A Place to Stand

This is virtually the totality of media coverage I got in the election

let us now consider the9% Growth Party.

I met the 9% Growth Party - Mr Neil Craig as he is also known- when went to The Doublet bar in Glasgow to have a pint and avoid elections for a wee while. Craig, whose science fiction book and comic shop Futureshock is nearby, was handing out leaflets.

"No blackouts. No vindictive bans", the leaflet said. I assumed he was talking about the pub: Don't drink so much you have a blackout, but even if you do, you should not necessarily be barred.

But no, it transpired the "blackouts" is a reference to nuclear power, of which the Glasgow regional list candidate is in favour.The"vindictive bans"isa reference to the Scottish Executive's unilateral prohibition on smoking, to which he is opposed.

The leaflet also promised "Double your income in eight years", which sounds a decent enough electoral bribe. In Craig's brave new world, all business taxes and fiscal controls will disappear. And with 9% compound growth, income apparently doubles in eight years.(Well,it does if you are an entrepreneur. If you're on a pension, it might be a little more difficult.) I suggested to Craig that he might have given his movement the snappier title of the Double Your Money Party, but he thought people might get confused with Hughie Green.

Our Mr Craig is not very green. He thinks climate change is a myth; he tilts firmly against windmills; he thinks the Green movement has killed more people than Hitler. (Check it yourself: Google "9% growth party + Hitler".) Mr 9% does have some sensible policies, too. He wants to automate the Glasgow subway with driverless trains running 24/7 and do the same with the Glasgow-Edinburgh rail link. Less convincing is his proposal to build a tunnel from Oban to Mull to make the island more accessible to fans of Balamory.

It says on Craig's CV that he was chucked out of the LibDems for illiberality which, in itself, is quite an achievement.

From Tom Shields in the Herald. Had an 8 year old child with a pocket calculator been available Mr Shields could have confirmed that 9% growth over 8 years does indeed double income for everybody but clearly he does not move in such intellectual company. Beyond that he actually seems to know what I was standing for & is apparently a train enthusiast. The Herald & Sunday Herald declined to publish this response.

I thank Tom Shields for his approval of the 9% Growth Party's proposal for fully automating the Glasgow underground & Glasgow-Edinburgh lines.

He is quite correct that I support putting new nuclear in to replace the 50% of our electricty production which is reaching retirement. This is a matter on which the larger parties have specificly refused to debate. I'm afraid if we lose half our power massive blackouts are obviously inevitable. Burying our heads in the sand, as the big parties do, is grossly irresponsible & will not make reality go away.

The tunnels proposal is based on the Norwegian's achievement of building 740km of tunnels over the last 20 years. A series of tunnels at Gourock/Dunoon & crossing to Kintyre, Bute Arran & as he says, Mull making it a simple drive from there to Glasgow would greatly improve the prospects of all.

Tom expresses some doubt about the effect of 9% Growth. Doubling income in 8 years at 9% growth is how compound growth works. Try getting a pccket calculator & multiplying 1.09 by totaling 8 times & you will see it. Mathematically it is known as the Rule of 72 since doubling, except in very short time periods, requires 72 points of growth. Thus at Scotland's current growth rate of 1.5% doubling takes 48 years while at 10% growth the income of the Chinese will have doubled & doubled & doubled & doubled & doubled & doubled & close to doubled again.

This is part of why getting the economy growing would be so very valuable for all of us, rich & poor, as I hope, thinking it over, readers will appreciate.

That the Green movement has killed mopre people than Hitler is a simple & apparently undisputed statement of fact.

Congratulations to Sarkozy. Seeing a politician saying they should learn lessons from other countries. This compares favourably with the way our politicians & media continously portray France as full of bureaucratic socialist so unlike our forward looking plucky Brits. While it is true that there are Frenchmen coming here because their bureaucracy prevents them getting jobs but they are matched by Brits going there because our bureaucracy prevents us building houses. They may have rules enforcing a 35 hour week but they also have nuclear power & world class engineering which our rules prevent. In size, population & GNP they are almost our exact equals but if they learn from our strengths & we refuse to learn from theirs it will be to only their benefit.

Their turnout suggests that democracy is working in France. During the campaign Royal, at one stage, revitalised her campaign by a 3 hour televised speech which was watched by the majority of the Scots population. This is how elections used to be fought here too. How different from the way our media do a 5 minute interview in which they ask "have you stopped beating your wife" style questions & immediately interupt the answer. UK & US politics have descended to the point where any idea which cannot be fully expressed in a 10 word soundbite is excluded. I'm sorry but running a country is more difficult than that.

The election result is about as close as it could possibly be. The SNP have ended up one vote ahead but, as I had prophesied, it will take 3 parties to form a majority. There is even the possibility that Labour could win their challenge to one seat & become largest party until the SNP challenged in another & so on in the manner of Bush/Gore. However the SNP's moral claim is good in that they have the largest number of votes & that they have clearly broken labour's hegemony in Scottish politics. There is even a probability that some Labour members will be comfortable with being in opposition. Opposition allows a party to reform itself, get rid of the dead wood, work out new policies & lie back allowing the reformers to make a mess of it. The SNP have certainly made a number of spending promises which it will be virtually impossible to all keep. I hope they will be held to their pro-growth policies - cutting business rates & corporation tax, but this is easier said than done.

It is theoretically possible to form a government supported by 65 of 129 members in an coalition between SNP (47), LDs (16) & Greens (2) but this would depend on every MSP remaining both loyal & healthy & would lead to endless ambushing by the Labour & Tories. In my opinion the SNP are being foolish in continuously denigrating the Tories. They are 1 vote larger than the LDs (theoretically they & Margo MacDonald could also form a coalition with the SNP) but the old SNP insistence on being a "socialist" party, quite out of keeping with their Irish style growth policies has defined the Tories as class enemies.

My bet will be a technical minority government of the SNP & LDs with a de facto deal with the Tories - I may be biased because that would also be my preferred choice, far better than any deal involving the Greens, which would make it almost impossible for the SNP to achieve growth & totally impossible to avoid blackouts. Such a government would obviously make a referendum on independence impossible but with the other 3 big parties opposed there just is not anything close to a majority for it.

The other alternative would be a Labour & LD coalition equally supported by the Tories. In some ways this would be more logical, particularly for the Tories who are on much better terms with Labour. However since there is obvious dissatisfaction with Labour a 3rd government led by them would make it seem that the only way to get rid of them would be an SNP majority. Thus the SNP should be given most of the month allowed to form a government to see if they can, or are willing to (seeing their attitude to the Tories) form a government.

As Margo MacDonald pointed out it doesn't have to be settled in a few days.

This is my election address that got me 80 votes in Glasgow. I have been told, probably correctly, that it is far to wordy & makes me look a bit obsessive.

Certainly comparing it with everybody else's, which contains several photos of the candidate & a few lines of promises to be against crime & in favour of spending more, without saying where it is coming from, it is wordy & obsessed with doing things.

Nonetheless I am proud of it. It does contain more in the way of good & new ideas than the other parties put together. Perhaps it is a situation, as the admiring mother said on watching her son's regiment, that "they're all out of step excpt our Neil".

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9% Growth Party – Neil Craig
Election Communication
1st (Regional) Vote

BLACKOUTS ARE COMING
In 2011 Hunterston nuclear power station is due
to close & Scotland will lose 1/6th of our electric power.
 
In 2015 new EU emission controls will come into effect forcing the closure of our high emission power stations. We will then be down to 2/3rds of current electricity generating capacity.
 
In 2023 the Torness nuclear station will close & 1/2 of our power will be gone. If we do not replace this, indeed if we do not increase curent capacity in line with our, hopefully, growing economy we are going to have massive & continual blackouts. In Britain we already have 24,000 deaths per year, mainly pensioners,  because of fuel poverty but a further unnecessary massive increase in deaths
will be inevitable..
 
The 9% Growth Party calls for immediate approval in Scotland of proven designs & proven sites & to allow the building of enough reactors to satisfy demand. Whether this is done by government investment or private enterprise is unimportant - whay is important is that it is done before the lights go out.
 
If we do this the fact that France is currently producing 80% of the electricity it uses from nuclear at 1.3p a unit. This is half what conventional power costs, 1/4 what onshore windmills cost & 1/6th of offshore wind. To do so would virtually end fuel poverty in Scotland & massively improve our economy. Only we are
facing this problem.
 
PROSPERITY IF WE CHOOSE  
In 1989 Ireland, which was then in an economic depression, cut corporation taxes & some regulations - immediately their economy boomed. Since then they have achieved an average of 7% growth per year with a peak of 11%. That is why Ireland has gone from 2/3rd our standard of living to 4/3rds & is now, per capita, as rich as the USA.
 
Our leaders should have noticed this years ago but it is not to late. If we cut our corporation tax, possibly in several steps, to Ireland' 12.5%, do the same with business rates & look at our regulatory regime, particularly the regulations which prevent housebuilding. If we do this we can reasonably expect to do better than Ireland since we have a stronger tradition of scientific & enterprise.
 
If we also allow the building of the sort of modern nuclear plants which are producing power in France a 9% growth rate is fully achievable.

9% Growth - A Philosophy

A century ago 80% of the metal hulled ships in the world were Clydebuilt. This is not a plea for going back to shipbuilding it is a plea for Scotland to regain the spirit of science, technology & entrepreneurship which allowed us to build the Clyde as the leader in what were then the world's greatest high technology industries.
 
Scotland has fallen to a political elite whose reaction to any form of new technology or new ideas are to regulate them out of existence. This drives the fruits of our science abroad, which is why so many of those who developed Dolly the sheep are now working in Singapore.
 
We wish to see our government support progress not decline further into the Ludditism of windmillery & dependency. We support human progress & absolutely reject the doomsayers who tell us the we have no future.  In many was, in both engineering & philosophical terms Scots invented the modern world. The engineering of James Watt & the economic philosophy of Adam Smith should make us proud of our heritage, but also eager to live up to it.
 
The classic liberalism of Smith is sweeping the world producing growth from Ireland to China. We can & should learn from the nations we have taught.
 
Scotland's greatest days can be ahead of us IF we choose.
 
26 Things We Support
1) Stop blackouts. Act before we lose 50% of our electricity.
2) 9% growth using the methods that gave Ireland 7% on average & 10.5% in a good year.
3) Reform planning regulations. In 1907 a house & car cost the same - the difference is that planning regulators restrict housebuilding.
4) Stop subsidising windmills. Save £1 billion.
5) The smoking ban is an illiberal restriction on individual freedom. End it.
6) End fuel poverty. France produces 80% nuclear at 1.3p a unit. We can do the same.
7) A needs based transport policy. The previous Executive were committed to spending 70% of their transport budget on public transport (code for railways) though it makes up only 3% of traffic.
8) Tunnels project. Norway built 740km of tunnels at £7 million per km. We should do the same making it a short drive from Glasgow to Dunoon, Rothesay, Kintyre, Jura, Islay & Mull etc.
9) Fully automate Glasgow's subway allowing it to run at lower costs, greater capacity & 24/7.
10) Fully automate the Glasgow-Edinburgh train with the same effect.
11) Ultimate aim of a fully automated Scots rail transport system.
12) 2% cut in civil servants annually.
13) 2% government efficiency savings. Almost any private business trys to increase efficiency at least that much & there is more scope in Holyrood.
14) Don't spend £610 million digging a tunnel under Edinburgh Airport. Make sure other government projects at least come close to making economic sense.
15) 3p cut in Scots income tax after funding of business tax cuts to provide growth.
16) No new politically correct vindictive bans. The smoking ban was NOT in manifestos at the last election.
17) A Holyrood committee to find & abolish counterproductive laws & regulations.
18) A schools vouchers system.
19) Allow schools to impose discipline.
20) Make a DVD of Scotland's history & post it to Scots, or those with Scots names, over the world. Include links encouraging Scottish tourism.
21) Establish a £20 million X-Prize to encourage space satellite industry to locate in Scotland.
22) Establish an X-Prize foundation funded from the Scots contribution to the lottery to encourage high technology in Scotland.
23) Widen & improve the M8.
24) If Gore's silly film must be shown to Scots schoolchildren let them see the alternate view, AS THE LAW SPECIFICLY REQUIRES.
25) 54% of all money spent in Scotland is government money. Cut this.
26) Instead of knocking down Glasgow's high rise flats they should be given, free of charge, to those occupants who don't prefer to be rehoused.

You say the only alternative to nuclear war is world government. There is only one possibility worse than nuclear war for the survival of modern civilization, and that is world government. Civilization might recover from the damage of a nuclear war, but judging by past static empires in Egypt and China, it might never recover from world government, there being no chance of external intervention. As it is, present governments are only prevented from becoming dominated by crazy ideas that will suppress all opposition by the existence of other governments. The only way a people can be sure that their government is substandard is that it does worse than those of other countries.

From Professor John McCarthy's site, page on current events (some pretty old now). He also writes in favour of invading Iraq - something with which I disagree but primarily on the grounds that international law is the best defence we have against the world rule mentioned. Thus the relative defeat of the US in Iraq makes it much less likely that they will attempt to establish monolithic global rule.

Professor McCarthy's site alwys provides something to think about, perhaps particularly when you disagree.

I came last in Glasgow

OK thats democracy. I must admit that was about as bad as can be. I still believe everything I said was right. That we do face blackouts & general decline & that it is perfectly possible to prevent it but thats the way it goes.

The Red Road flats are a group of 8 blocks which, when put up in the early 1970s were the highest & arguably the grandest blocks of flats in Europe. Shortly after that high flats, which politically had been "the answer" to housing became unfashionable & the Council, in the tradition of self fulfilling prophecies, let them slip. Recently the Glasgow Housing Association decided that they should be knocked down & everybody rehoused.

Of the policies in my election address #26 was that rather than knocking down such blocks it would be better to give them to those occupants who don't want rehoused. I decided to do a special leaflet pointing this out & distribute it there & I spent yesterday evening doing so. Partly I was inspired by Matt Quinn's letter reproduced on 27th April here. "The place is in the state it's in because of WILFUL neglect on the part of the City Fathers; no other reason. They let the buildings rot, effectively condoned the violence and drugs and deliberately used the place as a dumping ground"

Having been there I believe there is nothing wrong with the place that could not be fairly easily fixed. I have delivered leaflets in North Kelvinside & I can say that there are closes there, where most of the flats cost 200 K, which are in a worse state of repair. I do not believe there is anything structurally wrong. It is a sin to knock it down.

Give the properties free to those who want to stay (& whom the rest don't have a serious problem with - such is the nature of dumping grounds). Put in place a good commercial factor (Glasgow has lots) with a strong factoring agreement. Get a proper community council going working with the new factors & police.… Give Mr Mo the franchise for a couple of 24 hour shops at the base of the bigger blocks (there are a couple of shops surviving but if actually linked to the blocks themselves people could buy things without having to go outdoors which would make them community centres. Encourage the building of a McDonalds (or Pizza house if we are going to be politically correct) & a pub (with good soundproofing cause sound travels upwards easily). Do a bit of repainting & replastering - not that much. There is a really horrible stagnant pool just behind the nursery school, which I suspect has been there since the earth was piled up during the building - clear it & put up a cheap prefabricated community hall. Also there are places where ownerscould buy 2 flats 7 knock them into one. Not within current rules but perfectly feasible.

All this would create a real community & I guarantee that in 6 months lawyers who work in both Glasgow & Edinburgh (it is near both the Edinburgh & Stirling motorways) would discover it. In 5 years it would be gentrified, an entrepreneur would be building a 3 level car park in the present parking space, Tommy Sheriden would be denouncing the fact that "ordinary working people" could no longer afford to buy (but were selling) penthouse flats & Scottish national heritage, God help us, would be wanting to list the buildings.

Opinions of those I spoke to were mixed. Some thought they were to far gone & should be knocked down, but even they thought they had once been fine. One told me it was a done deal & that the people were powerless because GHA had "already sold the land". And some saw the potential.

As I left it, last night I looked back at the flats. They are always impressive but, against a velvet night sky they stood out as pillars of light & they really are beautiful.

The Guardian has an article from George Moonbat on how not carrying out all the Green's nostrums to cure global warming (renamed as climate change which requires less specific evidence) is going to kill millions of people. I placed on a response pointing out the simple fact that the "environmental" lobby has already, in pushing the ban on DDT, been directly responsible for the death of 50 million people, largely 3rd world children.

It has not been allowed.