Orkney Diary
by John Aberdein

The Scotland-Belarus World Cup game goes ahead at Pittodrie on Sunday with a two minutes silence out of respect for the tens of thousnads of people killed or sickened or genetically damaged by the explosion of the Chernobyl reactor 11 years ago. Byelorussia got 70% of the fallout.

Ezra Pound said literature is news that stays news. It would be good to have news that stays news too, instead of this endless chewing on fresh distractions, typified by the million happysadographs of Di, the People's Princess. What we need is a strong complex literature and press that develop for us iconic visions of the people's people. It could come, it is coming, in Scotland. With a Parliament to match.

But propriety rules sadly that that we cannot campaign this week so platforms have had to be cancelled here in Orkney just as in Auchtermuchty, Bearsden, Leith & Ballachulish. The issue was being aired, promoted, challenged and endorsed in a thousand such: Stobo, Stoer, Stirling, Pennan, Faslane, Torry & Troon. Word had it that Castlemilk had put in its righful bid to house the Parliament, that Mastrick was seeking a separate treaty.

Thinking of all the areas where one has worked, climbed, marvelled & made love, not to mention wandered, bought chips, been dreich in & hated, one realises that the unity of Scotland is inescapable. It is the settled will of the Scottish people that we should have a place wherein to blether, brood, hatch & legislate.

Last Thursday I shared a platform in Kirkwall Town Hall with Nigel Smith (Chairman of Scotland FORward), Jim Wallace MP (Leader, Scottish Laberal Democrats), John Mowat (Chair, Orkney SNP) & Spencer Rosie (Chairman, Orkney Movement). Okay, a bit all-male, the Viking nonsense is slower to ebb here. Anyway the striking thing is how peace has broken out. The evening is pleasant and purposeful. We fought each other for years to dislodge the Tories, but now that we have relegated them to fourth in the poll, a tad ahead of Natural Law, our banner ad in this week's Orcadian reads:

We're neck and neck in the popular vote in the Highlands and Islands anyway. I point out to our audience of 30 odd how the Additional Member System might land up working across the Highlands and Islands Euro-Constituency, assuming votes cast for a Scottish parliament were in line with the General Election on May 1, 1997:

Party	Votes	Seats	Additional Members	Total Members
Lib-Dems	28%	4	0	4
Labour	28%	2	2	4
SNP	28%	1	3	4
Conservatives	16%	0	2	2 (seems fair)

Jim Wallace points out that there will be an extra first past the post seat, one each for Orkney & Shetland, and that he, being privy to the division of the votes, claims the Lib-Dems would win both. I point out that he has just breached the Representation of the People Act. Later he praises Scottish Labour for accepting proportional representation, thus accepting the desirability of ruling with coalition partners if Labour do not attain 50% in the polls. He praises me for seconding the successful resolution on PR in 1991. I laud Jim for the stalwart work he has done alongside Donald Dewar in fronting the case for a Scottish Parliament. (Enough backslapping. Ed)
At this rate we will have the cope-stane on Jerusalem before down in England they have dug the founds.

Some points on why we need a Scottish Parliament, from the night's debate:

1. To prevent alien impositions of the genus Poll Tax.
2. To permit the abolition of feudalsim in Scotland, and secure a just basis for holding the land.
3. So that we no longer blame the Tories, or England for our ills.
4. So as to restore the NHS to the Nation
5. So as to sidestep daft Labour plans for students funding their own tertiary education.
6. So as to reform local government, introducing PR as well. In Orkney this would mean candidates standing on joint platforms instead of 28 diverse, atomised and largely unaccountable "independents"!
7. So as to get a Parliament that is much nearer to a cross section of the population, balanced as to gender, geography, occupation & party.
8. So as to get a Parliament that meets at reasonable times in a handier place.
9. So as to regenerate hope and political participation in the young.
10. So as to provide an example of a communitarian nation (to England).

Footnote
As for the second question in the Referendum, no greater instance can be given of the folly of central decision making by a small cabal. This decision to have a separate question on tax emanated neither from the long and careful deliberation of the Scottish Constitutional convention, nor the grass roots wisdom of the Labour Party. It was not necessary to win the General Election, but may lose us a sensible basis for a mature Parliament.

A Referendum about the power to raise or forgo at most £90 annually per head of population, 17p per head per day? Yet the collective power of that +/- £450 million could be very significant, in hospital building say, or hospital closing even, if our general health improves. As it surely will.

John Aberdein