The Economist has a blog post about the timing of Ed Milliband’s speech to the March 26 rally.  Whilst there is an interesting analysis of why Mr Milliband spoke so early, far more interesting is 3 paragraphs that neatly sum up the range of opinion about how and when to get the public finances back under control:

I think Mr Miliband’s problem boils down to this. Most people in this country, including a lot of people I met on the march today, think that Britain faces a period of painful decisions and choices, because the country has been spending too much. Within that majority, there are people who are (for variously selfless and selfish reasons) attracted to a Keynesian argument that deep, front-loaded cuts are counter-productive, and so some painful decisions should be postponed. That is an intellectually respectable argument: this newspaper does not agree with it, but there are people of goodwill on both sides of the debate.

Then there is a hard core of people who simply do not accept that the money has run out. These flat-earthers think that there need not be any cuts, because if you only taxed the banks/bankers/multinationals/tax avoiders/the rich a lot more, you would unearth a hidden money pot filled with so many billions that we could keep spending as before. I don’t think Mr Miliband agrees with them. I don’t think most voters in Britain agree with them. I don’t think even most of the marchers in Hyde Park agree with that hard core.

But that hard core has a firm grip on Labour’s base, as could be seen on Friday in Nottingham. And Mr Miliband, by endorsing the wider anti-cuts movement, risks becoming associated with that hard core and their breathtaking lack of realism. He said again in Hyde Park that he was proud to be addressing the “mainstream majority”. But he did not look proud: his nerves gave him away. “It is so important that this be a peaceful protest,” he said at one point, almost pleadingly. The crowd seemed pretty indifferent to his presence, in return.

Read the blog post “Ed Milliband shunted off television news by anarchists” at The Economist website by clicking here.

I attended the public meeting at the Mechanics Hall in Brechin to discuss the Town Centre Regeneration Fund project.

I would like to thank Jim Milne for chairing the meeting and Angus Council for organising it, in the hope of giving Brechin residents the opportunity to hear the background and delivery of the project and to raise their concerns.

I was disappointed that so few local residents got the opportunity to air their views.  With Councillors from all around Angus, MSPs and political party activists turning the event into a political circus.

I attended with a view to listening to the views of local people, and hoping to discover what lessons could be learnt.  My fellow candidates for Angus North and Mearns in the upcoming Scottish Elections, Nigel Don and Alex Johnstone, came to be heard, not listen.  Their questions demonstrated either their lack of knowledge of the project, or willful aim at political point scoring.  In particular Mr Johnstone suggested that a Compulsory Purchase Order could have been used when he knows full well that would never have been possible.

It is not surprising that politicians get a bad name, given that point scoring was more important for many who attended, rather than establishing the facts and learning lessons.

It would appear that the SNP in Angus, faced with justifying the SNP Government’s decision to withdraw funding promised to Brechin, have decided that offence is the best defence.  They have tried to throw mud at Angus Council’s handling of the project, which from my 15 years experience as a Project Manager, has been excellent.

In particular I was very disappointed at the deeply personal attacks made on Council officers who have clearly worked extremely hard to bring £1m of investment into Brechin and are clearly deeply personally disappointed at not having been able to secure the remaining £800,000 from the Scottish Government.

I was well aware of the issues in advance of the meeting and was very impressed with the council officers as they presented the facts, and it was very clear to me that they could not have done more to reach a satisfactory conclusion with the property owners involved.  The reality was that they were undone twice by property owners who broke their promises to sell to Angus Council.

Furthermore, it appears that all Councillors had the opportunity to raise their concerns throughout the period of the project, at various meetings both in Forfar and in Brechin, but did not do so.  As was said last night, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and all councillors, as well as those involved in the Brechin Town Heritage Initiative and the Brechin Area Partnership were given regular updates, as well as given the chance to ask questions and make suggestions.

Let us welcome the £1m of investment in Brechin, along with the private investment in the old Woolworths, and learn lessons for the future, rather than take every opportunity to turn Brechin’s economic circumstances into a political football.

With Keith Brown MSP’s visit to Laurencekirk junction, the SNP’s governments renewed interest in building a flyover is welcome

I was delighted to hear that the new SNP minister saw the junction for himself and this was a huge step forward. The news that he has asked for more detailed costs is also great news. His predecessor seemed to suggest that the cost could be £23 million, which would make it the most expensive flyover in Scotland!

In my view the flyover should be added back into the Strategic Transport Project Review immediately.  The sooner the junction is built, the better. It is great to see road safety back as the top priority for transport policy.

North Angus and Mearns residents, from Forfar, Brechin, Montrose and Laurencekirk see no reason for any further delay. They will be relieved to know that there is now hope for a successful end to the superb campaign led by Jill Campbell.

She should be commended for carrying on the fight, and forcing the Scottish Government to rethink their decision not to build the Laurencekirk flyover.

Read more about this story by clicking here for “A90 Marykirk junctions improvements to be costed” at the Montrose Review

I am deeply concerned that a divide is forming between Aberdeenshire Council and Bervie Braes residents, and I have called on all those involved to work together for a resolution.  I sought to remind all concerned that they are working towards the same goal, to secure the Braes and ensure there are no further landslips.

Everyone involved, the residents, the Community Council, Aberdeenshire Council and local Councillors all want the work to secure the Braes to go ahead as quickly as possible.

Having visited Bervie Braes with David Fleming, chair of the Community Council and discussed the issue at length with Aberdeenshire Councillors, particularly Stonehaven Cllr Peter Bellarby, it is striking that they have far more in common, than they have differences of opinion.

Residents, having narrowly escaped earlier this year, and having been promised a resolution by the Council, will be worried about going through the winter without the Braes being secured.  Clearly, residents want to ensure that their future insurance coverage is not affected by the waivers which they have been asked to sign.  Their concerns are understandable and the council should take note.

It is therefore heartening to learn that the Council, having tried several times to visit all the residents to discuss the waivers face-to-face, is open to changing the wording in response to their worries.  When I have discussed the issue with Peter Bellarby and other Aberdeenshire Councillors, it was clear that they felt very, very strongly that the Council should undertake the effort, even though it has no responsibility to do so.

Aberdeenshire Council have had a major success in securing £2m from the Scottish Government towards the cost of the scheme and should be commended for their effort.  Understandably, the council has a responsibility to all other Aberdeenshire residents to ensure they do not incur a future liability, beyond the proposed scheme.  The contractors insurance will cover the work that they do, so this should be straightforward.

I would urge all those involved to put themselves in each others’ shoes.  They would then understand that it is in everyone’s interest to work together towards a mutually satisfactory outcome.

Alberto Costa has sent a letter to postal voters in Angus, in which he writes:

Remember, a vote for the SNP or the Lib Dems will only risk another five years of Labour or a hung Parliament.

Of course, the only thing that would make another five years of Labour more likely in Angus, is a vote for Labour candidate Kevin Hutchens. But Alberto does not mention that, as his intention is clearly to spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) about voting for the SNP or the Lib Dems.

Mentioning the Lib Dems as well as the SNP, but not Labour, clearly shows that Alberto knows that Angus is now a three way battle.

What is particularly worrying, is the sense of entitlement Alberto Costa displays in his letter to Angus residents. There is an assumption that the Tories have a right to power and that Angus residents have a responsibility to vote for him:

If we really want change, we all need to play our role and that means electing a new Conservative MP for Angus.

The reality is that if they want real change, then Angus residents have the opportunity to vote for the Liberal Democrats who can deliver it for them.

Montrose Academy held a mock election on Friday, run magnificently by Ian Watt. It was great to see Sean Massie, the Liberal Democrat candidate win the mock election. Congratulation to Sean and his class who ran an excellent campaign. I’ve had to ask Sean for a copy of his stump speech, as it included some key points I hope to use.

I really appreciated being invited to attend a hustings after the vote, between the Angus parliamentary candidates. During the discussion, Angus SNP candidate, Mike Weir admitted that there are three parties whose candidate could be elected, saying:

Whoever gets elected whether it is the SNP, the Tories or the Lib Dems,…

Conspicuously absent was any mention of the Labour candidate, Kevin Hutchens. Clearly, Mike has recognised that people in Angus are looking at all the main options available to them.

The national campaign shows this will not be just a once in a lifetime election. It will be a unique opportunity to sweep away the two old parties’ grip on power. They have and will do anything to stop things really changing.

It is no longer a two horse race nationally, nor is it here in Angus. Residents do not have to pick the least worst option.

When choosing between myself, Mike Weir and Alberto Costa, Angus residents now realise that by voting for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, by voting for me, Sanjay Samani, their vote will count and their voice will be heard.

During this recession, many people across Angus will be feeling the pinch, working fewer hours or with reduced pay, whilst still having to meet rising food and petrol costs. With huge bonuses for bankers and tax dodging millionaires donating to political parties, most voters must be wondering whether politicians will deal with this unfairness.

The Liberal Democrats have long campaigned for a fairer tax system. We promise that if you earn less than £10,000 you will pay nothing, zero, £0 in income tax. If you earn more that that, you will pay £705 less.

So if you earn, say £8,000, you will pay no income tax, saving you £305 per year, an extra £25 per month. If you earn, £17,000, you will save £705. That’s almost £59 per month extra in your pay packet, to help you pay for your shopping, put towards your holiday or buy that special treat for your kids.

We will pay for this by cutting special tax breaks that only the wealthiest can use.

Pensioners will save £100 a year, which combined with relinking pensions with earnings, will help the most vulnerable in our society.

We will invest £3.1bn to create 100,000 green jobs, including £400m to refurbish harbours to manufacture offshore wind turbines. As your MP, I would fight for that investment to come to Montrose, creating jobs across all of Angus. We will pay young people on apprenticeships, so small companies can take them on.

That’s fairness for you, but what about the way MPs have behaved with our money?

The ugly SNP / Tory expenses and donations spat in Angus makes clear that we need a complete overhaul of our political systems. Labour and the Tories propose a tweak here and there, but after 20 years of scandal after scandal, it is clear we need genuine democracy.

The Liberal Democrats would cap donations and limit spending by political parties and introduce independent audits of expenses. We would create a register of political lobbying, a Lib Dem proposal that Mike Weir voted against in 2006. Crucially, you would have the right to sack corrupt MPs.

The UK needs a written constitution that sets out exactly what MPs can and cannot do and defines the roles of judges, ministers, the Head of State, parliament and national assemblies.

We would introduce a fairer, proportional voting system so your voice is heard. Mike Weir was elected with just 1 out of every 5 of the possible votes. A full 2/3rds of voters, voted against him. Surely Angus deserves an MP with a better mandate than that?

During this General Election in Angus, the Liberal Democrats are the only party that will bring genuine fairness back to our economy and our politics.

I was very lucky on Sunday to be witness to a great exercise in democracy. Lib Dem conference delegates, myself included, overwhelming supported an emergency motion clearly outlining their opposition to the Government’s draconian, authoritarian, Digital Economy Bill. In doing so, they effectively admonished the party’s leadership in the House of Lords, who had supported parts of the bill and introduced amendments that amounted to censorship of the internet. It also prompted MPs in the House of Commons to do what they could, in the limited time remaining in this parliament, to ensure that the ill judged bill does not pass into law.

Living 2 miles outside of Angus, I wrote to my MP, Peter Wishart, SNP. Given that the SNP have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Liberal Democrats on issues of authoritarianism and the environment, and have widely pilfered our policies, such as Local Income Tax, in other areas, I was completely shocked by the response, which is overwhelmingly in favour of the Digital Economy Bill. (See full text of response by clicking here)

I will let the leaders of the campaign against this bill explain in detail why the bill is such a deeply flawed piece of legislation and tackle Pete Wishart’s general arguments. Namely, Bridget Fox, the Open Rights Group and Lib Dems Save The Net Facebook Group.

I am no fan of illegal file sharing, and unlike many of my counterparts, support ISPs use of “traffic shaping” to ensure other users are not impacted.

But the provisions of the Digital Economy Bill are a draconian solution to the problem, lacking the necessary oversight and turning many of the principles of our legal system on their head.

As Mr Wishart says in his email:

The bill simply intends to tackle this, already illegal, activity by issuing notices to persistent offenders and ask them politely to stop. If, after several notifications, there is no improvement in behaviour, technical measures such as throttling band width, or temporary suspension of the internet may be considered as a last resort.

In other words, the burden of proof of illegal activity will shift to the accused, rather than the accuser, and receivers of these notifications will be treated as guilty until proven innocent.

He continues:

I am absolutely certain that responsible businesses and administrators of shared accounts will want to do everything possible to ensure that illegal activity is not conducted from their internet accounts.

Except that doing so is pretty much technically infeasible, particularly for anyone running a hotspot or open access network at hotels, cafés, restaurants and airports.

One particularly bizarre argument in his email demonstrates the SNP’s complete lack of understanding of the underlying issues with the Digital Economy Bill:

It should also come as no surprise that large powerful internet service providers oppose these measures, as some of their business comes from the illegal sharing of music, films and TV programmes. They have been encouraged to engage in helping tackle on-line piracy, but other than positive contributions from companies like Sky and Virgin, none of the ISPs you mention have shown any interest in tackling this abuse and have actively campaigned against any measure that may see artists and creators properly rewarded.

This demonstrates that the SNP do not understand the issue at all. Not one single ISP makes a single penny from illegal file sharing. Surely that is the precise point of illegal file sharing, no-one makes any money from it!

Instead illegal file sharing soaks up precious bandwidth provided by ISP’s, hampering the performance of their other users. ISPs have responded to this by throttling the performance of heavy users during peak times. This demonstrates that there is little need for this bill to protect other users on shared internet connections.

Why then are ISPs opposed? Because the bill demands that become enforcement officers for a law that they know is technically flawed.

Illegal file sharing is a genuine issue and I have no sympathy for illegal file sharers. The solution is however to create an environment where artists are able to innovate business models that make best use of modern technology to get rewards from their work.

Companies like Sky and Virgin, along with the BPI support this bill, as major content rights holders, their interest is in their profitability, which is not necessarily what is best for their internet customers or for artists and content creators.

By aligning themselves so closely with the Digital Economy Bill, the SNP have failed to understand all the issues involved.

Please join me by writing to you MP to ensure a debate on the motion in the House of Commons, via 38 Degrees.

A few days after the Haiti earthquake, aid supplies began to arrive at the Port-au-Prince airport. Reports emerged that supplies were not being distributed amongst concerns over security, with UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon calling for extra troops to be sent to the country. Reports also emerged of looting and lawlessness amongst the population and major concerns were raised about the ability to distribute food in those circumstances.

However, an alternative view was taken by Andy Kershaw, in The Independent, where he wrote an excellent article “Stop treating these people like savages”.

It soon became clear that priorities had become warped in the country, when a 15 year old girl was shot dead through the head for stealing pictures.

The BBC, whose Matt Frei had initially reported major security fears, drawing criticism, then published its own piece “Misguided fears test Haitians’ patience”. It was clear that the Haitian population were getting desperate, and a major misunderstanding was brewing, with potentially disastrous consequences.

I was particularly frustrated to read this quote from one charity worker, in another article on the BBC New website, “What is delaying Haiti’s aid?”

John O’Shea of Irish charity Goal told the Guardian newspaper he could not allow aid workers to move into Haiti from the Dominican Republican because he had “no guarantee that the people driving them are not going to be macheted to death on the way down”.

I found this comment extremely frustrating. On the one hand you have observers on the ground saying that the population was generally calm and dignified, but understandably getting impatient that aid wasn’t getting through. On the other you have an aid worker in another country worried that he was going to be “macheted to death”. The two positions seemed at fairly opposite extremes. I felt that John O’Shea’s attitude was grossly unfair and did a great disservice to the people of Haiti, and his choice of the words “macheted to death” hugely overplayed the likely risks aid workers faced.

From the same article on the BBC News website was the comment :

“If we distribute food all at once, some people will take more then they need and there is the risk of them selling food items, rather than it reaching the people that need it.”

So the response was to deny aid to all starving Haitians to prevent some people profiting from it. If food was being sold, at least it is getting through to hungry people. The concerns over looting got so heated that Haitian police employed a shoot-to-kill policy for a 15 year old girl stealing paintings. These people were desperate for food after 4 or 5 days with no relief. To me, it felt as if property rights were more important than feeding starving people.

I have seen no reports of security issues once aid was distributed, and just a day after John O’Shea’s “machete” quote, Haitians were happily receiving aid.

To me it demonstrates a long held concern I have about our attitudes towards developing nations. The term “Developing Nation” only refers to its economic status. Not the population’s morality, education, scientific understanding, culture or literature. There is no reason to suppose that in the event of such a disaster the population would descend into base violence, or that law and order would break down. And reports indicated quite the opposite. As Andy Kershaw said, we need to “Stop treating these people like savages”.