been a no-brainer for the Liberal Democrats.  But sadly the current leadership of the party north and south of the border have rejected a 100+ year history of campaigning for Home Rule and turned the Scottish party into an empty vessel of the Labour dominated and Tory funded unionist NO campaign.

When I was a member of the party in Scotland I never counted myself as a unionist and rejected the label vehemently - but that is sadly what they have now turned into - consigning the party to the margins in the post referendum landscape (whatever the result). A more sensible positioning as Scotland's honest broker between the unionists and nationalists would have given the party a role and relevance and made it the fulcrum of bringing both sides together after the vote.

But it is all too clear a NO vote on Thursday will send the message to the Westminster establishment - now sadly including the Liberal Democrats that they can carry on - with a few more tax trinkets thrown to Scotland and a new gimmick or two - such as more executive Mayors - to England's northern conurbations.  The essential power relationship of the UK's unitary state will be unaffected and London and the south east will continue to suck in more and more people and resource.  And that will only encourage the Poujadists of UKIP and promote a narrow and insular  English nationalism that won't be good for any part of the current UK in the long run.

That's why I'm hoping Scots vote YES on Thursday - it's the last remaining hope to bust the system that is so clearly broken.  Voting to stay together is a vote for more of the same.  And that's not in anyone's best interest.

Scottish referendum - yes takes the lead.

With less than a fortnight to go before the Indy referendum Political Betting reports that a YouGov poll puts the Yes campaign in front by a whisker.  I'm not surprised - the shamefully negative and insulting No campaign - funded by Cameron's Tories and run by west central Scotland's Labour mafia has made no case for the union and failed to agree what new powers Scotland will get in the event of a No vote.

The Yes campaign has also been helped by a bit of social media creativity - such as this: